Pop Culture Round-Up

Oh, totally. Except two, three, eight, and 11. Well, not really six either. At least they reminded me that it doesn't have to be a Christian Bale-less summer.

Check out the second half of that list from before. It ends just the way I thought it would.

Hee. "Thanks, Superman. We humans were getting bored with blue whales anyway ."

I can't say I agree on all points, but I like where they are going with this.

They had me until the last two.

Sharon Waxman has given me a lot to think about.

Fracture (2007)

Brief: After discovering his wife (Embeth Davidtz)'s affair, Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) shoots her. As a DDA on his way out, Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) takes the open-and-shut case as a courtesy. Naturally, the case turns out to be not as clear cut as he thought, putting his new job and his relationships in jeopardy.

You guys are really dropping the ball. I went to see a movie where a lady gets shot in the face, and there appeared to be no children in the theatre. Don't you want your children to see a woman get shot in the face?

Truth be told, there was only one reason to make the journey to the cinema last night: The Gosling. Once upon a time, Gosling and I had a very special relationship where we used to see each other five times a week (everyday after school), but now I don't get to see him as often. As such, I like to make a special effort for him.

As always, he more than delivers. Gosling's a natural on screen, an actor who can exhibit that rare combination of charisma and talent. He simply smolders up there, and in those embers you find it impossible to contradict him. Is he really a Southern lawyer* who wears a gold horseshoe ring and goes about quietly seducing his new boss (Rosamund Pike)? He is today.

*Can you be a young star and not play a lawyer? What is with that requirement?

It's wonderful to Gosling and Hopkins tear into each other with relish. I don't always understand Hopkins' career moves (look at me! I can play a sociopath!), but I like anything that puts that mischievous twinkle in his eyes. He practically glows when he sits across the table from Gosling. What a delight for the audience.

Of course, that delight is tempered by the train wreck known as the script. Co-writers Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers secretly, in their heart of hearts, think you are very, very stupid. Mind you, they start out treating you as relatively intelligent and attentive, slowly meting out clues as the movie slightly slowly goes on. Yet, when it comes time for the climax, they suddenly lose all faith in your ability to recall something that occurred as recently as three minutes earlier. Mind you, those flashbacks could have been the work of meddling producers, but I really have no way of knowing that. Besides, I have a feeling that they thought up that ridiculously unnecessary coda all on their own.

Gregory Hoblit's direction gets the job done. There was nothing extraordinary or spectacular about it, and I doubt that it takes a lot to get good performances out of Gosling or Hopkins. I do, however, think that it takes a special kind of director to quietly investigate the bonds that form between men (he also directed Frequency), and I think that Hoblit has knack for it.

Watching can be fun, especially with Gosling and Hopkins in nearly every frame and the fabulous David Strathairn in a supporting role. If you can just let the plot's failings pass you by, you are in for a pretty good ride. B-

Grindhouse (2007)

I'd like to tell you about this movie, but I can't because you didn't listen to me the first time. I thought I'd made myself clear, but, oh no, I wasn't clear enough. Let's put it this way: NEVER EVER BRING YOUR FOUR YEAR-OLD TO AN 18A MOVIE. There - that's a little clearer, right? I don't care how badly you want to see it. I don't care if you couldn't find a babysitter. I don't care if your ex traded you weekends, and you already had these plans. Woe is you. Movies are rated 18A for a reason. Sometimes, they are rated 18A for many reasons. Reasons like, I don't know, violence, gore, nudity, and attempted rape. You know, the usual. It's bad enough that you feel the need to share your every thought, chew with your mouth open, and sit directly behind my viewing partner and I even though we are the only people in the theatre. So yeah, That Guy and That Guy's Best Friend, get the hell out of my theatre.

World's goin' to hell in hand basket.

Since we are already here, I guess I could tell you about what I saw yesterday.

Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror: When a chemical agent that turns people into flesh-eating monsters is released into the Austin atmosphere, a go-go dancer (Rose McGowan) teams up with a mysterious tow trucker driver (Freddy Rodríguez) from her past to save the survivors, including a doctor (Marley Shelton) from her murderous husband (Josh Brolin), and the town sherrif (Micheal Biehn) whose brother (Jeff Fahey) makes the best BBQ in Texas.

Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof: A former stuntman (Kurt Russell) terrorizes women (Rose McGowan, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd) along the Texan highways, but he runs into trouble when he tries to take on another group of women (Zoe Bell, Tracie Thoms, Rosario Dawson) in Tennesse.

What's the matter with you? Why aren't you going to see this in theatres? You get two pictures for the price of one plus you get to see fake trailers, which is sort of like getting to see a bunch of short films as well! Wicked awesome short films, in case you were wondering. I mean, if I can get off my duff and go see a Tarantino movie (me!), then it's quite possibly the least you could be doing.

I mean, it's the one where Rose McGowan ends up with a machine gun for a leg. A machine gun leg, people. If you don't think I spent the entire feature on the edge of my seat waiting for a) McGowan to get her machine gun leg and b) Shelton to hop on the back of her motorcycle, you don't know me at all.

And that's only one picture! Then Snake Plissken gets into Bullit's car and goes crashing into people. It's just awesome.

RR might just be my hero. First he gives me Sin City and now this? Fantastic. He also managed to balance the T&A with incredibly loving shots of Rodríguez. He seems an unlikely choice at 5'6" and best known for Six Feet Under, but that makes Rodríguez all the more hilariously badass. By the time RR backs him up with the ridiculous yet still sexy score RR wrote, it's hard to resist.

The key is the casting. You have to find actors who can be in on the joke while still delivering their lines with a straight face. Bruce Willis is good at that. Brolin was surprisingly good at that. McGowan is so good at that she may have been born to do it.

By the time Thoms, Dawson, and the beautiful Bell roll up to take Russell on, you totally love these movies. It's an irresistible smash-up of paordy and pastiche, and I, for once, am all about it.

Before you reach for your smelling salts, allow me to say that seeing a QT movie does not mean that I have reversed my position on him. I am willing, however, give him an inch, and that inch is . . . I will be less dismissive of him in the future. There. That's all he's getting, though. Don't get your hopes up.

So, how 'bout it guys? Would you like to get two movies for the price of one, plus a bunch of short films, complete with intermission, so you visit the facilities and grab another snack? Esp. if it comes with a heavy dose of awesome? Then you should get on that before they yank it from theatres, chop it up, and re-release the double feature separately. Is the problem that all QT and RR's fan are just too young to understand what they are missing out on? If so, young'uns, listen up: stop missing out. You won't be sorry if you spend an afternoon or evening with this interpretation. A

Pop Culture Round Up XV

This list rocks for Nº 9 alone. That scene is the bravura sequence that makes the entire film.

Hee. Knut brings cuteness wherever he goes.

Put Christopher Nolan in a headlock? This story just keep getting better and better.

Aw, 73. Also, I totally have a t-shirt of 56.

Momma's boy edge? What does that mean? Ah, well, just off-the-wall enough to make me like it.

I can't imagine why people would lie about seeing The Da Vinci Code either.

Could someone tell me how to feel about the top story?

Fauteuils d'orchestre (2006) et Jeux d'enfants (2003)

Story: As celebrated concert pianist (Albert Dupontel) prepares for his latest opening, he contemplates quitting, though he fears his wife (Laura Morante) will leave him if he does. Next door at the auction house, a father (Claude Brasseur) is set to unload his art collection, much to the chagrin of his son (Christopher Thompson). Across the street, a famous soap actress (Valérie Lemercier) begins a run on the stage, while attempting to win the part of Simone de Beauvoir in Brian Sobinski's (Sydney Pollack) latest film. At the centre of all of this is a bar that has just hired its first waitress (Cécile de France).

Or as we call it here: Avenue Montaigne.

What a charming little ensemble piece. De France brings everything and everyone together not through magic but through her natural openness and sweetness. The whole thing is a confection that comes together a little too well, but it's difficult to resist. It is to writer-director Danièle Thompson and her son/co-writer Christopher Thompson's credit that you feel like you know and care enough about each of the many characters to want to see the resolution of their stories. Young Thompson probably plays the most prickly character, and we still wanted him to find love. By the time Lemercier is pretty much breaking down in front of Pollack, you are doomed. There's a warmth in the way they each take the other in that extends to the audience, and who doesn't want a hug straight from Paris? B+

With less characters and a far more outlandish plot, Jeux d'enfants (Love Me If You Dare over here) is the more charming and wonderful of the pictures. As children, Julien and Sophie pass their dismal days sharing a carousel tin: whoever has the tin dares the other, and the other gets the tin when s/he completes the dare. It's a simple game and one that gets the two of them in a lot of trouble, but it is as bewitching as you can imagine. As they so often do in these sorts of stories, Julien (Guillaume Canet) and Sophie (Marion Cotillard) fall in love, but that only serves to complicate the game. Yet, no matter how awful their dares get, no matter what terrible positions they put each other in, your heart will simply burst at the thought of these two finally getting it together due to the sweet and irresistible chemistry Canet and the stunning Cotillard generate. A

I saw . . . this: Part 7

Because sometimes, more than one paragraph isn't necessary.

Idiocracy (2006)

Too many critics got me a little too hyped up for this comedy about an average guy (Luke Wilson) who wakes up 500 years in the future to discover that he is now the smartest guy alive. Both for its limited screen run and its quiet DVD release, critics were bemoaning how the genius of this film would quietly slip away. Yes and no. The satire is as deft as it was in writer-director Mike Judge's equally ignored Office Space, but the humour just didn't feel on the same level to me. Given that both Children of Men and V for Vendetta* came out last year, maybe I should just be glad that someone is willing to look at the lighter side of the world going to hell in a hand basket.

*That movie gets better every time I watch it.

Love and Death on Long Island (1997)

I can't tell you the number of times I've tried to watch this movie. I rarely make it past the opening credits. It's the kind of movie that I think I should watch, but I never quite get around to it. I finally suffered through it, and what suffering it was. I just don't get this movie. What is it trying to be? Am I supposed to feel pity for this acclaimed author (John Hurt) who falls for a B-movie actor (Jason Priestly) and flies across the Atlantic to stalk him? Should I find this bizarrely amusing? It's too bad the suffocating air that hangs over the movie like cigarette smoke prevents me from feeling anything other than weighed down and vaguely annoyed.

A Better Place (1997)

I could not, for the life of me, remember why I put this movie on my ZipList. I became briefly convinced, for reasons unknown, that Paul Rudd was in the movie, but that wasn't true. Jason Lee has a wee part, but it wasn't worth sitting through the movie to see him. Could it be that I like Eion Bailey that much? Maybe. Whatever the reason, it wasn't a good one. This movie is a terrible mess. Nothing about it reflects a single moment of what high school is really like. Barret and Ryan speak like they are reading rejected Dawson's Creek scripts, and the whole thing ends in the least believable manner possible.

Dead Man on Campus (1998)

This is not a good movie. Not at all, to be honest. For a brief time, when it first appeared on my parent's satellite lo these many years ago, I watched it. I watched it repeatedly. I watched it so often that jumping in in the middle didn't bother me, as I knew it so well. I knew it wasn't good, but I liked it. Now that's the perfect movie to add to your ZipList. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, "Hey, why did I like that movie where Tom Everett Scott and Mark-Paul Gosselaar try to get find a suicidal roomie and push him over the edge, so they can get As?" The answer: it's kind of funny and mostly stupid, but, by golly, Zack Morris is still way cooler than you.

Get Shorty (1995)

I quite like Scott Frank's adaptation of Elmore Leonard when it results in Out of Sight. Here, not as much. It's not a bad movie; it's a perfectly acceptable way to spend an afternoon. It's funny enough that you don't regret the time you spent on it. Danny Devito and Gene Hackman, as a celebrated actor and a B-movie producer respectively, were fantastic. Still, I'd rather watch the other one.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006)

Premise: Shortly before Damien (Cillian Murphy) is set to leave for London to take a position at a teaching hospital, he witnesses two acts of violence that change his mind about joining the IRA. Under his brother Teddy's (Padraic Delaney) command, Damien takes a key position in the fight for independence, learning from Dan (Liam Cunningham) and falling for Sinead (Orla Fitzgerald).

What beautifully crafted misery from director Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty. Previously, I had only seen one of their collaborations, and it was a bit more uplifting than this one. I can't fault them for creating such depressing tales, as they are so thoroughly rooted in reality. History tells us how things went for the Irish, so none of it should come as a surprise, per se. Shocking and even horrifying, but not surprising.

Armed with Barry Ackroyd's stunning cinematography and George Fenton's sparse and compelling score, Loach and Laverty entice the audience into their quiet, honest tale of heartbreak. It comes as no surprise to see a performance of this caliber from Murphy. He's an actor capable of filling in the tiniest of details with grace, smoothing out the roughest edges with a natural touch. Delaney matches him mark for emotional mark, bringing added sex appeal to boot.

The brothers start out at opposing ends of the spectrum and find themselves drawn through the middle and to the other side over the course of the film. Teddy's shift you can see - it seems reasonable, even logical. The only point where the film lost me was the end of Damien's arc. When you reach the final, tense, chilling moments, you alternate between pleading with Teddy and wondering, "Why, Damien? Why?" To be honest with you, I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps I will see more layers with subsequent viewing. A-

Bonus: Check out the song that inspired the title.

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

RE-view! Yay!

Do you remember that episode of Freaks and Geeks where Sam takes Cindy out to the movies? He takes her to a movie he loves, and she doesn't think it's funny at all. So he breaks up with her. I get where Sam is coming from. It's awkward when you are laughing and the person you are sitting there with is staring blankly ahead. You start to feel like you should stifle your laughter or seem less amused.

Mind you, I had sort of blown this movie out of proportion in my mind. It wasn't quite as good as I remembered. It is pretty funny, and there are plenty of things to enjoy. The gambit of showing us how Harold (Ferrell) measures everything around him is clever, and Emma Thompson attacks those line readings gleefully. If you have to have a voice in your head, you could do worse.

I still don't get the point of having Queen Latifah in such a minor role, and I still find it difficult to fully support the ending. The entire sub-plot regarding the possibility that Karen (Thompson) has been killing off real people for years drops by the wayside. We never find out if Harold is the first or one of many, and we never see that really back up on her, either. I realize that she's not the protagonist, but wouldn't you check out some obits?

Alright, I am over-thinking it. I choose to believe that this is an anomaly with no explanation. There's no point in spending too much time thinking about the why behind it because it'll distract you from enjoying what is is very sweet and light movie. It gets treacly toward the end, but I think we can allow it its flaws. After all, doesn't a man like that deserve to live?

The Lookout (2007)

Outline: With mental difficulties following a car accident, once promising high school hockey star Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) works as the night janitor in a small town bank. He meets Gary (Matthew Goode) and Luvlee (Isla Fisher), who lure him into a heist of said bank.

Writer-director Scott Frank's directorial debut reminds me, for better or worse, of Memento. Leonard couldn't form new memories due to an injury, so he used repetition and conditioning to replace what he lost. Although not entirely the same, Chris has problems with his short term memory, using similar techniques to get him through the day. His memories from before the accident seem to be crystal clear, but afterwards, he has enough trouble with everyday tasks. His squeaky brakes are a constant reminder - he probably doesn't remember to get them checked, and no one has yet pointed out the problem to him.

There's a lot of details like that one packed into the script. A lot of work goes into setting up the difference between Chris's disability (for lack of a better term) and being dumb or absentminded. It would come across as dense, but Frank spaces out the clues nicely against the frigid Manitoba landscape (a stand-in for Kansas).

Rumour has it that this movie isn't well reviewed, and I can see why that might be. So much goes into making the first two acts messy and realistic that the tidy Hollywood ending feels disappointing. There are multiple points where we see Chris and the plot race right by reality, so he can apply the lessons he has been learning along the way. Even so, how can anyone notice these oversights while they are watching Gordon-Levitt? What he does on the screen goes beyond acting - I'm not even sure there are words for it. I read in an interview recently that he finds one psychological element at the centre of his characters and clings to it. I can agree to that, but what he does is so much more complex. It is nothing short of captivating: you can barely remember to breathe when you try to take in everything he is doing.

I think Goode heard the rumour that he's the new Hugh Grant and decided to go the other way. A close cut and an American accent later, Goode is nothing but slippery, wiry energy and menace. He doesn't have to play it as close to the vest with Chris, and that makes him all the more dangerous.

Can someone tell me if Fisher always talked with that baby voice or if it was for the character?

On the plus side, Jeff Daniels is a hoot as Chris' blind roommate. He should always be so loose.

If you take the time to look back on it critically, you can see where the cracks begin to show, where decisions were made to make the movie more exciting instead of more realistic. Nevertheless, it's awfully thrilling in the moment. Sometimes, that's enough. B+