Timer (2009) ****

The cool thing about “Timer” is that it doesn’t look like Science-Fiction, but it is. My definition of Sci-Fi is that the writer comes up with a single, central technological reality that might exist in the future, and the story should just unfold naturally from there. In good Sci-Fi, everything that happens should feel like a natural consequence of that technological conceit. Good Science -Fiction is always posing the question, “What would happen if…?” What would happen if aliens landed? What would happen if an alien got lost and some kids found it? What would happen if there were manufactured humans with a limited life-span who weren’t allowed on earth. What if mankind abandoned Earth to live in a giant spaceship while cute little robots cleaned up our Earthly messes? And so on.

The question posed by “Timer” is, “What if you could know years ahead of time the exact moment you were going to meet your One True Love?” Dating would be unnecessary, which would either remove a lot of the pain from life or remove a lot of the excitement, depending on your attitude. If you did date, then it could just be for fun and sex, but every relationship would feel poisoned from the start. This kind of knowledge might free your energies for other pursuits or it could be really depressing. The timer in this movie is a device that gets attached to your wrist sometime after puberty. It analyzes hormones, DNA, etc. and establishes a long-distance link with whomever you are destined to be with, and both timers then count down to the predicted moment of your meeting. This only works if the other person has a timer, too, which most people in the free world do in this movie. Most people are walking around with timers counting down to a point 6 months, a year, maybe 5 years in the future when they will finally meet their True Love. Oona (Emma Caulfield) has had a blank timer since the age of thirteen, which means that her intended, if he (or she) exists, is wandering around out there without a timer. Naturally, she only dates men without timers, and only until she convinces them to get a timer implanted, and each time she is disappointed when her timer doesn’t sync up with theirs. Oona’s desperation is matched only by the despair of her sister Steph (Michelle Borth). Steph’s timer is running, but it says she won’t find true love until some time in her late forties. Her reaction is to pursue a series of one-night stands, and only with men who have timers, since that eliminates any pressure. The obvious narrative outcome here is that Oona finds herself falling for a guy with a timer while Steph breaks her rule and gets interested in a man without one. Hilarity and drama ensue.

We heard about “Timer” due to its excellent reception at the Tribeca Film Festival. It feels like a film festival movie, meaning it doesn’t have big stars in it, and it doesn’t feel dumbed down. It’s a little bit of a chick-flick, but it’s a sci-fi chick-flick, which is a rare animal. The acting is excellent, the babes are hot, and it’s a completely entertaining little romantic dramedy.

4 stars.

Hannie Caulder (1971) ***

There really isn’t much to say about “Hannie Caulder.” Raquel Welch plays Hannie, a gal out for revenge after three low-lifes murder her husband and rape her. She gets a badass bounty hunter (Robert Culp) to teach her the way of the gun, then she gets that revenge, all while looking fabulous.

As revenge westerns go, this is just alright. Robert Culp’s bounty hunter is a pretty cool character, and Ernest Borgnine, Jack Elam, and Strother Martin are darkly hilarious as the evil Clemens brothers. The movie might have been better if they had gotten a better actress than Raquel Welch, but it wouldn’t have looked nearly as good.

I guess I might be more enthusiastic about “Hannie Caulder” if I weren’t a little burned out on a certain brand of movie gun fighting, which is by no means limited to westerns. I’m sick of seeing people run around with their finger on their trigger, sick of people getting ten shots out of a six-shooter, and sick of people in gunfights waiting for the other guy to draw first, as if that provides some sort of strategic advantage. I will say that Robert Culp’s character tries to give Hannie some actual useful advice, but in the end she doesn’t really follow any of it. Oh well, it’s a fairly fun, stylized movie, and they could have done a lot worse.

3 stars

La Dolce Vita (1960) ****1/2

Italian for “The Sweet Life,” this film is ironically titled. It is basically the story of a guy in a mid-life crisis. He has a cush, easy life, but he doesn’t consider it sweet. Marcello (played by Marcello Mastroianni) is a dapper, successful gossip magazine editor. He glides smoothly through the elite social circles of Rome, mixing with movie stars and artists and presiding over a gaggle of ruthless photographers. (One of the photographers is named Papparazzo, which is where we got the term “papparazzi.”) Despite the glamour of his life, Marcello feels trapped and dissatisfied. He has a loving live-in girlfriend, but she doesn’t challenge him enough, so he chases more dangerous women. He longs to be a serious writer, but he lacks the courage to give up what he has in order to pursue what he wants.

“La Dolce Vita” follows Marcello through a number of wild nights and bitter mornings as he struggles with these issues, floating from party to party, woman to woman. At one point Marcello’s father visits, and proves to be a charming, but aging bon-vivant. Marcello seems torn between admiring his dad and fearing becoming like him. A wise, older friend seems to offer an example for Marcello to follow, but he tragically disappoints him. Marcello meets a young girl who reminds him of his own youthful innocence and aspirations, but later he sees the same girl and fails to recognize her, symbolizing how much he has lost track of who he is.

Marcello’s existential struggle is one that we all face when we realize that we are still young enough to change the direction of our lives, but that our time is running out. Marcello has discovered that he isn’t going to find happiness in affairs and orgies, but he can’t seem to give them up. I find myself wishing that Fellini had imagined a redemption for Marcello so that he could have been a role model for us, not just a mirror. Ultimately, Marcello doesn’t find an answer, which is realistic, but unsatisfying.

This long, meandering film left me feeling a bit empty, but if it is hard on the heart, at least it is easy on the eyes. “La Dolce Vita” is filmed beautifully in black & white and is filled with beautiful women. Mastroianni is a tremendous actor, able to speak volumes with a single line or just a change of expression. This movie demonstrates why Fellini is one of the Masters.

4.5 stars.



For anyone who is interested, I highly recommend Roger Ebert’s review of “La Dolce Vita” at:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19970105/REVIEWS08/401010336/1023

Winter’s Bone (2010) *****

Well, y’all just need to see this one. You may have heard that “Winter’s Bone” is bleak or hopeless, but it really isn’t. It’s dark, but that’s different. I don’t want to ruin it for you, but the fact is, this movie has a hero and a more or less happy ending.

“Winter’s Bone” is a noir mystery set in the backwoods Ozarks. The story follows a 17-year-old girl named Ree Dolly, played with astonishing power by Jennifer Lawrence. (If Lawrence doesn’t get an Oscar nomination out of this role, then something is seriously wrong.) Ree’s dad is a methamphetamine cooker, and her mom is completely disabled by some sort of psychotic depression. The raising of herself and her two younger siblings has fallen squarely on Ree’s young shoulders, forcing her to drop out of school in order to chop enough wood, shoot enough squirrels, and basically scrape the bottom of the barrel enough to keep her family going. It seems like she might be strong enough to actually pull it off until the sheriff comes around to explain that her no-account daddy put the family home up for bond, then skipped town. If he doesn’t show up for his court date, the house and land will go to the county, and the family will be homeless. In Ree’s meth-head neck of the woods, you simply don’t talk to the cops, so Ree uses what little she knows about her dad’s potential whereabouts to go looking for him herself. Since this is the backwoods, the quest involves visiting a series of relatives and distant relatives, each of whom is scarier than the last, and none of whom is happy to see the little girl with the wayward daddy. One woman asks Ree, “Don’t you have men to do this?” Of course, Ree doesn’t. All she has is herself, which is a lot more than you might think.

I came into this movie expecting a really depressing, naturalistic story that would be hard to watch. I was thrilled to find myself watching a suspenseful mystery that contains at least a glimmer of hope. Ree Dolly is one of the best movie characters I have seen in years. She can be stoic and reticent, as you would expect from someone who grew up where and how she did. She can also be very kind and gentle when caring for her mom and siblings. Some of the film’s best scenes are when she is taking the kids to school while drilling them on their lessons, or teaching them how to cook, clean a squirrel, or shoot a gun.

Ree does live in a very rough world, though. The setting is extremely rural, where everyone has pigs, cows, and old cars in the yard, and everyone is related in some way. You would think these kinships would bind the community together so that people would help Ree and her family, and some people do help some, but unfortunately the community is fractured by the methamphetamine trade. It seems everyone Ree knows is using it, dealing it, or both. Most rural communities have a strong religious vein in them, but due to the meth trade, it seems the only religion in Ree’s neighborhood is silence. Ree’s stoicism and resignation in this world is heartbreaking. When she teaches her brother to clean a squirrel, he pulls out a handful of guts and asks, “Do we eat this part?” Ree replies, “Not yet.” Later, her uncle snorts some meth in front of her and asks, “You gotten the taste?” Once again, Ree’s answer is, “Not yet.” How poignant is it that at seventeen Ree has already had so many disappointments that she can no longer rule out even the vilest of possibilities? The best she can come up with is, “Not yet.”

I grew up in a rural area, and I live in the Ozarks now, and I feel comfortable saying that “Winter’s Bone” gets its characters pretty much exactly right. That’s not to say, however, that these characters should be considered representative of rural people in general, any more than “The Godfather” is representative of Italians. One thing that isn’t apparent in the film, and this may be my only criticism of the movie, is that even though the meth trade is pervasive where Ree lives, there are probably plenty of decent, hard-working country people there who have nothing to do with meth. Ree, however, wouldn’t know those people. Because her family is known to be mixed up in drugs, law-abiding people wouldn’t associate with her family or let their kids be friends with Ree and her siblings. Ree and her family are in dire straights because they have no one but criminals and drug addicts to turn to.

People are going to bring their politics to this movie, but this is not a political movie. This is a story of real people who are too complex to yield to ideological judgments. Ree’s uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes) initially seems like a badass, abusive meth-head, and he is those things. He also turns out to have some genuine nobility, as does Merab (Dale Dickey), the rough-hewn wife of the local meth-dealing patriarch. A lot of people will want to know where the government is in this story. Why hasn’t Child Protective Services come in to save these children? Part of the answer is that, as screwed up as these people are, they have too much pride to turn to the government for help. With a long tradition of moonshine and illegal drugs behind them, these are a people who have grown accustomed to shunning agents of the government. The other issue is that a government solution would almost certainly involve splitting Ree’s family up, sending the kids to foster care, and she makes it clear in one scene that that is not acceptable.

In the end, winter throws Ree a bone, which she dearly deserves. Her mom is still mentally ill, her life is still hard, but for a little while longer, at least, Ree can continue to say, “Not yet.”

5 stars out of 5

Adventureland (2009) **1/2

The best thing about seeing “Adventureland” is that I don’t have to watch any of the “Twilight” movies to find out if Kristen Stewart lives up to her hype. The answer is - not even close. She is a vaguely good-looking, minimally competent actress, and I cannot explain why she is on the cover of so many magazines. I guess Ayn Rand was right. A movie studio would rather take someone mediocre and build them up than have to control someone with real star power like an Angelina Jolie.

Aside from Kristen Stewart‘s somnambulistic performance, “Adventureland” is a moderately entertaining little movie. Jesse Eisenberg (from “Roger Dodger”) is pretty charming as James, a new college graduate whose summer and grad-school plans get derailed by his dad’s unexpected demotion at work. He takes the only job he can find in a recession, running games at a local amusement park. Martin Starr (from “Freaks and Geeks) puts in a nice performance as James’s co-worker and friend. Kristen Stewart breathes through her mouth and underwhelms as James’s love interest, while Ryan Reynolds turns in an uninspired performance as a hot, older guy.

Watching this movie, I was struck by how all these people in their early twenties seemed like they were in high school. James is still completely financially dependent on his parents, and he takes a job that is barely suitable for an 18-year-old. The depressing thing is, this is still pretty realistic. A college degree and $2.50 will pretty much get you a cup of coffee these days.

“Adventureland” misses out on the opportunity to be this generation’s “The Graduate,” which is a shame, because the setup initially seems pretty promising. Jesse Eisenberg is not a bad actor, and he does some good work here. I don’t know if he’s quite a Dustin Hoffman, however, and even if he is, I don’t know that this film ever aspired to that level. In any event, Kristen Stewart is no Katherine Ross, and Ryan Reynolds is definitely no Anne Bancroft. “Adventureland” is kind of like winning a prize at an amusement park. I wish I could pay a couple more bucks, throw a couple more balls, and trade Kristen Stewart in for a giant, stuffed panda.

2.5 stars out of 5

The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938)

We watched these two Hitchcock films because, “Hey, it’s Hitchcock,” and I had never seen them before. One was just okay, and the other was really good.

In “The 39 Steps,” Robert Donat plays Richard Hannay, a dashing guy who lets himself get picked up by a girl. It turns out she is a spy, and when she is murdered by enemy agents, Hannay becomes a fugitive to escape the murder rap and carry out the girl’s mission to prevent the theft of British military secrets. The film starts out with an appealing level of mystery, but it begins to suffer from an abundance of narrow escapes and strained plot elements. For example, would a beautiful, cunning female spy really need to or choose to tell a random guy all about her espionage work in order to spend the night in his flat? Towards the end, the film completely loses its tone as Hannay engages in cute banter with a girl who gets caught up in his adventure (Madeleine Carroll.) “The 39 Steps” is just not one of Hitchcock’s best. For some reason, he never creates a Hitchcockian level of suspense, and the characters do too many things that make no sense. The movie still has some good parts, and the film might have been saved with a better lead. Unfortunately, Robert Donat just isn’t that great in this role, and the film didn’t spend enough time building his character up so that I would care about him. I suppose I’m in the minority here. Many people seem to think this is one of the great films, but I don’t happen to be one of them. It’s definitely no “North By Northwest.”





Fortunately, we watched “The Lady Vanishes” next, and it restored my artistic faith in Alfred Hitchcock. This film does everything right that “The 39 Steps” did wrong. Time is taken to develop the lead characters, and the romance between them builds naturally. The suspense in this one is also more what I expect from Hitchcock. The plot device of having the heroine and the audience know that something is wrong, while all the other characters deny it, works brilliantly. We identify with the heroine’s frustration while at the same time starting to doubt her.

Margaret Lockwood plays Iris Henderson, a spoiled, American playgirl enjoying a last European trip with her friends before her upcoming arranged marriage. During a railway outage, Iris befriends Miss Froy, a retiring governess on her way back to her native England. The next day, Iris, Miss Froy, and a colorful cast of international characters resume their rail journey. Suffering a mild head injury, Iris naps. When she awakens, Miss Froy is gone, and all the other passengers deny that the lady was ever on the train. What follows is pure fun as Iris struggles to find the truth with some help from a charming, English musician played with playful brilliance by Michael Redgrave.

“The Lady Vanishes” manages to create real mystery while being playful, something that “The 39 Steps” did not quite achieve. Both films are worth watching if you are a Hitchcock fan, but the priority definitely goes to “The Lady Vanishes.”

The 39 Steps 2.5 stars
The Lady Vanishes 4 stars

8 ½ (1963) ****

Watching “8 ½” is a little like having sex for the first time. It takes a while to figure out how everything works. This classic by Federico Fellini uses a stream-of-consciousness style, interspersing and blending reality, memories, and fantasies. The story behind the movie is that Fellini wanted to make a film about a man suffering writer’s block. As he assembled his filmmaking team, including actors and financing, he found that the movie wasn’t coming together for him; he still hadn’t even decided what the protagonist’s profession would be. On the verge of cancelling the project, he hit upon the idea to just tell his own story of trying to make the film. Thus, “8 ½” is about a semi-fictitious director named Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni) who finds himself creatively stumped while trying to make a movie. Fellini named it “8 ½” because it was his ninth film, but he didn’t think it counted as a fully realized movie. Little did he know that it would come to be seen by many as one of the great films.

The real-time part of the film is actually pretty mundane, as it follows Anselmi’s interactions with his film crew, his wife and his mistress. Blended into this narrative are bizarre and erotic elements from his memory as well as pure fantasy sequences, the best of which is a scene in which all the women he has loved or desired live together in a big house waiting to tend to all his needs. The movie is meant to reflect the actual mental processes that a person goes through on a daily basis as they shift their attention back and forth between reality and their inner life.

I can see why this is considered one of the great films. Fellini boldly uses the film medium in a completely new way. He doesn’t so much tell a story as expose his own soul frame by frame. I would absolutely recommend “8 ½” for anyone who is interested in art films, but be warned, this movie is long. Thinking about this film after the fact, I like it more and more, but while watching it, I found that it seemed to go on forever. Not only did I find myself bored at times, I found the frequent shifts between fantasy and reality to be off-putting. I once tried to read James Joyce’s “Ulysses.” I didn’t get very far, but I think there may be similarities between that book and “8 ½.”

In short, “8 ½” can be challenging to watch, but it is worth it if you are into this sort of thing.

4 stars

Extract (2009) ****

How does this keep happening? Mike Judge will make a movie; hardly anyone sees it; it sneaks right past me in cinemas; and when I finally watch it, it’s brilliant. It happened with “Office Space,“ then “Idiocracy,“ and now it has happened with “Extract.“ Someone in Hollywood must be sabotaging this guy’s career. I don’t think any of his films has gotten a wide release or a decent promotional effort.

Conspiracy theories aside, “Extract” is excellent. It is not the classic that “Office Space” is, but in a way, it is a companion piece to “Office Space.” Where “Office Space” focused on the plight of employees, “Extract” comes from the perspective of an employer and all the headaches HE has to put up with. Jason Bateman is brilliant as Joel, the owner of a cooking extract factory. The role of businessman is an uncomfortable fit for Joel, who has a background in chemistry and actually invented the process used in his factory. He really wants to focus on research and development, but his long workdays are occupied with his idiot employees and their attitudes. He dreams of selling out and retiring. It seems his dream is about to come true when he gets an offer from a large food company, but things get sidetracked by an industrial accident. Meanwhile, things aren’t going so well at home for Joel, whose relationship with his wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig) has grown distant and sexless. He finally lets his bartender friend (Ben Afleck) convince him to pursue an affair with a gorgeous new temp worker at the factory (Mila Kunis), who is secretly a crook.

Good times, folks! Jason Bateman brilliantly plays the straight man in a crooked situation, not unlike his “Arrested Development“ role, actually. Mila Kunis is a convincing little con artist, not to mention a stone fox. Kristen Wiig is actually surprisingly foxy as well, and she brings a lot of humanity to a role that, in a lesser movie, would have been a 1-dimensional shrew. The rest of the supporting cast knocks it out of the park as well. Even Ben Affleck is funny as a drug-pushing, man-pimping, mop-hair-sporting bartender.

Hollywood has just got to start giving Mike Judge some respect. We’ve known the guy was a genius since “Beavis and Butthead,” and “Office Space” cleared up any questions about his ability to do a feature film. So why don’t people see his movies? I’d say it’s because no one knows about them. A studio will spend more promoting a film like “Sex and the City 2” than the entire budget for one of Judge’s films. I think it is because he makes fun of stupidity. Hollywood makes money pandering to the lowest common denominator, which is exactly the demographic that Mike Judge skewers in his films. The only solution I can think of is for smart people to make it a point to see his movies, preferably in cinemas, but on DVD if that fails. I’m doing my part; the rest is up to you.

4 stars out of 5

Get Him to the Greek (2010) ****

I absolutely loved “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” and one of the best things in the movie was clearly the sexually ravenous rock star Aldous Snow, played by Russell Brand. For those fans who felt, as I did, that they could have used a little more Aldous, I give you “Get Him to the Greek,” an entire movie about Aldous. It does not disappoint.

Jonah Hill (the fat one from “Superbad”) plays Aaron, a cog in the music industry and fan of Aldous Snow, “the last real rock star.” He convinces his boss Sergio (played with hilarious intensity by Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs) to help Aldous revive his ailing career by promoting an anniversary concert at the Greek Theatre in Las Angeles. Aaron gets what he thinks is his dream assignment when he is sent to London to fetch the off-the-wagon Aldous and get him safely and on time to L.A. for the concert. It’s a Herculean task, as Aldous is distracted by every opportunity along the way to get drunk, get high, or get laid.

I wasn’t sure going in whether I would like this movie. First of all, the title is horrible. Someone should lose his job over the title. Probably the same guy responsible for “The 40-year-old Virgin,” which was also awesome despite its title. I also didn’t know if the Aldous Snow character would hold up for an entire movie. He does! Russell Brand imbues Aldous with unexpected depth as well as new heights of hilarity. He is, like a true rock star, a mesmerizing figure. “Get Him to the Greek” also introduces a new, female version of Aldous in the form of pop star Jackie-Q (Rose Byrne.) Her song “Ring Around My Posie” might just make you wet yourself. Jonah Hill is hilarious as well, mainly because everything is just funnier when a big fat dude is doing it.

I have heard that a couple of people didn’t like this film. I can’t fathom that. I suppose that the scenes of puking, blood, and Jonah Hill getting things shoved up his butt might turn some people off. There, you’ve been warned. As long as you can handle some gross-out humor along with some sex-humor, drug-humor, and potty-mouth-humor, you’ll be good to go. Get yourself to “Get Him to the Greek.”

4 stars out of 5

Date Night (2010)

It feels a bit surreal getting a babysitter and taking my wife on a date to see a movie about a guy getting a babysitter and taking his wife out on a date. It just made me feel a little self-conscious. It’s a good thing “Date Night” is such a dead funny film.

Steve Carell and Tina Fey play Phil and Claire Foster, married couple in a rut. They get along great, and clearly love each other, but the day to day grind of work, commutes, and kids saps the energy that they once had for each other. They do the same things all the time, and have reached a point where they think they know everything there is to know about each other. What this couple needs is a night of excitement, and boy, do they get it! When they pose as a couple with a reservation in order to get a seat at a fancy Manhattan restaurant, they are mistaken for the targets of a couple of Mob hit-men, and the night takes off from there. Good times ensue all over NYC, including car chases, Tina Fey in a stripper outfit, and Mark Wahlberg without a shirt. Along the way - you guessed it - the Fosters learn some new things about each other and rekindle that old flame.

“Date Night” is fairly formulaic, but executed in a manner that shows why the formula works. It’s a combination of screwball, slapstick, and action comedy that manages to be sweet without being sentimental. Fey and Carell are wonderful at creating comedy that respects the characters. When the Fosters take time out to have a Big Conversation and get some things off their chests, it feels like a real conversation between real people, not trite at all. The movie also benefits from a pretty much all-star cast, including Wahlberg as an impossibly cool security expert, James Franco and Mila Kunis as a cute pair of scumbags, William Fichtner as a politician, and Ray Liotta as a Mobster. “Date Night” isn’t destined to become a classic, but it’s loads of fun and a great date movie.

4 stars out of 5