The Reel Gouda

Sunshine

2008-02-10T18:08:00.000-08:00

**In the theatrical movie funk known as the month of February, I am turning to DVDs of previously-missed movies.

Sunshine provides moments of brilliance, little warmth

There was a point about halfway through Danny Boyle's "Sunshine" where I had to force myself to stop questioning the science. Indeed, in order to fully accept the story of a manned mission to the sun, one must suspend more disbelief than is in the payload of a nuclear device capable of creating a new sun within an old, dying one. That is the mission of the seven astronauts aboard the Icarus 2, and it is aboard this fated spacecraft (with an unfortunate name, if you're familiar with your Greek mythology) that this crew is faced with questions of responsibility, sacrifice, and--to a certain extent--faith and madness.

This is not an "adventure" film. Written by Alex Garland, who wrote the atmospheric apocalypse-by-virus flick "28 Days Later," "Sunshine" operates on a more cerebral level that plays less like Star Trek and more like Steven Soderbergh's under-rated "Solaris," which examined the effects on the human condition of the isolation of deep space. There is a quiet, moody resignation felt by everyone aboard the Icarus who seem to know, at least without admitting it outright, that their mission is of the kamikaze variety. How could it not be when the all-important shield that protects the spacecraft from being incinerated by the sun during its flight is to be detached when the payload is fired at the dying star?

The spacecraft is called Icarus 2 for a reason, however. The first Icarus was lost from contact seven years previous. When the crew members of the second effort pick up the distress beacon of the original ship, the decision is made to slightly alter their course to see if they can acquire that ship's payload. According to the Icarus 2's physicist Robert Capa (Cillian Murphy), two last hopes for humanity are better than one. Naturally, a change in course brings about a series of problems and even a plot twist that I will not reveal here, but I have a feeling that it is a development that has divided audiences. Personally, I found the third act to suffer for it, but felt that the execution of the filming of this act was gorgeous and haunting. In fact, those are the two words I would use to best describe "Sunshine" as a whole.

The effects on the mind and the desolation of outer space are explored and portrayed in a most chilling way, both literally and figuratively. Would a brainiac wonder if the effects of the body's exposure to the vacuum of space were being shown accurately? Most definitely. It's been a subject of constant debate on the scientific circuit for decades. Of course, the same could be said for all of the science that is in "Sunshine," and this is why it's most important to not get wrapped up in it. This is not what this film is about. It contemplates what it means to one's psyche to hold the future of humanity in one's hands. It strikes a serious mood without straying into cliche "action hero" territory.

Perhaps most essential, however, "Sunshine" observes the psychology of space travel rather than the scientific accuracy of the mission itself. Those who are seeking absolute realism in such a place would do best to sticking to periodicals on solar physics. For the rest of us, who enjoy watching how effects, cinematography, musical score, and acting can be effectively woven together to create a feeling of quiet resignation about a mission that is beyond all comprehension, "Sunshine" is a movie worth seeing in spite of the problems with its final act.

Gouda's Final Grade -- A-

The Eye

2008-02-02T17:51:00.000-08:00

Jessica Alba develops a sick sense in "The Eye"

In a perfect world, all films billed as horror movies would be scary, Americans would stop trying to re-make Asian cinema, and Jessica Alba would develop the ability to act. Alas, this is not a perfect world, and "The Eye," the latest Western interpretation of an Eastern fright flick, is proof positive of this fact.

That's not to say that the idea behind "The Eye" isn't at least a little compelling. We have a young blind girl, in this case a concert violinist named Sydney Wells (Alba) who receives a cornea transplant only to learn that the organs she received still contain the tortured memories of their deceased donor. This, in my opinion, creates perfect fodder for generating genuine creepiness, and although I have not seen the Hong Kong original, I am going to surmise from what I've seen today that the original execution was more successful at this.

The problem with the Americanized version, directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud (two French directors who made another horror movie entitled "Them"), is that it fails in every way to properly build suspense. After about the fifth time of watching Alba wake up in a hyperventilating sweat from yet another scary "dream" sequence that would only be scary to a very naive toddler, I began to wonder if they were filming off of a working script, or if they decided to just film one scare gag after another and then whittle it down in the editing room until it resembled a real story. While there were a few interesting innovations along the way, there was no true sense of building action, and a few scenes made absolutely no sense at all. For instance, we later find out that Sydney's eyes came courtesy of a young woman from Mexico who committed suicide, yet one of the "memories" that Sydney has takes place in a local Chinese restaurant. How did the dead woman develop a memory of the interior of this place when it appears that she never actually left the little Mexican village where she died? Apparently the filmmakers just decided it would be cool to make Sydney have a freaky hallucination in a Chinese joint and then hope we would be too frightened and wowed to put two and two together.

Helping Sydney make sense of the images that are plaguing her are her sister (Parker Posey) and her doubtful ocular rehab specialist Dr. Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola). The doctor appears to be about two steps above comatose and one step from saying: "I'm only doing this because she's hot." Alba spends most of her time sputtering out weak dialog in an attempt to win him over to believing that she's not suffering from a mental disorder, and he of course goes along with it for no other reason than because the plot requires him to. The two of them eventually find themselves in Mexico to unravel the mystery of Sydney's hallucinations, and this ends up culminating in a climax that is so out of left field, so contrived, so ludicrous, that an attempt to apply logic to the equation could, quite possibly, open up a wormhole to the twelfth dimension of stupid. That is, if one actually cared enough to figure it out. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) we don't.

Even with its sleek camera work and competent special effects, "The Eye" ends up looking like a mesh of "The Ring," "The Grudge," and "The Sixth Sense," one that was glued sloppily together by ambitious school children. Or retarded adults. Probably the latter.

Gouda's Final Grade: C-

Cloverfield

2008-01-19T15:14:00.000-08:00

With this tape, we are so gonna win $10,000

Just when you thought that Hollywood had run out of ways to tell the "Big Monster Destroys Big City" formula, there comes "Cloverfield," a Godzilla-esque flick that married the "Blair Witch Project" and spawned a very frightening, hyperactive child." Told completely from the point of view of a guy wielding a digital video camera with seemingly endless battery life, "Cloverfield" manages to play on the senses like a ride on a very old, rickety roller coaster that also has the ability to throw bowling balls at your head. Wait... that almost sounded like a bad thing. Well, it's not. "Cloverfield" is surprisingly effective.

The movie starts with "standard use" camcorder stuff, at a going away party for a young man named Rob (Michael Stahl-David) who has landed a new job in Japan. His friend Hud (T.J. Miller) is using the camera to tape testimonials, spy on people's love life drama, and other ultimately meaningless, character-building tidbits that set the stage for a "you think you've got problems now" scenario when things start exploding in midtown Manhattan, and the head of the Statue of Liberty goes rolling down the street. At this point, Hud becomes something of an amateur documentary maker and he even manages to add a bit of comedy relief to what would otherwise be a hopelessly horrific situation. There is a giant creature of sorts laying waste to every skyscraper in its path. We don't know, at least initially, what it looks like and this amps up the fright factor a great deal.

The monster's place of origin is not revealed to us either, naturally, but Hud speculates that it could have come out of the ocean or from another planet. All we do know is it is impervious to modern military weaponry, and there are even little parasites on it (that are about the size of a compact car, which should provide proper perspective) that look like what would happen if Godzilla had visited a prostitute on the seedier side of town.

There is a lot of frightening imagery in "Cloverfield." Skyscrapers coming down in massive clouds of dust evoke memories of 9/11. Images of tanks firing at the monster felt startlingly real. The incinerated New York skyline, seen only in glimpses here and there had a rather haunting quality. And when our heroes go into a tilting building to rescue one of their friends, we feel as exhausted as they do when they climb up nearly 60 floors of stairs.

The device of filming it with such an "amateur" technique, provided it doesn't nauseate you, has a way of bringing the viewer directly into the story and behind the heels of everyone else running for their lives in a panic. Director Matt Reeves showed great instinct and restraint here by choosing to keep the monster off-camera for most of the film, not only because it adhered to the film's logic, but because it is a time-tested horror device that the less we see of a baddie, the more scared we are. There is no way the film would have been effective at generating scares if it had been filmed in sleek, "steady cam" style. The slightly grainy quality of the film has a way of unsettling us further, and it allows our imaginations to fill in details lost in the murk. Because we aren't provided with any information that our main characters haven't been, we are simply witness to, and members of, the surrounding pandemonium. Perhaps the most fright-inducing aspect of "Cloverfield" was the sound, which compensated for the visual jogs. This is a film that demands viewing in a movie theater or a decent home theater with the volume turned way up.

Granted, there were logistical questions I wanted to ask when the lights thankfully came back on during the closing credits, but I blocked them out. Who could possibly try to make sense of such a thing, anyway? "Cloverfield" was a well-made, highly entertaining film that for its short 84-minute duration removed me from my seat and planted me into that hellish nightmare version of Manhattan. My only advice would be to sit several rows back, particularly if you want to avoid a case of stomach-churning vertigo.

Gouda's Final Grade: B+

There Will Be Blood

2008-01-18T15:41:00.000-08:00

There will be blood and madness...

This is a movie without sympathy. One without pity. It features a man who is a Howard Hughes without a conscience, a Citizen Kane dipped in crude, without the concept of regret. It is a movie that is complex in its simplicity, fixed into a rigid frame as the ultimate portrait of greed and madness. And it is either in spite of or because of all of these things that Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" is a great film.

The year is 1898. Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) starts with little, in both the means and the words department, as he slogs away beneath the desolate, barren Texas landscapes foraging silver in the hopes of building a fortune. He's not the enthusiastic prospector with naive optimism glinting in his eyes. He is silent and dogged in his determination. He breaks his leg and claws his way out of the desert to cash in his claim. When he eventually strikes oil, he doesn't even register surprise, but instead steps comfortably up to a future of immense wealth and power, almost as if he were entitled to it. He even inherits the baby of a fallen worker and raises him as his own son, using the child as a prop to give an innocent face to his drilling operation, swaying landholders to sell him leases to drill on their property by saying that he's a simple family man. The ploy works.

Plainview's fate turns in a new direction when he's approached by a young man named Paul Sunday, who for a price gives him the location of a vast ocean of oil. It's beneath the Sunday family ranch. Plainview visits the ranch and before long installs himself and his derricks in the town of Little Boston, where the citizens are under the sway of Plainview's vision of shared wealth and prosperity, as well as that of the Sunday family's other son Eli (Paul Dano) who also appears to be the identical twin of Paul. Of course it's hard to tell whether this is actually the case because we never see the two brother's together. But Eli is a religious zealot who runs a small church of the fire and brimstone variety, and he quickly becomes the oil man's nemesis.

Plainview makes a lot of promises to the people of Little Boston, none of which he follows through on. It becomes quite clear that he is not a man who can be trusted. Much later in the film when he meets a man who claims to be his half-brother, he confides in him that he hates everyone, and reveals what we suspected all along: a complete dearth of humanity spiraling dangerously to a place of madness.

Daniel Day-Lewis continues to be the most captivating actor on the screen today, disappearing into his roles with such convincing ease that even in the scenes where there is no dialog (the first fifteen minutes are completely devoid of it), he manages to hold the audience in thrall. This is a role that is certain to garner him a very well-deserved Oscar. The narrative of "There Will Be Blood" is signature Paul Thomas Anderson in that it's long. Quite, actually. Also true to PTA's work, it is not boring. While there were perhaps a few elements of the third act that could have used a tightening of the screws, and there was not a sense even in the last minutes that the film was winding down (which gave it just the smallest smidge of tediousness), it is held in check by our wide-eyed fascination, watching Plainview devolve into an older, wealthy recluse, wandering through the empty halls of his mansion shooting his possessions and gulping an endless supply of whiskey. The ending is by all turns amusing, sad, insane, and abrupt. It is also appropriate for this character, who really deserved no better fate and actually got his wish--to become rich enough to separate himself from everyone.

This is a film that flourishes in its ability to escape convention and manages to do it with great style and taste. There is no love interest. There is no search for redemption or betterment. In its drab colorscape, it exhibits a very limited spectrum of human emotion, focusing on its unsavory underbelly. We are taken in by Plainview's self-assured charisma, and even as he reveals himself to be something of a monster, he's already gotten his hooks sunken into us and we can't look away.

Gouda's Final Grade -- A+

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

2008-01-14T15:30:00.001-08:00

Emo Todd

Although I can say that I've had a great time watching certain musicals, there is something about theater at large that I've always found to be unbearably pretentious. Gestures and facial expressions are exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Simple messages and themes are often delivered cryptically and with too much fanfare, and there is always this unspoken rule that if you don't appreciate the show before you, you are a clod without culture. Well after trudging out of what is perhaps the bloodiest, most disgusting, and morally offensive musical in stage and cinematic history, I will happily don the title of Cultureless Clod, so long as I don't have to ever again see people chomping down on human flesh stuffed into meat pies.

Sweeney Todd is a grim endeavor to be sure. A revenge tragedy told on a most visceral level, it centers on a man, Benjamin Barker, whose sunny life as a husband, father, and barber was destroyed by a malicious judge (Alan Rickman) who lusted after Barker's wife. After being falsely imprisoned by the judge for fifteen years, during which Judge Turpin forced Barker's wife to poison herself with arsenic and then claimed their child for his own, Barker returns to London under the name Sweeney Todd to exact his revenge. He is helped in his dirty deeds by Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), the owner of a pie shop strewn with moldy wares and cockroaches that boasts "the worst pies in London."

This is not a jolly old London, as fans of the stage musical or of this film already know. It is a sunless, poverty-stricken, sewer of humanity that likely haunted the worst nightmares of Charles Dickens. The production design by Dante Ferretti, who has spent a lot of time under the employ of many great directors (namely, Martin Scorsese), goes to great lengths to paint a portrait of dreariness that one can't help but admire for its thoroughness.

Of course, being a Tim Burton film, Sweeney Todd was sure to be a visual stunner. I can think of few filmmakers whose work plays on the most relentlessly surreal aspects of our sensibilities, and in Sweeney Todd he is at his most daring and avante garde. He painstakingly adheres to the spirit of the material and doesn't for one second let up as the blood flows and sprays in torrents, and the characters continue to achieve newer, more depraved levels of gruesome behavior. But herein lies the problem. Burton, per usual, with his concentrated focus on aesthetics, left little to no room for the heart to enter the picture. I felt no sympathy for Todd's seething moroseness, and what little I had for Mrs. Lovett was tossed into the meat grinder with the rest of the town's unsavory bits. I found myself sitting more in aghast than in admiration, and I was less than enticed by the musical selections whose occasional moments of cleverness ("For many a poor orphan lad, the first square meal he ever had, was a hot meat pie made out of his dad, from Sweeney Todd the Barber.") was overshadowed by saccharine ostentatious schmaltz.

Ultimately, Sweeney Todd left me floored, but not in a good way. Its audacity was alienating and often alarming, too much so for me to want to admire it up close. Watching it was like looking upon a piece of art that leaves one with only the ability to say: "Wonders of the human imagination will never cease" and then walk away with a sigh of relief, content never to glance upon it again.

This film is an experience to be savored by a very select crowd. If you are into self-indulgent, histrionic, caustic, pretentious, blood-drenched "high art" that can only be called "art" because it can't fit into any niche of normality, then Sweeney is your ticket to cinematic awe. For the rest of us, there is everything else.

Gouda's Final Grade: C-

Juno

2008-01-06T20:36:00.000-08:00

In a word, touching.

I can recall few movies where I liked every character so much that I found myself wishing that I really knew them. It's even more rare that I encounter dialog so quick and so endearing that I want to hug the people who are intelligent enough to utter it. This is particularly true of the title character, Juno MacGuff, played with such edgy brilliance by Ellen Page that I feel if she doesn't win the Oscar this year, it will be one of the great injustices in the Academy's history of handing out statues.

Juno is a wise-cracking old soul who at 16 decides to experiment with sex with her friend and bandmate, Pauly (Michael Cera). Two months and four days later (not that she's counting), she finds out she's pregnant. After deciding that abortion was not the answer for her (following one of the most humorous trips to an abortion clinic ever put on screen), she opts to carry the baby to term and place it up for adoption. It is at this point she tells her dad and stepmom about her pregnancy (played respectively by J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney) in a memorable scene that establishes early the greatness of this movie. These people are so smart, so down-to-earth, so honest. They are the kinds of parents that every teenager wishes they could have.

Juno's best friend recommends that she look for adoptive couples in The Penny Saver, and it is there she finds Mark and Vanessa (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner), the quintessential example of yuppie wholesomeness. Or so it seems on the exterior. While Vanessa is wholeheartedly determined to be a mother, Mark is hanging on to the last vestiges of a youth where the dreams of rock stardom reigned superior to those of parenthood. This becomes most apparent when we begin to wonder if Mark and Juno are going to stray into a forbidden area. But even through this, the screenplay remains smart and it doesn't disappoint. It is a situation that shows us the depths of these characters and the care that went into their construction.

As much as I want to start firing off quotes from this movie, the joy is in their discovery. There were few scenes that didn't have me at least giggling, and most of them had me laughing out loud. It isn't "mean" laughter, however, or the kind that makes us get our kicks off of someone's misfortune. It is the kind that makes us marvel in the positive aspects of the human condition. It's the kind that, by the end, makes us want to hug ourselves, and that is so rare in comedies nowadays. Juno, both the character and the film itself, doesn't attempt to enlist our sympathies through schmaltz and cliche. It is a smart, uplifting, flawlessly wonderful film.

Gouda's Final Grade -- A+

2007 Movie Round-Up

2008-01-02T12:07:00.000-08:00

It was a great year for movies. I wish I could have seen more, because there were certainly a lot of big awards contenders out right now that I have missed, but even if the Academy or the AFI won't completely agree with my choices for the best movies of 2007, it should at the very least provide you with ten exceedingly excellent films that came out this year that everyone should see. You might notice a few on here that were actually a part of the 2006 award season. Keep in mind that I base this list on movies that were released wide in 2007, but might have opened in New York or LA at the end of December to be eligible for Oscars. A few dozen people might have seen some of these in 2006, but this list is for the rest of us.

10. Ratatouille: Director Brad Bird (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant) and Pixar make another brilliant pairing about the most unlikely story of all: how a rat becomes a renowned Parisian chef. I don't know how they do it, but the storytelling of Pixar movies is always top-notch, and it managed to make a rat-phobe like myself become emotionally involved. The genius of this animation juggernaut will be tested if they can make me love spiders. Charlotte's Web did not accomplish this feat.

9. Gone Baby Gone: Ben Afflek's first turn in the director's chair was a phenomenal one. Based on the Dennis Lehane novel, Gone Baby Gone examines the moral questions that surround the case of a missing little girl. Skillfully crafted, this is a film that demands inner-examination, finds deep emotional buttons, and hits them without mercy.

8. The Bourne Ultimatum: Last year's action film to see was James Bond in Casino Royale. This year, it was Jason Bourne's (Matt Damon) quest to solve the question of his missing identity. Director Paul Greengrass is the champion of the "jerky camera is awesome" style of filming, and the action scenes here are flawlessly staged and sweat-inducing in their intensity.

7. Zodiac: Make no question about the fact that David Fincher's chronicle of the serial killer known as The Zodiac suffers from being a little on the bloated side, but that fault is forgivable on the merit of the brilliant acting on the part of Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downy Jr. who play the San Francisco reporters whose lives are forever changed by their obsessive drive to apprehend the murderer. Fincher's ability to instill the right mood while painting a beautifully authentic picture, and making his characters unforgettable is as strong as ever.

6. Eastern Promises: David Cronenberg continues his stride into the upper-echelon of filmmakers with this intense, tautly-told tale of a mid-wife (Naomi Watts) who finds herself the target of the Russian mafia after she delivers the baby of a Ukranian teenage girl who later dies and leaves behind an incriminating diary. Viggo Mortensen, who joined Cronenberg on their last venture A History of Violence, proves his strength as a method actor and loses himself in the role of the driver/bodyguard who feels compelled to protect this woman.

5. 3:10 to Yuma: 2007 saw a small revival of the western genre, and this was a pitch-perfect way to get it started. A remake of a Glenn Ford picture from the 1950s, this film features Christian Bale as a down-on-his-luck rancher who sees an opportunity to rebuild his life by escorting a dangerous bank robber (Russell Crowe) to custody. The chemistry between the two male leads is captivating, and Crowe's work as a dangerous, yet sly and articulate, sociopath is outstanding.

4. Pan's Labyrinth: It was nominated for every Oscar under the sun last year, and deservedly so. Director Guillermo Del Toro created a stunning visual masterpiece about a little girl in 1940s fascist Spain who attempts to escape the tumultuous hardships of living with an abusive brute and her sick mother, by creating an imaginary world to which she can escape. Del Toro shows a remarkable ability to lift certain shots straight from people's nightmares.

3. Michael Clayton: If two male actors deserve award nods this year, it's Tom Wilkinson and George Clooney, who respectively play a bi-polar lawyer off his meds who has embroiled himself into a huge heap of trouble with a corporate giant he's supposed to be defending in a class-action lawsuit, and the man whose job it is to fix the reputation of the law firm they both represent. Clooney strips away his "pretty boy" image for this role, and we seem him as emotionally naked as ever as a man who is, quite simply, exhausted. This movie was directed by the man who wrote the screenplay for The Bourne Ultimatum, and he has a gift for bringing the viewer in.

2. Children of Men: Imagine having a clear timeline for when the human race was officially going to go extinct, and all of the misery and turmoil it creates. In the future, people have lost the ability to have babies. In Children of Men, we see a world without laughter, without sunshine, without hope, and it is a world we become a part of in every sense. That's at least how I felt when watching this film, and even though it was nearly a year ago when I saw it, it still echoes deeply. There are seldom films that are as visually authentic and emotionally penetrating as this one.

1. No Country for Old Men: Tommy Lee Jones' dialog in this movie alone makes it stellar and Oscar-worthy. But when you add in Javier Bardem's terrifying performance as an emotionless killing machine who is tracking down a suitcase of money stolen from a drug deal gone wrong by a poor, hapless hunter (Josh Brolin), and all of the beautiful little quirks that go into most Coen brothers movies, you have a work of pure genius. There are so many layers, questions, and subtleties in this film that even two viewings weren't able to completely satisfy, and that is part of its brilliance. This is a movie that is beautiful in its stark bleakness, but it is not a simple movie, and it is definitely not easily forgotten.

The Mist

2007-12-02T21:22:00.000-08:00

Mist by a mile...

Frank Darabont, who penned and directed superior adaptations of Stephen King's work with The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption, made an interesting choice when he chose to take on King novella "The Mist" as his latest project. The written story is short, shocking, and bloody, and as far as novellas go, it makes for a good way to spend a couple of hours. I wish I could say the same for the film version, which Darabont himself said in an interview recently was a complete departure from the norm for him. As I sat in the theater, squirming in my seat for 124 minutes, I wished no less than a dozen times that he had left well enough alone and kept making good movies.

What we have here is a classic formula of "archetypes stuck in a small space who must fight for their lives" after a storm blows through a small Maine town, bringing with it a thick fog filled with all manner of creepy crawlies that have a taste, naturally, for the dumbest people in the movie. The small space in this case is a grocery store, where a trip for emergency supplies following the storm becomes the stage for showcasing the number of crazies who apparently like to live or vacation in the Maine countryside. Thomas Jane plays David Drayton, one of the smarter ones, who is there with his little boy Billy and his pompously lawyeriffic neighbor Brent Norton (Andre Brougher). Also shopping for canned goods are Resourceful Nerdy Guy, Hot Blonde Sexual Tension Device, Tough Old Lady Who Should Have Been the Hero, Dumb Hick #1, Dumb Hick #2, and Dumb Hick Who Goes Crazy. Of course we can't forget the most pivotal of the town folk, Religious Nutcake who Eats Fire and Brimstone for Breakfast. This one is played by Marcia Gay Harden in a role that indicates that someone attempted to act in this movie.

The Mist suffers heavily from Lost Script Syndrome, a disease that a movie contracts when it becomes clear that everyone involved in making the picture lost their script and decided to just wing it. This is evidenced by a hasty first act, a lumbering, meandering second act, and choppily delivered dialog. "There are... things out there. Things." It's not very often when a major motion picture has the same awkwardness with its lines as a first-time host of Saturday Night Live who can't break eye contact with the cue cards.

Certainly there were some well-done aspects to the movie. A lot of the visuals were genuinely frightening. I jumped a few times, and the creatures from the mist had an other-worldly quality that were more than faithful to my imagination's depiction of them from the original story. I also enjoyed the Resourceful Nerd character, Ollie Weeks, who delivered the much-needed response to the culminating insanity brought about by Religious Nutcake.

But for the genuine scares and shocks brought about by The Mist, the film could not escape the weight of the over-the-top idiocy of its characters. In a typical movie of this genre, there is always one guy who everyone wishes would just go ahead and die already. In this movie, there there were several.

As if all this weren't enough to warrant a below-average rating, the ending of the film brought about such overwhelming feelings of outrage and disgust, I couldn't recall walking out of a theater so angry in a long time. Without revealing too much, I will say that I felt tricked in a most disingenuous sort of way, like someone who was just fed a sandwich made with moldy bread and was given a glass of spoiled milk with which to wash it down. Frank Darabont should be ashamed for choosing to wrap up this movie in such a way.

Suffice to say, if you have missed The Mist, you haven't missed much.

Gouda's Final Grade: D

No Country for Old Men

2007-11-25T21:55:00.000-08:00

No Country for This Man...

What level of pain, fear, and guilt would you be able to suffer in order to keep two million dollars? Would you be willing to be chased by a pit bull, shot at by a gang of angry drug dealers, be separated from your spouse, or stalked relentlessly by a homicidal psychopath armed with a pneumatic cattle gun? This is the question that brothers Ethan and Joel Coen ask of us in their latest movie No Country for Old Men, and it is a question that is answered so candidly, so brutally, that the dream of stumbling upon a satchel full of cash has gone from being a dream come true to one of my worst nightmares.

Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a poor man who lives with his young wife in a trailer in the no-man's land sector of west Texas. While out hunting, he stumbles upon a crime scene that could only be described as a big drug deal gone bad. Dead bodies, bullets, and vehicles litter the dusty landscape, and a few hundred yards away, on the lap of a dead man, lay the money that no one got. Moss examines the scene carefully and views the stacks of $100 dollar bills with the air of a man who knows what kind of trouble he'd be getting himself into if he took it, but can't resist his human reaction to the sight of so much cash.

His story is but part of this highly-woven tale. Anton Chigurh is a hired gun out to recover the 2 million dollars for the business man overseeing the botched heroin deal. Chigurh is played by Javier Bardem in a way so convincing and terrifying in his almost robotic lack of humanity that I am hard-pressed to think of any cinematic psychopath who is more memorable. Bardem is a Spanish actor best known for his breakthrough, Oscar-nominated role in 2000 in the film Before Night Falls, but he's been in several films since, and his versatility is striking. Here he is nearly unrecognizable, with watery, merciless eyes that absorb all light. This is a man who does not bargain; although, if he is on the fence about killing someone, he may flip a coin so one may spare oneself the fate of having a small spear driven through one's brain. Early in the film, when he chokes the life out of a police officer who briefly apprehends him, his facial expression evokes the only sign of life and emotion we ever see in him.

Tommy Lee Jones is as stalwart as ever as the town Sheriff, Tom Bell, who is chasing the blood trail that Chigurh is leaving in his wake. Bell is a man who is worn down by the cruelties and stupidities of humankind, of which he has undoubtedly seen much in his neck of the woods, where the border between two very different countries becomes incredibly blurred. When things start turning ugly, and it becomes clear that Chigurh has no intention of returning to the money to his employer (should he recover it from Llewelyn Moss), a smooth-talking bounty hunter by the name of Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), who is quite familiar with Chigurh, also gets involved.

This is not a simple tale to talk about, however. There are twists. There are turns. There are subtleties that may downright confuse you or that you may mistake for plot holes, but trust me when I say that such nuances are ultimately irrelevant to what this film is about. It is a penetrating character study on evil. It is a glaring look at the follies of human nature, on how nothing in this life comes free of strings. It is about the breathtaking cinematography of the stark Texas landscapes, the spellbinding performances, the emotive score, the tiny, human details like the sweat in people's armpits, and perhaps most importantly: the pitch-perfect dialog that plays in the ears like an intricate piano concerto and could only be found in a Coen brothers film. Every single ingredient these filmmakers needed to best their masterpiece Fargo is here, and the final product is every bit as outstanding and demanding of repeat viewing.

Although there is still over a month left in 2007, I'm going to go ahead and make the call. This is the best film of the year.

Gouda's Final Grade: A+

Beowulf 3D

2007-11-18T16:47:00.000-08:00

Ray Winstone as he likely looks in his wildest dreams...

How does one describe in words something that is more than "over the top?" I suppose it would suffice to say that a movie like Beowulf has traveled far beyond the summit that most movies in its class (300 is the first to come to mind) have attained and is still trying to find a place to land. I have never seen a movie quite like Beowulf, with its striking dichotomy of brazen audacity and comedic irony, and I doubt I will again.

The story of Beowulf is a legend of old, usually told in the form of a poem, about a hero who travels to a Danish kingdom to slay a monster that is terrorizing its residents. The monster, Grendel (Crispin Glover), is the byproduct of a love affair between the grizzled King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) and a sultry, gold-plated, perpetually almost-nude water demon with stilleto heels for feet played by Angelina Jolie. Apparently Grendel's mom was getting a little impatient with Hrothgar's deadbeat dad ways and allowed her boy to wreak havoc on daddy's newly-built mead house and its drunken patrons. The carnage is as great and ugly as Grendel himself. In fact, if the Grendel scenes had been done in live-action, Beowulf would have likely received an NC-17 rating. Beowulf later goes to slay Grendel's mother and instead finds himself seduced by her promises of power and wealth, and likely her hot bod. Later on, after Beowulf inherits the kingdom and an overwhelming burden of guilt for not doing as he promised, his demon spawn comes looking for papa. I detected an underlying theme throughout this movie: Guys, keep it in your pants.

But let's talk more about the medium in which Beowulf was made, which is motion-capture animation that uses real actors overlaid with heavy artistic embellishments (hence Ray Winstone's six pack abs). Robert Zemeckis seems to have fallen hopelessly in love with this style of movie-making, and I have to admit that I've never been much of a fan of the technique. While I think both The Polar Express and Monster House (the two previous movies made in this style) are wonderful movies, the animation has always been something of a distraction for me. The characters don't look "live" enough to look real, but they don't look "animated" enough either. It's some strange middle-ground between reality and fantasy, and I find it a tad unsettling to watch, which in effect removes me from the story. Seeing the movie in 3D, although thrilling, tended to enhance this problem for me.

Speaking of story, Beowulf was a victim of more than just a problem with its format. It has a tendency to wow the audience into wide-eyed, shocked laughter in one scene and bore them into a stupor the next. The fact that this movie was as long as it was suggests an air of self-indulgence on the part of Zemeckis, something of which he has been guilty in movies past.

But I really enjoyed the lively, tongue-in-cheek spirit of this film. Laughs were plentiful, and I don't think this was unintentional. The makers of this film knew they were telling a fantastical story and made the film mirror those sentiments through and through. Beowulf most certainly has the heart of a dragon. The heart just suffers from a little arrhythmia.

Gouda's Final Grade: B-

P2

2007-11-10T17:48:00.000-08:00

You might not want to turn around...

P2 opens like a classic horror buffet spread with all of the trimmings. Meet Angela (Rachel Nichols), the driven career woman working late into the wee hours on Christmas Eve in an ambiguous law firm in an ambiguous high-rise office building in New York, who is trying to rush out the door to be with her family for the holiday. Meet Tom (Wes Bentley, maintaining the same creep factor he wore so well in American Beauty), the overnight parking attendant who, with his vicious rottweiler Rocky, is appointed to the post of supervising a deserted garage on a night when most people are off sipping spiked eggnog before a toasty fire. He also, from what we eventually gather as the night decends to a certain level of hell for our heroine (a level that is undoubtedly labeled “P2”), has had an eye on Angela for quite some time and has been waiting for an opportune time to introduce himself and maybe invite her to dinner. What Angela doesn’t realize is that such an invitation would come laced with chloroform, handcuffs, and skimpy lingerie. What I realized as the credits rolled was that this ended up being a much better-crafted film than I originally anticipated.

Based on its premise, P2 was a film that was begging to be bad. As with most horror films involving a woman in peril, we expect nothing less than sheer stupidity from our protagonist--the kind that would have us almost rooting for the killer to just put her (and we the audience) out of our misery. Not so with P2, where Angela is actually a pretty smart woman. She is resourceful and strong, and Rachel Nichols plays her at a perfect pitch. While she makes clear that she is most unhappy with her unexpected “date,” she also acts with a sort of self-preservation that is quite convincing. We don’t have to yell at the screen to tell her everything she “should” have done, because in most cases she’s already done those things. Just unsuccessfully. And when her endeavors to escape her captor fail, we feel a little bit of the dread that she must have felt. Tom, on the other hand, is not a cunning, sadistic psychopath. That’s not to say he isn’t a psychopath at all, because he wears that particular badge quite clearly. But aside from a slightly unpredictable temper, the lonely security guard just wants Angela to love him. He deftly tunes out the woman’s terror and attempts to charm her instead. He makes her a nice dinner, pours her wine, and doesn’t even get mad when she stabs him in the shoulder with a fork, reacting like a loving parent would with a wayward toddler. Although it is clear that his patience is on borrowed time, Tom is really just kind of a sad guy. If he weren’t a mentally ill stalker-type, he would actually make a pretty decent boyfriend.

P2 was a pleasant surprise. I was surprised by how smart all of the characters acted. I was surprised by how well the suspense and the effects were staged, and how the movie didn’t go too far out of its way to shock us with sheer cruelty. I was surprised that the only things I could find to really complain about were the weak dialog and the shallow character development. Sure, there are infinitely more superior films to choose from this fall, and P2 won’t be garnering any Oscar nominations, but horror/thriller fans have a decent reason to go to the theater right now, and whatever money this movie makes will actually be justified.

Gouda's Final Grade: B

American Gangster

2007-11-04T21:11:00.000-08:00

American Sociopath

Watching a movie like American Gangster, I always walk away with the impression that the world was much uglier and dirtier 4o years ago than it is today. I mean, cops don't appear to be as depraved and corrupt as they were in this movie, and they certainly don't own wardrobes or hairdos nearly as horrific as those prevalent in the early 70s, but then again, I've never ventured very far from suburbia and something tells me that the seedy underbelly of places like Manhattan or Harlem never quite recede. They just dig deeper to stay hidden.

Frank Lucas (played here by Denzel Washington in his typical stunning form) was a man who was king for a time in this seedy underbelly, and by virtue of following what I like to refer to as the "Wal-Mart" formula, managed to become one of the most powerful drug lords in the Northeast during the late 60s and early 70s. By the "Wal-Mart" formula, I mean that he bought decent product (in this case, heroin) direct from an Asian supplier and sold it on the American streets at discount prices. By doing this, he put many of his competitors (namely other organized crime families) out of business. This feat was made easier due to the Vietnam War. With so many soldiers returning home in coffins, there were plenty of places to stash the drugs and get them into the country. What customs official was going to actually search a fallen soldier's coffin? Exactly.

But it's not merely Lucas' clever business practices that skyrocket him to the top of the drug chain. He makes a point to not stand out in a crowd. He is able to carry on his business for so long while escaping the attention of the authorities because he doesn't make ostentatious displays of his wealth, and he avoids what he refers to as "loudness" in his choices of dress and lifestyle. But while he manages to maintain a quiet, smooth-talking facade, beneath lurks a deadly form of ruthlessness. Intolerant of anyone making the slightest deviation in his very disciplined protocol, he strikes at his own business associates with the speed and brutality of a rattlesnake. His money goes to furnish a beautiful new home for his mother and buy Thanksgiving turkeys for families in Harlem, but Lucas doesn't do this to be humane. He does it to curry favor and goodwill in his neighborhood. And he'll eventually need it, because even the most well-built empires weaken over time.

This is where New Jersey detective Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe in an equally Oscar-worthy performance) enters the picture. In demonstrating the topsy-turvy world of moral turpitude that was the law enforcement community during those times, Roberts' possession of ethics was nearly his downfall with his police brethren. Because he turned in a million dollars worth of unmarked drug money that found its way into the trunk of his car, he was deemed too honest to be trusted. His troubles are compounded when his sights are set on taking down Frank Lucas, whom his law enforcement colleagues deem a "cash cow" they don't want to see end up behind bars. When asked by a New York cop why he would want to arrest Lucas, Roberts responds: "We're crazy on this side of the river. Over here, police take down the bad guys." And with tireless patience, he does just that.

But American Gangster is not exactly a "gangster" movie. It parallels the lives of these two vastly different yet intelligent men and it brings them together in the end not to shoot it out, but to talk it out. The dialog and chemistry between Crowe and Washington, when they finally get together, is stellar. Actually, therein lay the problem. We do not see enough of these two great actors together. In fact, we are over an hour and a half into the film before Roberts even realizes that Lucas is the one he needs to apprehend. While this movie is marketed as a cat-and-mouse sort of plot, it is anything but that. The film gets so mired down in the laborious pursuit of fleshing out these characters individually that we don't get nearly enough of the magic that happens when they interact. This is particularly problematic with Roberts, with whom we have to sit through yet another tired cliche of "nagging wife who feels ignored and neglected by husband's noble pursuit." Sure, it's nice to know that Richie Roberts, for all of his professional integrity, has some personal stumbling blocks, but it detracts from the story of Frank Lucas and what went into bring him down.

As a movie with a runtime of 160 minutes, it suffers from the problem of going from 0-60 in 1.34 hours. Because of this, American Gangster falls just shy of achieving greatness, but it is still a very solid execution.

Gouda's Final Grade: B+

Gone Baby Gone

2007-10-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

Gone are the days of Casey Affleck's celebrity ambiguity

The first question people will ask when they look at the director credits of this movie is whether it is a good thing or a bad thing that it's written and helmed by Ben Affleck, he of Gigli and other countless commercial and critical failures over the last decade or so. The next question people will ask is whether Affleck did the right thing by putting his lesser-known kid brother in the lead role.

I am going to answer those questions first.

1. Yes, it is a very good thing that Ben Affleck chose to direct this film. If anyone (other than maybe Marty Scorsese) knows or writes Boston better than he can, I'd like to see him. I know it sounds like an eon ago, but try to remember Good Will Hunting and also remember that he and Matt Damon wrote the script and won (very well-deserved) Oscars for doing so.

2. With both this film and The Assassination of Jesse James under his belt, kid brother Casey Affleck is probably going to be holding a gold statuette of his own at some point.

Based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (who was also the author of the novel behind Clint Eastwood's Mystic River), Gone Baby Gone is the fourth installment of a series of books devoted to the private investigator duo of lovers Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Genarro (Michelle Monoghan). Kenzie has a way of tracking down thugs and other lowlifes due to his ability to insert himself into the ugly underbelly of Boston. He wears the accent well, knows the street lingo, and has a way of moving that suggests to us that he's never been far from his hometown and will likely be there to stay. Angie is not quite bred from the same stock as her boyfriend, but they compliment each other well, at least in the beginning.

When a 4-year-old girl, Amanda McReady, goes missing in the neighborhood, Kenzie and Angie are hired by the child's aunt (Amy Madigan) to assist the police in their investigation. The reason the aunt is asking for help is because the little girl's mother, Helene (Amy Ryan), is so steeped in alcohol and cocaine, that she's more of a liability than an asset to the search. When they express some reservations about taking on the assignment, the beleaguered relative pleads, "But, you can't do any harm!" And with that in mind, they begin their work in seedy bars and homes unearthing clues. The officers running the case, Remy Bressant (Ed Harris in an Oscar-worthy performance), Nick Poole (John Ashton), and Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) are at first reluctant to let these two into their investigation, but realize that Kenzie's street-savvy has a certain value. Before we know it, Kenzie is neck deep in a ransom exchange involving some stolen drug money, a Haitian coke dealer, and a whole slew of surprises and twists that I will not reveal here.

The common police procedural has a way of keeping the viewer guessing, but rarely surprises people. Anyone who has seen a single episode of C.S.I. knows the rule that the first person who looks guilty usually isn't, and the person who looks the least likely to have pulled the trigger is usually the one who has traces of gunshot residue on their hands, and a hidden motive to go along with it. What I admired the most about Gone Baby Gone was the skilled construction of a plot that made seemingly insignificant elements in the beginning important keys to understanding later in the film. Some might complain that the film's pace takes a little bit of a dip between the second and third acts, I would argue that the events that take place there are crucial to the development of Kenzie's character, and are also engrossing and brilliantly executed.

Of all of America's major cities, the one I'd least like to be lost in is Boston. It has a long and tattered history, at least by American standards, and with that age comes a legacy of dirt and moral ambiguity that one would be unlikely to find in a place like Desmoines, Iowa. In Gone Baby Gone, this sort of grittiness is captured with such deft skill that if I hadn't known ahead of time that this was someone's directorial debut, I would have pegged it the work of a seasoned auteur. The craft of the script from plot structure and dialog, to the cinematography, the acting, and the very authentic mise en scene all accomplished the goal that any great movie should: to remove me from my seat in the theater and transport me through the screen and into that world. I walked the streets of Boston with Patrick Kenzie. I could smell the soured beer that was likely on the floor of the Murphy's Law tavern. I felt the heart-wrenching sadness and sense of loss of the missing little girl's family (what few of them that were worth a damn) and the constant struggle to find a moral balance that Kenzie experienced in the face of some incredibly difficult choices. I'm still feeling that, actually.

After it's all said and done, Gone Baby Gone presents us with a set of moral and philosophical questions that asks us decide not between right and wrong, but right and right. This sets the stage for debates that have likely raged in many a car on the way home from the cinemaplex after seeing this movie. I was having that own debate with myself. This film is intelligent enough to let us decide for ourselves, but the feelings that are generated by exploring such questions linger long after the closing credits roll.

This is one of the best movies of the year.

Gouda's Final Grade: A

30 Days of Night

2007-10-21T21:14:00.001-07:00

Yes, Mr. Vampire, it is a bloody mess...

Attempting to review the turgid pill of a vampire movie 30 Days of Night is something of a chore. There are a few things working against me at the moment, not the least of which is a severe headache that started creeping into the right side of my brain about 80 minutes into the viewing. Upon reflection and several Excedrin, I have achieved just enough clarity to become convinced that the headache was not a coincidence. Because of this, I'm going to make it easy on myself and share with you the notes I took during the course of the film, and this should explain volumes:

dialog about as interesting and lively as an insurance seminar
plodding pace in first act
decent art direction
Josh Hartnett miscast
who wrote this screenplay?!
vamps not frightening
frenetic, ineffective editing
interesting overhead perspective shot
long lulls in action--needs some trimming
idiot plot device galore
no real sense of passage of 30 actual days
find something derogatory to say about the lead vamp
what a joyless, bloated, boring piece of crap!

I think that should pretty much sum it up; although I do want to clarify the ire I had with this film. It wasn't the plot. In fact, I think such an idea as a remote town in Alaska that becomes overrun by vampires during it's annual 30-day stint without sunlight is rife with the potential for a romping good time. I do not claim to have read the source material, which is a graphic novel, but as a film, 30 Days of Night contains all of the life and exuberance of a paperweight.

The director, David Slade, seems to have had a difficult time finding an adequate pace for this film. Having helmed the shocking yet good Hard Candy, he seemed in that film to demonstrate a talent for tortuously drawing out time. But in 30 Days of Night, the torture stopped being interesting almost from the beginning. This is due mostly in part to the fact that the performances are two-dimensional and leaden. Josh Hartnett plays Eben, the sheriff of the sleepy Barrow, Alaska, a town that looks almost as if it were comprised of a group of ice shanties and is filled with hardy residents who seem awfully resilient to frostbite as they trudge through white-outs in blizzards. He is involved in a legal separation from his wife, Stella (Melissa George) (and oh how I begged for Eben to scream that name to the top of his lungs during the course of the film) in what can only be described as a desperately needed plot device. We are not told why they are separated, but it's not necessary. I'm giving away nothing by telling you that they will eventually reconcile their differences and fall in love again through the harrowing obstacle of fighting a marauding mass of bloodthirsty undead folk. Hartnett has shown a wealth of acting talent in his previous projects, but with his still slightly boyish features is unconvincing here as the heroic sheriff of this frigid burg.

And speaking of undead folk, I'd like to bring up what is perhaps the biggest problem with 30 Days of Night: the vampires. Folklore generally paints these immortal creatures of the night as charismatic in some sense. Their centuries of life have developed in them a sense of cunning and style that makes their legend somewhat compelling. There are countless variations on the theme, of course. You have your Bella Lugosi version, your tortured, homoerotic Tom Cruise/Brad Pitt/Anne Rice variety, and there is the classic Bram Stoker interpretation. I've never been much of a fan of the brainless, over-zealous, demonic vampire. For one thing, they are just not interesting. If I want an evil eating machine, I'll watch a George Romero film. For another, their actions become incredibly repetitive. After 113 minutes of hearing roars, hisses, and shrieks and being witness to people being repeatedly pulled under their houses or dragged from their cars and having their jugulars ripped open and being "gang-slurped" by a team of humanoid leech/zombie hybrids, I was quite simply bored.

Although it is easy enough to praise the film's visual achievements, namely in lighting, special effects, and art direction, 30 Days of Night contained no surprises and few innovations, with characters that act more like caricatures, and dialog that never managed to make my brainwaves spike above the level of a post-operative bypass patient on a heavy morphine regimen. It's a one-trick pony, and the trick becomes tedious mere yards after crossing the starting line. This film would have fared much better in the hands of a director like Robert Rodriguez whose prowess with both visuals , energy, and dialog has already been proven in this genre with movies like From Dusk Til Dawn and Planet Terror. After sitting through two hours of this chore of a film, I'm more inclined to rename it 2 Hours of Blight.

Gouda's Final Grade: D

Eastern Promises

2007-10-06T18:49:00.001-07:00

Veni, Vidi, Viggo.. or at least the Russian equivalent...

David Cronenberg, director of Eastern Promises, has come a very long way in his career. From a start in low-budget horror films in the 70s, he has bloomed into one of the best dramatic directors in work today. He reminded people of this two years ago with the surprisingly good, Oscar-nominated A History of Violence, and he re-teams with the star of that film, Viggo Mortensen, in a dark, tense Russian crime drama.

In classic Cronenberg form, the movie's first scene is memorably graphic. Perhaps not Scanners "exploding head" graphic, but it's cringe-inducing enough to set the tone for this bloody exploration of a Russian crime family who have transplanted themselves to London. This is not a by-the-numbers mafia story, however. It is told through the words and experiences of vastly different people: Mortensen, the driver and bodyguard for the Vory V Zakone family, a midwife Anna (Naomi Watts), and a 14-year old pregnant Russian girl who died during the birth of her baby (at which Anna was in attendance). The girl left behind a tattered diary detailing the final months of her tragic life. Anna takes it and has it translated by her Russian uncle. The contents of the diary eventually lead her to the restaurant/business front of the Vorys, where the deceptively dangerous patriarch, Seymon, (Armin Mueller-Stahl) becomes aware of the dead girl's words, which are, to say the least, incriminating. The lives of Anna, her family, and the newborn baby are eventually put in grave danger.

That is about all of the plot I'm willing to reveal here. Suffice to say that it shifts gears several times throughout the film's 100 minutes, and the surprises are best served fresh. What I would rather do is extol the many virtues of Eastern Promises, starting with the screenplay. It is exceeding well-written by Steven Knight, whose other credits include the very good Dirty Pretty Things and inexplicably, episodes of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Here the dialog is engaging, appropriate, subtly witty, and not too aware of itself. The pacing and construction of the plot is also pitch-perfect. The film is exactly as long as it needs to be, and tells only the parts of the story that need to be told without making the viewer feel like something is missing. Often films of this genre act like an Encyclopedia Brittanica of mafia life, leaving the audience feeling exhausted by the time the closing credits start rolling. While you might not want to eat immediately after seeing Eastern Promises, you might feel up to running the rest of your day's errands.

The performances here are also not to be ignored. Naomi Watts continues to be one of the better actresses working today, and her role here as the unwitting target of a very dangerous group of people is strong, but with just enough vulnerability to give an otherwise cool movie a little bit of warmth. And then there is Viggo Mortensen, the film's violent and mysterious centerpiece. Clearly a method actor, Mortensen delves into his roles and appears to be consumed by them. He not only played Nikolai. He was him, and watching him fight completely naked in perhaps the most violent and authentically-staged fight scene (I'm sure you've heard, since that's what everyone is talking about) filmed in recent years only increased his worth as an actor in my eyes.

I would like to say that this is one of the best mafia movies I've seen in years, but Cronenberg did not really make a mafia movie. His films tend to transcend genre and instead become fascinating examinations of human nature. He is also a director who continues to surpass himself, and with Eastern Promises he has set his own bar for future efforts higher than ever. I for one can't wait to see what he does.

Final Grade: A

The Kingdom

2007-09-30T14:38:00.001-07:00

Saudi Arabia: Not an American vacation destination

The Kingdom, in every sense, begins with a bang. A very loud and bloody bang. For those who have been living off the radar for the last 80 or so years, you might not be aware of the fact that there are people in certain Islamic countries who don't so much appreciate American presence on their soil, and this resentment is normally expressed in the form of powerful explosives. In The Kingdom, we are shown a very powerful attack on an American housing compound in Saudi Arabia. As someone who has never given more than a cursory glance into the machinations of this country, I had no idea such establishments existed. Inside the walls of these compounds, one would see a microcosm of American society. The women roam free and uncovered. There are plenty of Chevys and Fords. There are cookouts featuring lots of pork products. There are baseball games, and those with a high vantage point outside those walls can grab their binoculars and get a glimpse of how the West lives. Imagine if those peeping toms were terrorists.

Jamie Foxx plays Special Agent Robert Fleury who is tasked to investigate the brutal bombing of this compound, and he is accompanied by a small team of other experts that include the most laid-back bomb expert I've ever seen named Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper), a young, sarcastic techie guy named Adam, (Jason Bateman), and Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner) who has the distinct honor of being not only the lone female in the FBI team, but also one of the few females in the film showing more than an inch of skin above her ankles. Their arrival in the country is not initially welcome. The Saudis and the United States agree that since the bombing was perpetuated by American presence on their soil, the addition of American investigators would only exacerbate the problem. But Agent Fleury manages to convince the Saudi Ambassador (through a meager amount of blackmail) to make the deal happen, and the team is on the first plane to Prince Sultan Air Base.

But don't get the idea that this is a by-the-numbers procedural drama. There is also the element of a buddy film here, and it is between two unlikely characters. The Saudi police officer in charge of accompanying the Americans in their investigation, Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom) starts off as a very strict and guarded officer, tasked with ensuring the safety of the team, even if it completely halts the gathering of evidence. As the film wears on, and after the team is granted permission by one of the Saudi princes to devote a full effort into solving the crime, a friendship begins to form between Agent Fleury and the Colonel, in spite of their vast cultural differences. There was a very clear attempt made by the makers of this film to balance pro-American and anti-Muslim views, and this makes The Kingdom have a thoughtfulness that you might not expect in a film of this genre. While one could spend an afternoon trying to dissect the core message from The Kingdom, it eventually becomes clear: the forces of good, no matter how diverse, can unite from across vast oceans and deserts to defeat evil.

A quick mention must also be made of The Kingdom's technical achievements. Although this was directed by the very competent Peter Berg (The Rundown, Friday Night Lights), the great Michael Mann was also a producer, and his signature, sharply frenetic camera work is all over this picture. The acting here was also superb all around, with Jamie Foxx as skilled as ever, and Chris Cooper managing to prevail in even a pared-down role such as this. The scene-stealer award, however, must be handed to the little-known Ashraf Barhom, whose Colonel Al Ghazi gave this movie the heart it so desperately needed.

A movie like The Kingdom invariably welcomes an opportunity to grandstand or pontificate on the repercussions of mixing Western and Muslim cultures. After all, this is the sort of plot material that demands your emotions get involved. The scenarios depicted here are all too possible, and they hit very close to home. In today's climate of fear and anti-Muslim sentiments, one might even question whether a film like this is even appropriate. But I'm not here to make those judgments. I'm here to review the film, and on the basis of plot, acting, and technical achievement, The Kingdom more than exceeded my already high expectations. At the risk of sounding a tad too on the nose, I was blown away by this film.

Gouda's Final Grade -- A

Shoot 'Em Up

2007-09-08T20:46:00.000-07:00

Eh... What's up, Doc?

Ladies and Gentleman, meet Clive Owen: dashing Oscar nominated film star of such great films as Closer and Children of Men. In Shoot 'Em Up, he brings his steely visage to the big screen as none other than a modern-day Bugs Bunny, foiling the plans of a modern-day Yosemite Sam, also known as Paul Giamatti.

Why, do you ask, is Shoot 'Em Up being likened to a Loony Tunes cartoon? Let me count the ways.

1. Mr. Smith (Owen's character) is undeniably resourceful and clever, like our favorite animated Wascally Wabbit. He also lives in what could be described as a hole, at least in the figurative sense.

2. Hertz (Giamatti) has a very nasty temper and really likes firing a big gun.

3. Mr. Smith has an insatiable appetite for raw carrots.

Of course, there are some deviations from the classic cartoon formula. For instance, Bugs Bunny never impaled people in the throat or the eye with said carrots. Bugs also never used carrots to discharge firearms. Bugs also didn't appear to have a taste for lactating Italian hookers. Nor did he get mixed up in a complex plot that involved a Senator with leukemia, who is harvesting babies in order to get matching bone marrow, and who is the target of a deadly gun lobby who wants to kill the Senator before he can pass a gun-control bill in Congress.

Yes, that is (more or less, anyway) the plot of Shoot 'Em Up. Not even I could make this stuff up.

Let me first say that this film in many ways is appalling, particularly if you are a parent. In no other movie have I seen a one-day old infant being jostled around so much, being wrapped in a flak jacket for protection, whose diapers were made of newspaper, and who was being fed pureed baby food almost immediately out of the womb. As a mother, I didn't want to think about the possibility of the baby going deaf from being subjected to the likes of constantly thundering gunfire and heavy metal music, or having its eye taken out by flying shards of glass.

But that's just the mother half of me that was appalled. As an action movie fan, I was enthralled in spite of myself. This is one of the most preposterous, over-the-top films I have seen in quite some time, but it was sold 100% due to the strength of the acting on the part of Owen and Giamatti, who made their characters entertaining and compelling. I also couldn't help but notice that under the construct of this utterly INSANE (yes, insane in CAPS) plot lurked a wink of satire about, of all things, gun control.

This will be a polarizing film, and I debated whether or not I should recommend it. Certainly, there will be people who will absolutely loathe it from top to bottom. I was not one of those people. I actually felt myself kind of loving it, and I admit wholeheartedly I was a little ashamed of this fact. This is, plain and simple, unabashed action for the true action lover. But it is well-acted action, and although most of the stunts are stupendously stupefying, I think that was the intent. Simply put, it is hard not to admire Shoot 'Em Up's sheer audacity.

Gouda's Final Grade -- B+

3:10 to Yuma

2007-09-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

A western hasn't looked this good in years...

The western film has been with us since the inception of cinema. It appeals to the heart of American values, which in great part stem from the gritty lawlessness on which this country was settled. The appeal of the genre has faded over several decades, however, but occasionally a great one is pulled out of the dusty cowboy hat that briefly reignites the flame in the heart of true American culture. Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven was one of them, and although 3:10 to Yuma is a remake of the 1957 film of the same name, I think it is safe to say that director James Mangold has successfully returned cinema to the frontier, making one of the best films of 2007.

Most westerns work as parables told on horseback, and this one is no different. Christian Bale plays Dan Evans, a wounded Civil War veteran turned horse rancher who is down on his luck and has become something of an embarrassment to his wife and eldest son. Their land is on the brink of being seized by a local businessman to whom Evans is indebted. An opportunity to make money and regain some credibility in the eyes of his loved ones all but falls into his lap when ruthless robber and outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) is captured in his town following a bloody stagecoach robbery. Evans is among a small assembly of men, who include among them a bounty hunter (played by a very grizzled looking Peter Fonda) and the banker whose money was stolen, who volunteer to escort Wade to the town of Contention where a train will carry the outlaw to Yuma prison and his eventual death. Ben Wade's gang is still on the loose, however, and they are determined to get their boss back.

That is the plot in a nutshell, but the plot is not what 3:10 to Yuma is actually about. It merely sets the stage for a fascinating character study. Ben Wade is a cold-blooded killer, but he's not simplistic. Russell Crowe plays him with an intelligence that makes him all the more dangerous and unpredictable. He is very comfortable in the lifestyle of a villain, and gives the air of a man who looked conscience in the face long ago and shot it point blank. He runs with a gang of cold-blooded lunatics who follow him with an unerring loyalty, and his right-hand man Charlie (Ben Foster) almost appears to be in love with him. There is a also an unmistakable sort of honor about Wade. He carries a certain measure of respect for his worst enemies and lets them live until they deliver a brutal insult to his dignity.

This is where the dynamic between him and Bale's character becomes incredibly magnetic. We get the sense that the two men admire one another in spite of their vast differences. Dan Evans is a failed man in many ways, but he is honest and true, and he never deviates from his mission to deliver Ben Wade to the train to Yuma. He has a respect for Wade nonetheless. He sees in him a confidence and strength that he has rarely been able to muster for himself. More surprising, however, is Wade's development throughout the film. He might not feel in himself the capacity for morality and humanity as Evans, but he sees it in the other man and he performs acts that are surprising not only to the audience, but apparently to himself. Without giving too much more of the film's plot away, the final act of the film is one of the most gripping 30 minutes of cinema I've experienced this year.

It is without question that westerns are movies that we can turn to when we as a country feel disconnected from the values and confidence that once made this nation swagger. One would think that a western that features two male leads who respectively come from England and Australia would be kind of ironic if not ill-fitting, but when you think about it, that in itself is also very much American.

Gouda's Final Grade -- A+

Halloween

2007-08-31T01:26:00.000-07:00

He's just a victim, guys!

Rob Zombie created something of a stir awhile back when he revealed he was going to remake the John Carpenter's horror masterpiece Halloween, making most of the American public sigh with a resounding "why?" After all, when something was done perfect the first time, what exactly is there to improve upon? The Carpenter film had it all: a compelling leading girl, chilling atmosphere, haunting soundtrack, and a villain that was made all the more frightening by his silent, masked, psychopathic brutality. We didn't know why Michael Myers was such a monster, but suffice to say that his presence was enough to make us quiver in fear. The skillful filmmaker managed to make the audience not only witness the terror, but live through it, and it is that very thing that has made the film endure for nearly 30 years. Knowing this, was the creator of shock-horror flicks like The Devil's Rejects and House of a Thousand Corpses able to do John Carpenter proud?

This fledgling critic must give a resounding "No!"

It isn't too hard to pin down what was wrong with the Zombie picture. For one, he changed the nature of the Myers mythology. In this modern age, it isn't enough to simply accept that there is a psychopathic killer on the loose who foils the not-so-innocent endeavors of lusty teenagers. The public demands, in this age of rampant psychological diagnosis and treatment, to know why people are so evil. So Zombie started at the beginning -- in Michael Myers' childhood, where we learn that he was the product of a stripper mother and an abusive stepfather (the perfect formula for brewing a serial killer, as we all know). He also had a penchant for killing small animals. You can see where this is going. After Michael spends several years spiraling down into a silent (but deadly) stupor after killing most of his family, he manages to escape the mental institution with a bloodlust unsullied by years spent jacked up on Thorazine.

First and foremost, Zombie's picture violated what is perhaps the cardinal rule in scaring people: he unmasked the villain and killed the suspense. What the Carpenter film did so well was staging the action through the eyes of the victims that Myers stalked during his murderous rampage. The white mask lurked mostly as a still figure in the background, or in short, striking shots in the foreground. Michael Myers was originally billed in the Carpenter script as "The Shape," and that was exactly what he was. Certainly, the original Halloween was violent by that day's standards, and could be viewed as understated by today's, but that wasn't the source of its scares. What this film attempted to do was show us Michael's trek from the psych ward back to suburbia through his eyes, effectively removing the audience from the picture and turning us into witnesses of senseless, over-the-top violence.

Forget that the film had some visual appeal. Forget that there were some amusing one-liners, and that Michael MacDowell made a very competent Dr. Loomis in the absence of the legendary Donald Pleasance. What we are left with is nothing more than a run-of-the-mill, joyless, nauseating slasher flick on about the same level as the Texas Chainsaw remakes, if not a notch down. This is yet another film that continues to foster the ADD mentality of the average moviegoer, where mindless bloodletting has taken the place of actual storytelling. If you get your kicks by sheer blood spatter, this may be your film. If you want to be genuinely frightened, and feel what it's like to have the heat slowly turned up beneath your seat, pop in the 1978 DVD and let one of the masters of real horror rock your socks Hitchcock-style.

Rob Zombie, you might have a way with a camera, but John Carpenter you ain't.

Gouda's Final Grade: D-

Hot Rod

2007-08-12T22:44:00.001-07:00

Go get 'em, Rod!

In my attempt to not spend most of my vacation behind the blog, I must bring to you a quick, poorly-written assessment of the new film Hot Rod, starring SNL's Andy Samberg as a stuntman hopeful in the vein of Evel Kinevel, only with a moped.

Rod's stunts are always failures in the most absurd, hilarious proportions, but he is never swayed in his determination to become world-renowned, mostly because he is driven by the memory of his late stuntman father. At home, he is equally determined to become an equal with his stepfather (Ian McShane) and the two engage in cringe-inducing, yet humorous fights in a way to work out their rivalry, while the mother (Sissy Spacek) looks on with a straight-faced nonchalance that is almost as funny as the fights themselves. When the stepfather becomes ill and is in need of a heart transplant, Rod is determined to raise the money for the operation so that his stepfather can become well enough again to engage Rod in combat. The way to do it: Stage a huge event in which he will jump fifteen school buses on his moped (which would break Kinevel's record of fourteen). But in order to even do that, he has to raise the money to secure the venue.

The fundraising opportunities are gut-busting. Rod sets himself on fire at children's birthday parties. He stands in the direct path of a swinging clothes dryer. He allows himself to become a human pinata. His crew supports him all along the way, sharing his vision with the same innocent naivete that makes the characters pitiful, yet likeable.

Samberg and his co-stars are the writers and creaters behind the SNL Digital Short videos that have become immensely popular thanks to the internet. "Lazy Sunday" and "Dick in a Box" should ring a bell. This film showcases their unique style of humor that will have you laughing from start to finish, although it does borrow in many instances from the Napoleon Dynamite school of off-kilter, understated humor that you will either get or be left bewildered by. Dynamite is still the superior film, as its pacing is more consistent, but Hot Rod makes up for it by being over the top and being stupid while not holding its characters in contempt.

There are many reasons to see "Hot Rod." It's quotable, stupid, and downright hilarious, but the most memorable moment in the film comes when Rod goes to his "quiet place."

You'll get it when you see it.

Gouda's Final Grade: A-

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

2007-07-11T02:52:00.001-07:00

The situation has become Harry...

The brilliance of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series is its ability to maintain a sense of wonder and whimsy even as its main characters face ever-darkening challenges and enemies. After all, even when there is evil afoot, we are seeing it through the eyes of teenagers who are dealing with the every day ins and outs of attending school and struggling for that ultimate prize of adulthood. No matter how scary things can get for them, we are supposed to feel a sense of awe and glee when kids manage to triumph over adversity. Those of us who have followed the adventures of Harry Potter and his friends, either through the novels or through the previous four films, understand this feeling, have felt drawn into this "world within a world" dynamic, and have made these stories ones that will endure for generations to come. If you are expecting to feel any of these things after viewing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, however, you may feel a tinge of disappointment.

Harry Potter, and his friends Ron and Hermione, enter their fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry quite a bit differently. At the end of the previous film, Potter faced and survived an encounter with the freshly-returned Dark Wizard to Rule Them All, Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes is back in feisty form). The problem is, Harry is the only one who was witness to this battle, and although the school's headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) believes Harry, the wizarding world at large is in a massive state of denial, particularly the head of the wizard government, Cornelius Fudge.

In response, a secret society of rebellious wizards and witches has been formed, The Order of the Phoenix, to try and build an army against Voldemort's growing forces. A lot of familiar faces from the previous films resurface, among them Remus Lupin (David Thewlis), and Harry's godfather Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). The Ministry of Magic is determined to keep Harry and Dumbledore silenced about Voldemort, however, and they install one of their own bureaucrats to oversee the running of Hogwarts and make sure that students aren't being improperly influenced to go against the Ministry's official statements. This person is none other than Dolores Umbridge, played with a sweetly sadistic air by Imelda Staunton, who employs methods most cruel and unusual in attempting to keep a reign on the students and their teachers.

Indeed, the performances here are great, particularly by Staunton who plays her role with a poisonous congeniality that makes you want to kick her teeth in, and the performances by our three main stars, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint, strengthen with every film. Harry Potter after year upon year of trials, has become a brooding, intense, disgruntled teenager, a world apart from the smiling, goggling child from the first films. His transformation is powerful and believable. The production values here are stellar, with CGI effects that have never looked prettier flying off the end of a wand. The overall look of the film is also a marvel, with a darkness that is both frightening and gorgeous to behold.

The problems enter with the film's pacing. Previously, these movies have been criticized for being a little on the long side. David Yates, with his first time at the helm of a Potter film, has seen to it to trim things down a bit. The novel of Order of the Phoenix was over 800 pages long. The film version runs around 138 minutes, making it easily the shortest of the series. With this stripping-down of plot points and characterization comes a feeling of being rushed from scene to scene. The veterans of the previous films, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, and Robbie Coltrane, have disappointingly been reduced to bit parts. Other elements of school life at Hogwarts have also been eliminated. Eventually we begin to wonder if these kids are actually in school. The final battle in the film at the Ministry of Magic is a technical masterpiece, but the suspense was not properly built-up, so that when things finally do begin to happen, they have little impact.

The Order of the Phoenix would have been better had it actually gotten the Peter Jackson treatment. Audiences can withstand a long movie, provided it is written and directed in such a way as to make time cease to exist, and another 30 minutes just might have made the difference between a mediocre film and a great one. David Yates is set already to direct Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, due out next year, and I implore him to take his time with this one, and allow the viewer to be immersed in and savor this world and all of its charms and idiosyncrasies. He might want to begin by watching Harry Potter and The Prizoner of Azkaban to get a better idea of how to master this feat. Yates attempted to cram an entire world into a pillbox, and even though it might have made studio executives happy, it is a disappointment to the fans. Spells were flying a'plenty in The Order of the Phoenix, but the film was ultimately short on actual magic.

Gouda's Final Grade: B-

1408

2007-06-23T13:08:00.001-07:00

Mike Enslin encounters yet another exhibit in the museum of creep that is room 1408

The modern horror film has become an exercise in cruelty, where typically the viewer is expected to take some form of twisted joy in the torture and mutilation of innocent people at the hands of a sadistic killer. Not that there isn't a time and a place for this type of entertainment, but I am of the mind that such viewing is perhaps best had in small doses, as it can dull the mind's ability to experience the true terror that can be found in a movie like 1408.

A Stephen King short story of the same name, 1408 began life as 25 pages of that eerie, subtle form of creepiness that had the power to burrow surreptitiously under your skin and take up residence for awhile. Director Mikael Hafstrom's interpretation of this story works in much the same manner, developing what was a very effective, yet starkly told tale (in terms of plot and character development) into a well-rounded, chilling exercise in what could be more easily termed psychological suspense than horror. John Cusack plays Michael Enslin, a moderately successful author who makes a living off of traveling to supposedly haunted destinations and writing about the specters he sees, or more accurately doesn't see. Enslin is clearly a man who doesn't believe a word he writes. Initially compelled to find a shred of evidence for the existence of an afterlife after the death of his young daughter, Enslin has become cynical. His uneventful trips to remote country inns and the gravesites of serial killers have become exercises in receiving paychecks rather than visits from spirits.

When he receives a postcard in the mail depicting the historic Dolphin Hotel in New York City, with the admonition on the back, "Do not enter room 1408," Enslin sees the opportunity for a good finish to his latest novel about haunted hotels. Procuring a reservation for this room proves to be difficult, but Enslin is not prepared to back down. The Dolphin's manager, Mr. Olin (a small role played very effectively by Samuel L. Jackson), pleads with Michael to not stay in this room, detailing 1408's very bloody history (56 deaths have occurred throughout the hotel's long history) and the fact that no one has ever lasted more than an hour inside. Enslin is not swayed, brandishing the swagger and sarcasm of a man who has heard it all and who insists on being granted access due to some fuzzy civil rights law. Olin sees he's fighting a losing battle and hands over the key. An old-fashioned brass key. According to Olin, magnetic card locks do not work on 1408.

Once Enslin is ensconced inside the modestly-appointed suite, he settles down for what he assumes will be another night of emptying the mini-bar, making occasional quips on his voice recorder. What ensues, however, are escalating events that could only be described as the terrifying personal hell of a deeply wounded man. It isn't clear what exactly haunts 1408. Certainly, the room's victims make appearances, but the room has a hallucinatory effect on Enslin's mind, altering the room's spatial reality and giving the helpless viewers the impression that the man is slowly losing his mind.

From this point, 1408 operates more like a one-man show, hinging almost all of its credibility on John Cusack's performance, which is nothing short of stellar. We believe that he doesn't believe, and we believe when he finally begins to. We are convinced that this is a man whose grip on reality has been drastically altered in a very short span of time, and we sympathize with him when his real wounds are ripped open by the room's ghastly presence. Although there were a couple of points where director Hafstrom went a smidge over the top in his attempt to frighten the audience, and the false endings made the film feel a tad longer than its 125-minute length, he generally kept the reins in and didn't stray into the realm of the cheap and tasteless. The film is held together by solid acting and a genuinely creepy atmosphere, and it made me feel in no particular hurry to stay in a hotel room again anytime soon.

It is true that 1408 might not horrify the majority of its viewers, but I'm not so sure that was its aim. It is a cold visitor that wants to come and sit with you for a couple of hours, stroke your cheek, and leave you feeling relieved to step out into the sunlight again. This is a film that offers a lot of substance for those who have not been desensitized in this culture of gratuitously showcased bloodshed and entrails, who prefer their frights to be experienced on a more cerebral level, and who retain the ability to empathize with a painful loss. On that level, 1408 not only skillfully made, but it is surprisingly refreshing.

Gouda's Final Grade -- A-

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

2007-05-25T00:48:00.000-07:00

Keira Knightley pleads with the King of Editors to please have mercy...

I love chocolate cake. In fact, I could probably eat chocolate cake a lot more often than I do if my scale were not guaranteed to depress me with the results of that kind of enjoyment, and even if the calories were promised to magically float away into the cosmos without making any contact with my hips, I could not chow down on chocolate cake for three hours straight. Watching the third and final installment of the wildly successful Pirates of the Caribbean franchise was like doing just that, and similar to the effects of eating a mountain of chocolate cake, my body went into a numbing state of shock afterward. Frankly, my brain is still threatening to vomit hours after the onslaught.

This is not to say that At World's End is a bad movie. In fact, it was a very skillfully made, thrilling marvel. Like chocolate cake, it was actually quite delicious in parts. The special effects were top-notch, the action was near perfection, and the movie maintained the same affectionate sense of humor of the previous films, and even as the adventure passed the 2-hour mark with no discernible end in sight, I found that I was still engrossed. But (going back to the chocolate cake analogy that I intend to wear you out with in the same manner that director Gore Verbinski attempted to do with this bloated swashbuckler) it was the same kind of engrossment that one has when they go into binging autopilot; taste failed to enter the equation after awhile, with the act of chewing and swallowing taking center stage for the final 45 minutes.

I could try to describe the plot here, but would be like trying to taste each individual ingredient in every single taste of the now trite chocolate cake. It's simply impossible to do. About halfway through the film, I found that it was easier to swallow the whole thing in one big mushy gulp. Basically you have a giant conglomeration of pirates, none of whom are trustworthy and all of whom have a specific agenda. After about the eighth or ninth double-cross, I simply ceased to care because I assumed that it would all eventually come together in the end. I suppose it did. Either I masterfully figured it all out, or I was just too tired to give a damn, but I'll give you the basic sketch as I saw it. The infamous Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp, as brilliant as ever, even if his performance was weighed down by extranneous plot elements is in Davie Jones' Locker, and the other regular players, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightley) have to rescue him. Apparently Sparrow's presence is needed at some big meeting of the world's pirate lords that will determine who will win in the big showdown between the pirates and the big bad Brits of the East India Trading Company.

But of course, it's never that simple. Every person aboard this ship has made a deal with or against someone else to get something else in return. Will wants the main ship, The Black Pearl, to make a deal with Davey Jones (the man with the be-tentatcled face) to free his father from the Flying Dutchman's crew. Jack Sparrow wants to make a deal with Norrington, the head of the East India Trading Company, in order to do something that would net him immortality after he slays Davey Jones and takes over as captain of The Flying Dutchman. Somewhere in there Keith Richards comes in and makes his cameo as Jack's Father. Oh and yeah, there is the whole deal with this goddess of the sea, Calypso, who is supposed to be freed from her bodily form by the pirate lords so that she can do... something. I don't know. I simply don't remember. I simply don't care. Trying to sort through the plot twists of this movie is like attempting to organize by color the scattered bits of confetti littering the streets after the New Years Eve party in Times Square.

What this all boils down to is whether the third and final Pirates of the Caribbean film is worth seeing. I guess that depends. Of course, if you are a fan of this franchise, then you will see it no matter what I say. And I won't lie -- the final 45 minutes of the movie were an absolute wonder to behold. But are those 45 breathtaking minutes worth the 2 hour near-doldrum that precedes them? Barely. A three-hour movie is only successful if one fails to notice that their butt is numb from sitting for so long, and I was shifting in my seat well before the credits rolled.

The producers of this film need to realize that just because we love Johnny Depp's unique characterization and the endearing antics of his scurvy crew, we are not required to be force-fed to the point of bursting in order to be satisfied. Like a deliciously rich chocolate cake, it's best served in smaller slices. And speaking of slicing, I would have been a lot more satisfied if the editors had considered doing even a smidge of that in post-production. I'd much more prefer this movie on DVD. At least then I'd be able to get a doggy bag.

Gouda's Final Grade: C

28 Weeks Later

2007-05-13T17:05:00.000-07:00

There's no light at the end of this tunnel...

Oh hey look! It's a post-apocalyptic horror movie featuring zombie-like creatures and mostly little-known actors! It is obviously going to be a recipe for cheesiness, disappointment, wasted money, and the loss of a couple precious hours that could have otherwise been spent doing more productive things. Right?

Hold on there, chap. Apparently you've never seen "28 Days Later," hailed as one of the best movies of the genre, and I will be the among many who will hail its sequel "28 Weeks Later" as very nearly that movie's equal as well as one of the most unnerving horror movies I've seen in quite some time.

"28 Weeks," as you can guess by its title, picks up a few months from where the first film left off. Britain has been decimated by a "rage virus" that turns its victims into marauding, bloodthirsty nutbags. Most of the diseased have died off from starvation, and the U.S. Army has moved in to help clean up and bring people back into areas that have been designated safe and free of infection. The film's plot focuses on two children, Andy and Tammy, who reunite with their father Don (Robert Carlyle) after a long separation in which the children's mother was lost to groups of diseased people who were still roaming the English countryside. Although the Army keeps a tight control over the city's "safe zone," it is inevitable that the virus would find a way to penetrate the barrier, and when it does, all hell breaks loose.

Downtown London is a vision that is bleak and frightening, as we see streets and buildings devoid of life and piled with the debris of a civilization recently obliterated. This realism is enhanced by brilliantly realistic art direction, a raw soundtrack (although silence permeates a good deal of the film, which is equally effective), and grainy, washed-out cinematography. The editing is very jerky and frenetic, something about which I'd normally complain, but actually admired in this type of setting, which is designed to make us feel as confused as the characters themselves.

Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who also penned the screenplay, does a fantastic job of staging an atmosphere that is nothing short of chilling, and he never fails to instill this gnawing sense of unease and dread. A stand-out scene in the film involves our main characters moving through a pitch-black subway station with the aid of a nightscope. I was reminded briefly of the final scene in The Silence of the Lambs, and every muscle in my body was taut with anxiety the entire time. Also escalating the tension is that one never quite certain when one of the protagonists is going to bite it (or get bitten, as the case may be). Although this is a typical feature in most scary movies, what makes "28 Weeks Later" different is that we are actually made to care about many of these characters. Even the soldiers are portrayed as human in this film, when they could otherwise have been made to be cold, mechanized, stereotypical killers. We see their horror when they are ordered to kill every living thing on site (even uninfected citizens) in order to contain the infection, and we feel it as well.

It's rare to find a film in the horror genre that delivers on so many levels: technical skill, genuine scares, and sincerely heart-wrenching dread. "28 Weeks Later" doesn't let up, and we feel drained at the end. My only question is, are we going to be getting an update on the status of this apocalypse in 28 months?

Gouda's Final Grade -- A

Grindhouse

2007-04-08T16:09:00.000-07:00

**The following review will be written in the same frame of mind as the viewer who was watching this film. This is because in the course of watching this film, the viewer experienced something of an age-regressing, multi-orgasmic, beautifully/painfully gorgeous epiphany that made her realize that it's been years since she has had so much fun seeing a movie, let alone a double feature.

First up -- Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror:

Okay, so, right? We have this these crazy soldier guys (one of them is Bruce Willis) in masks and stuff, and we're not sure why at first, until they take them off and then their skin gets all "EW," you know? Well it turns out that this yucky gas stuff kind of acts like a virus on whoever comes in contact with it and turns them into evil zombies who eat people's brains! Well, there is this guy who kicks all kinds of ass named El Wray played by Freddie Rodriguez who has all of these awesome skills with guns and knives and whatnot, and he has this go-go dancer girlfriend named Cherry Darling who only has one leg. Well, when they start kicking all kinds of zombie ass, El Wray hooks up this huge gun to the stump of Cherry's leg and she walks on it and then lifts her leg and blasts all of those fuckers to kingdom come! I was like OMIGOD! How in the hell is she even firing that thing, because she doesn't have any kind of a trigger and shit, and then I was like "I DON'T CARE!" because how often to you see some hot stripper chick firing missiles and shit from her LEG? How about, like, NEVER, okay? So where was I? Oh yeah, this movie has it all! Great characters, awesome gore, and all kinds of funny dialog, stunts, and references to other Rodriguez/Tarantino movies. You have, like, no idea! All I know is I was totally into this flick. Oh yeah, and it even had that guy in it from the original Terminator movie! You know, the one who played Sarah Connor's boyfriend? Totally cool! This movie was outrageous, over the top, gross, perfect, and PERFECTLY GROSS! Dude! All by itself it would have been worth the price of admission, like, a bajillion times over. Robert Rodriguez has amazing skills as a filmmaker. Planet Terror gets an A all the freakin way!

Next Movie -- Quentin Tarantino's Deathproof

Alright, so I'm not tryin to come down on my boy Q or anything like that, but I have to say, after being hammered by Planet Terror, it was kind of hard to get immediately into Deathproof. That's because Tarantino likes to flex his dialog muscles overtime, and in the first part of this movie, that's ALL he fucking did was have his characters talk, talk, talk! I mean I'm not stupid and I don't have some short attention span or anything, but God, ya know? I was still interested, though, because Kurt Russell plays this creepy guy who drives this scary looking 1970 Chevy Nova stunt car, and it turns out he's this crazy serial killer who likes to trap women in his car and take them for a bloody ride, right? So, like, that was cool and stuff. There were some pretty sick gory shots early on with the killer's first victims. But then the movie kind of slowed down again and introduced us to this whole OTHER set of characters, Russell's supposed next victims. And then I was like OH. MY. GOD what is going on here?? It's like we're starting ALL over again, right? I mean, the characters were funny and shit, talking that classic Tarantino jive but I gotta say, there just wasn't enough happening. It was like the momentum from the first movie totally died! But then... Well, I'm not going to spoil it for you, but Quentin totally makes up for it with the last half hour of the movie because there was the most awesome car chase scene I've ever watched right up there on the screen, and I was practically wetting my pants during the whole thing! And then it just hit me when it was all over that I totally sold Tarantino short initially! If I had seen this movie by itself I probably would have liked it a lot more from the get-go. So, based on that, I'm giving Deathproof an A-. Planet Terror was still the better overall movie, but this one is great in its own right.

And don't even get me started on all of the cool little extras like the fake movie trailers! The first one, Machete, was the best one, although the Thanksgiving one by Eli Roth was a goddamn riot.
Grindhouse was, by far, one of the best theater experiences I've had, and will probably have this year. Rodriguez and Tarantino know how to entertain, and they dished up something here that was unique, nostalgic, unforgettable, and something that makes you want to get down on your knees and thank God for the movies.

Gouda's Final Overall Grade: A

Zodiac

2007-03-09T09:20:00.000-08:00

Director David Fincher's achievement in bad 70s hair is nearly as masterful as his movie

David Fincher is a filmmaker who was quick to achieve cult hit status with enthralling visual and suspense masterpieces like Fight Club, Seven, and The Game, but with Zodiac, he makes a slight departure from his norm, embarking on something almost resembling a period piece. But true to his form it's a gruesome period: the terrifying reign California's Zodiac Killer from 1968 until the mid-late 70s that claimed an estimated 37 lives.

Zodiac, based on the book of the same name by Robert Graysmith (played in the film by Jake Gyllenhaal) attempts to illuminate that the serial killer didn't only end the lives of his victims with knives and bullets, but through hollowing out the existences of the investigators and journalists who were obsessed with catching the murderer who taunted them with clever codes and belligerent letters.

Graysmith is a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle, a former Eagle Scout, and an all-around good, smart kid who takes a keen interest in the Zodiac from the onset, but for the most part is unnoticed in an office filled with journalistic old-timers and hotshots. The most popular reporter is Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr. in yet another spectacular performance), who manages to have a talent valuable enough to the paper to allow him to get away with drinking his breakfast every morning at a local tavern. The two make an unlikely pair, but they manage to form a bond whenever the Zodiac's letters start rolling in. The narrative eventually jumps to the law enforcement side of the story, introducing us to Inspector David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and his partner William Strong (Anthony Edwards) who are faced with the hard task of trying to coordinate their efforts with the four other precincts in which the Zodiac has claimed lives. The process is chaotic and at times sloppy, leading one to wonder what would have been accomplished had the murders occurred in a more modern era. The two sides (law enforcement and journalism) manage to at times help and hinder one another during the course of the investigation, and we can almost see the Zodiac himself pulling their strings from above.

Let's start with the obvious merits of this film, the most important of which is Fincher's claim to fame: his visual style. From the muted, almost yellowish overtones to the film itself, to the impeccable art direction featuring everything (lots and lots of polyester) that made that decade aesthetically unappetizing, Zodiac gives the impression from the onset that this isn't just a story about the 1970s, but that it was plucked directly from there. There are also the scenes involving the Zodiac's murders which are nothing short of bone-chilling. This killer was not afraid to strike in broad daylight, and it was the most frightening scene in the film. Fincher's staging of these murders was perhaps most indicative of his abilities as a visual storyteller; he manages to shock the audience without the overly-gratuitous use of blood and violence, something lost on most modern directors.

The weak points come with character development and actual story structure. It might seem hard to believe that a movie that runs over 2 and a half hours in length would be lacking in either of those things, but it's true. The characters with whom we are supposed to be sympathizing often feel cold and detached from the viewer, and we get a sense that there was supposed to be a lot more to the story that was trimmed out. As a result, certain characters feel completely out of place -- namely that of Graysmith's wife played by Chloe Sevigny. Also, there were plot threads that only seemed to serve the purpose of inserting artificial thrills, and those could have been sacrificed in order to better flesh out the main players. I anticipate the DVD release in the hopes that an uncut, full-length version would solve these problems. Despite those flaws, however, the film remains utterly fascinating.

What becomes apparent, as we witness the lives of these men (Graysmith, Toschi, Strong, and Avery) become consumed with the tracking down of this cold-blooded killer, is that the Zodiac is always at least one step ahead of them. Because of the allure of this psychopath, otherwise good people succumb to failed marriages, lost jobs, and drug addictions all in an effort to solve this mystery. Ultimately, we are left feeling as frustrated by the lack of hard answers as they must have been. If that was Fincher's mission, it was most skillfully accomplished in spite of the film's narrative issues.

Gouda's Final Grade -- A-

Reel Gouda Capsules

2007-02-05T11:37:00.000-08:00

This time of year, as most of you know, is a desolate wasteland in terms of decent moviegoing fare, which has given me a good excuse to start exercising my Netflix muscle again. Below, you will also find a short review of the film "Dreamgirls."

1. Dreamgirls -- The broadway show makes a big splash on the big screen, featuring a story that is supposed to parallel that of The Supremes, about a trio of singing ladies and the trials and tribulations of their rise to fame and the drama that ensues afterward. While the talent in this film was prodigious (particularly on the parts of Jamie Foxx and Academy Award nominees Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson), I do believe that this film was slighly overrated. The narrative was a tad cold and inconsistent, and as a result it failed to pluck the heartstrings. In my opinion, it got all the right Oscar nominations. If anything, see it for Hudson's astonishing vocal and acting power.
Gouda's Final Grade: B+

2. Hard Candy -- The mind-twisting beauty of independent cinema is perfectly showcased in this film that features a 30-something man who entices young girls on the internet. His latest choice, however, has an agenda all her own. The acting between the two leads (particularly the young Ellen Page) is superb, the subject matter is compelling, and events as they unfold are often difficult to watch. You will feel nothing if not manipulated, and you will question yourself for days. Trust me when I say you have not seen a movie quite like this.
Gouda's Final Grade: A-

3. Feast -- Told in the traditional vein of the classic B-movie cult horror gore fest, Feast is an entertaining, gratuitious adventure centered around a group of strangers who are stuck in a remote dive and are forced to fend off a group of bloodthirsty, gargoyle-like monsters who are hungry for human flesh. Gasps and laughs abound in this Project Greenlight release, thanks to the witty one-liners and liberal use of bodily fluids. Sometimes, though, the movie tends to wink at the audience a bit too much, and the dialogue is not as strong in comparison to similar films, such as the fantastic recent romp Slither. Also the editing is a bit too jerky in places to be effective. I would have sacrificed some of the juicier gory bits to have smoother action sequences. Still, Feast is more than worth the price of a rental, and it does a good job of feeding life into a genre that has withered a bit over the years.
Gouda's Final Grade: B

Pan's Labyrinth

2007-01-20T17:01:00.000-08:00

Not your typical fairytale creature...

There is something to be said for the immersiveness of a foreign film, especially one with subtitles, because of the way the brain must be engaged in order to comprehend what's on the screen. There is also something to be said for this irony: My review for "Pan's Labyrinth" will perhaps be one of the worst ones I've ever written, even though it is one of the best movies I've seen in awhile. And even funnier: I'm not even sure WHY it's one of the best movies I've seen in awhile. So let's break this down here, so that perhaps by the end of this piece, I'll have a better grasp on my own appreciation for this remarkable piece of cinema.

First of all, I'm not even sure what kind of movie "Pan's Labyrinth" is. It's a fairytale, it's a drama, it's a thriller. The only genre this film misses out on is romance. Here is the basic blueprint:

The time period is 1940s Spain, where the country is in the throes of Fascist rule. A young girl, Ofelia, travels with her pregnant mother into the country to live with the man her mother just married -- a cruel, ruthless captain of the Spanish army. Because the child's mother is restricted to bedrest for the duration of her pregnancy, and because the girl's existence is nothing short of lonely and grim sharing an old, creaky house with a cruel, sadistic stepfather, Ofelia finds herself in the midst of a fantasy of her own creation, a world filled with imagery that is nothing short of frightening and enthralling. She's a creative girl, and the creatures who fill this dreamscape are an exercise in artistic brilliance. In a better world, Ofelia would have made a hell of an author. An example of this is the Faun creature, who looks something like a minotaur meshed with a tree trunk, as envisioned by someone who has had a healthy dose of toxic mushrooms sprinkled on their breakfast cereal. This Faun guides Ofelia on a series of quests that, upon their completion, are supposed to transport her to a magical kingdom, of which she is a princess.

That brief synopsis makes Pan's Labyrinth seem rather simplistic, and it is anything but. The film itself is a labyrinth of ideas and story, and Ofelia's adventures in her "wonderland" are frequently interrupted by goings-on in the real world, particularly by the cruelties enacted by Captain Vidal against the rebels of the country's regime. There are images in this film of unabashed greusomness, and a lot of it is not for the faint of heart or stomach.

Visually, Pan's Labyrinth is a masterpiece and should be a sure Oscar contender for Art Direction, not to mention Best Foreign Film. It is refreshing to see such stark imagery on the screen. For the second theater experience in a row, I have been taken on a unique, visceral journey. I'm not entirely sure this is coincidental, because both films (the previous one was Children of Men) were made by foreign directors (Alejandro Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro, respectively) and both challenge American convention. Perhaps that reason, above all others, is why I admire and recommend this movie.

Gouda's Final Grade: A

As a side note: this film heavily earns its "R" rating and is decidedly NOT for children, although I wouldn't be entirely averse to showing it to someone around 12 or so.

Children of Men

2007-01-07T19:41:00.000-08:00

I don't care what this picture says, Clive Owen is still hot...

Believe it or not, some people imagine the future to be a pretty bleak place, envisioning war, famine, disease, and oppressive, violent governments. What author P.D. James conceived for her novel Children of Men was a highly dystopic future, where every woman on the planet was rendered infertile for no apparent reason. In the year 2027, no new children have been born for the past 18 years. Now, this might sound like a dream come true for some people. In fact, I know of one in particular to whom this scenario would be more like a utopia; however, this story, as realized on film by director Alfonso Cuaron (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) paints a dreary landscape on a canvas of despair, one frought with unimaginable suffering and violence, and it hits one in the solar plexus with brutal imagery so realistic that it would take a guided tour in a Hummer through downtown Fallujah during a full-scale attack to match, at least in terms of shock value.

The story is centered in England, which has become a bit of something out of George Orwell's lighter dreams in terms of a totalitarian society, and it is scarred by almost 2 decades worth of hopelessness, the inevitable byproduct of a civilization that realizes it can no longer reproduce. Hopelessness so severe, in fact, that the government regularly distributes suicide kits for people who want to help bring about the inevitable that much quicker. Not helping matters is that the government has also imposed an all-out imprisonment (more like genocide) of illegal immigrants. They are rounded up, caged, and placed into hellish refugee camps. Hitler would have been proud. We are never quite let on to what began this spat of violence against immigrants, but I think this was intentional. It is merely used as a backdrop to create an immersive world full of turmoil, as well as to create the conflict for our major characters.

Clive Owen plays Theo Farron, an unlikely hero who gets by in an unassuming job while nursing a liquor habit. He is contacted by his estranged wife Julian (Julianne Moore), who is an outlaw activist working in favor of immigrant rights, and the leader of an extremist (some would say terrorist) group. She asks him if he could procure papers that would help a refugee woman out of the country. It turns out that this particular refugee is pushing full steam ahead into her third trimester of pregnancy, which of course makes her a valuable commodity. What ensues from this point is a volatile trek to get this woman to safety. Safety being "The Human Project." We have no idea what this entity actually is, but it is perceived that they are working on something that could help women conceive again. Michael Caine makes for the film's "lighter" side, playing Theo's friend and aid, as well as an aging hippie and political cartoonist who has made a great life for himself by selling what the government, in a sad irony, still makes illegal -- marijuana.

There is much that is not explained by way of plot in Children of Men. In fact, the film can at times be very cold, stark, and difficult to watch. The action and cinematography (filmed with a hand-held camera) are jarring, and they sear the memory with images on par with a film like Saving Private Ryan, particularly by the third act when our protagonists enter a refugee camp that is nothing short of nightmarish in its realism and authenticity. Clive Owen provides his best acting work to date in this decidedly unglamorous role.

Themes and moral messages abound in this film, and whether or not one agrees with them is a whole other matter. It is difficult to ignore the destructive tendencies of human beings, particularly when matters turn desperate. Children of Men captures this desperation at its most dire, and it haunts the mind long after the viewer leaves the theater.

Gouda's Final Grade: A

The Reel Gouda's 2006 Round-Up

2006-12-29T10:27:00.000-08:00

So here you have it -- the culmination of a year's worth of substantial celluloid viewing condensed into a mere 10 standout. Even pretend film reviewers such as myself should be able to develop a 10 Best list, and there were quite a few worthy contenders this year. Keep in mind, however, that because I am a pretend film reviewer, I have to see movies on my own (limited) time. Also, being a pretend film reviewer means that I do not get the opportunity to attend critics screenings and therefore I did not get to see every single critically acclaimed movie that came out this year. So don't e-mail me asking why awards contenders like The Queen or Little Miss Sunshine didn't make my list. Time and opportunity were simply not available to me.

10. An Inconvenient Truth -- No matter how hard Al Gore tries to avoid it, he always manages to come off as a bit of a douchebag, but don't let that stop you from absorbing his message in this powerful, highly-effective, yet easy-to-digest documentary about climate change.

9. The New World -- A beautiful epic that was praised by critics but largely ignored by audiences, this Terrence Malick film about John Smith and the conflicts between the English and the Native Americans is quite simply a moving work of art, even if you don't consider yourself enthralled about this period of history. Stars Colin Farrell and Christian Bale.

8. Match Point -- The best Woody Allen film in recent years brings us a haunting tale of betrayal, deception, and greed when a young tennis instructor finds himself suddenly living a life of decadence when he meets a wealthy family. The film is immediately engrossing, but the last 30 minutes are particularly powerful.

7. Apocalypto -- It's a shame that an unsavory person like Mel Gibson has to be such a brilliant filmmaker, but it would also be a shame to leave his epic saga about the beginning of the downfall of the Mayan civilization off of this list, because it is truly like nothing you've ever seen.

6. Inside Man -- While Spike Lee has always been a rather inconsistent filmmaker, he hits this unconventional heist flick out of the ballpark. Denzel Washington is as strong as ever as a police detective determined to find out the truth behind a seemingly routine bank robbery.

5. Casino Royale -- The Daniel Craig naysayers are hopefully roasting over an open fire in hell, because not only is Craig utterly captivating as James Bond, but this renewal of the Bond franchise that is intended to take the character back to his darker, more rugged roots is the most skillfully-made, heart-pounding action thriller of the year.

4. Thank You For Smoking -- This unbelievably funny and intelligent movie about the tobacco lobby features political satire (not to mention actor Aaron Eckhart) at its finest.

3. The Prestige -- Proving that movies themselves can be magic, director Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins) weaves a story about two rivaling magicians and the consequences of their obsessions that is nothing short of spectacular. Features great acting work on the part of Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, and Michael Caine. Particularly a great film worthy of repeat viewing.

2. United 93 -- While many people are generally leery of seeing movies about September 11th, they are doing themselves a disservice by missing this brilliant film by Paul Greengrass. Filmed in almost a documentary style that captures the events of that dark day in real time, the characters are nameless faces, and it has the ability to make us feel as if we were right there with them, making this one of the most emotionally-impacting films to come out in recent years.

1. The Departed -- Martin Scorcese has proven time and time again that he deserves his spot as one of the greatest directors of all time, and The Departed is further proof of this. Featuring top-notch acting by Leonardo Dicaprio, Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, and even Mark Wahlberg, this dark, violent drama about two people who are forced to live double lives repeatedly hits you in the gut.

Honorable Mentions:

Monster House -- gleefully dark and entertaining. Not for the under-8 crowd.

Borat -- Shocking and at times brilliantly funny, Sacha Baron Cohen deserves high props for his daring faux documentary even though it can be difficult to watch.

V for Vendetta -- The Wachowski brothers make a solid, dark film about an eccentric man and his unlikely sidekick (Natalie Portman) who dare to remake a dystopian society by particularly incendiary measures.

Slither -- The ultimate in goulish good fun, this gory little flick, made in classic B-movie horror style, is bloody terrific.

Happy Feet -- Fantastic, original kid fun about a group of singing and dancing emperor penguins.

The Lake House -- The undeniable chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves makes this paradoxical plot about two star-crossed lovers who are separated by a gulf of two years a pleasure to watch.

Dis-Honorable Mentions:

The Hills Have Eyes -- If it inspires you to walk out of the theater so you can go wash your car, well... it ain't very good...

The Da Vinci Code -- Its folley is that it was TOO faithful to the book. Add to that the bad hair, over-the-top acting, and Ron Howard's refusal to actually edit this bloated turd of a film and you have an overall awful trip to the movies.

Silent Hill -- Not only the worst movie of 2006, but also a stark reminder of how I'm still a bit sore from that loss of two hours of my life. I expect this film to one day help resurrect the Mystery Science Theater 3000 series.

Apocalypto

2006-12-24T20:02:00.000-08:00

Loincloths. Lots and lots of loincloths.

The beginning of Mel Gibson's epic Apocalypto begins with a most apt quote by historian Will Durant: "A civilization is not conquered without, until it is destroyed within." When we are first introduced to a young hunter named Jaguar Paw and his family in a quaint, peaceful jungle, we see little sign of this inner decay. In fact, hunting and procreating are the main orders of business for this little village that appears to be completely cut off from pre-Columbian Mayan civilization that we envision with fancy headdresses and towering step pyramids. So imagine their utter surprise when they are invaded by a raping, pillaging, bloodthirsty brigade of fellow Mayan warriors who burn their village to the ground and round up all of the men to be taken to the main city as objects of blood sacrifice to the gods. Jaguar Paw takes his family and lowers them into a deep pit in order to hide them from the invaders before he is captured. What ensues from this point is a jaw-dropping, fast-paced, bloody glut of action that details our hero's attempts to get back and rescue his family.

The plot is rather simple, but the real substance of the film is in its craft. Gibson's knack for visual flair is as top-notch as ever, and he pulls no punches when he exhibits some of the truly barbarous practices of this culture, from their fearsome piercings and tattoos to their methods of sacrificial worship. He counterbalances this, however, by bringing the humanity of the Jaguar Paw's people to the forefront. They play practical jokes on one another and they love their children.

All that being said, Apocalypto is not for the faint of heart. While The Passion of the Christ remains his most graphic film, this one is more applicable to Braveheart in terms of its violence and its themes. Although Gibson does spare us some imagery of village women being brutally raped and murdered by the invaders, we see enough to know that it happened. We also see some unadultered shots of throat slashings, a man eating the raw testicles of a tapier, and a headless body tumbling down hundreds of stairs. Don't worry, I didn't spoil everything. There is plenty left to shock your visual senses.

Mel Gibson has been at the center of some unwanted publicity of late given his anti-semitic comments and eccentric behavior, and many questioned whether or not this film would be able to help salvage his credibility. The answer to that question is difficult to determine due to the fact that Apocalypto is not a bad movie (in fact, it's extraordinary). There are just many factors about this film that will not appeal to a mainstream audience. First, it details a culture that has been rarely depicted in Hollywood films, second it has subtitles, and third it is in the traditional Gibson style of being more than generous with the gore. If there is a large enough segment of the population who can be accepting of all those things, then Apocalypto will do strong business despite Gibson's public fiascos.

Apocalypto shows us a society on the brink of obliteration, and it makes any positive outcome for our heroes bittersweet as we see Spanish ships looming on the horizon. While some might complain that this film is another showcase for Mel Gibson's bloodlust, I would argue that the violence is not without a purpose, and in fact adds to the authenticity of the depiction of this primitive civilization. There may be no film that Gibson can make that can change people's opinions about his eccentricities and religious fanaticism, but Apocalypto is clearly demonstrative of his talents as a filmmaker.

Gouda's Final Grade: A

The Pursuit of Happyness

2006-12-15T08:25:00.000-08:00

Father and son actively pursuing "happyness..."

One of the most durable and time-honored formulae in all of storytelling is that of the "pulls himself up by the bootstraps" hero who manages to escape hopeless circumstances by the power of his wits. Regardless of whether one believes in the existence of bad luck, it is hard not to sympathize for someone who has fallen prey the all-too human fault of making a wrong, albeit well-intentioned, decision. Chris Gardner (Will Smith) does just that when he decides to invest his and his wife's life savings in a business selling portable bone density scanners, a product that is deemed "an unnecessary luxury" by most of the doctors to whom he attempts to sell them. This business misstep places his family in financial dire straits. They can't pay their rent. The IRS is intent on collecting on a long overdue bill, and it is clear that his wife, Linda (Thandie Newton) has reached her breaking point. Weary and bitter, she leaves Chris and their son Christopher (played by Smith's real-life sone Jaden) to pursue a job on the other side of the country. This sets up a series of heartbreaking events that leave Chris on the brink of and eventually in the throes of homelessness. But Chris is not a stupid man. In fact, he was an excellent student as a child, is personable, can think on his feet, and he sees an opportunity for a better future for him and his son when he decides to apply for a stockbroker internship with Dean Witter.

Based on a true story, "The Pursuit of Happyness" details the trials this father and son face on Chris's transformation from a struggling, homeless venture capitalist to a successful stockbroker and eventual millionaire. We are continuously impressed by Chris's ability to charm and impress his colleagues by day while tending to his son in various homeless shelters by night. The bond between the two lead actors is palpable and touching. Jaden Smith's performance is so unlike that of average child actors in that he is completely natural and intelligent while managing to still be endearing. Will Smith gives his best work to date in a subtle, tear-jerking, physically transformative performance that is sure to garner an Oscar nomination, and he does a pitch-perfect job of portraying a man who is struggling to hold onto his spirit through ordeals that would have broken a lesser man.

Although the film tends to break the threshold of sappy cuteness from time to time ("Daddy, did mommy leave because of me?"), and feels a little long at times because it probably would have been better suited as an HBO film, it is grounded by its solid performances and its poignant story.

Gouda's Final Grade: B

Deja Vu

2006-11-24T20:30:00.000-08:00

"Yeah, I don't buy it either, but it's still cool!"

Jerry Bruckheimer is one of those producers who loves to wallow in the realm of the ridiculous and excessive. I've always been of the mind that his work was better suited to the small screen because budgetary and time constraints do a better job at keeping a reasonable cap on his superfluousness, which is why I can enjoy an episode of C.S.I. far more than I could even begin to tolerate a movie like Armageddon. In fact, his name attached to any large-scale project is often a liability, especially with the wrong director at the helm. *cough* Michael Bay *cough*.

Tony Scott, on the other hand, is a mostly solid director. While many of his films are forgettable popforn fare, and his last project, "Domino", seriously made me fear for his sanity (and my own after it was over), he's had a few great hits, such as True Romance and Enemy of the State, and he is certainly gifted with imbuing his films with distinctive visual flair. So I went into Deja Vu with higher-than-average hopes. Which is to say, with my expectations hovering around knee rather than ankle level.

Let me first say that Deja Vu has a premise that is spectacularly ridiculous. It's so unfathomably impossible, that suspension of disbelief doesn't even come close to describing what is necessary in order to go along with this plot. It requires complete obliteration of disbelief, the ability to put aside all questions of logic and ignore any internal nannering that says, "But what about... and why did they...", and just go with it. This doesn't make Deja Vu a bad movie, though. In fact, Deja Vu happens to be quite good. A bad movie that requires us to let completely go of logic is often rife with bad acting, hollow characters, and an equally ridiculous story. Deva Vu has good acting, great dialogue, and an emotionally effective story about a bombed ferry full of Navy sailors on the Canal Street Ferry in New Orleans. The fact that this movie was filmed in New Orleans after the tragedy of hurricane Katrina makes it worth seeing on that note alone.

But let's get down to the brass tacks of the storyline. At least as well as I can, given the number of paradoxes involved here. Denzel Washington plays ATF agent Doug Carlin, who is investigating the ferry bombing that killed roughly 530 people. What starts out looking like a basic crime procedural turns more into a science fiction adventure when he is approached by FBI agent Pryzwarra (played by a heavily jowled Val Kilmer) about a new surveillance project that can help them look at various aspects of the crime scene and the surrounding city 4 days before the tragedy occurred so that they might be able to get additional evidence to nab the bomber. "But wait," you say. "That sounds kinda normal!" This isn't merely looking at satellite imagery, however. They are literally looking into the past, due to some newly discovered ability to bend time and space... er something. There is full audio, 360-degree pans, and they can look through walls. They tried to explain exactly how it works, but honestly I forgot. Just try to think of the most outlandish fictional forensic technique you've seen portrayed on C.S.I. and multiply that by 3,000.

Now tamp down any questions of how such evidence would even be admissable in court if it was obtained by this kind of top secret project. Just go with it. Trust me.

Carlin eventually discovers that this technology can be used as a sort of time machine that can help send him back to not only stop the bomber (James Caviezel as a would-be Timothy McVeigh), but to also save the life of a witness, Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton) with whom he feels a direct kinship; even though, the first interaction we see them having is when she is lying dead on an autopsy slab. As he gets to know her by watching her actions through a window to the past, it is clear that that Carlin is not only motivated to find the killer, but also to take any action necessary to prevent Claire's death.

And so sets the stage for a number of paradoxes that to unravel in the course of this review would take more hours and brain cells than I care to sacrifice. Like the technology they use that is able to fold time, this story is continuously folding on itself. We aren't even really sure that what is portrayed to be current action in the film is the first time that any of it has happened. One thing I will say, however, is that Deja Vu has what is indeed one of the most original, heart-pounding chase sequences put on film. It's not every day that you see a giant Hummer dodging (and in many cases NOT dodging) present-day traffic in order to track (in real time) a truck that was going down that same road 4 days previously.

The whole purpose of this time-bending technology is that it is merely an unconventional way to drive a plot that would otherwise be nothing more than a bloated episode of CSI, but that's okay, because the plot device is original and provacative. Sure, the film plays fast and loose with a lot of details, but I enjoyed the way they attempted to diffuse a lot of potential questions with scientific and philosophical discussions.

Deja Vu is skillfully made and well-paced, but it is also a fun, inventive ride into the world of brain contortionism; therefore, it is definitely worth a see.

Gouda's Final Grade: B+

Happy Feet

2006-11-23T23:04:00.000-08:00

A tap-dancing penguine is now officially the cutest thing -- ever

Family movies only have a small pool of themes from which to choose. Filmmakers can opt to teach us about the virtues of being "different" and breaking conformity, and they can also wax poetic about the power of love and the importance of respecting the environment. The makers of Happy Feet have decided to unleash all of these lessons in a single film, while packaging it with beautiful animation, fantastic and innovative musical performances, and of course, a tap-dancing penguin.

Happy Feet begins with a demonstration of the courting ritual held by a waddle of emperor penguins. These remarkable birds are known for choosing a single life mate, and this colony goes about it in a most entertaining way: by performing a medley of tunes by such artists as Prince and Elvis Presley. Whoever can woo the female with the best musical selection has won themselves a wife. This particular performance introduces us to Memphis (Hugh Jackman in a good Elvis impersonation) and the sexy Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman) who will eventually become the parents of Mumble (Elijah Wood).

Mumble is a bit of an oddball, see. The lifegoal of every single penguin in this society is to find their "heartsong," or in other words to be able to find their own particular brand of vocal seduction in order that they will procure a mate and propagate the continuation of the species. Our hero, however, doesn't have much of a singing voice. He hatched feet-first, and from that point on, he couldn't stop tapping his toes. He is, in fact, the Gregory Heinz of penguins, and this does not sit well with the elders, whose strict adherence to tradition is deeply rooted in superstition and necessity. It also doesn't help that Mumble is a late-bloomer. When his peers "graduate" to adulthood, he's still covered in a gray fuzzy down, and in addition to his blue eyes is in stark contract to the sleek black feathers of his other mates. In other words, Mumble is the ultimate outcast, and the other penguins see him and his dancing as a threat. Only one seems to appreciate his differences, and that is Gloria (Brittany Murphy), but her initial fear of going against the grain makes her a reluctant ally.

A series of incidents ultimately takes Mumble far away from home, and he finds himself in the company of a new colony of smaller penguins who appreciate his talents. This group has a Latin flair, and their antics are charming. A couple of them are voiced by Robin Williams, whose well-contained yet hilarious dialogue makes for some of his best voice work in years, and easily redeems him for his horrifically unfunny turn in the grossly underwhelming "Robots."

At some point between Mumble's encounter with these new penguins and the last act of the film, the story starts to lose its way a little bit. We're not really sure what the hero's ultimate goal is until late in the game, and it makes the plot feel a bit laborious. The movie could have been tightened up considerably by revealing the true nature of the conflict much earlier on. Instead, the characters meander from one place to another in the first hour of the film, and certain themes start to feel forced and repetitious by the time we reach the climax in last 30 minutes.

Despite this, however, Happy Feet remains a mostly exhilarating exprience due to the originality of the musical sequences and the vibrance of its characters. The action sequences are also visually thrilling. Additionally, it was refreshing to see humans being portrayed in a somewhat optimistic light. Most movies that feature animals as main characters seem to delight in reminding us that society is either evil, stupid, or hopeless. This film takes a much less cynical approach to human nature, and that is a nice change. It might be a little over-weighted in spots, but Happy Feet is delightful, original, tonic, and among the better animated releases of the year.

Gouda's Final Grade: A-

Casino Royale

2006-11-17T03:10:00.000-08:00

Oh Mr. Bond... Consider me shaken AND stirred...

Dear Daniel Craig,

You probably don't know who I am. I'm just a small time blogger in a small Washington town. And to tell you the truth, I was never much of a James Bond fan. It's not that I wasn't intrigued by the lore of 007, it's just that opportunities to see him in action always eluded me. The only reason I ever knew the plot of Golden Eye was because I played the video game endlessly on my Nintendo 64. But I digress...

When I heard you were going to be the new James Bond, my curiosity was finally piqued. Call me crazy, but I kinda go for the offbeat look. The fact that you weren't the "conventional" looking Bond that the public was expecting in a bid to re-energize this franchise was what won me over. And after after all of the nitpicking you've received in the press since taking on this role, my hope is that they are now eating a healthy serving of crow for breakfast, lunch, and dinner because you, Mr. Craig are currently starring in what is sure to be hailed as one of the best James Bond movies ever made, as well as one of the best films of the year.

What can I say about the character of James Bond? Well, seeing as how I have not really experienced the Bond enterprise to the fullest, I've only been able to glean a few tidbits from being the unabashed pop culture nut that I am. Bond is, quite simply, a man who could never possibly exist. He exudes virility and steely masculinity that is tamed with just enough refinement to make even the most hardened of feminists pant in spite of herself. He has a brilliant mind, an agile physique, and he looks dashing in a tux. And we can't forget the accent. Bond is, to many, the "Perfect Man." And your interpretation of such a man, to a Bond newbie such as myself, was in a word: captivating.

But let's get back to the movie, that pulse-pounding 2 1/2 hour piece of cinema of which you were the centerpiece. It was, to put it lightly, an achievement in kinetic energy that can be topped by few movies I've seen in recent years. The action sequences were not only seamless, but they were atheletically astounding, and sometimes painful to watch (but in a good way). Director Martin Campbell was wise to showcase your physical talents by opting for chase scenes that were mostly on foot rather than in cars. There are only so many ways you can show vehicles outrunning one another; to see the human body tackle such feats is much more awe-inspiring. I know some might complain a little that the work of art that is the Astin Martin DBS was not featured prominently enough, but I can't complain. I'd much rather see you jump from towering cranes and rooftops anyday.

As for the other characters, your love interest, Vesper Lynd played beautifully by Eva Green was the perfect choice. You met your match in her, that is for certain, and your chemistry sizzled. Oh and the villain! I know that the bad guys in Bond flicks are supposed to be pretty eccentric, but an asthmatic psychopath who sheds tears of blood? In any other movie it would have been ridiculous. Here, it is just delicious.

Yeah, I suppose you can say that I am now a Bond girl. At least in the sense that I am a fan. Your presence on screen, Mr. Craig, was among the most entertaining I've had so far this year. I think if your body holds out, you will go far in this series. Your whole "suave guy who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty" thing is, quite frankly, a major turn-on. While my loins would most certainly love to give this film an A+, my higher faculties must intervene and settle a tad lower due to a just slightly convoluted plot and a lagging interlude around the second-third of the film. But that is a small price to pay for what was otherwise a perfect exercise in proving those naysayers wrong in their assessment of you.

I don't care what the hardcore fan concensus is. To me, Mr. Craig, you are James Bond.

Sincerely,
The Gouda

Gouda's Final Grade: A

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

2006-11-04T14:29:00.000-08:00

Sacha Baron Cohen takes method acting to the extreme...

"Borat" is the most difficult to watch film to come out in years. It is a faux documentary that thrives on the creation of the most uncomfortable, awkward (and yes, real-life) situations drummed up by the character's mastermind Sacha Baron Cohen (of Ali G fame), who plays a TV journalist from the nation of Kazakhstan sent on a mission to the United States to learn more about American culture; however, Cohen doesn't merely play Borat, he lives him. Previous to the release of this film, Cohen made dozens of television appearances on such shows as The Daily Show, the MTV Music Awards, and Saturday Night Live in full character mode as a way to cleverly market his film. Similar to the character who shot him into the stratosphere of popularity, fake interviewer Ali G, Borat would befriend his viewers and show hosts with his almost childish charm only to later stun them into states of shock and occasional anger with very naively presented forms of bigotry, anti-semitism, misogyny, incest, prostitution, and other politically incorrect observations.

The Borat film (forget using the full title, which is almost as long as Dr. Strangelove and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb), depicts a series of follies that this representative of Kazakhstan creates on a cross-country journey from New York to Malibu. The final destination is where Borat hopes to marry actress Pamela Anderson, with whom he fell in love after watching a rerun of Baywatch.

Cohen's assertion of his cultural values onto unbeknownst bystanders (kissing both cheeks of every man he meets, defecating in bushes, and washing his clothes in the pond at Central Park) are riotously funny in and of themselves. More shocking, however, is when Borat manages to create real commotion among entire crowds of people. An appearance at a rodeo in Texas is perhaps the ultimate example of Cohen's genius, where after saying that he "supports America's war of terror" and that he hopes "George Bush drinks the blood of every man, woman, and child terrorist of Iraq" he then sings to outrageous booing of hundreds of cowboys the (obviously made up) national anthem of Kazakhstan to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner.

Many of these antics are so awkward that they can only be watched from behind covered eyes, and we laugh mostly out of shock. Although the vitims of Borat are surely aware now of Cohen's comedy act, they weren't at the time, and that is the key to the genius of this film.

The problem, however, is that the joke begins to wear a bit thin about two-thirds of the way through. Maybe it was because I had laughed so hard that I was exhausted, but I think it was also because my neck and shoulders were sore from cringing. I can honestly tell any potential viewer of this film that there are things here that you have never before seen, and very likely never wanted to see. You might also feel a little guilty for laughing at certain scenes. Such as when Borat has dinner with a group of Southern high society members and proceeds to insult the host's wife and invite a prostitute as his guest. Or when he and his producer escape a bed and breakfast in the middle of the night when they realize the place is run by a Jewish couple.

Ultimately, Borat is one of the funniest, most original comedies to come out in years, but it is also a movie that easier to admire than it is to love. Cohen's genius is undeniable. Many, particularly the government of Kazakhstan, as well as the Anti-Defamation League, have taken issue with Cohen's portrayal of the Kazakhstani culture as well as his rampant use of anti-semitism, but it should be noted that Cohen himself is of Jewish descent, and his approach should also be viewed as more of a satire on Western stereotypes than any insult to the Middle-Eastern nation.

I can honestly say that taking Borat in such a large dose is a difficult challenge. Come prepared to be amused, but even more prepared to be shocked.

Gouda's Final Grade: A-

The Prestige

2006-10-21T01:33:00.000-07:00

These magicians have plenty up their sleeves...

Dexterity, charm, and the power of persuasion -- these are the mainstays of any competent magician. The ability to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of human perception and take advantage of its loopholes is precisely what pays the bills of any illusionist, from humble small-town acts all the way up to David Copperfield and his disappearing Statue of Liberty. It isn't wizardry these men employ, but we pay for the experience of being convinced that it is. The same could also be said for any great filmmaker. Creating a world filled with people who are physical, 3-dimensional realizations of the vapors in someone's imagination, and putting them in situations that are nothing short of astounding, making us believe for a brief time that their fantastic adventures are not only genuine, but that we are also a part of them, is real magic in the making.

In The Prestige, we find that magic is not only the obsession of the main characters, but that it is also the film in its entirety. Director Christopher Nolan joins forces again with his Batman Begins staple actors Christian Bale and Michael Caine, adding to the mix Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson, to bring us what is perhaps one of the most complex, fascinating storylines to be shown on screen this year.

We meet Alfred Borden (Bale), Rupert Angier (Jackman), and Cutter (Caine), a small magic act in London around the turn of the 20th century, who perform all manner of classic sleight of hand: disappearing birds (the greusome secret of this trick is revealed early on), daring escapes from tanks of water, bullets nimbly caught from fired guns. Cutter is the wise mentor of the two young men, arranging the magic behind the scenes and mediating the dueling personalities of Borden and Angier, who are fierce rivals. Angier is the charming showman whose talent in magic extends only so far as being able to dutifully follow Cutter's conventional techniques. He lacks imagination, but with his good looks and winning smile can sell any act to a crowd. By contrast, Borden's genius is remarkable, and he is comfortable with it, but his techniques are elemental and without flair. He can spot the methods of any illusion from the back of a crowded room, and he has the ambition and the craft to perform amazing feats, but he lacks the showmanship to wow an audience. Naturally, Angier is fiercely jealous of his partner's talent, but when the group's lovely assistant, also Angier's wife Judith (Piper Perabo), drowns during a water-escape gone wrong due to Borden's mistake, Angier's jealousy erupts into an obsessive determination to bring down the other magician.

What follows is a series of revenge tactics that become nastier with each turn. For Angier's wife, Borden loses a few fingers. Borden avenges the lost digits by sabotaging a few of Angier's magic acts in rather brutal ways; however, when Borden's magical genius reaches a climax in the form of a trick that cannot be explained by any conventional illusionist techniques, Angier's obsession to learn his rival's secret reaches an unstoppable velocity.

This has so far been laid down as a pretty simple plot, but do not be fooled. Christopher Nolan weaves this tale in a style that only the director of a film like Memento can master, with a series criss-crossing, competing flashbacks that is at times confusing, and requires constant attention, but is never short of fascinating. He provides this story with a visual backdrop of the muted yet stylish hues of the late 19th century that are delicious to behold, and perhaps most importantly, Nolan and his brother laid down a screenplay that is full of interesting characters, and even a real historical figure: eccentric inventor Nikola Tesla (I'll let you be surprised as to who plays him). Bale and Jackman portray men who are vastly different, but who are equally engaged in the art of deception, both professionally and personally. Borden is a hard man to know, seemingly charismatic and arrogant one minute, and coldly aloof the next. He is observed by others as a man who is deeply divided, with a wife who can tell from day to day whether or not her husband's declarations of love are genuine: "No, no, you don't mean it today. You love the magic today," she says matter-of-factly to which Borden can't help but agree, with certain bewilderment.

Angier eventually beds his replacement assistant, Olivia (Scarlett Johansson), but she soon realizes that she can't compete with his drive to steal the work of his competitor. We at one minute sympathize for him and the next fear him. Jackman's acting work here is nothing short of superb.

From here, I can reveal no more. I have been made privy to the secrets of not only the magic trick itself (although, I am forced to wonder if the true instrument could even be considered magic), and it is my duty to not spoil the illusion for the other viewers. After all, as the film instructs us several times throughout its 2-plus hour length, we really don't want to know. To know would deaden the mystery, and there is plenty to keep one guessing up until the final reveal, The Prestige as it were, which we are told in the beginning, is when the ordinary becomes the extraordinary.

Prepare to be wowed.

Gouda's Final Grade: A

The Departed

2006-10-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

So much talent on one screen should be illegal...

Loyalty is a tricky beast; the need to fulfill our obligations to those to whom we are most emotionally dedicated often eclipses our concepts of right and wrong. It's not so much a matter of what we have to do to retain our idol's favor, but that the deed is simply done without question. This is especially true if lurking in the background of every transgression of our moral sensibilities is the certainty that a failure would result in the loss of our lives. If we are indoctrinated as children to become loyal to a monster, it is to be assumed that we would end up doing the deeds of a monster.

In Martin Scorcese's latest film, an epic of dueling loyalties is played out in a taut, complex, brutal, and ultimately brilliant fashion. Like being witness to a boxing match between two men who are blindfolded, we are never quite sure who is going to land the knock-out punch, or how. The ring: the Massachussetts State Police Special Investigations Unit. In one corner, we have Sergeant Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), an up and coming star in the department. He's charming, intelligent, and has the skills to promote easily within the ranks. This is especially beneficial to Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), a powferul Irish mob boss who practically raised Sullivan from a boy and remains the central figure of Sullivan's loyalties. Unknown to Sullivan and the others working under him in the department are the names of the undercover agents assigned to the Costello case, and this is the biggest thorn in Sullivan's and Costello's sides.

Which brings us to who is in the second corner: officer Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), whose hopes of escaping his own crime-ridden family leads him to the State Patrol. Unfortunately, his past does not escape the attention of higher-ups Queenan (Martin Sheen) and Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) who want to use Costigan's family connections with the Irish crime syndicate to insert him into a deep-cover assignment to build a stronger case against Costello.

This is when Scorcese's mastery as a storyteller takes center stage. Bouncing us between the lives of these two men, we observe their differences, but more striking are their parallels. Imprisoned by their very grim loyalties, their lives begin to fall apart. Costigan develops a painkiller addiction while Sullivan is continually haunted by intimacy issues with his clinical psychologist girlfriend, Madolyn (Vera Farmiga). Often times, it becomes mind-boggling watching how one operation to nab the elusive Costello is thwarted from within by Sullivan while both the police department and the mob know they are dealing with their own respective moles. We ultimately end up with a tale of one rat chasing another.

This story is enhanced so well by a superb screenplay overflowing with dialogue that makes us laugh and gasp, often simultaneously. Mark Wahlberg delivers his most solid work to date, playing a character who delivers the majority of the movie's best lines. And Alec Baldwin, who has become almost as iconic as Christopher Walken in recent years with the dialogue, does not disappoint as the head of Sullivan's department.

Plenty of critics have attempted to draw conclusions between this movie and Scorcese's previous masterpieces, namely Goodfellas, saying that this one doesn't match up. Let's be clear- a movie like Goodfellas can really happen only once in a lifetime for any great director and Scorcese, being perhaps our greatest living director, is lucky to have several pieces of genius under his belt. And rest assured, he can add this film to it. I'm not going to try to draw a distinction between The Departed and his previous films; Scorcese is clearly at the top of his game here. He has made a movie that sets the senses ablaze, and by the end, delivers a swift knee to the solar plexus.

This is, by far, my favorite movie of 2006.

Gouda's Final Grade: A+

Jet Li's Fearless

2006-09-23T17:13:00.000-07:00

Li's swan song is a smidge flat on the story, but is in-tune with the fighting...

I've always been firmly convinced that the purpose of a martial arts movie is not to make us learn anything new about life or even to encourage us to sympathize with the characters so much as to see various versions of a morality tale as told through the fluid, effective, well-choreographed kicking of ass that the movie's star lays upon his or her victims. We can say that we walk out of one of these movies a little more enlightened about the karmic perils of arrogance and revenge, but what we're really feeling (if the movie is good) is the aorta-shattering adrenaline that's a result of watching the amazing weapon of the human body deliver the Wushu-smackdown. If there is an interesting story woven throughout the (hopefully innumerable) combat sequences, then the martial arts movie can be upgraded from adequate to masterful.

Jet Li's final forray into the martial arts genre seems to fall between the two. In Fearless, he tells the story of a real-life figure, Hua Yuanjia, a Wushu master from the early 1900s who founded the now-internationally famous Jingwu Sports Federation. The young Hua is a weak, sickly child whose father is a master of the sport. Driven to overcome his asthma, Hua abandons academic studies and concentrates on Wushu. As a young man, his drive to become the champion fighter of his province results in a staggering, mindless arrogance that you really only see in movies about fighting. He's a great, merciless competitor, but ignores the core philosophies of self-discipline and restraint as he drinks heavily and cavorts with his many disciples.

As predicted, Yuanjia's selfishness leads to great tragedy, and he begins a self-imposed exile where he learns wisdom from kind, humble farm workers, and makes friends with the peaceful Zen master within himself, setting the stage for a Phoenix-like rise from the ashes of his previous shame. After a few years outside of general civilization, he returns to a home that is more and more under the hand of Western influences, where English ladies and gentlemen stroll like snooty caricatures among the natives in their stately dress. Seeing this, Hua decides to compete in an international fighting competition to resurrect the hopes of his disillusioned countrymen.

In other words, formula, formula, formula. The story plugs perfectly into all of the pre-established variables, and surprises are few and far between for anyone who is familiar with this genre. I could bemoan this film on that basis alone, that it is maybe a little dry on innovation, but Li and the other characters are likeable enough to keep the film from being boring between fight scenes, and I found I was pulled into the film in spite of myself.

While not the perfect way for Jet Li to end a successful run in the martial arts genre (Hero was a much more superior film in every way) Fearless is solid, competent weekend entertainment. And perhaps most importantly: the fight sequences are quick, ferocious, and do a fantastic job of showcasing the skills that made this Wushu champion an international film star.

Gouda's Final Grade: B

The Black Dahlia

2006-09-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

Perhaps they're trying to make sense of the dismembered plot as well...

The murder of Elizabeth Short in 1948 has remained one of Hollywood's most chilling unsolved crimes and a horrific representation of American hopes and dreams dashed. A young girl, struggling to break into acting, greusomely murdered, mutilated, and left for display in a neighborhood lot, the Dahlia became a source of obsession for those who searched desperately for her slayer, and remains a dark legend haunting the minds of those who still ferverently pursue her tragic, limited backtrail.

In fact, the case of the Black Dahlia encapsulates all of the elements that create a classic noir story. Beautiful, mysterious young girl, drawn by the allure and glamor of Hollywood's silver screen lifestyle, cut down brutally before the flower of any promise could begin to bloom. Take this and then add in the seedy, unorthodox history and tactics of the LAPD in the 1940s, some background involving the pornography industry, a few of Hollywood's elite families, and a couple of detectives obsessed enough to track the footsteps of a psychopathic murderer, and you have the makings of a captivating, chilling film that few who see it would forget.

The problem is, you won't find this in Brian de Palma's film. You will find the flower of promise, but it remains stubbornly in its bud form, despite the competent acting and superbly constructed classic film noir atmosphere that the director captured so well in his other films The Untouchables and Scarface. What makes The Black Dahlia a surprisingly weak execution in the genre is the story. Writer James Ellroy's novel was rife with sprawling complexities and plot layers, and they are a mess translated onto screen. We aren't sure if we are watching a tale about the dark twists of the obsessed mind, as portrayed by grizzled police officers Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart) and Bucky Bleichert (Josh Hartnett) who are hot on the case, or if we are watching a procedural about Short's killer. That's because intermingled in all of that are vague plot threads and distractions that take away potency from both possibilities. By the end of the film, when all of those loose threads are finally connected, it makes little sense and it's just so silly and contrived that we don't even care.

The most interesting character in the movie, the femme fatale Madeline Linscott (played with cunning, sexy brilliance by Hillary Swank), makes a late appearance as a lookalike/former lover of the Dahlia, but the manner by which her storyline resolves itself is an exercise in wasted talent.

The film's strengths are all technical, with incredible camera work that is reminiscent of Hitchcock and beautiful wardrobe and set designs that capture the era when Hollywood never looked better, but it's not enough to escape the convoluted mess of a plot that inspires more apathy than empathy about this tragic, compelling real-life murder.

Gouda's Grade: C

Snakes on a Plane

2006-08-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

"Maybe you didn't hear me. I'll say it for the third motherfuckin time."

Well... it's over. The culmination of the most widespread, successful viral marketing campaign for a movie has come and gone, and Gouda must examine what is left in its wake: A film that challenges the very foundations of cheesiness, and forces us to wade through the thick jungle of impossible dialogue, predictable thriller archetypes, and tangles of snakes... on a plane.

Ordinarily I would have a lot of fun exploiting the weaknesses of any film. If something seems inherently wrong, my brain snags it like a fishing lure in a river of steelheads, so it is a rare movie that allows me to ignore the fallacies and go along for the ride. The difference between a bad movie that sucks and a bad movie that is sorta enjoyable is the lengths to which its makers are willing to go to make us believe they are totally in on the joke. The former focuses too hard on trying to make us go along with the ridiculous, and it is only when we realize that they are leading us into the realm of "This is serious! Don't laugh!" that we sneer and start kicking the crap out of the movie.

The title Snakes on a Plane serves to provide the viewer with lowered expectations, and the movie Snakes on a Plane doesn't disappoint in that arena. We know that it's campy. We know it's over the top. And we know that Samuel L. Jackson, with a filmography that spans both extremes of the quality spectrum, was the perfect actor (aside from maybe Bruce Willis) to save the day because he's not above laughing at himself.

Jackson plays FBI agent Neville Flynn who is escorting from Honolulu to Los Angeles an important witness to the prosecution of a dangerious Asian mafia figure, Eddie Kim. Kim has methods of dispatching witnesses against him that involve all manner of torture and murder that you would only find in movies similar to this. Determined to not let this latest incriminating individual escape his wrath, he arranges to have the cargo hold of a jumbo jet loaded with a variety of poisonous snakes (I know, I know- don't bother asking). Then, a giant box of flowery leis that are to be handed out to departing passengers is sprayed with a pheromone designed to provide the reptiles with an appetite for killing people in ways more involved than a mere bite. They also appear to have enhanced vision, intelligence, and creepy quasi-human expressions on their faces- but again, nevermind.

What occurs from this point is a "Most Creative Ways Snakes Can Kill People" contest. There are several candidates for winners, but I'm going to go for the obvious one: The Cobra vs Trouser Snake Battle Royale. There is also the "Most Creative Way to Kill a Snake" competition. No thriller would be complete without the "Annoying Character Who Most Refuses to Die" Award, and Snakes didn't hold back on giving us the perfect candidate.

So now we know the outlandish plot. Does Snakes on a Plane deliver? I'll give that a firm "mostly". The film could have actually had a little more bite, so to speak, by having Sam Jackson in more scenes and perhaps giving him more outlandish weapons. I was surprised by how little we actually see him in the earlier parts of the film. This is likely because the original footage was added to when it became apparent that it was going to be a bit of a hit. As a result, SoaP is a little inconsistent on the thrills, and the plot device of "snakes vs hapless passengers" starts to wear a little thin about two-thirds of the way through. By the time the obligatory "mother--- snakes" line was uttered, it felt more than a little overdue.

In the end, the film got away with what it was supposed to- delivering two light hours of campiness that paid off only as much as we could have expected out of a movie entitled Snakes on a Plane. I laughed, I squirmed a little bit, and walked out of the theater continuing to be convinced that humans are usually better at weaving legends out of air (or on the internet) than hammering them into reality.

Final Grade: B-

The Descent

2006-08-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

The quintessential bloodbath

A horror movie is the ultimate crapshoot, with the vast majority being constructed from plot devices that have come to be considered cliche (camping trip gone wrong, anyone?) or so impossible as to be downright ludicrous (i.e. Saw or Silent Hill), but for those of us who are patient and persistent in our devotion to the genre, we are rewarded once or twice a decade with a true gem of a film that sends our senses into overdrive, taps into our most carnal of fears, and leaves us feeling all dirty (in a sort of good way, if that makes sense) after we watch it. And if it's really good, our appetites are obliterated for hours, we develop a temporary case of nightmare-induced insomnia, or we are simply thankful to emerge from the theater into the blessed daylight. After seeing The Descent, a British horror movie brought to us from the studio who made the overrated Hostel, I noticed not only that my appetite was thankfully nonexistent, but also a certainty that I will not be undertaking a caving expedition in the forseeable future.

The film begins with an introduction to the film's main characters, namely Sarah and Juno, whose friendship was forged by years of adventure seeking- whitewater rafting, mountain climbing, etc. There is a lot of story between these women, enough to create another type of film altogether- one that would even be interesting- but none of that is explored much in depth. Tragedy strikes Sarah's life early in the film, and we are caught up with all of them a year later on the brink of a caving expedition that brings them back together as a way to help Sarah out of her period of grief. We are also introduced to a few other women, making a team of six, in the remote wilderness of the Appalachains in North Carolina. Juno makes for a tough team leader- the bold, experienced one who is taking the women into the belly of an unexplored beast. The writers of this film play these characters smart. We are not introduced to a series of archetypes- Ms. Spunky and Reckless followed by her friends Ms. Smart and Thoughtful and Ms. Slutty and Careless. Granted, they each have their own personalities, but they aren't cardboard cut-outs, and we are made to care about all of them. In a typical horror movie, you pretty much know within the first 10 minutes who is going to live and die. Here these women are tough and independent, and they are straining their bodies to their limits as they squeeze through rocky pipelines, strand rope over crevasses of immeasurable depths, and brought to the absolute brink of insanity when things start to turn horribly wrong.

In fact, the moments that bring the most adrenaline are when the camera shots are tightest, as the women shove themselves through passages not meant for human beings. In one early cave scene, Sarah gets stuck in a narrow opening and begins to experience an anxiety attack. The constricting around the chest, the quickening of respiration, and the outright panic flooding of her senses as she realizes she is trapped 2 miles below the earth in a cave explored by no one else is incredibly palpable, and we feel trapped with her. Similar to another film, a documentary called Touching the Void where two men are stranded and injured on the face of a treacherous mountain in Chile, the level of pain and panic experienced by the actors is contagious, and makes us look away and squirm in our seats. This effect is aided by director Neil Marshall (a burgeoning master in only his second major release) and his cinematographer Sam McCurdy, both of whom have a gift for making this cave a foreboding character all its own. Shots in the dark, illuminated red by flares lit by the girls as they make their way, paint the rock walls like dripping blood, and we are forced to imagine if this is what hell truly looks like.

I am not going to reveal much more about the film's plot than this. I went into The Descent almost completely blind, and I think this only serves to highten the experience. Like the women, I had no idea what was lurking below when I took the plunge, and my terror mirrored their own. But what I did notice was that Neil Marshall has a true gift for stroking our deepest fears- those of the dark, the unknown, closed spaces, or of being lost,- and he does it by paying proper homage to the masters who have done it before while still making the movie his own. You will notice references to movies like Carrie, Alien, Apocalypse Now, and even a little bit of The Blair Witch Project.

The Descent doesn't only refer to a drop into a rock-lined abyss, but also to a descent into madness, grief, and into the animalistic requirements of survival and desperation. Unlike recent horror films like Hostel and The Hills Have Eyes, one-trick ponies where people are gored and tortured merely for visceral shock value, The Descent stirs the soul, involves our minds, and perhaps most importantly- forces us to empathize. If you are a fan of horror, this is the movie you've been waiting years to see.

Gouda's Final Grade: A-

Miami Vice

2006-07-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

A No Contact Order has been issued for pastels in the new Miami Vice...

After several recent misfires in the "TV to Bigscreen" genre (Charlie's Angels, Mod Squad, Dukes of Hazzard, anyone?), it took a top-notch director like Michael Mann to strike gold with Miami Vice. This was undoubtedly helped by the fact that Mann executive produced the original TV series and already had an eye for the sleek, neon-infused nightlife which fueled the premise of two undercover vice squad officers hauling in the kingpins of the drug underground in Miami. Mann updates his baby, however, and makes the film's characters resemble very little of the Crockett and Tubbs of Don Johnson and Phillip Michael Thomas fame. Whereas there was some sparkle of charisma between the television versions of these characters, Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell have been turned down to just one notch above comatose. Not that this is a bad thing- living your life as someone else and working with some pretty horrible people in an effort to bring them down has to sap some of the sparkle out of life. These guys are ragged, tired, and cynical.

We are plunged immediately into the on-duty lives of Crockett and Tubbs, on a stake-out in a trendy Miami nightclub, natch. They are pulled away from the case when an old informant contacts them in a frenzy about a joint-agency (FBI, DEA, ATF) case he'd been helping out on gone sour. The FBI agent in charge played by Ciaran Hinds (recently in Munich) asks Crockett and Tubbs to take over the case due to the fact that the Miami PD was the only agency not in on the sting. From that point on, we are taken from the streets of Miami to Cuidad del Este in South America, and from this point the plot becomes a bit more confusing.

There were parts in Miami Vice where I simply did not know what was going on, my interest in the film only being held by the certainty that the "good guys" were going to eventually going to have to fight it out with the "bad guys" and that one of the "good guys" (in this case, Crockett) was going to fall for the main bad guy's girl- Isabella, played by Chinese actress Gong Li in perhaps the biggest struggle with the English language I've heard in a long time.

Also holding my interest and in fact mesmerizing me were the film's visuals. Michael Mann has a gift for putting artistry in every shot, and his digital cinemaphotography catches night scenes like nothing else. The streetlights are washed out, and dark blues and grays are predominant. Even though Miami Vice is not quite in the same class as the virtuoso predecessors Heat and Collateral, it has that same look and mood that make this director's films captivating. Sound is also a great factor here, particularly when the shooting of very big guns begins, and there are moments in these sequences in which the film more than earns its R rating. There is also a scene near the end as several vice officers stand in the midst of a stand-off in a trailer-park meth lab, and actress Elizabeth Rodriguez utters a line and follows it with something that will make you want to burst out in applause. Trust me, you'll know it when you see it.

Miami Vice is not perfect; The plot lags in spots and is too convoluted in mumbling language. There is also a glaring lack of complexities on the part of the villain and his relationship with the protagonist that is so often a mainstay of Mann's films. I am still recommending Miami Vice, however, because it literally pops with tension, and the visual artistry brought too the party is worth the price of admission all by itself.

No one can craft a gritty crime drama quite like , Michael Mann, and even one of his lesser efforts is still a sheer pleasure to watch.

Gouda's Final Grade: B

Monster House

2006-07-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

This house has an appetite...

No childhood is complete without the "scary house" in the neighborhood, or the crazy old coot who hates children, yelling at all passersby to "stay off the lawn!!". Imaginations are slippery things, and at no time in our lives are our grips tighter on them than before puberty, the time before those wacky hormones rob us of our sense of wonder and make us start acting "grown up". Monster House captures this magic and slams it into the viewers with a nice little bang.

We begin by meeting DJ, a smart but nerdy little kid who spends almost all of his spare time spying on his neighbor across the street, the curmudgeonly Mr. Nebbercracker (voiced by Steve Bucemi), who chases away any children who dare step on his lawn; the toys that are left behind also become his sole property. When DJ's chubby but lovable friend Chowder loses his basketball in Nebbercracker's front yard, the old man literally blows a gasket and eventually has to be hauled away in an ambulance, seemingly dead. This is when Nebbercracker's abode offically comes to life, gobbling up any living and non-living item that encroaches onto its premesis, including small dogs and large adults.

The two boys are joined by Jenny, a neighborhood prep school attendee selling Halloween candy. After her near-encounter with the house's cavernous belly, she and the two boys hatch a plan (after consulting with "Skull", the local nerd voiced hilariously by Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder) to snuff out the flaming "heart" of the house with waterguns. Their mission is particularly urgent given that it's Halloween night, and all of the candy-hungry neighborhood children will become free snacks for the monstrous abode.

Monster House is a funny, exciting romp brought to us by producer Robert Zemeckis, who directed another recent childhood classic, Polar Express. The movie uses the same animation technique whereby real actors are overlayed with the animation, making for an almost unsettling, but hard to look away from, visual feast. This film uses that technique much more seamlessly, and its nothing short of a joy to look at.

As a stern warning to parents who are looking to take their young children to the latest animated hit, I do not recommend this film for kids younger than age 10. There is some content and imagery that would be nothing short of nightmare-inducing for preschoolers or those with a tendency to become frightened by houses that eat people. But rest assured, those children with strong sensibilities and parents alike will enjoy this fantastic tale, told in a no-holds-barred way and with a sinister form of humor that is a rarity in the age of fart jokes.

Gouda's Final Grade: A-

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

2006-07-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

Pumpin' Jack Smash

Trilogies all seem to share a common trait. The first movie is "WOW! That was great! Gimme More!" The second movie is "Hmmmm... very interesting!". And the third movie tends to bring it all home with a "Holy Crap!!" The second installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean trio, Dead Man's Chest, captures that middle sentiment, only it's a "Hmmm... WOW!" The "hmmmm" in this case being the first half of the film. I'll let you guess where the "WOW" belongs.

That is not to say that Dead Man's Chest is boring. Gore Verbinski's swashbuckling adventure brings a lot of story to the table. A lot. But dare I say it's refreshing to have an action film that is not driven by action alone, but by the characters. They never fail to keep the film interesting, and even when the movie lulls a little in the beginning, we are rarely bored.

The movie begins with Elizabeth Swan (Kiera Knightley) waiting in the rain for her wedding to begin, only to learn that her groom, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) has been arrested for his exploits in the previous film: aiding the escape of Captain Jack Sparrow from the gallows. Both he and Elizabeth are thrown in jail until the deliciously evil Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) of the East India Trading Company offers Will Turner a chance at his freedom by tracking down Captain Jack Sparrow and acquiring the Captain's compass, which has more value than we ever could have expected.

We are reunited with Sparrow aboard his ship the Black Pearl, and he has just come in possession of the drawing of a key that is supposed to open a chest belonging to Davy Jones, pirate captain and commander of souls of the deep. Sparrow is indebted to Jones for the resurrection of the Black Pearl, and Sparrow hopes to avoid repaying this debt by coming in possession of the mysterious contents of Jones' chest to use as leverage. Depp's performance lacks a little of the luster of the original film, but he's still a treat to watch, and the novelty of his swaggering slur has not yet worn off. It should hold up for one more film.

From this point, I will leave the rest for the viewer to experience by actually watching the film. There is adrenaline-pumping thrill (island cannibals) after adrenaline-pumping thrill (an amazing sword fight on a water wheel) in this sequel, and there is so much of the story line to digest that I will keep this review relatively short by not revealing too much, but if there is any question of whether or not Dead Man's Chest is a worthy trip to the theater, the answer is a resounding YES.

Among some of the jaw-dropping elements you will encounter- the barnacle-encrusted crew of Davy Jones' ship, The Flying Dutchman. Davy Jones himself is a special-effects wonder to behold, with a giant lobster claw for a hand, and a seamless CGI-generated octupus for a face. It was so convincing that I never would have guessed that it was all computer effects if I didn't already know going in. We are also introduced to Will's father, Bill "Bootstraps" Turner (played brilliantly by an almost unrecognizable Stellan Skarsgaard), who made a pact with Davy Jones long ago and serves as a crewmate on The Dutchman.

And let us not forget the Kraken. The giant tentacled beast of the deep that rips ships apart at the commanding of Davy Jones. I think it's safe to say after seeing this film that if I don't see another tentacle until next May (when the third and final installment of Pirates comes out), I'll be a happy woman.

If I have one complaint about this film, it's that it suffers from the first Pirate's ailment: unnecessary length. I think Gore Verbinski loves his movies and his characters so much that he wouldn't think of introducing any film to the cutting room floor. Sure, Verbinski is no Peter Jackson in terms of epic length, but for this class of film, I think 2 and a half hours is excessive. 2 would have been perfect.

Still, I am recommending Pirates as the "Hmmmm... WOW" precursor to the "Holy Crap!!" finale that the third film will undoubtedly be, particularly based on its last hour, where the story really gets going and the brilliant swordplay and the Kraken take center stage.

So in regards to the scurvy crew of the Black Pearl and The Flying Dutchman, I have to say they were real treat to watch. They are, in fact, what summer action movies are all about. But because a little less can actually be more, I hope that Gore Verbinski can learn to become a little more acquainted with a pair of scissors for the third and final installment in May.

Gouda's Final Grade: B+

Superman Returns

2006-06-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit of a douche, but damn I'm hot!

I came to this movie completely cleansed of any high expectations. Having never been much of a fan of the Superman mythology, I feel I am capable of observing the cinematic qualities of this film without any distracting intervening fan bias. Superman has always seemed a little too upstanding and perfect for my tastes. I prefer my superheros to be a bit darker and flawed, with a nuance that says: "Yes, I'm pretty damn awesome, but I'm tortured by these talents too!" Having said that, is Superman Returns worth a trip to the theater?

In a word, yes; however, it is not that simple.

Superman Returns is a film that is supposed to take place between previous film sequels. Superman (Brandon Routh) leaves earth to go and visit his home planet, only to find that it has become a ruin. Five years later, he returns to our blue planet and doesn't take long to get back to hero work. In the meantime he has to deal with a jaded Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), who has in that time that her caped crusader has been absent, become a mother to a little boy and fiance to Richard (James Marsden fresh from his role as Cyclops in the X-Men series).

His arch-villain, Lex Luthor (played brilliantly by Kevin Spacey) is up to shennanigans involving the use of crystals from Superman's Fortress of Solitude which he plans on turning into a brand new plot of real estate. Apparently when these crystals make contact with water, they become entire rocky uninhabitable landmasses, and Luthor sees a whole lot of value in this. Apparently it's not enough to have world domination; today's villains are all about location.

The problem with this film does not center so much around the plot or even the movie's production values. It's with the characters. Brandon Routh in the title role has all of the looks that one could hope from the character, and he even resembles a young Christopher Reeve, but he lacks all of that actor's charisma. The chemistry between he and Lois Lane is shoddy at best, and this has a lot to do with the fact that Kate Bosworth does not protray this character in a very likeable light. She exhibits no joy and is coldy aloof, making it difficult for me to sympathize with her. Scenes between her and Superman have a small heartening element, but they only seem to exist to further the plot; I saw nothing in this dull, stiff superhero that would make me believe that she previously fell in love with him. The only person who brings some entertaining zeal to the screen is Kevin Spacey's nemesis, but those scenes are few and far between in the two and half hour running time. Suffice to say that seeing Superman Returns for the characters would render one in disappointment.

Let's talk about the film's strong points. The special effects were breathtaking. There were moments of pure movie magic that had my pulse pounding, such as when the hero rescues a runaway jet airliner, and when we get to see exactly what happens when someone tries to shoot Superman in the eye. Lex Luthor's girlfriend Kitty (Parker Posey) also garners a good number of chuckles with her superficial ditziness, but I still walked out of the film feeling more ambivalence toward the Man of Steel than actual like. A man who is completely invincible save for one vulnerability is just not terribly interesting for me, and while Bryan Singer's take on this hero was competent, it failed to be compelling enough for me to actually care.

Gouda's Final Grade: C

An Inconvenient Truth

2006-06-24T13:07:00.000-07:00

If my professors used Power Point presentations this good, I might stay awake...

It seems like the debate over the environment is always between two distinct groups: the Haves and Have Nots, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives. The fact that there even has to be a debate on this issue is pretty telling about the human condition. People are often in denial about the consequences of their indulgences, and this denial usually begets addictions, obesity, wars, and perhaps even a steadily warming planet. It often takes going to extremes to rouse human beings to do what is right instead of what is easiest.

In the environmental arena, people make billions from exploiting the Earth's resources. They offer a vital service, and the power given to these providers naturally creates a state of cognitive dissonance that is almost impossible to shatter. Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth attempts to break through that barrier by effectively illustrating that the planet is going through unprecedented changes that can be directly correlated with human behavior.

A lot of people who doubt global warming, and even go so far as to call it a hoax have commissioned studies of their own to contradict what 938 scientific studies have unanimously agreed upon--that global warming exists. The former chairman of environmental affairs in the Bush administration (who originally worked for the petroleum industry) resigned after it was found he edited an EPA report to downplay the effects of CO2 emissions on the atmosphere. He immediately went on to work for Exxon-Mobil. This is but one example of the conflicts of interests inherent in the global-warming debate.

All of this and more is covered in An Inconvenient Truth. Most shocking is watching the actual trends in the amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue upward as the polar icecaps and Antarctic glaciers melt, Greenland's ice shelf recedes, and the delicate balance of ecosystems worldwide are disrupted due to increasing carbon emissions. Al Gore demonstrates through chilling photographic evidence how Mt. Kilimanjaro, once covered in snow and ice even 10 years ago, is now mostly barren dirt and rock. Within the last twenty years, the frozen tundras in Alaska have thawed to such a state as that they can only be driven on 75 days out of the year instead of the previous 270.

And of course, there are the storms, demonstrated by the record numbers of hurricanes in America, and appearing in 2005 for the first time in the southern Atlantic. Unprecedented numbers of typhoons in Asia and increasingly-devastating monsoons in India are also noted. The impacts of global warming are far-reaching, and paradoxical. While there are floods and storms raging in some parts of the world, in others there are devastating droughts brought on by the heat evaporating moisture from the land.

This is not a political film. Despite the opinions of those who feel threatened by what is shown in An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore does not set out to condemn one man over what he views as a global crisis. He emphasizes an element of urgency that is backed by solid scientific research, and how the media spins their findings and thrives off of sending mixed signals to the public. For example, even though there is a consensus in the scientific community regarding global warming, there is an agreement of only about 65% when one views magazines and periodicals. Their job is to keep people confused.

Throughout the documentary, we get glimpses into Al Gore's personal life and what got him started on the environmental path, when he started showing his slide show years ago, visiting hundreds of cities around the world, believing that a real difference can be made by opening people up little by little. Some would call this movie alarmist, but is that really a bad thing in this instance? Using the adage about the frog and the pot of boiling water, he talks about how people have become complacent in their behaviors, and how that complacency can doom them. When our entire way of lives are potentially at stake, is it not best err on the side of caution? To preserve what resources we can to ensure the survival of future generations?

When I look at people who debate these scientific findings, I have to wonder what their motives are, exactly. What is so nefarious about trying to improve the condition of our planet? They use arguments of economics as though making improvements on environmental policies would bankrupt businesses. History has shown that the marketplace is nothing if not adaptable. Technologies that help reduce CO2 emissions and conserve energy can actually save companies money in the longhaul. But we're too scared to change, to deviate from what is bringing in the money right now.

The final question is, does Gore's film do a good job of trying to debunk the opposition? Some say no, but I have to disagree. The staggering wealth of information alone is enough to give pause. Gore acknowledges previous periods of warmth over several centuries, but they are like occasional blips on the radar, until you get to the last 100 or so years, and you find an explosion the the graph that has never before been seen, and it coincides directly with the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide at the beginning of the 20th century. I think he presents such a solid case that it should stop anyone in their tracks and give thought to their own behaviors.

Even if it is later found that this is all a natural fluke, that the earth is warming all by itself despite all of the crap we're spewing into the air, would you really regret that we as a people decided to be less wasteful? Why is it that the people who oppose the findings that humans have an impact on the environment sound like little kids who want to have another slice of chocolate cake?

Al Gore's film serves to pummel people with information, information which can help people to be more conscientious. This is something which should always be promoted and encouraged. Be wary of the words of those whose livelihoods depend on people remaining ignorant and indulgent.

Gouda's Final Grade: A

The Woodsman

2006-06-20T13:09:00.000-07:00

Throw it back and walk away, Kev...

While my school schedule has wound down for the summer, I have decided to review some movies I've watched on DVD recently, the first of which is this independent film released last year starring Kevin Bacon as a pedophile recently released from prison who attempts to reintegrate himself into society while being branded as a registered sex offender.

After 12 years in prison for molesting young girls, Walter has been released on parole into a world that has little, if any, forgiveness for his type of criminal. He is given a job at a lumber yard by a man (David Alan Grier) who knows and is willing to keep quiet and give Walter a chance. He quietly goes about his work, avoiding other employees and doing his best to reside in an apartment that has the unfortunate placement near an elementary school. His parole officer (Mos Def) is a hostile man who makes no secret of his opinion of pedophiles, and is just waiting for Walter to slip up so he put him back behind bars. The only friend Walter has is his brother-in-law (Benjamin Bratt), and that relationship is touchy at best. So to speak.

At work, Walter meets a woman, Vickie (played by Bacon's real-life wife Kyra Sedgwick), whom he begins dating, and we see Walter trying to form a normal relationship with a woman, something that is obviously unfamiliar to him. Eventually he tells her about his past, and her reaction and everything that unfolds between them is handled convincingly and without melodrama.

Amidst all of these obstacles, we observe a man who has an innate compulsion to touch children, who is doing everything he can to lead a normal life, but at the same time we are not required by the script to sympathize with him. We only begin to wonder how long he is going to make it before his urges overwhelm him again.

This movie was seen very little throughout the country on its release, and it's a shame because it not only is a compelling, well-told story, but it is superbly acted. This is Kevin Bacon's best acting work, and it deserves to be seen. Make sure to pick it up on Netflix or at your local video store.

Gouda's Final Grade: A-

The Lake House

2006-06-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

So... where do you see yourself in a couple of years?

If you often find yourself frustrated by movies that deal heavily in manipulating the time and space continuum, then The Lake House, a story about two soul mates who find themselves separated by a gulf of 2 years, is certain to tie your brain in knots. I only ask one favor from here on out regarding this film, because I understand completely your need to parse and analyze plots until their magic is all wrung out: just let it go. For 2 hours, don't ask "those" questions.

We start out peering into the lives of two melancholy people: Dr. Kate Forster (Sandra Bullock), and architect Alex Wyler (Keanu Reeves). They share a common bond in that they both spent time occupying a lake house just outside of Chicago. Kate lived there for a short time before taking a job at the major hospital in the city and when we first see her, she is moving out of the house. We then see Alex moving in. Only we later find out that it was he who was moving in first, in the year 2004; Kate moved out 2 years later.

The house itself is a marvel to behold as it is made almost completely of glass and sits on stilts above the water, suspending its inhabitants in the world while at the same time holding them apart from it. It's a work of art designed by a famous architect who also happens to be Alex Wyler's father Simon (Christopher Plummer), a prideful man who never managed to be satisfied with his son's decision to design mid-level condominiums. As Alex observed: "My father could always make a house, but he could never make a home."

As Alex unpacks his things in the house his father built, he notices a letter in the mailbox from Forster, asking the new tenant to please forward any of her mail to her new address. He notes the date and tells her that no one has lived in the house for quite some time, and that she might have the wrong address. In 2006, Kate makes a trip back to the still-empty glass abode she once loved and notices the flag up on the mailbox and sees Alex's reply. The mailbox itself is acting as sort of a conduit for these two people in these two separate times, and as they start to first doubt the possibility of what is happening before their very eyes, they eventually grow to have a beautiful, meaningful dialogue. He plants a tree in front of her apartment building (which was still in the earlier stages of construction in his time) and it appears on a rainy night before her very eyes. They take "walks" together, with him pointing out his favorite places on a map that she goes and visits and finds little signs of his appearance that he left for her to discover. As the plot develops further, they find other ways to make contact, some successful, some not so much, for reasons I will not reveal here.

All this time, we are dying to ask the question of how any of this could be happening. We want to inject reality into this dream, because none of this is even remotely possible, but doing that would ruin this film. Watching The Lake House is like holding a delicate, mysterious gem in the palm of your hand. If you poke and prod it too much, it will crumble apart and scatter in the wind, but if you just hold it and admire at its beauty, then you will realize that it doesn't matter what elements composed it. It simply exists as a wonder to behold. Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves are reunited for the first time since Speed and they both have a likeability and chemistry that make us believe the impossible. Good characters are key to making plots like this work; we don't care how they are successful, so long as they are.

Argentinian director Alejandro Agresti used a very skillful eye in framing the beauty of Chicago and illiciting great performances from both Bullock and Reeves. The movie has been panned by critics who have apparently grown so cynical that unless a movie's plot can be explained by logic as clear-cut as a skyscraper, then there is nothing worth seeing. I couldn't disagree with them more; The Lake House is magical, moving, wonderful, and one of my favorite films so far this year.

Gouda's Final Grade: A

Cars

2006-06-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

Hey bud, even if we ain't as good as the other Pixar movies, that ain't necessarily bad!

You know the saying about how even when pizza and sex aren't great, they're still good? I think it's also safe to add Pixar movies to that list. The latest effort by the animation giant was clouded by uncertainty prior to its release as people were just not sure if a movie about talking cars could really live up to the previous movies about talking toys, talking fish, and talking ants. At least those were biological creatures, or appeared to be. But talking cars? With tongues, even? Call me a naysayer. What I do know is that Pixar has what is probably one of the best writing teams in Hollywood, and it was that and that alone that kept my hope alive for this film.

Imagine a world where every creature, from a city's inhabitants even down to the insects, are vehicles of some sort. It's a similar world premise as the one in last year's animated movie Robots, only imagine it in a movie that doesn't suck, and you'll have Cars. In this world, the main sport is, of course, racing and Owen Wilson voices a flashy, arrogant red rookie named Lightning McQueen (love the tribute to Steve in that one) who is on the fast track to winning the championship Piston Cup, only there is a problem; what should have been his winning race ended in a 3-way tie, forcing a three-way matchup between he and his rivals a week later. During Lightning's trip to California, however, his transport truck, aptly named Mack (voiced by Pixar fixture John Ratzenberger) falls asleep and events ensue which lead to McQueen's accidental exit from his comfy abode and in a pursuit to catch back up to his ride. In the course of this, he gets turned around and winds up from the main freeway to the dusty remains of the legendary Route 66, where he meets some colorful characters in the dilapidated town of Radiator Springs. Among them is Mater, a lovable, rusty tow truck (voiced by Larry the Cable Guy), Sally the Porsche (Bonnie Hunt), and the grizzled Doc Hudson (Paul Newman).

This is where the story gets formulaic, but it also gets incredibly charming and I found myself, as I always do with a Pixar movie, starting to like and care for these characters. There are a lot of laughs, but there is also a ton of heart, particularly between McQueen and Newman's character Doc, who is a worn down racing champion from the 1950s.

The movie was full of subtle strokes of genius that set it apart from a "by the book" animated morality tale about the transition from arrogance to humility. The world created here was not only beautiful to look at (and by beautiful, I mean absolutely stunning and hard to look away from for even a second), but there were plenty of cultural references and nostalgia to keep the adults entertained. The use of Paul Newman in particular was a great move given his long involvement with NASCAR, and the history of the once great Route 66 and its eventual abandonment was portrayed so poignantly that even though I have never been on that stretch of highway, I found myself missing it anyway.

This is probably the best movie for children to come out so far this year, and although it doesn't quite stand up or endure the test of time like Pixar giants Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and even Monsters Inc, it retains most of the heart and intelligence that make their movies appeal to people of all ages.

Gouda's Final Grade: B+

The Omen

2006-06-06T13:19:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, kid? Well at least MY dad doens't have hooves!

One good thing about being a critic as jaded as I am is that I typically walk into most films with lowered expectations. With remakes, especially remakes of horror movies, I use those expectations to pad my shoes. If The Omen had opened on a regular Friday, I most likely would not have seen it right away. As it were, I'm sort of a sucker for marketing tactics like this, and before I knew it, I found myself sitting in a packed theater one row behind a guy who had glued horns to his head for the occasion.

I saw the original Omen about 10 years ago, mainly due to its presence on most "Top 10" horror lists compiled by people who think they are smarter than me. I thought the 1976 version was entertaining, but ultimately underwhelming. It centers around a powerful diplomat and his wife who have a baby and are informed that night that the child did not survive birth. The father is offered the chance by the doctor to adopt an orphaned child who was born that very night. The two raise the child as their own, completely unaware of his nefarious ancestry. As little Damien grows older, it becomes clearer that the boy is quite the creepy little bastard.

Not being able to relate to the historical context was probably the main reason I felt detatched from the original, and because the film centers around the son of Satan rising politically to bring about the end of the world (Damien's father is godson to the President and therefore has a very close avenue to achieving power), the political climate of the time didn't seem to resonate as clearly with me through the film. Yes, it was made during the Cold War, and the whole mutually assured destruction thing was indeed a frightening time for this country, but I think that today's events make for a more powerful backdrop, or at least it seems that way because my perception of the world is a bit sharper than it was when I was 16. There was also the fact that I found the kid to be generally unfrightening in the original, and I was therefore unconvinced of his underlying maliciousness.

In the 2006 Omen, we have a very faithful remake to the original in terms of plot, but it is framed with the modern horrific events that are supposed to signify the beginning of the end: the World Trade Center collapse, the tsunami in Asia, the Columbia space shuttle breaking apart in re-entry, among others. This is complemented by beautiful art direction and cinematography that made the movie a sheer joy to look at. Although it has been considered to be an almost shot-for-shot remake, the mood is top-notch and there are added psychological elements that amp up the creep factor to the more present-day, desensitized youth requirements. This is not to say that it is over the top. The film is still quiet and understated. People who are expecting to have their adrenaline levels spiked for 2 hours will be disappointed. The movie is all about setting a dark, thoughtful mood with the characters and the grim situations, and on occasion it jumps out to bite.

Liev Scheibner in the lead role as the father, Robert Thorn, strikes a pitch-perfect performance as a rational man who is slowly brought about to believe (thanks to the help of a smart photographer and a fanatical priest) that he might actually be fathering the son of the devil. Julia Stiles is also very convincing as a mother who is starting to suspect that her son might just be trying to kill her. This is not helped at all by the fact that Damien is being watched by a very protective nanny who is chillingly portrayed by Mia Farrow- a stroke of casting genius for anyone who saw Rosemary's Baby.

This movie has been unfairly maligned by critics. I have no idea if they saw a rough cut or if they just went in there expecting to hate it and fulfilled that prophecy all by themselves, but the new Omen is an engrossing, sleek, and yes- BETTER version of a "pretty good" but not "great" film. It was tweaked in all the right areas and given a modern enough spin to make it more than worth the price of admission.

And the kid? 4-feet of creepy. Director John Moore made the right decision to stick with the original formula of not having the kid talk much. Damien's piercing blue eyes and deceptive innocence are presence enough.

Gouda's Final Grade: A-

X-Men: The Last Stand

2006-06-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

The "X" Variable

I've always had a particular fondness for the X-Men mythology. Not only does it artfully broach ethical and political issues (should the government put restrictions on mutants who have powers that can be threatening to national security? Should they have forced upon them a cure?), but it presents us with characters who are complex. Good vs Evil simplifies way too much the relationships between Professor Xavier and his earnest students and Magneto and his wayward band of gifted rebels. While Xavier favors teaching mutants how to harness and control their powers so they can be peaceful and productive members of society, Magneto takes a more fantical approach in that the world should not only accept mutants for who they are, but that "normal" people are outdated on the evolutionary scale and are enemies that should be dealt with accordingly. Amidst such differences, however, the two old rivals maintain a sort of fascinating, civilized high-regard for one another, which makes for great movie watching. There are other fun interactions in the storyline that carried on throughout the series, such as a love triangle between the characters Jean Grey, her boyfriend Scott (Cyclops), and Logan (Wolverine), and they are all revisited here. But therin also lies a problem.

Brett Ratner, who took over the directing reigns from Bryan Singer when Singer went on to direct the upcoming Superman Returns, is a competent director who can pull off technical sequences that are awe-inspiring. His weakness is in properly framing a storyline, and with X-Men, where there are several independent ones, Ratner chose to juggle all of them like a cranked-up circus performer while also condensing the film's runtime to a brief 104 minutes. This causes many of the characters to suffer from under-development that an additional half-hour could have somewhat remedied.

Despite that problem, X-Men is highly entertaining, and we are introduced to a sort of mutant smorgasbord, including a guy who can replicate himself, another guy who has giant white wings, a girl who can make giant shockwaves just by clapping, among others. But it all starts with a little boy, code named Leech, who has the ability to sap mutants of their powers once they get within a certain proximity of him. He also produces a special antibody that can be injected into other mutants, thereby "curing" them. The political and social reprocussions of such a cure are where the story gets complicated. Magneto takes the stance that not only do mutants not need to be cured, they are the cure for what's wrong with humanity. He wages a war against the company who is producing the antidote as well as the government whom he fears will eventually start forcing the serum onto the mutant population. What makes this complicated is that for the most part I found myself agreeing with him, and I had a hard time understanding why the X-Men were trying to stop him, other than perhaps they wanted the solution to be less violent, or they were starting to feel kind of bored. This is another consequence of Ratner's plot condensing.

Along the way, we get reacquainted with Jean Grey, who went through an unfortunate incident at the end of the first X-Men sequel and has come back changed for the worse. She ultimately joins Magneto in his quest, and we get a new, albiet weak, love triangle between Anna Paquin's character Rogue (who kills people just by touching them, which makes for challenging relationship material), her ice-weilding boyfriend cleverly named Iceman, and a girl who can walk through walls. Choices, choices! This is a sideline plot that should have either been further developed or dropped altogether in order to further explore other more pertinent details. Kelsey Grammar also has a winning performance as a blue-hued beast (aptly named Beast), who serves as a diplomat between the mutant community and the rest of society.

The Last Stand is not a perfect movie. A lot of it was just plain absurd, but you have to expect such things in films like this. It was entertaining and at times poignant. Oh, and if there is any doubt, the end was left open to another sequel. So The Last Stand might not actually be as such. We already know that Hugh Jackman is doing a Wolverine prequel to be released sometime next year.

Also: Stick around after the credits for a pretty big revelation.

Gouda's Final Grade: B-

Over the Hedge

2006-06-03T13:23:00.000-07:00

It's a wide, wonderful world of Twinkies out there...

In a modern world filled with all of the man-made delights of junk food, video games, SUVs, and television, it would stand to reason that our addictions to these things would eventually transfer to the animal kingdom. With Over the Hedge, the best animated effort from Dreamworks since Shrek, we get a keen observation on what a mere potato chip would drive a group of woodland foragers to do to a quiet suburban neighborhood.

It all starts when RJ, a loner raccoon (voiced by Bruce Willis) gets himself into a spot of trouble with a hungry grizzly bear (Nick Nolte). In order to save his fur, RJ attempts to meet the bear's demands for food by staging a heist on the packaged goodies in a modern, well-manicured housing development. To meet his ends, he recruits a group of creatures who have found their forest paradise overtaken by this neighborhood during the course of their hibernation. They are initially resistant to help the raccoon, but once RJ introduces them to the wonderment that is the powdered cheese-coated tortilla chip, the creatures are hooked.

If Over the Hedge isn't an allegory on the effects of the commercial food industry on our planet (think of all the McDonald's in Asia), I don't know what is. Its mockery of suburban America is at times hilarious and a little painful. I don't remember the last time an animated movie aimed mostly at kids made me think so deeply. Not that it was too deep, mind you; it's still a cartoon, and I think most of these observations will go right over the heads of the intended audience.

Speaking of the intended audience, there was a lot in Over the Hedge to keep the adults entertained, but I'm afraid that it was a bit too much to keep my 3 and 4 year old kids contained. This movie might play better for slightly older children, around 6. While they were enthralled with the wonderfully vibrant simplicity that was Curious George, Over the Hedge had a lot of jokes and situations that were perhaps slightly too advanced for them to grasp. If you have young children, they might be better suited to this movie on DVD where they would have the luxury of walking away from it for a little while when they get tired of trying to understand the jokes.

That being said, Over the Hedge looks great, and given the animated tripe (Robots) and underwhelming efforts (Shark Tale and Madagascar) that have come out of Dreamworks of late, Over the Hedge was a refreshing new edition to the fold. It might not quite have the timeless storytelling capability of even the worst Pixar film, but it still has the cutting wit that made the Shrek films an instant classic.

Gouda's Final Grade: B+

The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-20T13:25:00.000-07:00

Beware this flaccid Da Vinci choad...

So dark the con of Ron Howard who screwed up a sure thing. The Da Vinci Code was a wildly successful novel that had a compelling concept delivered by a flimsy vehicle. One would think that placing the concept in the hands of a skilled filmmaker would improve upon what Dan Brown couldn't quite get right: His stupid plot and insipid writing. After all, it wasn't the story in the novel that made The Code so ubiquitously talked about. It was the controversial historical references and theories made about a subject near and dear to billions that kept everyone reading. Case in point, did anyone ever say: "Remember the part in the book where Robert Langdon did this?!"

No.

The problem with making this book into a film is that the book is very "talky", and the meat of the story lies in the subtext. For instance, Dan Brown made countless, painstaking references to symbology in his novel that almost made it at times read like a lightweight history textbook, and if you're into that kind of thing, like me, then you would have soaked up the book through your eyeballs in spite of its weaker points. In order to get the novel onto the screen without sacrificing all of that good stuff, the filmmakers decided to paste the entire mess onto celluloid, making for a very long and often boring ordeal that had me beginning to question whether or not my car needed cleaning out again. The writers didn't even bother to clean up the rudimentary Dan Brown dialogue, which has to be like breaking some kind of cardinal rule.

Cue rimshot.

This is not a good idea, and it should serve as a lesson to anyone who hopes to adapt a novel to film: Do not be lazy. There is a difference between a written medium and a visual one, and the two are not always compatible. Writers often need to take liberties in order to make the transition to the big screen successful. If this wasn't true, then Peter Jackson would have been burned at the stake rather than dipped in gold. In fact, Ron Howard should have taken a lesson from him because this is easily the worst film Howard has ever made.

What should have been an eagle on the 18th hole ended up being a horribly miscalculated double bogey into the rough, and it looks to me like they spent the entire two and a half hours taking weak stabs with the wrong club trying to get out of it. A hilariously bemulleted (yeah, that's my word) Tom Hanks looks uncomfortable if not miscast in his role as an accomplished academic, with his trademark sardonic grin looking more like: "I hope this claptrap isn't the end of my winning streak." Ian McKellan is the only one who looks as if he belongs, likely because he was the only interesting character in the movie, but even he couldn't carry the crushing weight of the surrounding absurdity.

All in all, if the Da Vinci Code movie gets anything right, it's in highlighting the inherent weaknesses of its source material. If you want to delve into the history behind Brown's inspiration, it's perhaps best to take the non-fictional route and leave the generic Indiana Jones stuff to Spielberg and Lucas.

Gouda's Final Grade: D

Mission: Impossible 3

2006-05-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

What do you mean I shouldn't jump on the couch?

I'm going to begin my review for Mission: Impossible 3 the way I'm sure 97% of all the reviews of this film have begun thus far, and I am sure this will also serve as a bit of a disclaimer for every film of Tom's I review in the foreseeable future, because these days it seems people need to justify themselves before watching a Cruise movie:

Yes, I know that Tom Cruise is a cultist nutball who has made an ass of himself in public over the last year.

There, now that I got that part out of the way, let's talk about the man's latest movie, which I think is highly entertaining.

I would first like to point out that fans of the show Alias will appreciate the way that series creator (and director of this film) JJ Abrams incorporated a lot of similar elements from his small screen work to the big screen by way of a looping and backtracking plot structure, certain cameos (Kevin Weismann in particular), and even similar music. Having watched this man's television work for years, his talent for making the spy genre exciting was more than palpable here, and Tom Cruise did the right thing in choosing Abrams to helm this picture.

Now let's talk plot. Wait... Let's not. Anyone who has ever seen a Mission Impossible movie knows that such an endeavor would be, well, impossible. I still can't really say what happened in the first one, even though I liked it. Trust me when I say that it's easy enough to follow along in this film, but upon walking from the theater, you will not be able to really say WHAT exactly happened, but that's okay. I recently bemoaned such a situation with my ripping to shreds of Silent Hill. The difference is, while Silent Hill was an incoherent, tedious mass of vomit, Mission Impossible was adrenaline-pumping, compelling action that makes one feel (at least in certain parts) like they injected concentrated Red Bull and chased that by snorting a crushed up bottle of No-Doz. There was some amazing stunt work (the "fulcrum" in Shanghai was particularly good) and the orgy of spy technology made this geek squeal like a delighted little girl in an ice cream parlor. Philip Seymour Hoffman also made a fiendishly good villain, proving yet again that he is the Swiss Army Knife of actors, and is one of the greatest assets in Hollywood today.

Yes, Tom Cruise is a couch-humping wacky Scientologist, but he still knows how to make a quality film, and as long as he continues to do that, I will continue to buy tickets. I really hope that his off-screen antics will not serve as a detriment to the success of Mission Impossible 3, because it really was a fun trip to the movies and well worth the price of admission. Even EVENING admission, if you wanted!

Gouda's Final Grade: B+

United 93

2006-04-30T13:38:00.000-07:00

United by chaos...

As I exited the theater following my viewing of United 93, my mind was racing with ways to approach the review I'm writing right now. Do I reflect upon the fact that up until today, I've always felt somewhat detatched from the events of 9/11/01? Let's do that for a second. That fateful day, I was taking care of my two-week old daughter and on a schedule that basically involved me trying to get as much sleep as I could, wherever I could fit it in. As a result of sleeping in on a morning when Natalie was feeling particularly generous, I didn't hear about the incident coming down until well into mid-morning, when I turned on the TV to see a pile of smoking rubble where two giants once stood. That entire day was spent playing catch-up, switching from one news channel to another, trying to piece together what millions of other people already knew, or saw unfold right before their eyes.

Almost five years after those horriffic events, I have seen a movie that not only masterfully told a great portion of what happened on that day, but I felt like I was thrust right into the plane with the doomed passengers of United 93, and the impression was nothing if not indelible.

I was one of the many naysayers when I first heard of the making of this film. "It's too soon. They're exploiting this day and its victims, and I do not see how they can possibly make a movie that could respectfully relay that story."

Well, what can I say? I was wrong. So, so wrong.

Director Paul Greengrass not only utilized a raw, documentarian style to create this film, but he told the story in a way that avoided the use of cliches and archetypes by using a present-tense, omniscient format that ensured that the viewer didn't know anything the passengers or the people on the ground didn't know first. Adding to the realism was the use of virtually unknown actors as well as many of the FAA and ground control people playing themselves.

We've all heard the stories of the various passengers on the the United 93 flight- the rugby player, the man who almost missed his flight and was let on at the last second, the memorable quote "Let's roll" before they stormed the cockpit. None of that was underlined here. They were all just people on a plane, on a routine morning, completely unaware they were entering the last moments of their lives, and that those moments would be filled with utter terror. Even the hijackers were not viewed specifically as bloodthirsty villains here. Rather, they were determined, frightened, and blinded by religious zeal and saw thier missions as a means to a divine end. That is all we are told about them, and that was a very wise step.

Perhaps most disturbing was the utter disorder that unfolded in our various agencies and the military resources that were trying to gain control of a steadily worsening situation. Everyone knew what was going wrong, but the information was not travelling neatly down the lines the way it would "in the movies". It was a tragic, real-life equivalent of practicing a play for years and then having the stage cave in on opening night; everything that could have gone wrong that day, did. Except, of course, on that lone flight with passengers who were able to know that they were being taken on a suicide mission and were determined to divert the hijackers with whatever grim courage they could muster.

United 93 is not the conventional film one would expect. Greengrass made it his job to not answer questions, propagandaize, or point fingers, but to simply tell the story as close to the facts as possible, without any extraneous fluff. It is engrossing, disturbing, and heartbreaking. And it is, as of now, the best movie of the year.

Gouda's Final Grade: A+

Silent Hill

2006-04-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

Please... make it stop...

The vomit barks like a kitten in a fish tank.

That sentence retains all of the logic of the battle of non sequiturs known as Silent Hill, a new horror release that continues to prove that it's possible for inanity to reach a new peak. Of course I did say vomit, and that part does make a little sense, but I don't mean vomit in the "gross" connotation. Actually, if Silent Hill had been more gross, I'd probably be rating it a little higher, but I'll come back to that in a minute.

Vomit is essentially a substance that doesn't have any order to it; it is chaos in hot swill form, and its appearance is generally undesirable. Silent Hill actually happens to be good looking vomit, though, like the kind you get when you eat food that turns it pretty colors. The kind that makes you go "man, puking really sucks, but look at how the hues swirl together when I flush! At least there is that!" The problem is, even pretty vomit is still vomit, and puking still sucks.

You notice how I have not even attempted to describe the plot so far. Well, don't get your hopes up, because I'm not going to try too hard. It's not for lack of wanting to, it's simply because it would be like asking me to remove a giant wad of bubblegum from the coat of a wooly mammoth; it would be tedious and pointless, if not impossible. It doesn't help that the plot has about as much coherence as the twisted creatures walking through the town of the film's namesake, creatures who have the ability to look like walking uteruses trying to give birth to themselves. If that didn't make sense to you, then you will sort of know what it was like to watch this movie.

So here is my bravest attempt to describe what "basically" happens in Silent Hill. There is a little girl who has recently taken to frightening bouts of sleepwalking, and in the midst of these episodes talks about a place called *gasp* Silent Hill. Her adoptive mother decides to cement her Mother of the Year status by doing what any sane, rational parent would do: Pack up the kid and take her to this place. When she wrecks her car and gets knocked out for awhile, Super Mom wakes up to find her daughter missing, and from that point on the film takes us into a nebulous cloud of "what the fuck??". What's not helping this equation in the slightest is that the actress playing the little girl makes Keanu Reeves look like Lawrence Olivier in terms of acting ability, and that by the time she actually turns up missing, we're just relieved to not have her in the picture for the next 90 minutes. All manner of absurdity occurs that I am incapable of revealing at this point, but there were a few highlights:

- a full-body degloving of the film's most annoying character. Don't worry, you'll be able to pick her out relatively quickly, and you'll cheer when it happens.

- the visceral ripping apart of a religious fanatic, which is always a pleasure to see. (make a note that this is about as bloody as the film gets and neither of those things happen until well into the second half of the film).

- a slight, albeit unintentional, resurrection of the classic Michael Jackson video Thriller.

Perhaps the most egregious offense of Silent Hill, however, was its attempt to salvage the plot by pointless explanation after pointless explanation. If they had only realized from the beginning that we don't really CARE about all that, then they could have just focused on the whole "horror" thing. The filmmakers were so concerned that we understand every aspect of this movie that they stopped about three-quarters of the way through to sort of bring everyone up to speed with a film-stock "flashback", almost as a way of saying: "I know you've been sitting here waiting for the caffiene from that mostrous Coke you're drinking to kick in so you don't fall asleep, so we're just gonna tell you why the last hour and a half HASN'T been a gargantuan waste of your time, and we hope you won't be disappointed!"

Don't worry. You will be.

You know, this review is getting a little long, and I know I've said a lot. But I've also said absolutely nothing. That is the essence of Silent Hill. There is so much more that could have been said. I could have quoted choice bits from the underwheliming dialogue, and I haven't even gotten to the parts of the movie involving the father of the little girl and the gratuitous "twist ending" that basically tasted like a bile chaser to a poop cocktail, but that would just take too long.

Either way, I hope I've captured the essence of the latest addition to the "movies based on popular video games that make you wonder why they keep bothering with this genre" collection.

Don't climb this hill. Just. Don't.

Gouda's Final Grade: F

The Sentinel

2006-04-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

Was it YOUR idea to get me into this movie??

On paper, The Sentinel looks like an intriguing winner. A legendary Secret Service agent, Pete Garrison (Michael Douglas), uncovers a scheme where one of their own is attempting to assassinate the President. Complicating matters is Garrison's own love life; he is having an affair with the First Lady (played by Kim Bassinger who appears to have had a refreshingly realistic looking facelift). The political fallout of such a situation requires a great amount of secrecy, which causes him to fail a polygraph exam when the Service begins investigating its own agents, thereby creating a "wrongly accused" formula that drives the plot from the second act on. But remember: this is on paper.

The reality is that The Sentinel attempted to be like The Fugitive, but it forgot to bring suspense and characters we care about to the party. It's a shame too, because there is some good acting here. Kiefer Sutherland, who plays investigating officer David Breckenridge, provides the chase, but it also comes with personal strings attached; Breckenridge and Garrison were best friends until Garrison slept with David's wife. So, there is some tension created when Breckenridge is torn between wanting to nail Garrison to the wall for the affair and to bring the right man to justice.

But it never for a moment feels real. Douglas and Sutherland look great when they are yelling at each other in an attempt to wake up the audience, but the two actors seem separated by such a gulf that it transfers to the characters themselves. They might as well have been acting with a partition between them for the same effect. Eva Longoria breaks into her first major big screen role since becoming a Desperate Housewife as Breckenridge's rookie sidekick, but she doesn't seem to serve any other purpose than to give other agents a nice body to pant after.

There is nothing wrong with doing a movie by a particular formula. In fact, there wouldn't even be formulas if they didn't work on some level. All it really takes is a decent script to bring them to life, but because this is what The Sentinel ultimately lacked, it never quite was able to leave the ground.

Gouda's Final Grade: C-

Thank You for Smoking

2006-04-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

No, Aaron, thank YOU for being AWESOME...

"We don't sell Tic Tacs, we sell cigarettes. And they're cool, available, and addictive. The job is almost done for us."

With one of the most brilliant satires in recent years, Thank You For Smoking makes it more than clear what the tabacco industry is about in terms of marketing and lobbying, while also managing to make the audience root for the cause of its star lobbyist, Nick Naylor, in an amazing turn from Aaron Eckhart. This is a man who doesn't care if he's right or wrong so long as he is effectively arguing his position. He is so cocky, so self-assured, that he is able to win the approval of a 15-year old cancer patient while accusing the anti-smoking lobby of wanting smokers to die. He tells his son: "As long as you argue correctly, you're always right."

He meets weekly for dinner with two other lobbyists (alcohol and firearms), a group that refers to itself as the MOD Squad (Merchants of Death), where they argue over whose product causes the most deaths per year and who would most likely be kidnapped by terrorists over it.

This is cynical stuff, but it is also hilarious, and the style of the film denotes an intelligence and quickness of wit that captures the audience from the beginning. Even in scenes where we are compelled to sympathize with the characters, there is a biting sardonic quality that keeps a crooked grin on our face, particularly when Sam Elliot's character, a former Marlboro Man turned anti-smoking activist after being stricken with lung cancer, is convinced to accept a monetary "gift" from the tobacco industry. Note the precarious balance struck between the humor, honesty, and sadness of this situation.

There are also media celebrity cameos that add a great element of realism, as well as a depiction of the shallowness of the Hollywood lifestyle that makes for some of the biggest laughs in the film, thanks to a fantastic performance by Rob Lowe. "You should try the new Nobu. Apparently everything on the menu is white."

Thank You For Smoking is essentially a smorgasbord of laughs and insight. We cannot tell who director and screenwriter Jason Reitman (who based his film on the book by Christopher Buckley) is trying to advocate or villainize more here, the smoking industry or the people who are trying to bankrupt the smoking industry. Certainly there are elements of animosity toward both, and people will no doubt leave this film with their opinions on this topic intact. What the movie seems to crucify more than anything is the art of deception involved in lobbying itself, but at least it makes us laugh out loud when it's happening.

This is a rare film.

Gouda's Final Grade: A

Slither

2006-04-09T13:53:00.000-07:00

Fun-goria!

I think it's safe to say that among Barbies, baby dolls, and playing dressup, hundreds of horror movies defined my childhood. Half of it was having parents who were permissive in such areas; they never really censored much of what my brother and I watched, and other than a more relaxed than most sense of morality and the occasional, still unacted upon (knock on wood) urge to hit someone in the head with a large rock, I think I turned out okay. One of my earliest memories was writing in the 2nd grade about how if I could be anyone in the world, I would be Freddy Kreuger.

So maybe my earlier self-assessment was a bit too generous.

It still serves as a great source of laughs for my parents, though, and I was kind of proud at how well I drew Freddy in that hand-made book that undoubtedly concerned my teacher Ms. Vanek. I never liked her anyway.

In general, I have been left with a great appreciation for the horror genre, particularly the one that was driven underground in the late 90s and the current decade by movies that were, to pathetically understate it, lame. And I don't mean "lame" in that they weren't scary. I mean lame in that they were relying on generating fright from tired old formulae and therefore failed miserably.

Some of my favorites from a bygone era include The Evil Dead (and Army of Darkness, of course), Phantasm, Re-Animator, the 80s remake of The Blob, Shivers, Hellraiser, anything made by George Romero, and lest we travel into the further depths of cheesy (cheesy good, that is) shock horror- Slaughter High, The Stuff, Tremors- the list goes on. There has been a recent return to the good ol' days thanks to folks like Rob Zombie, whose House of a Thousand Corpses and The Devil's Rejects harken to the days when gore and sinister, satirical humor were almost commonplace.

Slither, the most recent homage, written and directed by a guy whose most well-known achievement was writing the Scooby Doo movies (James Gunn), was nothing short of brilliant. And slimy. Slimy is good.

What was also good were the hidden in-jokes, so numerous that repeat viewings are necessary in order to catch them all. Here are the ones that I did happen to stumble upon off the bat (without trying to make any spoilers):

-A family in the movie named the Castevetes, after the neighbors in Rosemary's Baby.
-Earl Bassett High School was named after the character Earl Bassett in Tremors (there were actually a few references to that movie)
-A scene with the exact music from Predator
-A scene with The Toxic Avenger on the TV
-Obvious reference to The Fly at the very end
-The name of the mayor, J.R. McCready, was the same name as Kurt Russell's character in The Thing.

Perhaps best of all, though, was the dialogue, and there were one-liners so numerous and hilarious that they cannot all be listed here without spoiling the film, and after much consideration I have decided I would be doing the movie a disservice by providing them, because it's just one of those things where you'd have to be there to appreciate the full scope and complexity.

Okay, maybe I'll pick just one:

"Are they martians?"
"Martians are from MARS!"
"'Martian' is a general term for space fucker!"

And one more:

After seeing a zombie combine with its leader's body (an obvious reference to The Blob), the hero of the film exclaims: "Now that is just some fucked up shit!"

Slither is probably the most fun I've had at the movies in a long time. It is one of those small gems that will insert itself, much like the wormy little slugs featured in the film, into the underground pop-culture to be appreciated by geeks like me for years to come.

Thank you, James Gunn, for not forgetting about us! :)

Gouda's Final Grade: A-

Inside Man

2006-04-01T13:57:00.000-08:00

Clive Owen and Denzel Washington on the inside...

Spike Lee has built a career on making movies that I either love or hate. He doesn't know this, of course, but I like to think that some part of him has a bit of a guilty conscience for making me sit through Jungle Fever. In other words, of late many of his "joints" have been really arthritic.

Did I score any points for originality on that one? No?

With Inside Man, however, Lee has more than redeemed himself in my eyes. I bet he is absolutely thrilled about that, by the way. It is the smartest, least arrogant (for Spike, that is) film he has made in years. In fact, I counted only three to five attempts at racial allegory, which has to be some kind of a record for him!

It's no ordinary heist picture; Inside Man is filled with subtle twists and MacGuffins, all of which are complimented by fantastic acting on behalf of Clive Owen, Denzel Washington, and Jodie Foster. Owen in particular shines here as the criminal mastermind who is not quite what he seems, the only flaw being that his lust-inspiring face was hidden behind a mask for the majority of the film.

The taut suspense was tempered by witty dialogue and perhaps most memorably by a sequence involving Owen getting a glimpse of what a 9-year old boy was playing on his Playstation Portable.

I only found myself distracted by certain elements, such as the cinematography, where the camera panned perhaps a little too far and too fast, creating an effect that was difficult to look at without squinting. Also the soundtrack was generally cheesy and incongruent, creating a mood in some scenes that best belonged in an old episode of TJ Hooker rather than in a modern suspense film, but these are subtle marks against it, and do not detract much from what is overall one of the best films so far this year.

Gouda's Final Grade: A-

The Hills Have Eyes

2006-03-12T14:01:00.000-08:00

Today was historical: I walked out of a movie for only the second time in my life.

Oh, yes.

Film snob that I am, I like to think I'm at least patient about it. If I encounter a celluloid piece of excrement, I normally will view it in its pathetic entirety so that I have more of a reason to thrash it later. I also do this because I look forward to my weekly trips to theater, and even 2 hours spent in cinematic hell usually beats spending those two hours doing activities more productive. Movies are, after all, the ultimate form of escape, allowing me a respite from the pounding voices in my head constantly telling me that my house is a mess, that I should be studying, and/or that I haven't exercised in a few days (shut up voices, shut UP!!!).

Movies also contain messages. And if the movies are good, they can teach us valuable lessons through entertainment, such as the beauty of love, the dangers in seeking revenge, or perhaps most importantly: the absolute necessity of having a really kick-ass car. I learned that last one from watching Ronin.

"The Hills Have Eyes" had a very important message to deliver today. Actually several. I'm not sure the messages were actually intended by the filmmakers, but they were loud and clear nonetheless. I also don't know if these messages started coming through when I saw a mutated nuclear fallout victim, who looked more like a demented Lepruchaun, eating a person's leg, or when I started thinking that Ted Levine would have made the movie far more entertaining if he'd told someone to "put the lotion in the basket". I just know that about an hour into this ride, I was learning several things:

-Today would be a really great day to clean out my car.

-I am suddenly in the mood to shop for a bathing suit.

-I have actually never read War and Peace and I should consider doing that really, really soon. Like now, actually!

Normally, when I have thoughts like this, I suppress them quite effectively because whatever I'm doing at the moment has GOT to be better than doing any of the above items. I'm one of the laziest people I know; I procrastinate better than Brett Favre throws a touchdown pass. This is why I have only walked out of one other movie in my life. The other one was Batman & Robin. Surely you understand.

It's not so much that Hills was the worst movie I'd ever seen. It was just trite. I have a very low tolerance for trite.

I wish I could be so motivated in my life without spending $6.25 first, but if that's what it takes, so be it.

My car is spotless right now!

Gouda's Semi-Final (because she didn't stay until the end) Grade: D-