Bellflower (2011) + The Change-Up (2011)|Bellflower – Blu-ray Disc + DVD

Bellflower (2011) + The Change-Up (2011)|Bellflower – Blu-ray Disc + DVD

Posted in2011, Action, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Ian Pugh, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Drama, Esoterica, Fantasy, Romance, Theatrical

BELLFLOWER
***/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Evan Glodell, Jessie Wiseman, Taylor Dawson, Rebekah Brandes
written and directed by Evan Glodell

THE CHANGE-UP
½*/****
starring Jason Bateman, Ryan Reynolds, Leslie Mann, Olivia Wilde
screenplay by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore
directed by David Dobkin

by Ian Pugh SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Bellflower earns the right to its melodrama by asking what you have to live for and, more importantly, what you’re willing to do to keep your life uncomplicated. Woodrow (writer-director Evan Glodell) and Aiden (Taylor Dawson) don’t seem to have much of a life beyond hanging out with their friends and drinking too much–but their minds were suitably “warped” by a second-generation VHS tape of Mad Max. Now they spend their days constructing flamethrowers and muscle cars destined to fit right in with that film’s end-of-the-world milieu. Woodrow hooks up with a young woman named Milly (Jessie Wiseman), and as the relationship blossoms (and breaks down), Glodell takes the opportunity to explore the unfathomable guilt and anger that drove George Miller’s original road warrior–as well as what Glodell’s own heroes have failed to understand about his journey. When we first meet him, Woodrow doesn’t know too much about guilt or anger, so his coping mechanisms are extremely fractured. Confrontations with others are typically brief, sometimes without logical end, and the director intentionally tones down most of the violence so that his characters can wallow in passive-aggressive detachment. Sometimes the violent images are chopped out entirely, only to be saved for later in the movie, where they may or may not have been mentally re-edited by Woodrow to conform to a more favourable outcome. That’s the thing about the apocalypse: it never goes quite the way you want.

How Do You Know (2010) – Blu-ray Disc

How Do You Know (2010) – Blu-ray Disc

Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Authors: Angelo Muredda, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Drama, Jack Nicholson, Romance

*½/**** Image A- Sound B Extras A
starring Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Paul Rudd, Jack Nicholson
written and directed by James L. Brooks

by Angelo Muredda “We’re all one small adjustment away from making our lives work,” Paul Rudd’s George chirps, a little too eagerly, in the interminable, banally titled, and curiously unpunctuated How Do You Know. It’s a strange thing for an indicted man on the verge of financial ruin to say, but then How Do You Know is a strange movie, less the tidy romantic comedy its trailer pitches than a monument to the incidental pleasures of narrative ungainliness and lax comic timing.

Arthur (2011) – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

Posted in2000s, 2011, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Ian Pugh, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, DVD, Romance

*½/**** Image B Sound A- Extras C-
starring Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Greta Gerwig, Jennifer Garner
screenplay by Peter Baynham, based on the film Arthur written and directed by Steve Gordon
directed by Jason Winer

by Ian Pugh Boy, that Russell Brand sure does talk a lot, doesn’t he? Jason Winer’s modernization of Steve Gordon’s 1981 comedy Arthur serves as your latest reminder that Brand is turning his long-winded rambling into a full-blown comic empire–and it’s a good thing it makes that point perfectly clear, because otherwise I can’t think of any reason why this remake exists. Brand’s slurring motormouth is on full display here, and he’s such a suffocating presence that Arthur Bach’s now-famous inebriety hardly plays a role. Who needs booze when you’ve got an immature dude who just won’t shut up? Of course, the character is still nominally an alcoholic–and the film attempts to “fix” that problem in precisely the wrong way. Fearing it will be seen as an implicit endorsement of excessive drinking, Arthur launches into an overwritten screed about the attendant dangers of same, somehow assuming that Gordon’s original didn’t comprehend the seriousness of its own premise. Between that mistaken belief and its broad, bland humour, the picture might be more accurately considered a remake of the notorious Arthur 2: On the Rocks.

Lolita (1962) – Blu-ray Disc

Lolita (1962) – Blu-ray Disc

Posted in****/****, 1960s, 2011, Authors: Alex Jackson, Blu-ray Disc, Directors: Stanley Kubrick, Drama, Romance

****/**** Image A- Sound A
starring James Mason, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers, Sue Lyon
screenplay by Vladimir Nabokov, based on his novel
directed by Stanley Kubrick

by Alex Jackson Who is Lolita? There seems to be no independent, cognizant life to the character. She exists purely to be desired or despised. Certainly, she is seen as neither a tragic figure nor a victim–Lolita is always in control. She always has a tight grasp on what her needs are and understands how she’s going to meet them. But simply being clever and conniving doesn’t make you a real person. Humanity could be defined as our ability to experience pain and Lolita lives a practically pain-free existence. Double entendre intended, if you prick Lolita, she isn’t going to bleed. In her eyes, sex doesn’t have many drawbacks. Men lust after her and this gives her power over them.

She’s Out of My League (2010) – Blu-ray Disc

Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Authors: Jon Thibault, Comedy, Romance, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image A Sound A Extras D
starring Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, T.J. Miller, Mike Vogel
screenplay by Sean Anders & John Morris
directed by Jim Field Smith

by Jon Thibault

What happens when a beautiful, wealthy event planner meets a scrawny, socially maladroit, uneducated TSA security guard who's too uncoordinated to shave his own balls?

Love!

Gross Anatomy (1989); Betsy’s Wedding (1990); The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag (1992) – Blu-ray Discs

Posted in1980s, 1990s, 2011, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Drama, Japan, Mystery, Romance

GROSS ANATOMY
**½/**** Image C Sound D+
starring Matthew Modine, Daphne Zuniga, Christine Lahti, Todd Field
screenplay by Ron Nyswaner and Mark Spragg
directed by Thom Eberhardt

BETSY’S WEDDING
***/**** Image C Sound D+
starring Alan Alda, Joey Bishop, Madeline Kahn, Molly Ringwald
written and directed by Alan Alda

THE GUN IN BETTY LOU’S HANDBAG
**/**** Image C Sound D+
starring Penelope Ann Miller, Eric Thal, William Forsythe, Alfre Woodard
screenplay by Grace Cary Bickley
directed by Allan Moyle

by Jefferson Robbins To sample three Blu-ray editions fresh out from discount distributor Mill Creek Entertainment, you’d think film comedy in the late 1980s and early ’90s was at a tipping point. Or, at least, you’d think this of Touchstone, the Disney sub-studio behind Gross Anatomy, Betsy’s Wedding, and The Gun in Betty Lou’s Handbag. All three films seem swamped by the decade shift, caught between John Hughes’s early-’80s youth revolution and the hardening of romcom formulas that would come to pass after 1990’s Pretty Woman (also a Touchstone product). One of the three films, in fact, barely qualifies as a comedy, although it was surely marketed as such. The sense one gets watching them today is of opportunities missed, of storytelling approaches gently meshed together when they should’ve been gleefully mashed, and of an aversion to risk above all.

Hall Pass (2011) [Enlarged Edition] – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

Posted in2011, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Ian Pugh, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, DVD, Romance

***/**** Image B+ Sound A- Extras C-
starring Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Fischer, Christina Applegate
screenplay by Pete Jones & Peter Farrelly and Kevin Barnett & Bobby Farrelly
directed by Peter Farrelly & Bobby Farrelly

by Ian Pugh SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Rick Mills (Owen Wilson) is in real estate, and Fred Searing (Jason Sudeikis) sells life insurance–and yet these guys treat their own marriages, indeed their own lives, as an epic burden, so where do they get off trying to sell us peace-of-mind? Their leering obsession with sex has become all-consuming of late, prompting their wives (Maggie (Jenna Fischer) and Grace (Christina Applegate)) to grant them a hall pass: a “week off from marriage” in which they have the freedom to do whatever they want with the opposite sex without fear of recrimination. The Farrelly Brothers’ Hall Pass tells a fairly conventional story about men and women who very slowly come to recognize just how much they love their significant others. But one thing it doesn’t fully reconcile is this impulse that finds the movie’s middle-aged male characters blinking madly at attractive women, taking “mental photographs for [their] spank bank”–because even once they’ve learned their lessons and shouted them from the rooftops, they’re still taking those mental photographs. Beneath a thin veneer of sex jokes, the movie is about the denial and suppression of regret that occurs in the quest for long-term happiness.

Barry Lyndon (1975) – Blu-ray Disc

Posted in****/****, 2000s, 2011, Adventure, Authors: Alex Jackson, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blu-ray Disc, Directors: Stanley Kubrick, Drama, FFC Must-Own, Romance, War

****/**** Image A Sound A-
starring Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee, Hardy Kruger
screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel by William Makepeace Thackeray
directed by Stanley Kubrick

FFC Must-Ownby Alex Jackson If The Shining has dated the most of Kubrick’s films, Barry Lyndon, which immediately preceded it, has dated the least. In 1976, Barry Lyndon was nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award alongside Jaws, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, and Nashville. I have some reservations about a couple of those, but there’s no arguing that these are a few of the most revered American movies of the last four decades. And yet, they’re all inextricably linked to the year 1975. Certainly, they still work on their own terms, but today there’s an unspoken contract that we will acknowledge and accept them as something produced thirty-five years ago. We don’t have to make any such concessions with Barry Lyndon; there isn’t anything vintage about it.

Legend (1985) [Ultimate Edition] – DVD + Blu-ray Disc

Posted in1980s, 2011, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blu-ray Disc, Directors: Ridley Scott, DVD, Fantasy, Romance, Tom Cruise, UK

Director’s Cut ***/****
DVD – Image B+ Sound B+ Extras A+
BD – Image A- Sound A- Extras A

Theatrical Cut **/****
DVD – Image B- Sound B+ Extras A+
BD – Image B- Sound A- Extras A
starring Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, Tim Curry, David Bennent
screenplay by William Hjortsberg
directed by Ridley Scott

by Bill Chambers The American theatrical release of Legend is more impressionistic than the Director’s Cut of the film that accompanies it on DVD–because it’s the hollowed-out carcass of a complete cinematic experience. It’s this gorgeous, dainty thing that hints at something beyond the horizon, lacking not colour but texture, which is in abundance in Scott’s latest rendition of the picture. As a child, I watched Legend over and over again, never liking it but always dazzled by it and hoping, perhaps, that repeat viewings would help me to see what isn’t there. There is fire and ice yet no warmth and no chill in the U.S. Legend. (I imagine the European cut is little different at five minutes more.) Ridley Scott’s exclusive-to-DVD re-edit of Legend contains approximately twenty minutes’ worth of heretofore-unseen footage and restores Jerry Goldsmith’s lyrical score, and with no pun intended, it’s fantastic.

Midnight in Paris (2011)

Posted in****/****, 2011, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Fantasy, France, Romance, Spain, Theatrical

****/****
starring Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, Carla Bruni, Marion Cotillard
written and directed by Woody Allen

by Ian Pugh Midnight in Paris begins with a Manhattan-esque montage of the titular city, and after so many consecutive duds, Woody Allen has finally rediscovered (and relocated) the vital essence that traces back to his very best films. Don’t mistake his latest for a nostalgic throwback, though–in fact, it’s something of an essay on the dangerous intoxication of nostalgic throwbacks. Take it, too, as a fair indication that Allen has shared our frustrations with his recent output and knew the only way to get out of his rut was to confront the spectre of his earlier work. While he probably hates himself for it, it was bound to happen sooner or later: The pull of the past is simply too great to resist. Here, Manhattan becomes Paris, Paris becomes Manhattan, and we’re left to wonder what, exactly, that’s supposed to mean in the long run. Allen projects himself onto a younger avatar, who in turn projects himself onto the artists who came before him, who in turn have their own projections to deal with. As usual, Allen stops the action cold to explain his theses in a brief monologue, but for the first time in a long time, it feels necessary. It feels like legitimate self-criticism.

Excalibur (1981) – Blu-ray Disc

Excalibur (1981) – Blu-ray Disc

Posted in1980s, 2011, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Drama, Fantasy, Romance, UK

½*/**** Image B Sound D+ Extras C+
starring Nigel Terry, Helen Mirren, Nicholas Clay, Nicol Williamson
screenplay by Rospo Pallenberg and John Boorman, adapted from Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur by Pallenberg
directed by John Boorman

by Walter Chaw Anyone with an answer for what the good fuck is going on in John Boorman’s Excalibur is the forgiving sort who already has a working conversation with the Arthur mythos–who’s already read T.H. White or, at the minimum, watched The Sword in the Stone. Maybe said scholar was also a fan of Winston Churchill and likes to think that the great British PM was the very reincarnation of the 1st-century figure; maybe in a fit of frustration at the film, WIKIPEDIA was consulted. But most likely, the person who finds not only coherence in but also affection for Excalibur was nine or ten when they first saw it, enjoyed the tits and swordplay, didn’t notice the acting and the screenplay and the green light “special effect,” and was probably just as happy with any other contemporary fantasy that provided the same (Ladyhawke, Clash of the Titans, Legend, Conan the Barbarian, Dragonslayer). Really, the picture Excalibur most resembles is legendary stinker Krull (which likewise features an embarrassed-looking Liam Neeson in a tiny secondary role), complete with deplorable special effects, identical central plot, incomprehensible execution, and from-outer-space choices everywhere else. It probably shouldn’t be as big a surprise as it seems, given that Boorman has been obsessed with, and essentially retelling, the Arthur myth for the bulk of his career and, at the point at which Excalibur was made, had been working on the project in some form for nearly two decades. The film meant the world to him–and that romance with it appears to have drowned out the warnings of his better nature.

Water for Elephants (2011)

Posted in2011, Authors: Ian Pugh, Drama, Romance, Theatrical, UK

*½/****
starring Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, Christoph Waltz, Hal Holbrook
screenplay by Richard LaGravenese, based on the book by Sara Gruen
directed by Francis Lawrence

by Ian Pugh Genre hack Francis Lawrence moves into Twilight territory with the trashy forbidden-romance flick Water for Elephants, in which the opposing forces contriving to keep our lovers apart prove to be minor obstacles at best. Despite its circus setting, this is a thoroughly familiar and perfunctorily told tale. Feel free to blame Lawrence’s typically meat-and-potatoes direction. Go ahead and blame screenwriter Richard LaGravenese for an adaptation that, on the surface, leaves no room for complexity or ambiguity. And, sure, blame Robert Pattinson for his infallibly bland delivery. Maybe hold off on blaming Witherspoon, whose charms seem diluted by the woodenness of onscreen beau Pattinson. Just, whatever you do, don’t blame poor Christoph Waltz, who brings his “A” game to this sorry affair and is rewarded with one of the most patently ridiculous send-offs ever bestowed upon a character actor. You thought Inglourious Basterds was brutal? Man, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Robots (2005) – Blu-ray Disc

Posted in2000s, 2011, Adventure, Animation, Australia, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Family, Romance, Sci-Fi, UK

**/**** Image A- Sound B+ Extras C+
screenplay by David Lindsay-Abaire and Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel
directed by Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha

by Walter Chaw Surprisingly, perhaps shockingly, Robots isn’t terrible, even though it’s a product of the same chowderheads behind Ice Age and even though it’s your basic ramshackle kid’s flick/self-esteem trope (complete with closing musical number) upon which the Shrek franchise has founded a scatological empire. What works in its favour is its attention to the little details of a world that, without explanation, is completely populated by robots that employ other robots in specialized, superfluous functions. What works against it is the lack of a firm grip on Robin Williams’s bridle (resulting in a bunch of gay jokes that weren’t funny when Milton Berle was doing them half a century ago), a weak reliance on pop cultural in-jokes that are already dated (Britney Spears? C’mon–why not Ricky Martin?), and the usual roster of fart and diarrhea jokes, which aren’t exactly a calling card for immortality. The appropriately-named Blue Sky animation studio promises a lot with its giant mainframes, but it can’t deliver anything beyond a brilliant opening sequence, a Tom Waits song (like Shrek 2), and then a lot of the same passionless, heartless idiotspeak that passes for children’s fare nowadays.

Your Highness (2011)

Posted in2011, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Fantasy, Romance, Satire, Theatrical

*/****
starring Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschanel
screenplay by Danny R. McBride & Ben Best
directed by David Gordon Green

by Walter Chaw David Gordon Green continues his burnout trilogy with the medieval stoner swords & sorcery flick Your Highness, a sharp, incisive satire that rips the lid off the long-held secret of smart people-in-the-know that Red Sonja is a piece of shit. It’s an extended, hostile slam of stuff like Clash of the Titans, and just because it’s better than, say, Excalibur, that doesn’t excuse it for being the kind of movie “Mystery Science Theater” would make if it made movies instead of taking shots at them from a privileged position. There’s no love in Your Highness–replacing Harryhausen’s clockwork Bubo with an animatronic crow that’s resurrected from a trash heap in an offhand rejection of the Clash of the Titans remake doesn’t go nearly far enough towards convincing me that Green and his writers, Danny McBride and Ben Best, actually give a damn about the genre or any of its key films. I’m not sure the genre merits much respect, frankly, but all I’m really certain of after this one is that the filmmakers thought Ladyhawke would be a lot better with a fat slob saying “fuck” and wearing a penis around his neck. Indeed, in case you were wondering, Your Highness is in the same family as the asshole who writes “faggot” on your forehead in Sharpie while you’re sleeping.

Source Code (2011) + Certified Copy (2010)

Posted in****/****, 2000s, 2010, 2011, Action, Authors: Walter Chaw, Belgium, Canada, Drama, Esoterica, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Mystery, Romance, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller

SOURCE CODE
****/****
starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright
screenplay by Ben Ripley
directed by Duncan Jones

Copie conforme
****/****
starring Juliette Binoche, William Shimell
written and directed by Abbas Kiarostami

by Walter Chaw The one part of Source Code that isn’t duck-ass tight poses so many questions about the nature of our hero’s heroism and the aftermath of the film that it opens up what initially seems a hermetically-sealed conceit into something of real depth and fascination. Far from the solipsism of failures interesting (Timecrimes) and not (Primer), different from marginal successes like 12 Monkeys and Déjà Vu, Duncan Jones’s sophomore feature (after the similarly thorny Moon) plays most like a child of Last Year at Marienbad and a companion piece to Abbas Kiarostami’s contemporaneous Certified Copy. It speaks in terms of quantum physics and string theory, but without pretension, achieving the almost impossible by introducing difficult concepts at the same pace with which its characters–not a dummy among them–are able to understand them without gassing (or worse, falling well behind) the audience. That it presents itself as a mainstream, popular entertainment is more to its credit, giving lie to the notion that Hollywood is bankrupt of ideas. Rather, it’s the destination for gifted filmmakers–some of them smart enough, and resourceful enough, to hold fast to their idealism and intelligence for, if not an entire career, then at least long enough to set a bar.

Moonstruck (1987) [Deluxe Edition] – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

Posted in1980s, 2011, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Nicolas Cage, Romance

**/****
DVD – Image B Sound B+ Extras B+
BD – Image B- Sound B+ Extras B+
starring Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis
screenplay by John Patrick Shanley
directed by Norman Jewison

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. If you were to make a film about African-Americans in which everyone is shiftless, ignorant, and constantly eating watermelon or fried chicken and acting lascivious, you’d be rightly vilified for your inherent racism. But if you were to make a film about Italian-Americans in which everyone is loud, hilarious, and constantly eating pasta and acting lascivious, apparently you’d be rewarded with the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. That, at least, is the conclusion one draws from watching the stereotype cavalcade that is Moonstruck, which, however affectionate, creates a tedious minstrel show out of those wacky Eye-talians while minimizing their pain. There’s plenty of talk about the chaos of love and the torment of attraction, but who are they kidding? That everything works out in the end for problems that would normally rip a family apart is par for the course in a Norman Jewison film, meaning baked ziti for all and true drama for none.

Hereafter (2010) – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Ian Pugh, Blu-ray Disc, Clint Eastwood, Documentary, Drama, DVD, Fantasy, Romance, Spielberg

½*/**** Image A Sound A Extras C+
starring Matt Damon, Cécile De France, Jay Mohr, Bryce Dallas Howard
screenplay by Peter Morgan
directed by Clint Eastwood

by Ian Pugh It’s an age-old problem: how do you make a movie (or write a book, or stage a play) about the broad and ultimately philosophical subject of death? Not like this, that’s for sure. Looking and feeling like it was shot from inside an aquarium, Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter is a failure of staggering proportions. Three stories intertwine to form a bland whole: George (Matt Damon) is an honest-to-gosh psychic who’s trying and failing to stay out of the racket; Marie (Cécile De France) is a French TV presenter who recalls visions of the afterlife after being caught in the Indian Ocean tsunami; and Marcus (Frankie McLaren) is a young lad who seeks answers when his twin brother dies in a traffic accident. Rest assured, their paths will cross in profoundly obvious ways as they wrap their heads around the very concept of death and what comes next. I’m certainly not the first person to compare Hereafter to Babel, but Eastwood offers little alternative. Hereafter approaches the various perceptions of death in the same way that Alejandro González Iñárritu approached “life,” and the end result is equally bloated and condescending.

Red Riding Hood (2011)

Posted in2011, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Theatrical, Thriller, Werewolf, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/****
starring Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Billy Burke, Julie Christie
screenplay by David Leslie Johnson
directed by Catherine Hardwicke

by Walter Chaw That Catherine Hardwicke keeps getting jobs speaks to a deep, ugly dysfunction in the Hollywood dream factory. Not the thought that money talks, but the idea that people like Hardwicke and Adam Sandler and Michael Bay are handed the keys to the executive washroom because they understand what it is that certain critically-deficient demographics want and proceed to provide it in massive, deadly draughts. In other industries, there would be regulatory agencies–though it’s fair to consider that checking the poster for Red Riding Hood would give you all the nutritional information you probably need. Namely that Hardwicke is the main ingredient, and that had I remembered this before the screening, I never, ever would have gone, in exactly the same way I wouldn’t eat scrapple again. I’m sure a lot of people like that shit, but grey pig-mush is grey pig-mush. Red Riding Hood is easily the worst movie I’ve seen since probably all the way back to A Sound of Thunder, and in a lot of the same ways: horribly written; horribly performed (but they didn’t have a chance); directed by someone that cameras should file a restraining order against; and edited by a cast-iron moron (make that pair of morons: long-time Hardwicke accomplice Nancy Richardson and poor Julia Wong). At least there’s Gary Oldman along for the ride to order his Moorish henchmen to, at one point, “put him in the elephant!”

The Romantics (2010) – DVD

Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Romance, ZERO STARS

ZERO STARS/**** Image C Sound B Extras D
starring Katie Holmes, Josh Duhamel, Anna Paquin, Elijah Wood
screenplay by Galt Niederhoffer, based on her novel
directed by Galt Niederhoffer

by Walter Chaw Though technically correct, I much prefer the term “Romanticists” to “Romantics,” but that’s a fussy kind of neither here nor there in a film, hyphenate Galt Neiderhoffer’s The Romantics, that suffers from nothing like precision, elegance, or, crucially, poetry. It’s a nightmare–a handheld, artfully ugly mash-up of Rachel Getting Married and Dead Poets Society that starts with credits in Wes Anderson’s favourite font and slogs on through with Lilith Fair/coffee-shop folk and a character played by Katie Holmes who’s jealous of a character played by Anna Paquin’s boobs. Let’s call it a draw, ladies, and discuss instead this variety of faux-prestige romcom, which hijacks Lloyd Dobler’s holding of a boombox blaring Peter Gabriel over his head by having frickin’ Josh Duhamel hoist an iPhone with Keats’s “To a Nightingale” on its screen. It features idiots like dollar-store Cameron Diaz Malin Akerman and an increasingly Gollum-esque Elijah Wood in awkward supporting roles; allows scenarios like the nightmare rehearsal-dinner toast montage; and tasks Candace Bergen’s team of handlers and feeders to drag her out to yet again fulfill the role of Tyrannosaurus Reaction Shot. Good job, Ms. Neiderhoffer, for not only mistaking Catch & Release for Noah Baumbach or Lars Von Trier, for not only setting your indie emoti-fest in the Dan in Real Life bizarre-verse, but for borrowing a bad burlesque from the lame 27 Dresses, too.

The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

Posted in2011, Authors: Walter Chaw, Romance, Sci-Fi, Theatrical, Thriller

½*/****
starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, Terence Stamp
screenplay by George Nolfi, based on the story “Adjustment Team” by Philip K. Dick
directed by George Nolfi

by Walter Chaw George Nolfi, writer of Ocean’s Twelve, The Sentinel, The Bourne Ultimatum, and other movies I can’t really remember if I’ve seen returns to his “Renaissance Fair: The Movie” (a.k.a. Timeline) roots with this howler of a hyphenate debut. Somehow mushing together the worst elements of bad films as disparate as The Box and Return to Me with an uncannily bad ear for dialogue and the instincts of a twelve-year-old Catechism student, The Adjustment Bureau jollily romps through Christian quandaries of predestination vs. free will by pitting fedora’d Wim Wenders angels against milquetoast Matt Damon and his badly-slumming object of desire Emily Blunt during their Satanic (I guess) quest to be married to each other. It doesn’t take a stand one way or the other, having its host and eating it, too, all the way through to a genuinely stupid conclusion in which it’s revealed that the almighty DIRECTOR is neither and both male and female and appears to all of us in His/Her own way. I suppose you could say that The Adjustment Bureau is a Wim Wenders movie if Wenders were a douchebag given to sackless pop-Christianity musings scored (by the up-and-down Thomas Newman) with what sounds like the music from Field of Dreams as performed by an orchestra of baby deer.