‘The Artist’: A Silent Masterpiece

The Artist (2011)
Written & Directed by Michel Hazanvicius
100 mins.

***1/2 (out of four)

By Tim Lucia

Basically a shoo-in for Best Picture at the Academy Awards this Sunday, The Artist is a magical, fun, one-of-a-kind movie experience.  French director Michel Hazanvicius (the OSS 117 films) breaks into American cinema with this magnificent black-and-white, silent film unlike any you have ever seen.  A tribute to classic Hollywood films that all audiences can enjoy.

Hollywood, 1927.  Silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a swashbuckling screen icon, in the tradition of Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino.  He is on top of the world, adored by critics and fans alike, though he is quite self-absorbed.  While on the red carpet at a premiere, he bumps into – literally – the beautiful, young Peppy Miller (Bernice Bejo).  In a wonderfully staged meet-cute, Peppy kisses Valentin on the cheek, and they smile and pose for the photographers, flashbulbs popping like shining stars.

The next day, the headline in Variety reads: “Who’s That Girl?” with their photo on the front page.  Peppy is soon hired as a back-up dancer for the studio.  Then comes the innovation of sound in film.  Talkies become all the rage, and the silent films are left behind.  Peppy rockets to stardom, becoming Hollywood’s newest it-girl, while Valentin’s star falls into obscurity, and his life begins to spin out of control.

The Artist is a once-in-a-generation kind of film, I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it.  The black-and-white photography, coupled with the (almost) silent nature of the film (of course, there is music), suggest a somewhat dream-like experience.  Dujardin’s performance is absolutely mesmerizing, drawing the perfect amount of expression in every scene; he really seems like a silent film star.  Bejo is also perfect as Peppy, her wide mouth, accentuated eyes, traditional beauty and flapper vestements make her the ideal actress for the role.  Rounding out the cast are veteran actors John Goodman (The Big Lebowski), James Cromwell (L.A. Confidential), and Penelope Ann Miller (Carlito’s Way).

Hazanvicius re-creates a time and place that we all know from history, and he does it perfectly.  The Artist really captures the magic of an era in filmmaking that (in my opinion) Martin Scorsese’s Hugo did not do as well.  Though the film is predictable at times (there are a few surprises), I found myself not caring at all, because it was still so enjoyable.  Dujardin is likely to win Best Actor on Sunday, and the film will surely win Best Picture.

Payne’s ‘The Descendants’ is solid, but a bit over-hyped

The Descendants (2011)
Directed by Alexander Payne
115 mins.

*** (out of four)

By Tim Lucia

Director Alexander Payne’s latest effort, The Descendants, is a decent film, but a little bit disappointing (I probably went in with too high of expectations).  Payne loves the hybrid genre of dramedy, again following that pattern here.  After starting his career with the biting satires Citizen Ruth and Election, Payne went on to direct the excellent dramedies About Schmidt and Sideways.  The Descendants achieves some of the same comedic elements and situations as those two films, but lacks the emotional payoff with the drama.

Payne’s films always involve an everyman protagonist who is forced into a difficult situation, and forced to deal with quirky, odd, and somewhat troubled supporting characters.  The Descendants is no different in that respect.  Matt King (George Clooney) is a lawyer in Honolulu and a land baron, entrusted with a large chunk of idyllic paradise on Kauai that has been passed down through the generations from his royal ancestors.  The opening scene fades in on a shot of Matt’s wife, Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) basking in the sun on a speeding motorboat.  The shot then fades out, and we soon learn that an accident occurred, and Elizabeth is now in a coma.  Matt describes himself in voice-over as “the back-up parent”, and now has to care for his two daughters, rebellious 17-year old Alex (Shailene Woodley) and cute 10-year old Scottie (Amara Miller).

On top of all that, Matt is informed his wife may have been having an affair; and his family desperately wants to sell the land to developers, netting them all a big pay day.  Of course, Matt is conflicted about all of this, but soon realizes the importance of family, despite the pain and frustration they sometimes bring.  

Some solid performances and interesting actor choices fill out the supporting characters; Alex’s dimwitted but likable boyfriend Sid (Nick Krause) provides some laughs — Payne loves the dumb-but-lovable boyfriend character (Dermot Mulroney in About Schmidt, Chris Klein in Election).  Robert Forster (Jackie Brown) co-stars as Matt’s father-in-law, Beau Bridges as his cousin, Matthew Lillard (Scream) as a real estate agent, and Judy Greer (Arrested Development) as the agent’s wife — a somewhat normal character which she played well, a far cry from the crazy Kitty on A.D.  (“Say goodbye to these, Michael”).  Clooney shows somewhat of a different side of himself, gaining weight and donning some pretty ugly vestements to play Matt.  This is probably the least attractive he has looked on film, and he plays his role well.

Payne adapts most of his films and does again here, from a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings.  Although, instead of working with his normal writing partner, Jim Taylor, Payne instead adapted the script for The Descendants with two actors, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.  Though it is a decent film with good performances from Clooney and Woodley, and a setting that would make anyone want to hop on the next plane to the beautiful archipelago that is Hawaii, the film falls short of Payne’s two previous films.  There are some laughs, and plenty of drama happens, but I felt disconnected from it.  There was a lack of emotional impact, and the predictability of some of the situations, outcomes, and characters didn’t help.  A solid dramedy worth watching, but not an absolute must-see in the theater.  Side note:  HBO announced today they are canceling Hung, the dramedy series starring Thomas Jane which was executive produced by Payne.  This should ensure he will be making feature films with more frequency.  The Descendants ended a seven year drought from Payne, he has two new films announced on imbd, one already in pre-production.

Netflix Pick of the Week: ‘Amreeka’

Amreeka (2009)
Director: Cherian Dabis
Starring: Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Alia Shawkat
96 mins.

By Josh Perrault

Cherien Dabis’ directorial debut film, ‘Amreeka,’ is a film centered around a Palestinian American family during post-9/11 Chicago. When Muna Furah (Nisreen Faour) is rewarded an American green card through the lottery, her and her son Fadi (Melkar Muallem) move to America from Bethlehem to live with Muna’s sister Raghda Halaby (Hiam Abbass) and her husband Nabeel (Yussuf Abu-Warda) and their three children in Chicago. While Fadi attends American school and Muna looks for work in a U.S. bank that is equivalent to her work back home, unfortunately her job search is unsuccessful and finds work serving burgers at a White Castle only earning minimum wage. All the while, Fadi is attending school and experiencing the difficulties of racism and violence during this post-9/11 and Iraq war American environment. Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development) stars in this feel-good comedy with a mix of stealth political attributes that confronts the issues of ethnic tension in the world today.

 

Netflix Pick: ‘Cold Weather’

Cold Weather (2010)
Written, Edited, & Directed by Aaron Katz
96 mins.

By Tim Lucia

In interesting film, Cold Weather is sort-of a Mumblecore movie, but more like if Gus Van Sant or Kelly Reichardt directed an elongated episode of Bored to Death.  Doug (Cris Lankenau) returns home to Portland, OR (hence the Van Sant and Reichardt influence — the film is shot similarly to Paranoid Park) after dropping out of school for Forensic Science in Chicago.  He moves in with his somewhat sympathetic sister Gail (Trieste Kelly Dunn) and gets a job at an ice factory where he meets Carlos (Raul Castillo).  Doug’s ex-girlfriend from Chicago (Robyn Rikoon) shows up in Portland, and then subsequently disappears.  Doug eventually puts his schooling for Forensics and his love of old Sherlock Holmes books to use as he begins to play amateur detective along with his two cohorts.  Cold Weather is not a film for everyone, but fans of Van Sant, Reichardt, and Mumblecore should enjoy it.  The pacing is quite slow, but the cinematography is excellent.  Cold Weather was shot on location in Portland, The Dalles, and Cannon Beach.

Netflix Pick: ‘Nice Guy Johnny’

Nice Guy Johnny (2010)
Written & Directed by Edward Burns
90 mins.

By Tim Lucia

Make fun of me if you like — but I have been a closet fan of romantic comedies for some time now.  Edward Burns’ Nice Guy Johnny covers no new ground and is fairly predictable, but I still found myself enjoying it.  Johnny (Matt Bush) is a native New Yorker who hosts a sports radio talk show in Oakland.  He is only 25 and is engaged to a controlling, bitchy fiancee, who wants him to quit his dream job for a more profitable one; working for her father.  Johnny flies home to New York for the interview, but soon meets up with his womanizing Uncle Terry (Burns), who — among others — tells him he is too young to get married.  Johnny grudgingly accepts an invitation to a weekend in the Hamptons with the rascally Terry.  Johnny then meets the charming and attractive Brooke (Kerry Bishe), who encourages him to follow his dreams and not conform to what others want him to do.  Nice Guy Johnny is by no means a great film, but it is quite enjoyable given the right circumstances.  Burns knows the New York rom-com genre well (The Brothers McMullen, She’s The One) and he returns to his roots here.  Nice Guy Johnny is a fun, light-hearted comedy; a perfect date film.

Netflix Instant Pick: ‘An American Werewolf in London’

An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Written & Directed by John Landis
97 mins.

By Tim Lucia

The cult classic An American Werewolf in London is a must-see for fans of old school horror, comedy, and creature features.  Veteran comedy director John Landis (The Blues Brothers, Animal House, Trading Places, Coming to America) helms this classic ‘scary’ film (it wouldn’t be scary at all to today’s younger generations), mixing in humor and romance.  David Kessler (David Naughton) and his buddy Jack (Griffin Dunne) are traveling through northern England when the stumble into a small town pub called ‘The Slaughtered Lamb’.  In a hilarious scene, they are greeted with abrasive hostility by the mysterious locals.  On their way out, they are attacked by a werewolf, ‘killing’ Jack and landing David in the hospital.  David is taken care of by a beautiful nurse, Alex (Jenny Agutter), who eventually brings him back to her flat in London.  Upon the next full moon — well, you can guess what happens.  Legendary make-up artist Rick Baker provides some jaw-dropping and hilarious make-up for the ‘undead’.  Werewolf is a fun, campy film, and the violence seen is very tame by todays standards.

Hands of Time: Traveling through Paris at Midnight

Midnight in Paris
Written & Directed by Woody Allen
94 mins.

***(out of four)

By Tim Lucia

Woody Allen’s annual film has come to theaters this summer, providing a nice departure from the usual summer blockbuster fare.  “Midnight in Paris” is a humorous romantic comedy mixed with whimsical fantasy.  Witty and fun, “Midnight” is probably Allen’s best film since 2005′s “Match Point”.

Gil (Owen Wilson), a Hollywood screenwriter, is on vacation in Paris with his stuck-up, controlling fiancée (Rachel McAdams) and her parents.  Working on a book about nostalgia, Gil longs to live in the past, specifically 1920s Paris.  Walking alone one night, Gil gets lost.  As the clock strikes midnight, an early-model car picks him up and whisks him into another world, the world of his dreams.  Gil meets a slew of famous writers and artists, as well as a beautiful woman (Marion Cotillard), which he immediately develops a crush on.  Meanwhile, back in the 21st century, he drifts apart from his fiancée.

Paris is seen as a city of romance through Allen’s lens.  Gil is taken with the beauty of the city, and seems to get great inspiration from it.  Allen seems to be taken with the city himself — filling his script with scenes of dining, drinking, music, and discussion.  High culture, as always, is discussed intellectually while also being made fun of — another trademark of Allen’s comedies.  Michael Sheen steals most of his scenes as a pretentious intellectual, whom Gil is threatened by.  

Allen’s directorial career has spanned over 45 years and 47 films.  Obviously, they are not all gems.  As usual, he has another film slated for next year, and will probably keep going as long as he can.  “Manhattan” and “Annie Hall” are two all-time great films of American cinema, and arguably the two best romantic comedies of all time.  While “Midnight” is not on their level, it is a strong return to form for Allen, who had spent most of this past decade making dramas and some fairly mediocre comedies.

Allen’s skill with both the pen and the camera is undeniable, and “Midnight” is a fun, enjoyable film which uses them both well.  A perfect date film, “Midnight’s” wit and charm make it a nice escape away from the superheroes and explosions of summer.  While not Allen’s best film, it is far from his worst.

The Other Guys

Review by: Ryan Oliver

Over the course of the last decade, spoof movies have lost the touch and craft of what makes them funny. The trick to making a good spoof is to make a movie in the genre that you’re sending up and then make fun of the aspects of said genre. Lately, the spoof movies we have gotten just merely reference popular movies and hope that it’s good enough (such as Date Movie, Epic Movie, or any movie that ends in the word “Movie”). No punch lines, no set ups, no pay offs, nothing. Fortunately, just in time to save this nearly laugh-free summer, here comes the comedic team of Will Farrell and director Adam McKay (the man behind Farrell’s funniest films: Anchorman, Talladega Nights, and Step Brothers) to channel the energy of the old Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker gang with The Other Guys, a hilarious send-up of the buddy cop genre that both honors the genre and throws it under the bus.

NYPD Detective Allen Gamble (Farrell) is a desk jockey who loves what he does. Detective Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) is Allen’s partner who ends up behind the desk after an accidental shooting in the field. Terry hates pushing papers and living in the shadows of the cops who are getting all the action (Action honchos Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson). When the bumbling duo stumble over a money scam by a shady investor (Steve Coogan), the two decide that it’s their time to step up and fill the shoes of the big guys.

It’s got a simple, typical buddy-cop plot, but the reason this movie is so damn funny is that it takes every aspect of those films and sticks it to them good. The overblown explosions, the bullet-filled gun fights, the ridiculous things the forensics always find in a missing car, and just about anything else you can think of gets it. Plus, the banter between Farrell and Wahlberg is hilarious. Farrell flies on a full tank of comic energy, and mismatched Wahlberg is in full-on Departed mode, but this mesh works perfectly. The supporting cast is mostly put on the backburner with the exception of Michael Keaton, who plays the guys’ captain to pure comic perfection.

The only flaw I can find in this movie is that the last twenty minutes turns into the type of movie that it’s making fun of, similar to what happened with Hot Fuzz (although they started speaking in action movie cliches on purpose for laughs). However, you’ll still be smiling from the first hour-and-twenty-five minutes that you won’t care. The Other Guys is a riot from beginning to end. It further solidifies my opinion that Will Farrell and Adam McKay is one comedic team that shouldn’t stop making comedies for a long time.

The Other Guys
Directed by Adam McKayWritten by Adam McKay and Chris Henchy
Stars Will Farrell, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Keaton, Steve Coogan
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content, language, violence and some drug material
*** (out of four)

Dinner for Schmucks

Review by: Ryan Oliver

I’ve complained a lot about this summer being one of the most boring ones on record in the history of cinema. Aside from Inception and Toy Story 3 there’s nothing to boast about. What’s really a buzz kill is the lack of laughs at the multiplex. By this time last year we had The Hangover, Funny People, and Bruno to keep us in stitches. Aside from Get Him to the Greek, what do we have? Grown Ups!? Pa-lease.

Needless to say, I wanted to see a movie that was good for some big laughs. I went into Dinner for Schmucks as optimistically as I possibly could. I had just watched Cyrus – the Duplass Brothers’ critical darling – the day before, and even it didn’t live up to the praise it’s getting down in Indiewood. I thought to myself “this is going to be it. Schmucks is going to be the comedy of the summer.” Unfortunately, I got another bag of bad news for all of you out there: it’s not.

The film is based around a simple premise: Tim (Paul Rudd) is an up-and-coming businessman who is invited to a dinner by his boss (Bruce Greenwood) where these suits bring an idiot to dinner and make fun of them (the cover title being the “Dinner for Winners”). The person who appears to be the biggest idiot wins a trophy. Tim decides that he’s not going to go to the dinner, that it is until he runs into Barry (Steve Carell), an IRS auditor and amateur taxidermist whose hobby is stuffing dead mice for his collages he calls “Mouse-terpieces.” Tim ultimately decides that Barry is too big a schmuck to pass up for the dinner.

The whole moral of the movie is predictable from the get go. The idea is that the big-shot guys are bad, and that these people are not idiots for doing what they want to do, even if it is out of the norm. A lot of people were dissatisfied with the mixed message about how we’re not supposed to laugh at these “schmucks” but the movie sets it up so that we’re invited to. That’s not what dissatisfies me, I can live with that. What disappoints me is that the film is not as funny as you would think. The film runs for almost two hours long, which the story time takes place within two days, so the pace really drags. The script also keeps throwing too many flatlining plotlines and characters that add absolutely nothing to the film. We have a crazy old flame of Tim’s (Lucy Punch) that turns out to be more awkward than funny, we have a commitment issue story between Tim and his girlfriend Julie (Stephanie Szostak) that isn’t developed in full, and we have a grudge between Barry and his boss (The Hangover’s Zach Gilifianakis) over Barry’s ex-wife that is thrown in merely to add both conflict and some laughs, but it’s completely forced and the story ends up more tragic than funny.

The only character that is both completely out of left field but hysterical at the same time is Julie’s boss Kieran – played by Flight of the Concord’s Jemaine Clement – an artist who explores artistically as much as he does sexually (including some weird animal fetishes). I love Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, but Carell is only funny in spurts and often goes way over the top and Rudd has nothing going for him in this one. When the film finally gets to the dinner, you hope that all this huffing and puffing is going to add up to something, but it doesn’t really do that either. The dinner is amusing – and actually hysterical when Barry shows off his collages – but not nearly as funny as a whole. Aside from the script squeezing too much in for a tight fit, I think part of the problem is that director Jay Roach – no stranger to brilliant comic farces (The Austin Powers series, Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers) – makes his actors stick to the script instead of making way for improvising. I think that if Roach would have said to Carell and Rudd “The camera’s rolling, just go” just as Shawn Levy did with Carell and Tina Fey in Date Night, we would be better for it. Instead, we have a group of talented comic actors under a good comic director straining to squeeze laughs out of a script that frankly isn’t that funny. I got sucked in by a funny trailer and a great cast only to be let down. Looks like I’m the real schmuck.

Directed by Jay Roach
Written by David Guion and Michael Handelman; based on the film “Le Diner de Cons”
Stars Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Zach Galifianakis, Jemaine Clement, Bruce Greenwood
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sequences of crude and sexual content, some partial nudity and language
** (out of four)