State of Play (2009)

This movie's better than the reviews might lead you to believe. It's taut and well put together, and Russell Crowe's still a dream of an actor (though perhaps not of a person).

The main complaint I saw in reviews was Ben Affleck's casting as the philandering, cuckolded Representative Stephen Collins and former college roommate of Crowe's wildly unethical and intensely dedicated reporter Cal McAffrey, which is exactly the wrong kind of criticism to read. At every turn, Affleck's casting seemed exactly right. There wasn't a scene or nuance that wasn't believable from him. That is, unfortunately, until the very last. How horrible for a finely crafted performance to fall short in the exact moment it needs to rise above.

And rise above is what most of this movie fails to do. There's a lot of sitting around a computer watching others type. Though typing is a fairly large percentage of any writing job, it's rarely exciting to watch. Hilariously, the movie refuses to let us even so much as read over Cal's shoulder for very long and never gives voice to his actual text. We're meant to take his single-minded pursuit of his story as evidence of his writing prowess.

The other thing the movie fails to do is give us a delightfully sleazy Jason Bateman in every scene. I haven't seen him in a single ad, which is a mistake. He owns his screen time. I only wish he had had a scene with the criminally underused Helen Mirren. She's a dream of an editor, capable of defending her writers and cutting them down in the same stroke.

There's the usual paranoia over the internet and blogging as death to journalism (particularly ridiculous is the notion that it should be an insane point of pride to share a byline in a print edition when one already has one's own blog with a major daily), and it's made slightly worse by the fact that Rachel McAdams, who I generally enjoy, starts out strong but finishes bland. There's an adorable scene with a pen necklace that almost makes up for it, but I wished that we could have spent more time with Robin Wright Penn as Collins' wife Anne. Now there's a performance that suggests a lot with only a little to go on.

Director Kevin Macdonald and screenwriters Matthew Michael Carnahan, Tony Gilroy, and Billy Ray want desperately to make their own 70s political thriller (suggested with Wright Penn's wardrobe, as pointed out by eagle-eyed Emily; made ridiculously obvious by pinning up a photo of Woodward and Berstein at Cal's desk). While it's full of the right kind of bon mots, they are exactly the kind of bon mots that don't hold up if you take a minute to parse them. Cal makes a crack about working at the paper for 15 years on a 16 year-old computer, and you chuckle, but then you wonder what he had to do to hang onto said computer when everyone else was going through mandatory updates. I doubt it's what Macdonald et al meant for you to wonder about. B-

"What was once your first-draft, grade-A choice from your parents as a gift becomes... socks."

Unlike my first-draft, grade-A choice in our Hollywood Fantasy Draft, who was . . . well, I'll let you read it for yourself. What's a fantasy draft? Steve, Kevin, Joe, and I each drafted ten actors for our fantasy studios. At the end of the year, we'll tally up box office receipts, nominations, and award wins to see who is the Sausage King of Chicago.* I mean, the Studio King. This link will bring you to Round 1-3. More rounds will go up throughout the week. I'll keep you posted.

*Subject to laziness.

Pop Culture Round-Up: April 18-24

Oh, good. I've always wanted to know.

Because we're still stuck on All the President's Men?

Whoo! Take that, criticism in crisis.

Can it be resurrected as a movie instead? Or a mini-series? Or, you know, a TV show?

You know, I'm still not sure I want to see this as a movie.

Huh. Of course, if they really wanted to do this list right, it'd be Billy Connolly and Joe Morton at the top.

Hmm.

Everyone's just looking to cash in, aren't they?

Take that, slump! Make the rich richer. Oh, proletariat, how could you?

Squee! One can only hope.

Aw.

Holy crap. Out of print books? This is the revolution calling.

Won't get any arguments with a Supernatural movie 'round here. Not that we're getting one, mind.

Like most things Twilight-related, overwrought and unnecessary.

Dude, those books are going to be killer.

I'm a little confused because I thought someone was already hired for the job, but, hey, I guess he knows vampires. Do you think he'll find a role for movie-boyfriend Ben Foster?

Pop Culture Round Up: April 4 - 17

I had one ready for last Friday, but I didn't have time to publish. Ah, well, I'll do better soon.

Are there still young critics? Okay, I know the answer to that, so I hope the answer is soon.

This is going to be great.

I haven't made up my mind if that's kind of awesome or just Neil LaBute's woman-hating fault.

Didn't we learn anything from Eternal Sunshine?

YAY! I will happily stay home Saturday nights for The Piemaker.

Number 10's probably my favourite even though I'm pretty sure it takes place over one day.

Mapping the Cultural Buzz: How Cool Is That?

It's like Golden Girls starring men.

I think it makes us feel like we're all hanging in there, and we're all in it together.

Heh. Yup, that's all.

I rocked it, and so can you. It may surprise you to learn that I rocked this one even harder.

I hope Harry Hamlin gets a cameo.

I am so confused by this news. It seems antithetical.

It's kind of Apocalyptic, but I like it.

More returned art!

I believe it.

We should should what, exactly? Stop making disaster movies in order to protect children's imaginations? Your point is beyond me, Lisa Kennedy.

Aw, yeah. Covering his werewolf and now his vampire bases. I hope zombies are up soon.

You're not the only ones left wondering what this means for next season.

“I’m reading it going, ‘Really, we’re going to put fucking shark in Jason’s spine and he thinks it’s going to work?’ ”

"The story is allegedly a loose retelling of the 16th U.S. president's life story — embellished with the notion that he is also a highly skilled vampire slayer." Yes. I love it.

While I'm pretty sure that Julian would be dead, I'd still watch it.

"Turns out, Milton was more rebellious and politically left than I realized. He was a risk-taker. He was arrested and imprisoned. Thanks, in part, to Andrew Marvell, he barely escaped a death sentence." Dudes, Milton. Milton. Can you believe it?

Hip-hop theatre! That excites me.

It's the movie choices that save it.

I don't know how they do it, but the tie-in products continue to be genius.

I Love You, Man (2009)

I'm just going to come out with it and tell you that I love Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. I might love Rudd just a little bit more (can you believe he's 40?) (also, sorry, Segel). While I'm glad that their latest outing didn't go to a weird woman hating place like their last one, I do wish Rashida Jones and Jamie Pressley had a little more to do. Even so, there's something here that anyone over the age of 22 can identify with: how do you make friends post-college?

For all the brouhaha over the man dates and the best man crunch, all director and co-writer John Hamburg is addressing is the difficulty of making friends without school to bind you. For some reason there's this whole extra level of awkward to go along with it after graduation, and Hamburg taps into that via Rudd so virulently that even as you laugh, you cringe (the nexus of the best comedy). Rudd's always been one to go the extra mile for a joke (that's what makes his outburst in Wet Hot American Summer so damn funny), and the way he hits everything not one beat off but two sells how uncomfortable it would be to try to find not only a new friend but also a best friend.

Segel plays off Rudd wonderfully, all loose energy and phony masculinity. I wish he'd do something about that hair but otherwise love him, too.

Of course, there is a little something off here: Zooey and Peter have been dating for years. She would have noticed by now that he doesn't have any male friends and that his best friend is his mom (although who can blame him since his mom is Jane Curtin). She would have noticed, she would have been concerned, and she would have said something. When people don't have any friends, no matter how great they are, it says something. Something like "crazypants." Although Andy Samberg and J.K. Simmons are so adorable as Peter's gay brother and his dad who became the brother's best friend by learning to be okay with his gay son ("I love my dead gay son!"), that it's almost worth it.

Now if they could have only worked in more scenes with Jon Favreau playing against type as a man's man who argues his wife into sexual favours. Those two should have a sitcom. B+

"Ain't no nostalgia to this shit here. There's just the street and the game and what happen here today."

So true. Just like the lack of nostalgia I feel for Dr. Strangelove, the subject of my latest Culture article. You'll get closer to the things I feel nostalgic about if you check out my latest YouTube picks. And, as always, there is Miss Smartypants's advice, updated Mondays. This month, in honour of Earth Day, she tackles all green questions. You can send your questions, green or otherwise, to advice@culturemagazine.ca.

Cadillac Records (2008)

I went to see Cadillac Records when it opened here. It chronicles the rise and fall of Chess Records, legendary Chicago-based record label, and co-founder Leonard Chess' (Adrien Brody) rise and fall right along with it. I say co-founder because Leonard Chess founded the studio with his brother Phil, who is, hilariously, nowhere to be found in the movie.*

Writer-director Darnell Martin's work plays about as fast and loose with the truth as it does with logic. Leonard has this on-going, never-consummated love affair with Etta James (Beyoncé Knowles), and, while I am not disputing the possibility of such an affair in real life, it's so ridiculously drawn on the screen. There's a short sequence where he goes from having sad, workman-like sex with his wife (Emmanuelle Chriqui), to running over to Etta's when she's overdosed, to kissing Etta while she's still coming down, to getting caught, to saying to Muddy Waters (the always fantastic Jeffrey Wright), "What if I told you I have feelings for her?" in the span of about 10 minutes. "What if?" Dude, you should be able to do better than a hypothetical at that point. No sooner has that flared up than it disappears.

That little vignette is exemplary of the problem with most of the plot points, to be honest. Martin consistently brings up wrong doing on the part of Chess, whether it's how he got his start in the record business or how he treated his artists that got him there, but it refuses to engage with him on that level beyond mentioning these things. How are we supposed to feel about that? I like it when movies don't judge their characters (cf Rachel Getting Married), but you have to give everyone a valid point to be able to do it properly. We don't even have the slightest idea how Chess may have felt about the charges laid against him, and I'm not ready to lay that at Brody's feet.

The flip side, of course, is the performances and the singing. I'd never thought I'd say this, but, if hearing Beyoncé sing "All I Could Do Was Cry" doesn't bring a frisson to your spine, you're heartless. Who knew she could sing like that? Who knew she could act like that? All the hurt and resentment James could pack into her voice is right there on screen. Wright shows up to remind us what a brilliant character actor he is, Eamonn Walker is a particularly inspired Howlin' Wolf, and Colombus Short's Little Walter is full of fire. It's Mos Def's Chuck Berry that injects the movie with style and fun. B

*Norman Reedus is credited as "Chess," but he's got, like, one line. If that was supposed to be Phil, maybe someone should have called him that. Oh, no, wait, Shiloh Fernandez is credited as Phil Chess. No, sorry, no. I literally do not remember him in a single scene. Does he have any lines? Also, why is Norman Reedus also credited as Chess?

Watchmen (2009)

I've already wrote and published my Book vs. Film, so I don't want to repeat too much of what I said there. I saw the movie before I had finished the novel, I wrote and published the article, and then I saw it again. The other night a friend said to me that she thought my criticism of the interpretation was too harsh. Perhaps.

It's not that I didn't like the movie. If I hadn't read the novel beforehand, I'm sure I would have quite liked it. The opening montage, which catches us up on the first generation of masked adventures, set to Bob Dylan's "The Times, They Are A-Changin'", is quite possibly the best part of the movie. Even if you aren't familiar with the source material, it captures the sort of nostalgic feeling (the classic, pain from an old wound kind) that permeates the novel.

When Ozymandias says that he made himself feel every death, the first time around I whispered, "How?" Ozymandias in the book surely could have found a way. The second time I simply frowned. I like Matthew Goode, but he's too small and young for this role. He seems too much like he's playing at being a grown up, unable to live up to the body building genius that Moore created.

Two friends who had never picked up the novel saw the movie. One called it boring; the other complained that there are too many flashbacks. I don't agree with either criticism, nor did I find the movie Edelstein's "an awe-inspiring corpse." Something does get lost in the interpretation, though I think I hit it right when I said that it's the psychology that's missing. The thing that made Rorschach (the perfectly cast Jackie Earl Haley) Rorschach wasn't burying a meat cleaver into a murderer's head. It was the moment he realized that he could use the indifference of good people in his favour. It's a startling notion in the book that never materializes in the movie.

Still, the movie's not anywhere near as bad as I am no doubt making it sound. It's nothing short of a tremendous visual feat, and there are plenty of sly references for all the fanboys (the screens at the TV studio from the beginning of the movie read S.Q.U.I.D. at the end, the song references at the end of the chapters are woven into the bitchin' soundtrack). I think, in the end, that Zach Synder's heart's in the right place. The novel's world - its paranoia, its fears, its teetering on the brink of destruction from seemingly every angle - remains preserved. Some of the contents may have shifted during flight, so fanboys and girls will just have to remember to open carefully. But there's a lot to uncover if you do open up. B

P.S. Dr. Manhattan's huge, swinging dick really is distracting, though.

Pop Culture Round Up: March 28 - April 3

Sometimes the headline says it all: Cheese book wins over monkey manual for oddest book title prize

Thanks for coming. Now eat some popcorn!

Two more years! Two more years!

Initially all I saw was "Sweeney Todd co-star," and I got so excited for pretty much any one in that movie doing anything. Do you think he'll sing?

Sad.

Secret face!

I think this might be worse than the time they gave away my passport. Oh, man.

"He was quite lecherous. But he was lecherous to all the girls." One would hope!

Will it star Dan and Chuck? Don't you think it should? Well, I suppose they're a bit young.

Criticism in crisis continues: An orchestra gets a critic fired for not liking their conductor.

That's punacceptable!

Want you back, want you back, want you back for good.

"The findings support a neurobiological hypothesis for why impoverished children consistently fare worse than their middle-class counterparts in school, and eventually in life."

Oh, I'm so surprised by who he's sitting next to.