Before Sunset (2004)

Yay, RE-view time! I feel like I haven't gotten down to RE-view time in, like, forever. I have a few movies to RE-view, and I am glad we are starting with this one.

Yes, yes, it did take me nearly four years to watch this movie again. I was once again a victim of my own ZipList, in large part because the sequel arrived before the original, and I was hell bent on watching the original first. I also wasn't ready for it for a long time. When I said in my initial review that watching it the first time was agony, I wasn't kidding. It is agony, but it is exquisite agony.

Oh, why wasn't she there? It's been long enough that I can let the cat out of the bag. It's devastating to learn that Jesse showed up and Celine didn't. Celine was the romantic; Jesse's the one who pays for it. I love that he first lies that he wasn't there either, then brushes it off as unimportant, then pleads with her to attribute some meaning to her actions and his life subsequent all in the span of eighty minutes. They've got no time to waste.

The decision to have Hawke and Delpy write the screenplay with Linklater is nothing short of a stroke of genius. Usually sequels are put out with such short time between the stories that the characters have barely changed or such a long time later that the characters are much, much older. In this case, it's neither, yet Hawke, Delpy, and Linklater write Jesse and Celine as heartrendingly realistic older versions of the characters we met in the first film. The verbal tics they use to carry the characters forward are so small that it's easy to miss them: Celine says that she still wants to believe that there is magic in the world; Jesse kids on the square that Celine "plugs" any guy's name in the waltz she wrote about that night, about their night.

The impassive camera catches him hesitantly trying to touch her and pulling back at the last moment. It's so sad and real when the movie suggests that maybe they weren't wrong to romanticize that night. He wrote a novel to reach her. He's married with a kid now, but he was thinking of her on his wedding day. He thought he saw her out of the corner of his eye on the way to the church, he explains. He might have, she confirms. It isn't a romantic comedy about two people who can't quite get it together; it's a romance about two people who want to get it together but have neither the time nor space to do so. Waking Life had them together, but they weren't really. It was just one of Jesse's recurring dreams about the two of them. She demurs as much as she can, but she's felt his absence every painful minute since as well. It ends, as it should, as ambiguously as the first, as romantic and honest and in love as anything could be. A+

The TV Set (2006)

Story: Mike Klein's (David Duchovny) pilot, The Wexler Chronicles, has been greenlit, but nearly every decision he makes is questioned by the network through Lenny (Sigourney Weaver). In the middle of all this is recent British import Richard McAllister (Ioan Gruffudd), who was brought in by the network to "class up the joint" and is struggling to find the balance.

This movie came out to fairly good notices last year, and it stars three people I like, so I looked forward to seeing it. It didn't open in my city. Zip finally sent me a copy, and it was broken. Fortunately, writer-director Jake Kasdan's semi-autobiographical feature was worth the wait.

Based on his and Judd Apatow's experiences making Freaks & Geeks, the details have that same funny/sad quality that characterized the show where you are laughing as you watch these people's lives unravel and Mike sell himself down the river in order to keep from crying. When you stop to think about it, it's hard to feel that bad about Apatow now given that he has a license to print money. The movie's too good to stop and think about it for long, though.

Thank goodness they decided that Lenny could be played by a woman because Weaver is perfect for it. She nails the obliviousness that comes from having too much power and being surrounded by yes-men for so long. Her normal, every day conversation delivery on the crassest of lines makes them hilarious.

There's an entertaining sad sack-off between Mike and Richard as well because neither one of them want to be the sad sack, and both of them agree with Mike's vision of the show over Lenny's. But they also both want to keep their jobs, and that's where the tension that breeds a lot of the comedy comes from. Richard's learning the aggression and ambition that his new job requires, but it seems like it could cost him his family. Mike has to decide between fighting the changes or taking them on the chin in order to support his family. Mike ends up in surgery; Richard stop shaving. It's a testament to both the actors and the writing that these things seem equally sad and hilarious, but particularly to Gruffudd who shines in a modern day role that doesn't involve super stretch abilities. He's a cerebral actor, capable of summoning a deep and complex inner life for his characters, and he deserves a second look. Plus, you know, dreamy.

The tagline refers to the movie as "A place dreams are canceled." If you can see how that's sad but funny, then you love this movie. If you can't, then, well, that's weird, man. You should get that checked out. I bet you wouldn't find Sigourvey Weaver yelling, "19 share, mother*ucker!" while popping open a champagne bottle and wearing a stuffed panda on her shoulder funny either. B+

Slacker (1991)

Plot: A group of mostly twenty-somethings bump into each other, have strange conversations, and move along in one day in Austin, Texas.

There's no so much a plot to this movie, so I can't really give you more to go on than that. You know how with writer-director Richard Linklater's Waking Life talking about it as a lucid dream that allows the protagonist to slip into the collective unconscious is just a way of labelling what occurs on the screen in conventional forms in order to facilitate discussion of what follows? I can see now, having finally sat down with Slacker, that Waking Life is really an attempt to continue/expand on the former while conforming it to a slightly more recognizable pattern. Of course then he rotoscoped it, I'm beginning to suspect, just for funsies.

I'm having the same sort of love/hate relationship with this movie as I had with Waking Life. It can be frustrating to watch, but it grows on you as individual characters and moments float back into your mind in the days following. There's a picaresque quality to the way Linklater put the vignettes together that manages to have a certain day in the life feel that, in its best moments, nears Killer of Sheep for sheer veracity. It's wholly possible that all these conversations are going on in one day; it's just unlikely that you would hear all of them.

There's just something weird about how he made the film. As a paean to a certain place and generation, it's superb, but, as an actual film that people sit and watch, it's odd. Linklater rarely shows his non-actors' faces. A lot of the scenes feature one or more of the characters from behind. I don't recall a single close up. I'd like to praise these choices as excitingly post-modern and experimental, but I found them too distracting. In my distraction, I think I may have missed some stuff, but the movie's hazy quality deterred me from going back to check. It made me wish the whole thing was available as a collection of short stories, so I could go back over the stuff I wanted to and skip over other sections. Oh, well, I guess that's why the scene selection function exists. B

Pop Culture Round Up: July 19-25

Sort of a slow news week. I spent a lot of it ducking Mad Men spoilers, as season two had the nerve of starting before CTV had finished airing season one. I know they've picked up season two as well; I wonder how long I'll have to wait. As they say in Deadwood (sniff! I just finished that program on DVD. Why, oh why, must I go through life with no more Sol or Dan or Johnny or Trixie or Charlie or, well, anyone?), anyways . . .

Do you ever feel like pieces like "Is TV's well running dry?" are trying to sell you on how TV is changing for the better when they should be sounding the alarm?

Criticism in crisis series continues: LA Times is dropping their standalone book review section.

Hey, did you know that being distracted is the opposite of paying attention? Good! Now distract yourself with this article.

This is one of the greatest interviews I have ever read. I wish Teri Garr was my best friend.

Finally! Also, suck it, failed fake American version.

I've decided to consider this a sign of growth rather than a reason to worry.

Why are Tate Modern and MoMA rivals? They're on different contents, for pete's sake. It's like a lot of people wake up in the morning and go, "Honey, do you feel like going to the Tate today? No? MoMA?"

This blows. I find it hard to believe that it offered that much competition if any.

"Sometimes a book deal comes along that you never knew you were waiting for, but, once it's announced, you realize it has been your secret wish all along." So true. I would read the crap out of this book.

Why is it that I am just now hearing about this movie? A scary children's book turned movie by a pop-horror director? Doesn't that sound great?

Ooo, fun game! Who wants to play?

"I believe this is your sandwich?" has a shot at becoming my new exit line.

Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (2004)

Idea: A small town girl, Rosalee (Kate Bosworth), wins a date with the male actor of her dreams (Josh Duhamel). When the actor turns up in her home town looking for something a little longer term, it drives a wedge between Rosalee and her best friend, Pete (Topher Grace).

That's right. I watched Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! (exclamation mark theirs, naturally). I had put it on my ZipList in a fit of Grace love circa p.s. and In Good Company, but, as it so often happens, the movie didn't show up for years. My ZipList, at 368 titles, is a complicated, unwieldy beast. It's not like I was wringing my hands over when it would arrive. It did arrive, however, shortly after a "Hey, whatever happened to Topher Grace?" moment. Supposedly he has a movie coming out this year and another two next year, and, apparently Spider-Man 3 only happened last year. I did not realize that. It feels like a really long time ago, doesn't it?

Given the fact that no one remembers this movie four years later, you'd expect the movie to suck, but it isn't bad. It's not good either, but it's not bad. Sure, screenwriter Victor Levin feels the need to shove unfortunate phrases like "Yikes-a-doo" down our throats; sure, I kept thinking that Tad Hamilton was supposed to be a soap opera star (he even has a soap character name!); sure, I found the central/secret romance between Pete and Rosalee hard to believe.

Actually, and good for them, it wasn't hard to believe in the usual I-can't-fathom-why-these-two-would-be-interested-in-each-other way. You know when you are watching a movie where one friend is in unrequited love with another friend, and it's impossible to believe that another sentient being could possible miss how in love the other person is? The object of desire is always like, "No! S/he couldn't possibly be interested in me!" And everyone else on the planet is like, "Nothing could be more obvious, fool!" That's not how things go down in this one. There were times when I found it hard to tell if Grace was well and truly besotted, so watching it slowly dawn on their third best friend (a sadly underused Ginnifer Goodwin) worked for the first time in the history of romantic comedies.

Grace plays it so close to the chest, though, that it's hard to understand why we should root for one pairing over the other aside from the fact that I personally like Grace better. In one short scene with fabulous character actor Stephen Tobolowsky near the beginning of the movie, I found myself growing more annoyed and confused with every line. We learn that Pete will be leaving town sometime in the near future. Why, you might ask? Given that he's 22 and Tobolowsky describes it was a "loss," I momentarily thought that it was a job opportunity. Not so much. Turns out he's going away to school. So then I'm thinking that he's been working since high school in order to save up money for post-secondary. But then he says he's secured a student loan. I know college is much more expensive in the U.S., but what? He's been working for four years (at least) and raking in bonuses, and he still needs a student loan? Damn. Then he find out that his date of departure is dependent on Rosalee, who he plans to ask to go with him. You, like me, are probably thinking that they must at least be casually together if he plans to ask him to move away with him. No, not so much again. They're just best friends, and this is his big move.

I know it seems like I am focused on this one early scene to a crazy degree, and I kind of am, but it's for a reason. This one scene sets up most of the plot that follows, and the rest of it makes about the same amount of sense. The other stuff, the whole win a date concept, doesn't strain credulity because a) these things happen in real life and b) somebody's got to win them, so it might as well be Rosalee. That Tad would follow her back home is believable at least within the movie: it's established that Tad is lonely, out of touch, and having some sort of between-project breakdown. Might as well do it in good company.

Still, I only zipped this movie for Grace, and, despite the sheer magnitude of the lack of thought that went into his plot, it's actually his that I enjoyed the most. Grace has the ability to sell a line in such a way where he knows what he's saying is ridiculous and he's saying it anyway because he's got to say something. He does it all without breaking character and that, my friends, is a talent worth watching, even if he does kind of play the same character all the time. At least it has yet to grate. As for the rest of it, C-.

The Rape of Europa (2006)

Subject: The story of Nazi Germany's plundering of Europe's great works of art during World War II and Allied efforts to minimize the damage.*

*I stole that from IMDb.

Maybe you, like me, get worked up about certain words, so you might read that title and get a little worked up. I did. Then Emily reminded me that it was the name of that myth (although, really, who can keep all "and then Zeus transmogrified into an animal" myths straight) and not just provocation for provocation's sake. So, if you were going to get worked up like me, you needn't.

When I saw the trailer a few months ago, I made light of its basic structure ("Who's the worst ever ever like never before? Nazis!") because it seemed like a strange combination of Godwin's Law and that Israeli anniversary bit from The Colbert Report (Outside of card: Happy Birthday, Israel! Inside: Hitler!). Not that Nazis are funny, per se, but that it seemed ever so slightly like a cheap ploy to find anything to pin on the Nazis and make a quick documentary out of it. Fortunately, I was way off.

Based on the book by Lynn H. Nichols, co-writers and co-directors Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen, and Nicole Newnham don't shy away from the Nazis = evil formula (why should they?), but they are surprisingly neutral for the length of the film. Beautifully narrated by Joan Allen, one of the main cases that Berge, Cohen, and Newnham focus on is Klimt's "Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer," a portrait that was stolen from a Jewish family and hung in a museum in Vienna for years. Her niece waged a lengthy legal battle to see the painting returned. The filmmakers present both sides of the case equally and fairly: Austrian officials claim that that is what Adele wanted in her will; the family claims that the will is void because of the theft.

Although the human toll of the war should never be forgotten, the film intelligently and diligently addresses ideas and issues that it never occurs to us to think of as a result. Hitler made a list of works of art he wanted to steal for his museums, and he planned his invasions accordingly. That which he didn't want, that which reflected the wrong ideas or was created by the wrong people, he had destroyed.

But what of art? Who protected the Mona Lisa and kept it from falling into the wrong hands? We meet the daughter of the family that went on the run with da Vinci's masterpiece, and she tells of how they would sometimes open it up, swaddled in red velvet and satin, and she would smile up at them. Berge and co. derive genuine tension from the re-telling of packaging Winged Victory and its descent down the Louvre's steps to make her escape. In St. Petersberg, curators hiding in the basement of the Hermitage would come upstairs to chip snow and ice off the floors, walls, and ceilings after the windows had been shattered by blasts.

Finally, the movie swings around to something I had never heard of: Monument Men. A small unit in the Allied forces, cobbled together of art historians and curators, who spent their time in the service locating and restoring priceless works throughout the region. For his work in attempting to save the Camposanto in Pisa (a process that is still on-going), one Monument Man is interred there.

Though it tells a sorrowful story with grace and compassion, as a documentary it suffers a little from its neturality, and a lot from saving some of the more exciting information until the end in its instance to move forward chronologically and from skirting the psychology that would prompt the art thefts. Even so, it's worth a look. B+

Batman Update

Pursuant to my lengthy Dark Knight post, I bring you the latest in Batman related news: Christian Bale arrested for assault. Assault! Of his mother and sister! My image of him, based on very little given that he is an extremely private person, is shattered.

Update within the update! He denies it! No reason for all these exclamation marks, as that is not shocking.

Further updates! Apparently now he's full of rage. Or maybe, as Bob Thompson suggests, this was sort of bound to happen?

The Dark Knight (2008)

Premise: While Batman (Christian Bale) and Lieutenant Gordon (Gary Oldman) are busy trying to clean up the mob in Gotham, the Joker (Heath Ledger) is slowly accruing more power. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne (Bale) is frustrated to find Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) in so serious a relationship with new DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) now that end of Gotham's need for Batman seems to be in sight.

I was always a Superman kind of girl. I read Spider-Man comic books, I watched Spider-Man, Batman, X-Men, and Superman TV shows, but I was always a Superman kind of girl. I'm sure Dean Cain's adorable dimples on Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman played no small part in my childhood love, but there it was. There's just something about Superman: he's a genuinely nice, decent person, as raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent. He's also tragic figure, the last of his kind, trying to protect the beings on his new home when he could easily rule them, forced to keep his identity a secret for fear of what they might do to him. There's a lot of pain, and he hears all of it, and he tries anyway. It must be lonely.

By contrast, as much as I watched the cartoons and the various incarnations, there was always something that bugged me about the Batman. He was a rich, privileged brat who decided that he alone could be above the law in order to enforce it because he suffered a personal tragedy at a young age. There were never any real consequences for his vigilantism; he never seemed to answer for anything.

Over the years, perhaps largely due to weekly doses of idiocy from Smallville and the growing popularity and quality of comic book adaptations on the big screen, I've become disenchanted by Superman and drawn in by other heroes, super and not. Then Christopher Nolan came along and gave me an origin story that I didn't know that I wanted. Now, it's like he's heard about all my nagging doubts and chosen to address them. What if Batman's vigilantism did have unintended consequences? What if someone did want him to pay for his actions? What if he wasn't the best at what he does? What if he didn't want to be? Most importantly, what if, as I suggested in my initial review, I could get a sequel to outrank the original?

You want to know how Nolan does it? He doesn't put Bale/Batman in the centre of the movie. Bruce Wayne's not the protagonist. Neither is Batman. Although it is an ensemble drama (yeah, that's right), he isn't the standout character. It isn't Ledger/Joker either, posthumous Oscar campaign be damned. It's Eckhart/Dent/Two Face.

Eckhart may have been leading in movies for years now, but this is it. This is the kind of star making performance that should, in an ideal world, net him an Academy Award. This is the kind of perfectly paced, heartbreaking, gut wrenching, white knuckle performance for which we should all be on the look out. It's Dent, and only Dent, that goes through a complete character arc in this movie, and it's Eckhart, and only Eckhart, that could bring him there convincingly. What Eckhart does goes beyond convincing. He reaches Chandler/Taylor levels of character embodiment that you start to feel deep down 'til it makes you shudder. You think you believe in Harvey Dent, Bruce? You don't know the half of it. I've never even met him.

While I believe the attention should be focused on Eckhart, director and co-writer Nolan doesn't skimp in a single area. Suddenly Gotham seems more like a real city, one that you could visit or even live in, than ever before. Thanks to Gyllenhaal, Rachel is suddenly a smart, sassy, sensual lawyer who seems both real and necessary, qualities she lacked in her previous incarnation. Oldman continues to play Gordon as the most regular joe, upstanding cop as only Oldman could, and Michael Caine still has a winning way with a one-liner and an inspirational speech.

Ledger is as terrifying, and as thrilling, as the Joker as you expected him to be. No connections, no motivations, no origin story. The Joker simply appears, a force for chaos that cannot, will not be stopped. Everything about him, the walk, the voice, the smacking lips,* was invented for this exact purpose, and it takes you outside and beyond Ledger. You can no sooner think of any actor in the role than you can entertain a thought about this actor's tragic passing. Those things are outside the movie, and Ledger is so present that he forces you, without you realizing it, to be present as well. So long as the movie runs, there is only this. Even when he's not on screen, his presence lingers over the movie. It's a creepy, crawly feeling that makes you nervous in the dark. He's a Nietzscheian superman, outside and above not only the law but morals and justice as well. With him against Bale's Batman, there is no good vs. evil. Good and evil co-exist, and, perhaps, they must.

Thank goodness for Bale. Though he isn't the protagonist and does have limited screen time, he anchors the movie. It's Batman's actions and, yes, their negative consequences that fuel each plotline, and Bale acts the hell out of each and every one. He's so focused on taking down the rest of the mob that he misses, repeatedly, the growing danger that the Joker represents, and it costs him dearly. He'll finally get the chance, it seems, to put aside the sublimated rage that drove the first movie, only to pick it back up again. But now it's different, and you can feel that thanks to Bale. He thought he understood the consequences of being Batman before. Now he's forced to live them, and it is only through Bale's tightly wound performance that we could feel how a person so beaten down could make the right choice for the right reasons and take on the negative consequences that sometimes accompany those choices. Only through Bale could we, in the midst of all that, find room for hope.

Only with Nolan at the helm, co-writing with his brilliant brother Jonathan, working out the story with Batman Begins co-author David S. Goyer, scored intensely by an unthinkable combination of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, could a sequel this dark outshine the original. Yes, it's very dark. It's downright bleak. But it is also exactly how it has to be. Nolan executes exactly what he needs to without hesitation or remorse. It's the kind of filmmaking that, despite how dark it is, inspires. A

*There was big debate about what, exactly, was going on there. Was he smacking his lips? Licking his bottom lip? Tonguing his scars? Only subsequent viewings will tell.

Confidential to Sean: You're right. I won't say about what to avoid giving anything away, but that possibility certainly exists.

I know this post is crazy long, and I am just going to take a moment to give props to the crowd in the theatre on Friday night. It was packed in there, and somehow we managed to behave ourselves. Two cellphones went off, but we held it together with barely a murmur. The girl behind me talked non-stop during the previews, going so far as to call Watchmen stupid, but she (mostly) clammed up during the feature presentation. Nolan must be working some serious magic for that to happen. Coincidence or miracle?

Pop Culture Round Up: July 12-18

Earlier this week I lamented that it was a slow news week, nothing but The Dark Knight coverage, but things have picked up. Thank goodness for you, gentle readers. I will tell you that it's an NY Mag heavy edition in case, for some wildly unknown reason, you don't care for that.

Critics reflect on being critics.

Family sitcoms aren't doing so well.

Yay! Battle for the soul of America at the multiplex!

Act quick, and get one for me, too!

Movies don't have the big screen staying power they once did. I was going to say, "So?," but it does make me sad for movies that take a little longer to find their audience.

Apparently I need to bust out Orff's Carmina Burana more often.

Commenting has gotten out of control? I guess so. Also, heh: "If you didn't like this movie I've never seen, you're a prick!"

What the? Will Smith is Pauline Kael's fault?

Why couldn't he find anything more recent than 1984?

Ooo, Gossip Girl scandals! When is that show coming back?

Rather than slogging through the rather oddly presented Emmy nominations on their official site, let those wonderful creatures over at the Vulture short list it for you.

This trailer is weird and wonderful.

No, wait, this trailer is weird and wonderful.

But how will we sing along?

The Short Take: Bytowne Edition

When I have either little to say or little time in which to say it, a short take is called for.

London to Brighton (2006)

True story: Emily and I were inspired, in part, by our very own London to Brighton train trip this past April. The movie's trip was much different than ours. Two women, one 30-ish (Lorraine Stanley), one 12-ish (Georgia Stanley), slam into a washroom at a train station in London. They're in rough shape. They cobble together enough money to take the train to Brighton. As they go forward, we go backward to how they got to that train. Thank goodness I found out that this is writer-director Paul Andrew Williams' first feature length movie because it certainly seems like one. Not in that "look at all my cool transitions! I went to film school, you guys!" way but in that "that's gritty, bitches! I don't pull no punches" way. It's a way, frankly, that I could do without. There were too many scenes that were thrown in for no other purpose than to be gritty: they didn't advance the plot, didn't reveal anything about the characters, didn't provide any momentary relief. They just . . . were. If this filler had been removed, Williams would have had a much better movie on his hands. As it was, he brings promise to a shopworn story. Maybe next time. B-

My Brother Is An Only Child (2007)

More true stories: I don't know about Em, but I was at least partially inspired to see this one because of all the posters we saw for it in London. It's a London-riffic Short Take today, no? Anyway, two brothers: one older, better looking, favoured by his parents (Riccardo Scamarcio); one younger, less good looking, forever on the outs with his entire family (Elio Germano). Sounds familiar, right? Except one little thing: Manrico's (Scamarcio) a communist, and Accio's (Germano) a fascist. Best part? Accio's the protagonist in this sharp, insightful take on political unrest and family ties in small town Italy in the 60s and 70s. Director and co-writer Daniele Luchetti's interpretation of Antonio Pennacchi's novel is as funny as it is dark, and its character driven plot has an oddball charm that masks how deadly it can be. Scamarcio may be the dreamy one with his curly mop and striking green eyes, but Germano steals the show as the more truly politically motivated of the two. B+

Mongol (2007)

Would that every epic were half as beautiful and half as sure of its motivations as this one. The first part of a planned trilogy about the life of Genghis Khan (Odnyam Odsuren as a child; Tadanobu Asano as an adult) that focuses, astonishingly, on his relationship with his wife, Börte (Khulan Chulunn), as his motivation for, well, pretty much everything. No matter what happens, it's all, "Send word to my wife!" His rules are simple and inclusive, and he wants to build the Mongols back up after decades of unrest and civil war. While director and co-writer Sergei Bodrov and cinematographers Rogier Stoffers and Sergei Trofimov have given us a view of the mountains and steppes that make the area vast, empty, and beautiful, they also have a tendency to let it it run on a little too long. Actually, it's not even that long at 126 minutes, but it feels long. If they avoid that problem in the next installment but keep every other glorious element, we'll near perfection. A-

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)

Brief: Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) returns from exile to claim the crown of Bethmoora, which will allow him control of the Golden Army. His twin sister, Princess Nuala (Anna Walton) takes her third of the crown and runs. She winds up in the care of Abe (Doug Jones), Hellboy (Ron Perlman), and Liz (Selma Blair), who have to contend with a new boss, Johann Krauss (v. Seth MacFarlane), when it is deemed that Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) can't control them.

Full disclosure: I've never seen Hellboy. I've never thought much about it one way or the other, but then writer-director Gulliermo del Toro made Pan's Labyrinth, and this movie seemed to be getting an awful lot of positive buzz. I was told that it is unlikely that I need to see the first in order to follow the second, but I have come to suspect that that may not be the case.

I certainly don't think I need to see the first movie in order to understand the characters and their relationships to one another. del Toro, lovely man that he is, (re)establishes the central characters and their relationships quickly and easily. The Hellboy costume takes some getting used to, largely because the mouth doesn't seem to move when he is talking, but you do get used to it.

It's the stakes that are beyond me. Liz, and her wonderful, three dimensional ways, has to make A Big Decision (I know because a billboard behind her told me), and it's a big, dramatic moment that has no dramatic tension. Without going into too much detail, she has to choose a side, and I never doubted which side she would choose nor did I understand why anyone would choose the other side (and I'm on it by default). Prince Nuada is mad because we suck at taking care of the earth and because we're greedy? Can't fault him there. The big climatic fight at the end that turns into a small, less climatic fight? Doesn't make a lot of sense. When you can think of an easier solution and you realize that the only reason it isn't employed is, well, what would they do with the other 20 minutes, it robs what you are watching of whatever dramatic tension it was supposed to have.

The end product is strangely airless and inert, as though I was waiting for the plot to start only it was ON from the word go. The movie functions at a remove; nothing seems to really matter. Still, thanks to del Toro and co., it's not without its visual appeal, humour, and fun. B+

Pop Culture Round Up: July 5-11

Pop culture madness this week, peeps.

FT has decided that yes, critics are in a crisis. Just after we were reassured by math last week!

On the plus side, critics are never wrong. They do experience some drama, though.

Democracy lives! For music, apparently.

If number four isn't true, I might be in trouble.

I agree with an handful of these.

YES! I don't care what it's about; I'd watch him in pretty much anything.

He may not be as dreamy as his brother, but I fail to see how a shot of eye candy would hurt the broadcast.

Heh. I'm going to start making fake artifacts to pawn off.

Film and theater critic Steve Vineberg reflects on the art of surprise.

Oh, good, Italian cinema is making a comeback. I'm not sure that I knew it went.

Okay, dudes, you might need to learn where to draw the line.

Hmm. I'm still wary about the prospect of Ritchie at the helm, though.

And finally, get your own Ikea furniture name.

Hancock (2008)

Story: After drunken, property damaging, publicity loathing superhero John Hancock (Will Smith) saves publicist Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) from a train when his car gets stuck across the tracks, Ray invites Hancock home for dinner and offers to help make over his public image. Mary Embrey (Charlize Theron), however, thinks that this is a bad idea.

When Hancock flies, he doesn't streamline his body like a bullet like most superheroes. Instead, his arms and legs wave around herky-jerky, and he competes with planes, buildings, and birds for airspace. When he takes off and when he lands, he crumbles the earth beneath him, leaving small craters behind. He saves Ray only to receive a torrent of criticism from the amassed crowd (critical consensus: he should have gone straight up). He's blessed with supernatural abilities, and everyone, even small children on the street, think that that means he should use them to help out. No one seems willing to consider the possibility that maybe he just doesn't want to.

It's an interesting concept, and one that most superhero movies, whether they are based on comic books or are sui generis, rarely traffic in. Sure, nearly all of them address the idea that being a superhero has it drawbacks, but those are usually limited to their relationships with women. Spider-Man 2, arguably one of the best comic book movies ever committed to celluloid, devoted an entire act to the prospect that maybe, just maybe, Peter Parker wasn't ready to accept the responsibility of being Spider-Man. When he puts it aside, we find him much, much happier.

While they have special abilities, it isn't like superheroes are police officers, firemen, or EMTs. They didn't sign up for the gig, and they don't get paid for it. Initially, this is what Hancock is all about it: a man who doesn't want the responsibility and what happens when the public tries to foist it on him. Then the movie makes a sharp left turn, and, while it is surprising (you'll guess bits and pieces, but it's hard to put the entire puzzle together), it also drops what you were watching entirely. Too bad; it could have been one helluva movie.

The other movie is also pretty good, although it would have also been better if it had been an entire movie instead of half of one. It raises far more questions than it would ever consider answering including, most gratingly to me, [minor spoiler if you figure out what I mean] why all things don't apply equally to everyone. I've read that the original script, penned by Vincent Ngo, floated around for over a decade until director Peter Berg got a hold of it in 2006, and that the finished product is the result of extensive rewrites by, presumably, the other credited writer Vince Gilligan. I wonder which story was which, and which would have been the better whole movie to make it to the big screen.

Even so, Berg's got a masterful command of his camera and cast, and, while I found myself distracted (plot wise), it was always exciting to watch (visually). The cast is great, although Bateman is particularly noteworthy because his character is the only one to safely make the transition between the two movies. Also, did those make up artists have it in for Theron? Runny, smudgy black eyeliner and later reverse raccoon eye? I think so. B+

Pop Culture Round Up: June 28 - July 4

Don't worry! Movie critics are safe after all.

Unfortunately, movie stars are dead. This is news to me.

We should all mark our calendars for this.

Yay! So glad those Argentinians are willing to share.

I call this an invasion of privacy. Not cool, Judge.

"I'm going to go see if I can't get a wrench to strip my nuts. I thought it sounded sexy."

Sexy is not the way I would describe my latest Culture article, which, frankly, I don't like, but you can go ahead and read it anyway. I'll be back on track next month, I am sure.

Remember to check out my advice column as well. This month I take on roommate troubles and a strange sex issue. Don't forget to send your problems, big or small, to advice@culturemagazine.ca.

Get Smart (2008)

Brief: Analyst Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) longs to move up to the exciting world of being an agent like his friend Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson), but The Chief (Alan Arkin) wants to keep his top analyst. After CONTROL is attacked by KAOS and all the agents identities exposed, Max is promoted to Agent 86, partnered with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), and sent after Siegfried (Terence Stamp).

Has Hathaway lost too much weight? No, seriously. There's a hollowness to her face that, despite how great she looked in a series of fantastic Chanel (I think) coats, kind of weirded me out. Also weirding me out was the fact that she didn't seem to be having fun in this movie. I get that 99 is the straight man to Smart's bumbling idiot, but it's alright if the straight man looks kindly on the bumbler every once and a while. There's no need to be so uptight. Alternatively, make how uptight you are funny.

You know who did look like he was having fun, though? Johnson. I think I might love him a little bit. He's so cutely supportive of Max, and there's very little more satisfying for an office drone than to see him, having been forced into the office from the field, stapling a paper that was jammed and not removed to the offender's head. I only wish I could pull a maneuver like that at the office.

Carell is ideal for this kind of role not because he's made a career out of playing characters with an acute lack of self-awareness but because he's adept at drawing out the internal sweetness of a character. Sure, he's got the bumbling Clouseau thing down pat, but it's actually the smaller moments, like when he tries to bond with 99 over her recent plastic surgery by revealing that he just lost a significant amount of weight, that make his roles feel full fleshed and sympathetic. His way with a one liner helps, too.

As for the rest of it, directed by Peter Segal and written by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember, it's not quite there. It's funny, sure, and well paced for what should be a thriller spoof, but it lacks a sardonic bite that would make it over-the-top hilarious. The best sequence comes early in the film when, in an attempt to make 99 jealous after she refuses to quit dancing with another man, Max takes the hand of a large woman, leads her out on the dance floor, and, surprise, finds her a nimble dancer. The surprise, of course, is on us. Max never doubts for a second that he's chosen the correct dance partner. It's his steadfast commitment to an idea that seems implausible to us but ends up working out for him that seals it. If the movie had more of that and less of a good number of other things (continuity errors among them), it would have been better. Still, it was pretty good. Oh, and Arkin has the best comic timing of anyone, ever. B+