Beyond the Sea (2004)

Brief: Bobby Darin (Kevin Spacey) attempts get his biopic off the ground, but the actor playing Little Bobby (William Ullrich) suggests that it's more off track than he thought. Little Bobby starts to tell Bobby the real story, and the narrative is quickly picked up by Bobby, describing his childhood with his mother, Polly (Brenda Blethyn), and his career with his manager, Boom-Boom (John Goodman); his brother-in-law, Charlie (Bob Hoskins); his sister, Nina (Caroline Aaron); and, above all, his relationship with his wife, Sandra Dee (Kate Bosworth).

If you are wondering, there is no Bobby Darin auto-biopic. It's all very meta. Not quite as meta as the second season of the o.c., but it's close. Ullrich has a lot on his plate, functioning as the young actor, the young Bobby, Bobby's conscience, God, and the grim reaper. He manages to pull most of it off, but it can be confusing.

When I saw the trailer for this movie, I was pretty pumped. But the phenomenal success of Ray left me wondering if there was room for two singer tributes in one year, and the reviews and box office receipts assured me that there wasn't. Still, I wasn't convinced that that was failure on the part of the movie.

Now that I've seen it, I'm still not sure that it was the movie that failed entirely. Going through rounds and rounds of writing with numerous authors who don't want to be credited doesn't do a picture any favours, but I've only got Spacey (who also directed/shares co-author credits) and Lewis Colick to blame.

About 50% of this movie works. Spacey makes an excellent Darin when he plays the legend the way that we all love Spacey to act - as a sardonic, condescending ass with thinly veiled contempt for pretty much anyone that doesn't share or support his goals. He also excels in Bobby's song-and-dance routine, with stage presence and one helluva voice.

It's when the movie shifts to Bobby's relationship with Sandra that it grinds to a halt. I've liked Spacey and Bosworth in the past, and I'm sure I'll like them again in the future, although maybe not together. While they certainly seem friendly toward one another, there isn't anything resembling chemistry between them, sexual or otherwise. There just isn't sufficient reason to care about Dee and Darin, and the focus on them is distracting from the rest of the otherwise enjoyable fare.

Oh, but seeing Spacey up there singing away is beyond enjoyable. I wish I hadn't have missed it when he took the show on the road. Still, you might be better off with the soundtrack than the actual movie. B-

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)

I don't really need to give you a plot summery, do I? Oh, alright, for the handful of you who have a DSL line under your rock:

Reclusive candy maker Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp) inserts five golden tickets into his chocolate bars, which entitle the barer to a tour of his factory, accompanied by one adult. The winners are: Augustus Gloop (Philip Wiegratz), a German chocolate addict; Violet Beauregarde (Annasophia Robb), a gum chewing and karate champ; Veruca Salt (Julia Winter), a rich snob who gets everything she wants; Mike Teavee (Jordan Fry), a video game head; and Charlie (Freddie Highmore), who's just lucky to be there.

Happy now? That was really hard and took a long time. Meanies.

I like the symmetry of the kids getting themselves into trouble in the order in which they find the tickets, which I just realized. Sometimes I'm a little slow, okay?

I was reading something the other day about how remakes are unnecessary unless the original movie wasn't very good and needs retelling. Movies are remade, however, because the original was commercially successful, and the remake hopes for similar profits with little to no creativity going into the process.

Say what you will, but I think the masterwork of Tim Burton (director) and John August (writer) falls into the former category. I found the 1971 Mel Stuart version horrifying. Gene Wilder's Wonka was sociopathic - I kept waiting for him to snap and try to kill the kids with his bare hands.

Depp's Wonka, on the other hand, is an effeminate man-child, with deep seated insecurities and hilarious neuroses. I read that Depp was going for a cross between a Howard Hughes-style recluse and a 70s glam rocker. Success! From his bizarre and arrested speech patterns to his deliberate ignorance of the relationship between children and their guardians (he can barely get the word 'parent' out without looking like he's about to vomit), Depp is every bit as reclusive and glamorous as he set out to be. As I have suggested in the past, that has as much to do with the actor's immense and versatile talent as it does with the completely trusting relationship between Depp and the director that allowed him to be something other than a teen idol.

What I wouldn't give to have been privy to the collaborations between August and Burton. Who cares about all those critics who say that Burton can't tell a story? Burton tells the best stories! Part gothic allegory (the decision to give Wonka some back story was a stroke of genius), part comic book, part macabre portrayal of the grotesque realities of everyday (especially suburban) life, Burton is one of my filmmaking heroes. He contrasts dank, stark, nearly black and white memories with the technicolour wonderland Wonka creates for himself in response to his domineering dentist father (Christopher Lee). I can't imagine anyone more suited to tell the story.

Highmore politely did not try to rip my heart out of my chest this time around, and he makes a perfect pair with the spindly, amusing, and doting David Kelly as Grandpa Joe. I didn't really understand the karate thing for Violet since it didn't fit in with her punishment, but it did allow she and Mrs. Beauregarde (Missi Pyle) to sport matching crushed velvet sweatsuits, which I despise. That still didn't explain Pyle's vamp brows. Oh, well, I guess at that point the prosthetics people were just having a laugh.

As much as the prosthetics, sets, performances, and Deep Roy (the only Oompa Loompa) were eye-catching, Danny Elfman (composer) owned this movie from start to finish. His variations on Roald Dahl's own songs, from Bollywood to Backstreet, were works of magnificent proportions, as were his original Wonka's Welcome Song and his mood-altering score. It kind of freaks me out to know that each and every singing voice was merely his own, but I can deal with it. Mostly because I like bopping around singing, "Willy Wonka/Willy Wonka/The amazing chocolatier" over and over again.

You must see it. You must. A+

Although Veruca doesn't sing her "I want it now" song. Pity.

Also, the real cash cow would be whatever Wonka is using to completely arrest the aging process. I'm just sayin'.

I (Heart) Huckabees (2004)

Summary: Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman) hires existential detectives Bernard (Dustin Hoffman) and Vivian (Lily Tomlin) Jaffe to solve his coincidence involving Mr. Nimieri (Ger Duany). The Jaffes realize that Albert's problem has much more to do with Hukabees' (think Walmart) golden boy Brad Stand (Jude Law) and Brad's girlfriend, Hukabees spokesperson, Dawn Campbell (Naomi Watts). The Jaffes also introduce Albert to another client, Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg), a fire fighter trying to sort out his feelings about "that September thing". Tommy introduces Albert to nihilism via former Jaffe client Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert).

Yes, it is that complex and involved. That's the point. Or part of it, anyway.

Although this movie fits together seamlessly and likely is David O. Russell's (co-writer/director) best work to date, I live to hear certain line readings in a movie like this. I want Dawn to ask Brad, "You can't deal with my infinite nature, can you?"

I want Brad to ask the Jaffes, "How am I not myself?", so they can repeat the question over and over again as though its meaning will reveal itself that way.

I want Vivian and Albert to have this exchange:
V: Have you ever trascended space and time?
A: No. Yes. Uh, time not space. [beat] I have no idea what you are talking about.

I want Tommy to announce that he's going to go off and become even more empty and alone and meaningless on his own.

Perhaps most of all, I want Albert to read his poem which contains the line, "You rock, rock."

I realize that it seems like I just gutted the movie, but the reality is that I haven't even given anything away. Besides you really need to see all the action surrounding these lines to get their full effect. Russell and co-author Jeff Baena's film is an assault on the senses but in the very best way. You have to laugh because it's too absurd not to.

I've been trying to figure out where to start with all the different wonderful players in this piece, and there really is no good place. In direct accordance with the screenplay, everyone and everything is linked.

I really had no idea that Wahlberg has such a keen sense of comedic timing. I think this is the best thing he has ever done.

I love the Jaffes, from Hoffman's bowl cut to Tomlin's wardrobe to the way they seem psychically linked and destined to twirl through life together.

I love Albert's work with the Open Spaces Coalition, and his struggle for control in the face of Brad and Huckabees. This movie offers another example of the kind of role I want to see my "mortal enemy" in. He makes an excellent souless, corporate zombie, who gets a perverse thrill from taking the symbolic power away from a man that has no real power anyway.

Oh, man. I'm trying figure out how to sum up what I just saw or even what I just wrote, but there really is no way to do it. Once you suspend your disbelief and get into this world, you're done for. On the other hand, it's a mistake not to. A+

Boyz n the Hood (1991)

Premise: After getting into a fight at school, Tré is sent to live with his father, Furious (Laurence Fishburne). Tré makes friends with neighbours Doughboy and Ricky. Fast forward seven years later when Doughboy (Ice Cube) is released from juvie, Ricky (Morris Chestnut) has a child and a chance for a football scholarship, and Tré's (Cuba Gooding. Jr.) still trying to sort out the man is father wants him to be.

It's hard to review this movie because of the difficulty I have in piecing it all together. I was stunned speechless last night, then I had a headache. I was also momentarily distracted by the quality of movies that certain people used to make and how skinny everyone used to be.

There are words for writer-director John Singleton's debut, but I'm not sure what they are. Like the novelist of the last post, pretty much everything here was lifted from Singleton's life in South Central. He was writing about things we were happily pretending weren't happening long before the names "Florence and Normandy" had any non-European existence in our collective minds.

Aside from the fact that I spend most of my time recognizing names and faces, I wasn't watching a movie. Singleton played it so close to the bone that I might as well have been watching cameras move through real lives. That's where my headache came in - it can be painful to watch something you know is true.

One thing I did note was Fishburne. His understated and charismatic performance was reminiscent of Denzel on his best day. Fishburne was intense and magnetic, and I am now wondering why I rarely get to see this side of him.

As much as this next statement is the result of paying too much attention in my English class, the unique draw of this movie is that it can be read on so many different levels. It is too easy to say that Singleton is commenting on the current state of race relations in America. There's so much more going on in these lives that I am doing you a disservice by trying to boil it down. It will take many more viewings before I have the whole picture. A

Bonus points for the Stand By Me homage.

Mysterious Skin (2004)

Premise: In the summer of 1981, two boys are molested by their little league coach (Bill Sage). Ten years later, Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) turns to hustling, while Brian (Brady Corbet) believes he was abducted by aliens. As Brian begins to remember Neil's presence in the abductions, he seeks Neil out for answers.

You know that feeling you get when you've had way too much to eat, and you know that your stomach's not happy about it because the food is sitting there like a stone?

That's how this movie feels, for hours and even days after you see it. It haunts the back of your mind, appearing in little quiet moments of your day-to-day to chill you to the bone.

And yet, in the midst of all this weightiness, Gregg Araki (writer-director) deposits the most unexpected joy: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (henceforth JGL). I've only seen him in a handful of comedic roles prior to my Wednesday trip to the Bytowne, so this one naturally took its toll on me.

On the other hand, I finally understand what critics mean when they call a performance a "revelation." This, my friends, is a revelation. JGL gives one of the most unrelenting, powerful, poignant, and harrowing performances I've ever seen. It weighs all the more heavily on me that he can do that at two years my senior, looking for all the world like disenchantment, false-bravado, and that "I'm too sexy" swagger will somehow erase his feelings of loneliness and utter banality.

As Neil's mom, it's easy to chalk Elizabeth Shue's performance up to simply filling out a necessary single mother requirement, but, at the last possible second, Shue lets on that perhaps she knows much, much more about her son and his life than she wants to believe is real.

Corbet works to make his character's delusions as ingrained as possible, and it's no wonder that meeting a fellow abductee Avalyn (Mary Lynn Rajskub) finally awakens Brian to the startling truth. Rajskub and Araki give the audience just enough to hint to Sarah at a forced hysterectomy and to me that Avalyn's repeated "abductions" have more do to with her barely glimpsed "over-protective" father than anything else.

Allow me to almost completely ignore Wendy (Michelle Tranchtenberg) and Eric (Jeff Licon), Neil's hometown friends. Tranchtenberg did little besides annoy me with Dawn's simpering ways through three years of Buffy (although she did allow Xander to deliver one of the show's Best Monologues Ever) because I felt she was basically playing the same unblinking, "precocious" kid that Dakota Fanning annoys me with now (since when does some sort of strange disease that causes you to be unable to close your eyes signal precociousness, anyway? That crazy Osmet ruined things for me.) Dawn/Trachtenberg should have outgrown their wide-eyed ,whining ways by the time she was the oscillating age she was on Buffy, so I didn't really go in for it.

Wow, that was a long and completely off-topic rant. In any case, Trachtenberg doesn't do any of that here, so that's good, but she doesn't really do anything special either. And Licon looks like he's trying really hard to channel Wilson Cruz as Rickie Vasquez than anything else, but it never comes off as more than an impression.

Of course, none of these flaws seem to bother me all that much because I view each and every character as a sounding board for Neil and JGL's heart-wrenching and flawlessly executed performance.

I'm going to tell you something now because I care about you. Whenever I see a movie where a character, especially the protagonist, is a prostitute, I prepare myself for what I feel is the inevitable "bad john" scene. In this film it's particularly cruel and graphic, so I really felt I should be honest with you about that.

Because I couldn't sleep that night.

I suppose the real praise should go to Scott Heim for writing such a brutal novel on which to base this work. I understand that everything in it is based on people he knew and his experiences growing up in Hutchinson, Kansas.

Akari leaves you with lament, a feeling you can't seem to shake long after the particulars have faded from your memory. I'm in the same boat as Neil by the end, wondering how, and if it will ever, disappear. A

Fantastic Four (2005)

Short: While in space, Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), Susan Storm (Jessica Alba), Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), and Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) are exposed to some cosmic radiation, which alters their DNA. As Reed pushes for the four to learn to control and reverse their powers, Victor conceals his and concentrates on what they can bring him.

To sum (Em): Deliciously lame!
Me: Delightfully awful!

You can go ahead and see it if you want to. It's your money. I'm just not sure I would recommend this movie to anyone who wasn't me. Or Emily. But only if we see it together in order to snark the whole way through.

If I had to guess the mindset of co-writers Michael France and Mark Frost, it was something like this: "Isn't this movie good? Oh, well."

And given Tim Story's non-direction style, I would fathom a guess that he was on the same wavelength.

McMahon, who I love as narcissistic Dr. Christian Troy on nip/tuck, basically played his character as follows: Dr. Christian Troy mysteriously stops getting all the tang he wants, so he goes insane. No, seriously.

Here's how Alba, Gruffudd, and Evans did: . What's that you say? There's nothing there? It's blank? Hmmm. Maybe that's my response to the ciphers parroting dialogue instead of playing characters. I couldn't care less about Alba and Evans, but why do you keep doing this to me, Ioan?! You can be pretty good, and Horatio's possibly one of my favourite characters ever, but what are these movies you make?

Wondering about Chiklis? Well, being as how he's given the only character in the movie, he also gives the only performance. I assure that shouldering the emotional heft for any entire film, even if you are made of rock, isn't easy. It also means that everyone and everyone is going to shit on you, both figuratively and literally. It's seems a lot for one man to take, but Chiklis brings a little grace, panache, and fleshy pugilistic manhood to the role anyway.

Once again, another movie that raises more questions than it answers and not in that good makes-ya-think kind of a way. More like, "Who asks a woman he's never dated to marry him? Why is Ioan so tan? Why is he wearing so much eyeliner? Why can't The Thing control his powers? Why is his wife so mean?" and, above all, "Didn't you people see Spiderman? He's going to kill you all!"

I realize that kind of gave something away there, but you're all smart enough to pick it up on your own should you ever bother with this trifling affair.

This is the nightmare that all comic book geeks and critics feared at the rebirth of the comic book movie. We were previously treated to the highly stylized, operatic works of Sam Raimi and Robert Rodriguez, but now we have this. No matter - it's ephemeral. By the dawn of a certain famed chocolate factory next week, it will be all forgotten. Until then - D.

p.s. (2004)

The Topher Grace RE-view double bill!

This movie is so, so much better than I originally gave it credit for.

More specifically, Grace and his character are so much more than I gave them credit for.

Linney is one of the most talented actresses out there today, and it's very difficult to watch any one not get swallowed up by her on-screen brilliance. I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that she needs someone like Sean Penn, a weighty leading man to say the least, to balance her out.

But that's not true. Annette Benning she is not. Linney knows exactly how to play every character, and her Louise is wonderfully reduced to girlhood at the very mention of her lost high school love. It's captivating and wholly realistic.

Still, if you pay attention to Grace, and I did this time around, he'll steal your heart. I think it's possible that I didn't see it before because of the real way Grace plays F. Scott. Everything F. Scott says or does is believable to the point where you start to wonder if it's dialogue or improv.

For better or worse, the lines he is dealt vary from natural to preposterous. He shows up at Louise's apartment the morning after Louise confesses who she thinks he is to talk about what she said. Peter (Gabriel Bryne) is there, and, when he asks Louise who this crazy man is, F. Scott replies, "Oh, didn't she tell you? I'm the dead guy!"
Louise (distractedly): He's an MFA applicant.
F. Scott (incredulously): An MFA applicant? Are you fucking insane?

I can't even do that exchange justice. I've watched it three times since I got the DVD in the mail, and I'm still laughing at it. Completely normal and natural way to react after what's happened between them.

On the more preposterous side, later in the same conversation Louise claims that she can't deal because "the whole thing is just to fucking mystical for [her]."
F. Scott: "You don't think this is mystical for me, too?"

Look at that line objectively. Think about it. It's hilarious. It's okay to laugh. But here's the thing - it's really hard to laugh when Grace says it. Somehow, he manages to sell it. He manages to make it look like it's appropriate and natural to swear during interviews and throw everything over his shoulder like he doesn't care if he ever picks it up again.

And he just is. He's so nervous and naive, but his has that kind of relationship naivete that makes him so much more mature than Louise can be in the situation. He seems to genuinely astonished that Louise could be interested in him that it's not hard to understand why he's so drawn to her.

I was watching the first seduction with the talk of portrait painting, and it reminded me of a passage from one of my favourite books, A Recipe for Bees. The heroine, Augusta, is remembering how her affair with Joe began, and she remarks that she opened herself up to him, but that men always remember themselves has initiating the affair. I don't think I understood what Gail Anderson-Dargatz meant until I watched this scene again. F. Scott thinks that he's seducing Louise, but he wouldn't be able to if she already given him permission. You'll see what I mean.

This movie was so much better than I remembered or gave it credit for. No longer B+ but A.