MOVIE REVIEW
9 (2009)
Focus Features
In these days of bloated budgets and excessive running times, a movie that clocks in at 79 minutes should be a cause for celebration. In the case of Shane Acker’s “9,” it’s actually the opposite – a cause for consternation and the bemoaning of a missed opportunity. Sadly, every bit of uniqueness found in Mr. Acker’s animated vision of a ravaged, post-apocalyptic Earth populated solely by sentient rag dolls is counterbalanced by the failure of his collaboration with screenwriter Pamela Pettler. Rarely has so much imagination been poured into one facet of a film at the expense of another.
Continue reading “HAL Freezes Over” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Big Fan (2009)
First Independent Pictures
Paul Auferio (Patton Oswalt), the eponymous “Big Fan” of “The Wrestler” screenwriter and former editor-in-chief of the Onion Robert Siegel’s directorial debut, more than earns the title. He eats, sleeps, breathes and bleeds the New York Giants, loving the team down to the core of his being. All other concerns, such as interpersonal relationships and a job, fall to the wayside. His life is all Big Blue, all the time.
The scariest thing about Paul is just how realistic he seems; how utterly probable it is that there could be someone so single-mindedly obsessed with a sports team that it consumes their existence. Resisting any urge to condescend or judge, Mr. Siegel (who also wrote the screenplay) plops the character in a glum, depressed Staten Island milieu of strip malls, scuzzy bars and gray days and simply lets his story unfold. When a shocking accident — not to be revealed here — causes Paul to directly impact the team’s season, he’s faced with the utmost crisis of conscience.
Continue reading “Grid-Iron Obsession Clotheslines Hapless Fan” »
MOVIE REVIEW
At the Edge of the World (2009)
AFI Dallas International Film Festival
Dan Stone’s “At the Edge of the World” is one of those rare documentaries that could easily function as a compelling fiction thriller. It’s a pirate story masquerading as a message movie, the tale of a band of environmental activist marauders who willingly surrender all material comforts and personal connections to spend months combating whaling ships in the southern seas. Superbly shot from a wealth of angles and perspectives and edited to emphasize the tension in their quest, it’s a grand entertainment that only offers time for reflection once the lights go up.
Continue reading “All’s Well That Ends Whaling” »
MOVIE REVIEW
World's Greatest Dad (2009)
Magnolia Pictures
It takes less than five minutes to realize that the moniker of “World’s Greatest Dad” could only be bestowed on high-school teacher Lance Clayton (Robin Williams) with the highest sense of irony. That’s about when it becomes apparent that the main character of writer-director Bobcat Goldthwait’s sharp new film – a single father raising teenage son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) – has failed at his most important job.
Continue reading “Death Becomes Smoochy” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Post Grad (2009)
Suzanne Tenner/Fox Searchlight Pictures
More than four decades after “The Graduate,” the confusion of the first post-college summer — in which the familiar ecosystems of the university suddenly transform into the far more challenging ones of the real world — has remained a potent cinematic subject. Unfortunately, the makers of “Post Grad” pretty much botch it.
Continue reading “Just One Word: Plastics” »
MOVIE REVIEW
My Führer (2007)
First Run Features
Perhaps no figure in history has been more endless psychoanalyzed than Adolf Hitler. The natural human drive to comprehend the incomprehensible has lead to a rash of theories and studied observations that struggle to explain how such a blindly devoted cult of personality emerged around the man.
Into that realm leaps “My Führer,” a work of speculative fiction from writer-director Dani Levy that posits Hitler as, above all, a softie. As played by Helge Schneider, he’s a cripplingly depressed figure with lots of unresolved parental issues. When, towards the end of the Third Reich, he appears headed for a total breakdown, Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth) imports Jewish professor Adolf Israel Grünbaum (the late, great Ulrich Mühe) from a concentration camp to snap him out of it in time to make a big speech.
Continue reading “Show Time for Hitler and Germany” »
MOVIE REVIEW
It Might Get Loud (2009)
Eric Lee/Sony Pictures Classics
One could argue that in his latest film, Davis Guggenheim — the Academy Award-winning documentarian behind “An Inconvenient Truth” — has outdone the impressive accomplishment of imbuing an Al Gore slideshow with riveting dramatic heft. For “It Might Get Loud,” he’s assembled Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White, three musicians who have never been especially prone to talking about themselves or their craft, and gotten them to candidly face his cameras and do just that.
Continue reading “Got the World on Six Strings” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Julie & Julia (2009)
Jonathan Wenk/Columbia Pictures
“Julie & Julia” has Meryl Streep, solid production values and a vision of New York so lovingly rendered that a rinky-dink apartment over a pizzeria in Queens is transformed into a cozy paradise. It is, in other words, firmly lodged in classic Nora Ephron territory, unfolding with a relentlessly vivid color palette and a decided chick-lit sensibility with wonderful husbands ceaselessly supporting their hardworking wives.
Continue reading “Sleepless in the Kitchen” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Fragments (2009)
Peace Arch Entertainment
As far as predictors of quality go, few could be more telling than this: A film stars Forest Whitaker, Kate Beckinsale, Dakota Fanning, Guy Pearce, Jackie Earle Haley and Jennifer Hudson that finds itself dumped into theaters with no advertising or fanfare just days before its DVD release. That’s the case with “Fragments,” one of those suffocating ensemble dramas set in Southern California that weave together a multipartite story in search of a grand societal statement. Australian director Rowan Woods indulges in some sub-subpar “Crash” territory here, with a laughably self-serious narrative that has less to do with reality than histrionics.
Continue reading “Six Degrees of Exasperation” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Funny People (2009)
Tracy Bennett/Universal Studios
“Funny People” is an apt title for Judd Apatow’s latest, which clearly stands as his most personal movie yet. From its opening images — of home-video recordings of a young Adam Sandler sent into hysterics while making prank phone calls — to its last, the film unfolds in a world indelibly familiar to the filmmaker and his ensemble of frequent collaborators. Centering the action on the Hollywood stand-up comedy circuit, the picture adopts a multitude of perspectives to explore the joys and heartbreaks of trying to be funny for a living and the collateral damage caused by the accruement of too much fame too quickly.
Continue reading “Almost Died Laughing” »