Eastern Promises (2007)

Brief: After a fourteen year-old girl dies on her table, midwife Anna (Naomi Watts) takes a special interest in getting the girl's Russian diary translated, so Anna can return the baby to the girl's family. When her Russian uncle, Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski), initially refuses to translate the diary, Anna takes it to Russian restaurant whose card she found between the pages. The proprietor, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), offers to translate diary, but encounters with Semyon's son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), and his driver, Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), convince Anna's family that she has accidentally fallen in with the Russian mob.

That makes it sound like Anna's the protagonist, at least at first, but the movie slowly shifts its focus to Nikolai's upward mobility within the family and is a lot better off for it. But we'll get back to that.

I know I made it seem like director David Cronenberg and I had parted ways, but I had heard so many good things about his latest (as well as about him as director generally) that I had to check it out. I realized that it was a good thing when Emily and I turned to each other at the end and agreed that this was by far the most coherent Cronenberg narrative we had ever seen.

Working from a script by Steven Knight, who had previously visited London's underworld and immigrant experience 2002's similarly themed Dirty Pretty Things, Cronenberg temporarily drops his exploration of the nexus of sex and violence (at least on-screen) to focus on his other pet theme: identity. Both how we develop it and how we justify it over time are central to plot within the Russian mafia and to Mortensen's character's development in particular. We learn early on that your tattoos tell your life story in mob and without them you're nobody, and Nikolai's steep climb to get his three stars (the Russian mafia equivalent of being a made man) is as compelling and tense as any story I have seen on-screen.

Much more so than Anna's story. For all Watts' good work (I like her more every time I see her), Anna is so pathologically naive that at a certain point it becomes difficult to sympathize with her even though she is trying to do right by the baby. She makes such obviously stupid choices that it's a damn good sight things turn out the way they do. I don't want to give anything away, but, honestly, Anna could have benefited from having to learn a lesson or two. Again, that's on Cronenberg and Knight and not on Watts, who is radiant in her fierce protection of the baby.

Frequent collaborator Howard Shore's score work elegantly with the piece. The way he develops his themes and variations slowly, rarely completing his musical thought until the end, is well suited to the way a Cronenberg narrative unfolds.

Maybe Cronenberg and I can come to some sort of an agreement instead of an impasse. We'll have to wait and see with his next picture. Until then, B+

Pop Culture Round-Up

Leave it to those trusty cynics over at the AV Club to take the mick out of fall prestige movies.

Why is it that I've never really noticed this before?

I could do without number 3, but I have to agree with No.1.

Does this picture freak anyone else out?

Who doesn't want to see Sars in a tomato costume?

You were just looking for crowns in all the wrong places.

I was pretty exited when I discovered that Slate was publishing a Fall TV Issue. Love Slate though I do, their television coverage isn't the most expansive, and I felt like it took a while for Troy Patterson to find his footing after Sufergirl Liz Penn moved on to film review. Besides, I watch a lot of TV. More articles from a source I love about those very shows? Sign me up.

The very first article I clicked on was Matthew Gilbert's "Too Many Heroes: The Plague of Cast Overpopulation." The title gives away at least one of the shows Gilbert will single out for his criticism, but he also briefly touches on the massive Grey's Anatomy cast. And there, my friends, is a missed opportunity.

It's simple: Heroes makes its massive cast work; Grey's doesn't. Gilbert claims that the cast overpopulation has turned Heroes into a mess: it's just too difficult to follow. Maybe years of watching soaps has prepared me for this challenge, but I don't find a damn thing difficult about the overlapping plotlines. I've watched a fair number of twisty and complicated shows in my day, and Heroes has to be one of the most deft at integrating the characters and plotlines in a way that is engrossing and rewarding for the audience.

How do they do it? That's pretty simple, too, actually: most episodes don't feature every character, and they regularly kill off secondary and tertiary characters (goodbye, George Takei!). Gilbert ignores the former and suggests the latter is a flaw. He alleges that, "In the last few seasons, Lost, 24, The Sopranos, Desperate Housewives, and Heroes have all goosed their ratings and left fans buzzing by rubbing out a character or two." I don't or no longer watch a fair number of these shows, but I will tell you this much: I have seen every season of 24, and killing off a character is not a recent development. If anything, the show's willingness to kill just about anyone (except Jack, of course) is its claim to fame.

As for the rest of it, what, exactly, is wrong with goosing the ratings or leaving fans buzzing? Why shouldn't a show with too many characters, as Gilbert feels, get rid of a few? Especially a show whose major arc involves a serial killer. A ratings stunt, maybe, but Sylar was pretty much killing off a character an episode, not too mention those taken out by the other heroes or Bennett and The Company.

If anything, Heroes has to deal with its massive cast a lot more intelligently than other shows that boast larger groups. He mentions Brothers & Sisters, er, and GA. All of these shows link their characters through a single point: family or work. Heroes uses both and often neither. The cast is more geographically and generationally expansive, and, yes, the writers do use family and work to bring the characters together, but they also rely on the show's overarching mythology to bind them into working toward common goals and against a common enemy. They never have to stick together simply because they are family, and they never have to run into people they'd rather not see because they all work in the same place. It is their abilities that bind them, in the end, and how the show weaves characterization and ability together is not only clever, it's reminiscent of the genius that went into the first three seasons of Buffy.

Of course, when it comes to dealing with the negatives weigh down a voluminous population, Heroes has an ace in the hole: the graphic novel. Why waste screen time on reams of exposition and backstory? Put it in the novel! Want to introduce a new character? Give 'em their own novel or even multi-novel arc! And, if you want, you can kill 'em off there, too (bye, Hana!). Big cast or no, the novel streamlines things for the audience.

Heroes has two things going for it: the forward momentum of the plotlines (minus a handful of gaffes, e.g. most of the stuff that goes down with Hiro) and, yes, its many characters. We never spend too much time on anyone person or ability, so we get the impression that any time we do spend is going to be exciting and important. The opposite is true for GA: every character is shoehorned into every episode, but the writers have lost their ability to balance the focus between the different characters and their arcs. As a result, last season saw mass character assassination and egregious "twists" to the point of turning viewers off of watching the show.

So, think it through next time, Mr. Gilbert. Of course we're going to find someone to hook onto. The subtitle might as well be Parade of Pretty People who can do Cool Shit.

Pop Culture Round-Up

Yipee! But what can we expect of the awards themselves?

Could it be that the real John Cusack is even dreamier than his on-screen persona?

Geoffrey Macnab reminds us that remakes are old hat.

Try your hand at deciphering movie ratings.

Once (2006)

Premise: A busker and vacuum repairman (Glen Hansard) meets a Czech immigrant (Markéta Irglová) who collaborates with him on a number of songs.

There's not much more to it than that, and there shouldn't be either. This film is, by and large, the best picture I have seen all year, and one of the better ones I have seen in my life. Never before has a movie so perfectly captured the magic of artistic collaboration.

It certainly helps that writer-director John Carney's original leads fell through, leading him to cast his friend Hansard and Hansard's friend Irglová. Neither of them are actors, but they are musicians who do everything possible to help us understand and experience for ourselves how unlikely and how pure it is to meet and work with someone else who's gifted.

Hansard and Irglová portray a tentative and moving working class courtship, filtered through their stunning and powerful music (nearly all selections were written by Hansard, Irglová, or both). To see two such talented people fall instantly in sync sends vibrations through the theatre, removing any pessimism or doubt. Carney uses handheld camera work to bring us into their intimate bond, and it never once feels like exploitation or voyeurism. Instead, the warmth between the leads envelopes you, as it does everyone they come in contact with, from a musically inclined bank manager to a collection of other buskers to a tired studio hand.

Their first song will leave you quivering, and the final moments will break you all the way down. It's raw and poignant and immediate in a way that so movies rarely are these days. It is love lost and found that frames this film, and you, too, will find it in watching this film. A+

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Premise: Rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale), in danger of losing his land, takes a job assisting in the transport of Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) from Bisbee to Contention for the 3:10 train bound for Yuma prison. With Wade’s crew, led by second in command Charlie Prince (Ben Foster), hot on their tails, the rest of the men (Peter Fonda, Dallas Roberts, Kevin Durand, and Alan Tudyk), including Dan’s son William (Logan Lerman), struggle to keep hold onto Wade and get him on that train.

I think I just told you less than the trailer and TV spots revealed, so we’re in pretty good shape.

N.B. I haven’t seen the original 1957 version, so I won’t be able to provide any points of comparison.

You must have known there was no way I was going to be able to resist this one. Christian Bale + Russell Crowe + a Western + James Mangold = my butt in a seat. It’s simple math. Actually, I’m pretty sure you could combine any two of those four elements and get my butt in a seat.

Oh, Christian Bale, why you got to play me this way? Why do you have to take a stand against Crowe: Professional Diva and cut him down to size, never letting him for a second grow larger than life, and get him to share the spotlight? Why do you have to be so good? You made Dan’s plight heartbreaking and thoroughly masculine, and you threw it right in the face of Ben’s own struggles against man and his institutions. That Ben and Dan could find common ground outside of Ben’s charms and manipulations (a combination practiced by only the best villains) and that it could come easily and naturally speaks volumes about seeing these two . . .

Why, hello there, Ben Foster! I knew you were in this movie, yet I didn’t recognize you at all. When did you become such a chameleon? All swagger and affectation, the perfect second in command, it’s your devotion to Wade that drives this film. If I didn’t have a good look at your eyes every once and while, I may have mistaken you for a much older character actor. Good for you.

Although I loathe admitting it, I noticed that director Mangold’s first feature after Walk the Line has the same two flaws as that movie: the second act drags, and I find it impossible to sympathize with a secondary character. One hundred and seventeen minutes isn’t a long running time, so the drag isn’t too bad.

Dan’s son William, on the other hand, drove me to distraction. It’s not that I can’t understand why William acts the way he does. On an intellectual level, I get it. He’s at a point in his life where he’s beginning to see the man instead of the myth, and it’s frustrating to discover how human your parents can be. To that end, Lerman plays William very well. But one look at his family’s hardscrabble life and the way his attitude and actions make it all the more difficult, and I was calling for a smack. Whether the blame lies with Mangold, Lerman, the script, or somewhere between, I could not tell you. Sometimes his scenes with Bale elevated him to the point of being bearable, but most of the time I wanted someone to teach William a lesson.

All in all, it’s Bale’s film with Crowe offering (dare I say it?) gracious and delightful support. Bale gets to take Dan on one hell of a journey, while Crowe gets to peel away at Ben’s layers. It’s a great fit for both of them, and that’s great news for the audience. A-

Interview (2007)

Brief: Political reporter Pierre Peders (Steve Buscemi) gets assigned a "personality profile" of starlet Katya (Sienna Miller). His disdain when they meet at the restaurant causes her to bolt, but a subsequent car accident brings Pierre up to Katya's loft where the real interview begins.

And by real interview, I mean night-long psychological warfare.

It's fitting that I have the TV on in the background while I write this review instead of spending the first ten minutes or so struggling vainly to find the right music. This movie is pretty much all talk between the two leads, and, while I can like that in a movie, I thought I'd warn you.

Buscemi also directed and co-scripted this English adaptation of slain Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh's original, and, while I found it every bit as beautifully directed as the only other Buscemi feature I have seen, I got hung up on a certain point and couldn't really get past it. I'm reluctant to tell you about it, in fact, because I don't want to bias the movie for you, but, hey, that's the whole point of a review, right? If you don't want to know, leave now because I am going to say it.

Everything that I read before I saw this movie made, well I wouldn't say a big deal, but made a point of mentioning that there is a clear winner and a clear loser by the end. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is open to interpretation. Just knowing that spoiled the movie for me. I went looking for clues and with every one I made a guess. And I kept on guessing right to the point that nothing about it was all that surprising for me. Yes, there were little surprises along the way, surprises about how we were going to get from A to Z, but knowing Z too soon robs the movie of a lot of its dramatic tension. And the fact that there is a known Z, well, that doesn't help either.

The real surprise, in fact, was Miller. Known to me as nothing so much than the perpetrator of many a crime against fashion, Miller is nothing short of a revelation here. Always acting, always maneuvering, always watching for her next opening, her Katya is as sleek as a cat and as dangerous as a lioness. It's a thrill waiting to see what Katya'll come up with next.

Clear winner or no, it is entertaining to watch Pierre and Katya circle one another. Too bad it couldn't have been more. B+

George Washington was in a cult, and the cult was into aliens, man.

As a charter member of the Feria Films cult, you take your Elfin April fix where you can get it. Well, starting immediately, you can get it once a month in (Cult)u're Magazine. In my first article, "The Test," I take a look at a handful of September releases to see which actor has the best chance of breaking out as a Serious Actor.

Check out the rest of the mag while you're there (there's some good stuff, kids). It'll be in the sidebar from now on, and I'll give you updates about my articles when they go up. Stay tuned!

Pop Culture Round-Up

Yes! Yes, yes, yes. I take my Bell where I can get her, and I would definitely like to get her next to Venti.

Hurrah! Guess which one I'm celebrating.

I hear you, Amelie. Funny yet somehow not. Of course, I might be swayed by my love of Walk the Line.

Make movies less expensive (sort of).

Get excited about upcoming Westerns by taking a look at some older ones.