Movie Review

(In theaters, July 2007) Independent comedy alert! This film will be quirky, off-beat and ultimately not that funny because the directory can’t make up his mind whether he’s going for the laughs or for indie street-creds. Same old story. The only question left pondering is; is it still interesting? Well, yeah. For starters, the premise has some kick to it, as a drunk assassin joins an Alcoholics Anonymous group to wean himself of some bad habits. There’s a hilarious scene in which the Anonymous part of AA truly comes into play. The film’s humour is of the very dry variety, quipped by a splendid Ben Kingsley, with pretty good supporting performances by Tea Leoni, Bill Pullman and one of the Owen brothers. Alas, the film can’t commit to either a crime drama or a romantic comedy, and so treads a middle ground that ends up satisfying no one. Dead bodies end up leadening the storyline with little positive impact. At least Winnipeg gets to play Buffalo and parts of San Francisco (!) and we get another good-enough independent comedy film.

(In theaters, July 2007) This fictional biography of a fast-talking radio personality can’t completely escape the usual problems and issues of multi-decade narratives “adapted from a true story”, but it’s good enough not to matter much. Don Cheadle is at his usual excellent self as Petey Green, a black ex-convict who manages to get a talk show in the Washington DC area. But it’s Chiwetel Ejiofor who continues his string of exceptional roles as ambitious manager Dewey Hughes: he’s got a terrific couple of scenes (including a wonderful speech around a pool table) and gradually emerges as the true protagonist of the story. The rest of the cast is just as good, though Taraji P. Henson earns particular attention as the third essential dramatic player. The historical re-creation is believable, and the terrific soundtrack does much to sustain the atmosphere. While the third act is problematic in the way that most docu-fiction third acts usually are (with the requisite drugs subplot and the lull in-between early success and redemptive conclusion), Talk To Me eventually pulls itself together to deliver a fitting epitaph to Green. Watch it for the actors, for the look at a piece of American black history and for the laughs.

(In theaters, July 2007) Is there something about “restarting the sun” plots that poison scripts? First Solar Crisis, now Sunshine, and not a good movie in the bunch. Though promising and with strong visuals, the latest Danny Boyle film succumbs to the stupid camera work that plagued 28 Days Later and the even sillier script that never works as well as it thinks it does. The first mistake of the film is to pretend that it’s a hard-SF film without quite understanding how science works: Consequently, we’re stuck with bad geometry, unexplained artificial gravity, oxygen deprivation despite a cargo hold the size of a warehouse and tons of other small details that keep bothering viewers who pay attention. It gets worse with a plot inspired by Murphy’s Law and a tiresome third-act monster-movie finish. It’s not as if the film is entirely worthless: There are some terrific visuals here and there (the Sun itself is almost a featured character), and some of the tension between human characters leads to excellent scenes. But in the end, the film devolves in shaky-cam silliness and interminable pretension: Every character death is saluted as a sign that the end is that much closer. Frankly, I’d rather have no science-fiction films at all if the alternative is Sunshine.

(In theaters, July 2007) Longest. Episode. Ever. Not that this is a bad thing if you’re a Simpsons fan: The movie faithfully replicates the feel and humour of the TV show, and seldom lags despite the length. A few concessions are made to the big-screen format: some context-specific jokes are hilarious, the animation is quite a bit better (including several CGI-boosted sequences) and the jokes are slightly more risqué than usual. (Nothing much: some nudity, rude gestures and less-mild swearwords barely bring this to a PG-13.) Otherwise, the usual plot tangents just take longer to resolve and the stakes are significantly higher than usual. Was it necessarily worth seeing in theatres? Well, you probably answered that question by yourself by the time you read this, but yeah: I had a good time despite the most annoying talk-backer ever heard in a theatre, and that’s almost all you need to know about it.

(In theaters, July 2007) You can make a film that deals with touchy ethical issues and you can make fun action movies. Just don’t try to blend them together, otherwise you’ll piss off the audience that’s there for what the marketing campaign promises. The problem with Nitro, surprisingly enough, isn’t with the action scenes: Despite the typically minuscule budget of French-Canadian films, the filmmakers work wonders with what they’ve got, and know how to move the camera for a decent amount of tension. An underground racing sequence inspired by The Fast And The Furious is the film’s best moment, complete with a brutally enjoyable fight with nitro bottles. Other chase sequences later in the film do well, including a spectacular parkour sequence through a low-rent Montréal neighbourhood. Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge more than holds his own as a credible action hero with believable emotional depth. But the film fatally missteps in the dramatic structure that holds the action scenes together: a bad ethical choice by the lead character forever erases any sympathy we would hold for him, and the web of issues surrounding him does little to raise the stakes. It doesn’t help that the script goes awry in other various ways. The strongest female character, wonderfully played by Lucie Laurier, is relegated to a stand-in who lives only for the hero: a sad simplification for a character who could have stolen the protagonist’s mantle at any moment. Martin Matte is another issue: though he has a strong screen presence, it’s not that of an underworld boss. Ultimately, the small and big script mistake accumulate and rob the film of any enjoyment we may have gotten from the action scenes, leaving us with a grim conclusion and the sentiment of having been manipulated in gratuitous pathos. You can forgive even the worst mistake if it leads to a happy ending, but even the slightest mistake will make nuanced endings just feel cheap.

(In theaters, July 2007) There was a time where I would have moved mountains to see a film in which Linsey Lohan plays a stripper. Alas, that time has passed, because seeing Lohan pole-dancing in I Know Who Killed Me is an endurance contest in the middle of a deeply ludicrous experience. Setting itself up as a thriller but truly belonging to a weak form of supernatural horror (Oops, was that a spoiler? You’ll thank me.) I Know Who Killed Me is bad from the first few frames, but quickly makes things worse for itself by pretending to be a piece of art. A striking colour scheme is the least of the film’s aspirations to art, but it doesn’t take Art Bell’s appearance as a reliable Exposition Device to realize that this film has jumped the rails of even B-movie cinema. Lohan is irritating, the film feels exploitative, the plot drags on and the resolution of the entire mystery is a cheap device. Thriller fans will be furious at how the film doesn’t play fair, and everyone else will just wonder when it will end. There’s always a lot of competition for the title of worst movie of the year, but I Know Who Killed Me makes a strong case for the honour.

(In theaters, July 2007) I’m a really easy audience for musical comedy, so it’s almost inevitable that I’d enjoy Hairspray as much as I did. Fifties/Sixties rock, dance numbers and a bunch of laughs: What else could one want? What further distinguish this film from the norm, though, are its slightly-sarcastic lyrics and a deep love for the underdog. For those who haven’t paid attention to the film’s pedigree, this is where John Waters’ original influence comes through. (Waters himself appears in a split-second cameo as a flasher. Still, you can’t miss him.) One aspect of the film’s promotion leaves me frowning, though: For a film where racial equality is the backbone of the plot, Hairspray‘s trailer seemed a bit… light in this matter. Does it matter? Not really… but it’s still curious. In other related areas, it’s fun to see Hairspray take up where Far From Heaven and Dreamgirls lefts off in recasting black music as the good music of its period: There’s some interesting cultural reinvention here, but I’ll wait a bit later down the trend to think about it. In any case, thinking seems almost irrelevant in a film where John Travolta dancing in fat-suit drag can almost seem cool. Bubbly Nikki Blonsky makes a heck of a debut appearance; I wonder what’s next for her.

(On DVD, July 2007) Trying to identify with a rich materialistic bastard as he inherits a magnificent property in Provence isn’t exactly an easy proposition. So the first few minutes of the film are sometimes obnoxious, as we’re asked to contemplate the rich workaholic man’s burden of a multi-million dollars estate. Play tiny violins, especially when we can all guess the dramatic arc that the character is going to take. But the film eventually warms up: It’s hard to stay mad at the beautiful cinematography, or at Russell Crowe’s rough charm. Pretty much everything unfolds as predicted, but it does so at a satisfying pace, slow enough to reflect the quiet French countryside. A Good Year often mis-steps and never quite reaches the level it aims for (a number of silly “fast-forward” comedic scenes detract from the rest of the film, for instance): in retrospect, Crowe and director Ridley Scott seem too rough for the light touch that the material requires. For a romantic comedy, the laughs are few and the romance seems like an afterthought. Oh well; at least there’s the scenery, and a number of performances to enjoy. One could do much, much worse: misguided films are usually preferable to terrible ones.

(In theaters, June 2007) If you think you’ve seen enough movies about penguins, make room for one more: Surf’s Up may not be much more than a fun film, but it’s well worth a look. The most obvious difference of the film is how it presents itself as a mockumentary, and sustains the form for the entire duration –even though the illusions gets less transparent during the last half. The story isn’t complicated and you’ll see the twists comes up well in advance, but it’s handled with a competent touch, and it features a bunch of good characters. (Even the chicken gets a few laughs.) As a CGI film, it shows that water effects are pretty much a solved problem: the film seldom hesitates to go into the surf, showing off iridescent green waves in such a way to make us regret that this isn’t a real film. The irony, of course, is that despite the cartoons and the script made for the younger ones, Surf’s Up manages to explain the Tao of surfing a lot better than more realistic movies about the subject: You just have to see the penguin protagonists touch the back of a tubular wave to understand how much fun surfing can be. It all adds up to a pretty satisfying time at the movies, and one that quickly dissociates itself from either Happy Feet or March Of The Penguins.

(In theaters, June 2007) Progressive rabble-rouser Michael Moore is back with a film that delivers exactly what fans and foes are expecting from him. This time, he takes on the shameful American health care problem, which doesn’t make for much of a challenge: the system is so broken that it hardly seems sporting to criticize it. The film is a series of heart-breaking anecdotes showing by example the plight of ordinary citizens in a country where everyone has convinced themselves that universal health care is a luxury that no one can afford. Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Cuba are trotted as counter-examples –even with the understanding that Moore cherry-picks his examples. But subtlety isn’t the name of the game here, and even the most jaded cynics will find it hard not to emphasize with the victims. Ironically, this is perhaps the film where Moore does the least grandstanding: save for an obviously dumb stunt near the end of the film, Sicko is the most emotional, least annoying Moore documentary yet. It does lack the panache that made Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 such memorable pieces, but it’s just as effective in raising everyone’s hackles. This time around, the lines aren’t as partisan as in previous films: While recent Republicans come under fire by sheer dint of incumbency, both Nixon and Hillary Clinton get their share of harsh words… and down in the street, people bankrupted by health insurance don’t exactly wear their partisanship on their forehead. Fans of Moore’s work will recognize the threads of Moore’s meta-narrative being pieced together: Moore’s over-arching thesis is that manufactured fear, poverty and desperation are the things keeping Americans from achieving their true potential, and that explicitly gets stated in the film. As usual, I find myself hoping that one day, Moore will piece it together and deliver the film that will blow open everyone’s minds. In the meantime, Sicko is a step in the right direction: hopefully, it will find some political traction and play in the 2008 election. Seeing the history of American activism, though, I’m not particularly optimistic. Let me hug my Canadian Passport once more.