Casual Critic Mini Reviews

Letters from Iwo Jima

Director: Clint Eastwood Cast: Ken Watanabe, Kazunari Ninomiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Ryo Kase

]]> Letters from Iwo Jima is Clint Eastwood's companion to Flags of our Fathers. Filmed back to back, both movies tell, in essence, the story of the battle for the island of Iwo Jima towards the end of World War II.

The movies are however, not mirroring each other. If Flags of our Fathers focused more on the political efforts to raise money for the war and on the lives of some of the war heroes after their return from battle, Letters from Iwo Jima is a war movie in the purest sense. A solid war movie, by all means, but one that would not have gotten a similar attention if it wasn't directed by an American director, and one of Eastwood's stature at that.

Eastwood dares to show the world (and perhaps American in particular) that the enemy is not just a bunch of mindless lunatics that are out for blood. The enemy soldiers are just as tri-dimensional as the American ones are, with families and children waiting at home, with dreams and hopes, with convictions - some with their own, others with what they have been indoctrinated.

Letters from Iwo Jima is a good war movie. But its importance transcends the movie qualities. It is like Ender's Speaker for the Dead - as Eastwood takes the time to understand the enemy that the Americans fought and destroyed and tell back to the world the story through the enemy's eyes.

Notes on a Scandal

Director: Richard Eyre Cast: Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Bill Nighy, Andrew Simpson

]]> An acting tour de force by Dench and Blanchett who befriend each other as Sheba (Blanchett) joins, as a novice art teacher, the highschool where Barbara (Dench) was teaching for over three decades. Barbara is a lonely old woman, moderately repressed lesbian, who has always searched for her soul mate in life, and hopes to have found in Sheba the answer to her quest. As Sheba lets herself stumble into an affair with one of her students, Barbara uses her knowledge of the fact to try and gain further control on her unassuming victim.

Sheba is caught between her feelings of unfulfilled life, her affair sentiments that she cannot shrug off and put behind, her duty towards her husband and kids and Barbara's manipulative friendship. In the end, the story and the denouement of the Scandal are not what stays with you after the film ends. It is rather the intensity that the characters feel, all coming from their struggle to find the life that they had dreamed of, none too fancy, yet so far from the reality that they are trapped in.

El Laberinto del Fauno

Director: Guillermo del Toro Cast: Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Sergi Lopez, Maribel Verdu

]]> I have to start off with a rant: Why on earth did the American distributors choose to call this movie Pan's Labyrinth? Most people I've talked to before seeing the movie thought it was a reference to Peter Pan. In fact, the title of the movie is The Faun's Labyrinth. Of course not many may know what a Faun is. But Pan is a famous faun. No, not Peter Pan. The other Pan, much older one, from the Greek mythology. So... let's make things easier for everyone by using a misleading title. But enough about this. As a marketing move it actually seems to have worked.

Pan's Labyrinth is one of the best movies of the year, in fact one of the best mixtures of historical drama and true fantasy in years, a powerful drama showing the second World War through the eyes of an innocent young girl, which finds refuge from the daily violence and horror in a fantasy world that is just as violent and disturbing, yet still retaining a certain charm that is lost to the real world.

Reminiscent on some level of Benini's La Vita e Bella (Life is Beautiful), El Laberinto del Fauno is also del Toro's continuation of his earlier The Devil's Backbone, another movie of magical realism inspiration, a ghost story backdropped against the Spanish civil war. The allegory comes full circle in the end as the real world and fantasy merge allowing Ofelia to step from one into the other.

Great movie, strongly recommended.

The Pursuit of Happyness

Director: Gabriele Muccino Cast: Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Thandie Newton

]]> Chris Gardner (Will Smith) doesn't give up hope on making something out of his life as he is struggling to cope with being broke and taking care of his son. Inspired by the true story of a self-made millionaire, The Pursuit of Happyness manages to be above the typical sappy happy-end Hollywood story, through subdued, believable acting by Smith, good chemistry with his real-life son, and inspired directing from Italian director Gabriele Muccino (Ricordati di me, L'ultimo baccio recently adapted in US as The Last Kiss).

The scenes between Smith and his son (I should probably say Gardner and his son, but...) are particularly touching and genuine, showing a true relationship. Recomended for a warm family evening.

The Painted Veil

Director: John Curran Cast: Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Toby Jones

]]> After marrying Dr. Walter (Norton) only to escape her family, Kitty (Watts) follows her husband to Shanghai. As they move to live in a small town, struggling with cholera and nationalist insurgence, they both re-discover each other and perhaps a sense of love.

Beautiful cinematography and great performances from the two that I consider the best actors of the current generation, make justice to Somerset Maugham's novel, balancing the personal story of the main characters and the complex social background of 1920's China, without compromising realism in favor of Hollywood cliches.

Inland Empire

Director: David Lynch Cast: Laura Dern, Jeremy Irons, Justin Theroux

]]> Sitting through three hours of intense visceral, dreamlike, surreal experience is never easy. And I do understand all those that cannot make it all the way to the end in a movie which, no matter how much time you give it, doesn't become any clearer and things don't really "add up" in a revelational explanation. But if you are so inclined and in the right mood, Inland Empire delivers an experience unlike any other movie could.

Arguably, Inland Empire is Lynch's most surreal movie yet, unrelenting from beginning to end. What is the story? What does it all mean? Is it a meditation of women being treated as whores and suffering the consequences? Is it about Hollywood's malefic influence and fatal attraction? Is it the story of an actress losing track of the difference between reality and script when she lets herself immersed into a story that hits too close to home? Is she following in the footsteps of a previous actress that got trapped by the same story and paid with her life? Or maybe there is only one actress, sitting in front of the TV and letting herself think of all the things she lived and those she could live and struggling with a life-changing decision until one path wins...

The beauty of Lynch's movies is that, even if he ever gives an explanation about the "story", all the alternate interpretations, all one hundred of them, that viewers come up with, remain equally valid. It is all a dream. It is all quasi-abstract art. It is utter crap for some. And extraordinary genius for others. And they are all right.

Children of Men

Director: Alfonso Cuaron Cast: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine

]]> I have a question: what does everyone find so great in this movie? Granted, the camerawork is masterful and the whole cinematography is immersive. However, the script is about on par with Terminator 2. Without the humor. Or Total Recall. I even grew further appreciation for V for Vendetta which I was originally disappointed with.

Clive Owen ends up having to take care of a pregnant woman in a world that has not seen any childbirth in 18 years. Of course there is rioting and war all over and even those presumably protecting the woman are only interested in using the child for political benefits. The script does point in several interesting directions, but they are all unsufficiently expanded and we end up with a fairly ridiculous hide-and-seek action movie as the unwilling hero escorts the woman towards a meeting with a secret society of scientists that can study the child and mother and perhaps figure out a cure for mankind. And, of course, she gives birth in a refugee camp, escapes with the baby while buildings are blown away and tens killed around her and manages to get to the meeting with the elusive group that noone knew for sure it even existed.

Good acting, great visuals but mediocre story despite intellectual ambitions.

Dreamgirls

Director: Bill Condon Cast: Jamie Foxx, Beyonce Knowles, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson, Danny Glover

]]> Glamorous and glittery, Dreamgirls does more than justice to the famous award winning Broadway original. The story is a lose semi-fictional adaptation of The Supremes real story, one of the most famous Motown groups from Detroit. But Dreamgirls is not about the story. It's all about the music.

American Idol not-quite-winner Jennifer Hudson is probably not willing to trade her Golden Globe win for playing Effie with an Idol win as she got the chance to outshine Beyonce in one of the best movie adaptations of a Broadway success.

Running with Scissors

Director: Ryan Murphy Cast: Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood

]]> Movies about dysfunctional families can be supremely funny albeit outrageous to some. In Running with Scissors there are some genuinely funny moments and Annette Bening does give a brilliant performance as the wreck mother, distraught wannabe poet who ends up giving her teenage son away for adoption to her shrink. However, apart from the premise, the funniest moments are captured by the movie trailer and Running with Scissors manages the rare performance (for this class of movies) to be almost boring even when it tries to be outrageous.

Blood Diamond

Director: Edward Zwick Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Honsou, Jennifer Connelly

]]> As Blood Diamond starts with gritty, brutal display of the violent reality that still exists in many African countries: women and children being massacred without reason by various factions that try to make a point that is usually forgotten by the time the gunshots quiet down. The story shows slick diamond smuggler Danny Archer (DiCaprio) catching the trail of a large diamond that Solomon (Honsou) has managed to hide in the dirt near the mine that he was forced to work in as a slave.

For a while the movie manages to thread the line between powerful drama, action adventure and romance, but semblance of balance is completely lost in an ending that simply bundles together one ridiculous cliche after another. The almost anti-hero Archer turns into a hero, and embraces a fate of sacrifice while melting the heart of the journalist that somehow fell for him in all the craziness. Oh, and of course, they manage in the end to sabotage the big bad diamond producers and prove that they were knowingly trading "conflict" diamonds... Sweet Happy Ending!.

Watch The Last King of Scotland instead.

Snakes on a Plane

Director: David R. Ellis Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Marguilles, Nathan Phillips

]]> A drug dealer figures that the best way to get rid of a witness in the FBI's custody is to take down the plane taking him from Hawaii to LA, by releasing a crate full of various poisonous snakes. Of course, the snakes are more aggressive than usual due to some hormons sprayed on the Hawaiian flowers and find their way through the double-decker killing almost everyone in sight.

But hey, you knew that Snakes on a Plane is going to be ridiculous. At the same time it is fun with lots of memorable one-liners so... enjoy.

The Good Shepherd

Director: Robert DeNiro Cast: Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Alec Baldwin, William Hurt, Oleg Stefan

]]> The Good Shepherd is a very ambitious movie, mixing dramatic fiction with historic facts, all while telling a story of complex intrigue with stakes at the highest level. CIA, FBI, KGB are only a few of the players in a game of intelligence and deceit that decides the fate of entire countries. Corruption faces idealism and it's often hard to determine who is the winner.

The duel between CIA counter-intelligence agent Edward Mother Wilson (Damon) and his russian counterpart Ulysses (Stefan) is just one facet of the story. The internal struggles between various US government organizations is another. Wilson's struggling family life takes second spot to his work, while it appears that CIA is all driven and ran by a powerful secret society born at Yale University, Skulls & Bones, from whose ranks most members are selected.

The topics share the movie time almost evenly and they create a sense of slow moving epic. However, they all seem a little less developed or balanced than they could have been. The Skulls involvement is always there but the reasons behind this organization are unclear. Mother and Ulysses play a supposedly brilliant game of chess, but Ulysses's admiration and respect from Mother seems to have little reason as Wilson is always one step behind and merely reactive to the traps that the other sets, rather than being shown on equal footing.

However, The Good Shepherd is a good movie, one of the very few dramas of the year that is worth a repeated viewing in order to decipher more details and gain more insight into the story.

Happy Feet

Director: George Miller Cast: Voice: Elijah Wood, Robin Williams, Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman. Feet: Savion Glover

]]> By now the viewing public is beyond being dazzled by amazing computer animation. Now movie makers have to make animated movies with good storylines and good acting, just as they need to do with live-action movies.

There have been a plethora of rather mediocre animated movies this year. Happy Feet may be the best of the lot, but that doesn't mean it's not full of problems.

To start with the positives, it's technically dazzling. The dancing of Mumble, modeled after famed Broadway dancer Savion Glover, is terrific. The singing by the penguins is good too. There is Robin Williams doing his usual good job adlibbing himself through a couple of crazy comic parts - though the schtick feels a bit overdone. Every animated movie has to have a wisecracking inside-jokey character or two in it now it seems.

The problems are in the story itself. The first part of the movie is mostly upbeat, child-friendly fun, but the last third or so is dark and sometimes disturbing. Tack onto this a heavy handed message about the environment, and you have a rather fragmented mess that doesn't quite work. I don't think I would mind seeing it again however to see the great dancing...yes, by animated penguins. You have to see it to understand.

The Queen

Director: Stephen Frears Cast: Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Sylvia Syms, Alex Jennings, Helen McCrory, Roger Allam

]]> For anyone who has never lived in the U.K., the impact of the death of Princess Diana may be hard to understand. For Americans especially, who are used to public expressions of grief and other emotions, the reactions that the British nation had during that extraordinary couple of weeks in 1997 might have seemed natural. But it really wasn't. It was a true watershed moment in a nation that had been used to suppressing their emotions. I don't think that Britain has been quite the same ever since.

This film captures the mood of that time very well. Representing 'old Britain' are Prince Philip, the Queen Mother and the Queen herself, who regard mourning to be a private affair. Even having witnessed the wild popularity of the renegade Princess Diana, they don't see any reason to make a fuss - she is, after all, no longer a member of the royal family. But Tony Blair, who is very much in tune with the 'new Britain', sees things differently. He sees that the Queen must make a show of emotions, and pay tribute to this woman who to her must have been an annoyance at best, or she risks losing 'her people', the people of Britain. Or, to put it in cynical political terms, her constituency. (Prince Charles waffles ineffectively between the two camps, and doesn't come off at all well here.)

The Queen may not be for everyone -it's a rather quiet film that sometimes plods along, and if seeing privileged people who take the children of a dead woman hunting for stag 'to take their mind off it' annoys you, you may want to avoid it. However, it is worth seeing if only for the performances, especially by Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth. When an actor portrays a well know real life figure, and you totally forget that it's an actor and not the real person, that's quite an achievement. Michael Sheen as Tony Blair comes close to this level too. The rest of the cast is excellent also. There is a scene where the Queen and Prince Philip are walking around the masses of flowers left around Buckingham Palace in tribute to the dead princess. It cuts back and forth with real news footage of the real Queen and Prince Philip, and the actors portraying them. It's so skillfully done that it's easy to forget which is real and which is not.

The OH in Ohio

Director: Billy Kent Cast: Parker Posey, Paul Rudd, Mischa Barton, Danny DeVito

]]> Supposedly a comedy about Priscilla, a prude Cleveland wife and advertisement executive (Posey) who finally admits she has never had an orgasm in her life, including the ten years of marriage. Her husband Jack (Rudd) is obviously also affected by the inability to please his wife and the two part ways as he regains his sexual confidence with help from one of his students, while Priscilla discovers the pleasure of a vibrator.

Posey and Rudd give good deadpan deliveries; Liza Minnelli has a funny cameo, but they are not able to salvage an otherwise fairly boring and predictable comedy.