Pop Culture Round Up: January 24 - 30

Who, pray tell, is being mocked? Your career?

What the? I don't care if Jennifer Saunders is involved, this thing is fishy. When my friend introduced me to the show, she told me that it was about a pair of aging hippies and trying to be career women but still hippies. Plus they're alcoholics. Does America find functional alcoholics funny?

Criticism in crisis reactions: Oh, no! I'm lazy!

They hired a new critic? Insanity!

For every action . . .

And a criticism defense!

"Film critics and scholars have a tumultuous relationship with a system that is meant to help guide readers but may also encourage some to skip the review entirely."

"The intellectual author's copious diaries record her struggles with a domineering father, her stultifying stint in the court of George III, her controversial marriage to a Catholic escapee from the French Revolution." Saucy stuff!

Ooo, another door! A flood door, but still.

"The most brilliant thing to happen to Jane Austen’s novels since … well, ever." I must have this book.

Don Draper makes ice cream!

That's too bad.

What, what?! This just might be awesome.

Holy Moses. Mind you, if I had that actor in the role, I might be wary of including an certain predilection as well.

This hurts a little.

Yes! I have been saying this for years.

Hmm. Good question. I'm pretty sure awesome movie is still the answer.

Heh. Although what he says is, "You followin' me, camera guy?", which is even better.

"As the number of possessions grew, so did the concept of ‘taste’, a subtle and elusive yardstick by which people advertised their social position and sensibilities."

"Comics actually are jazz." I can't say that occurred to me before.

I can't imagine one actor who could play him, much less two.

Hey, they did something nice!

Aww, don't take away old peoples' TVs!

SAG winners.

PGA winners.

Defiance (2008)

Brief: After their parents are murdered in an SS raid, the Bielski brothers (Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, and George MacKay) hide in the woods in Belarussia to save themselves from certain death. While in hiding, they find other Jews and agree to band together; word gets out about their community and soon Jews from all over are making their way to the brothers for a chance to be free and live.

I know you might be like, "Belarus?," but they call it "Belarussia" in the movie, so that's what I'm going with here.

Where would we be without director and co-writer Edward Zwick? He's really cornered the market on humanist war movies, hasn't he? Even if he hadn't, I'd still love him for My So-Called Life and Once and Again, so he's just sort of awesome, isn't it? He's not a genius, but he's great. He's got a particular sense of how infuse real human responses into unfamiliar situations that make them familiar for the audience. Of course, his movies tend to suffer from obviousness, and I suspect that he and co-writer Clayton Frohman are playing fast and loose with the Bielski brothers' actual history.

Zwick's got all sorts of sexy, fantastic actors up in our grill, so let's just keep it in perspective. First we've got Craig as oldest brother Tuvia, the de facto leader. He's the only one who struggles to maintain the accent while speaking English (which stands in for Yiddish, while Russian gets to be Russian). Then we've got my dear Schreiber as second oldest Zus, rocking an accent in a Holocaust movie, which is exactly how I met him. My faithful viewing partner turned to me as the credits rolled but before she could open her mouth, I announced that yes, Liev Schreiber is so foxy. He is one of two actors that I would describe as cerebral. Bell rounds things out as Asael, the third son, who seems like a natural successor to Tuvia while Zus gets to be the hothead. (Sidebar: Bell should really be more famous by now.) Finally there's little Aron, but he gets next to no lines and no post-credits "whatever happened to?" moment. Poor MacKay.

Bear with me because I'm about to say something crass: I've got Holocaust movie fatigue. Don't balk because you've got it, too. It's all righteous, oppressed Jews and evil, unambiguous Nazis. While the site of a mass grave while never fail to be stomach churning, there's nothing in Zwick's filmmaking to allow for any nuance or shades of grey. The Bielskis are thieves and murderers to be sure, but it doesn't matter because they're the dispossessed. At least it doesn't matter in Zwick's forest, and it doesn't matter in the same way that it doesn't matter what Hanna had done since or what her circumstances were when Michael found out that she used to be a Nazi in The Reader. Now that's all she'll ever be to him. You can do the right thing and not be a hero; you can do the wrong thing and not be a villain. Motive counts, and in movies like this motives are always so simple. You do the right thing because it's the right thing to do. You give the big speech, and James Newton Howard's score swells, and you get the love of electric Gwen from Angel (the transcendentally beautiful Alexa Davalos) for your trouble.

At least Zwick's a talented director with a great cast, or all this might wearying. B+

Quantum of Solace (2008)

Plot: Picking up directly where Casino Royale left off, Bond (Daniel Craig) kidnaps Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) to get information about the events that lead to Vesper's death. What he get is a shadowy organization tied up with ecopreneur Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), deposed Bolivian dictator General Medrano (Joaquín Cosio), and Camille (Olga Kurylenko), a woman on her own quest for revenge. A quest that M (Judi Dench) would prefer Bond put on hold.

Let me just tell you this right now: Jack White and Alicia Keys should never sing together ever again. Separately I like their voices, but together it's horribly, insufferably sharp. What a terrible fusion of styles. In trying to remember the song in order to describe it to you here, I wound up with Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name" instead. It's better that way.

I forgot this movie. The very next day, I walked into the office and thought, "Wait, what did I do last night?" That's how little an impact it had on me. I was so excited for the reboot and liked it so much that maybe I set myself up for disappointment. But the buzz wasn't very good and a co-worker specifically detailed his problems with the movie for me, so maybe I wasn't it. All I know is that the movie is treading water.

At what point are we going to get to the real Bond? Sure, I celebrated the thug with icy menace in his glare last time around, and I still do. I still love that Craig makes him feel like not only someone who could kill you with his bare hands but also probably will. And just for funsies. It's his favourite approach to problem solving (Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw/And he never has the same problem twice). What I wonder is when we are going to get past this malcontent who doesn't care what he's drinking and barely pauses for seduction. It's supposed to be fun to be Bond.

It's a toss up whether screenwriter Paul Haggis (co-writing with Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and an uncredited Joshua Zetumer) or director Mark Foster is more responsible for the inert, in between feeling that this movie produces. Foster filmed the chases and fights in that shaky, handheld, Paul Greengrass-style that makes it difficult to tell what's going on (especially when most of the key players don't have heads. Is it hard to find convincing stunt doubles nowadays?). On the other hand, Haggis wrote in the foot, car, boat, and plane chases (what's next? Rocket ships?), and he's responsible for the ridiculous dialogue that poor Dench and Amalric are saddled with (No, florist do not say that. No florist would ever say that. Also, "a nice way of saying that everything he touches seems to . . . wither and die?" Withering implies protraction. These people just die, straight up, and it's a little rich, considering the source).

There are still things I do like. I quite like Kurylenko as well as Kurylenko and Craig together. She's smart, pushy, and accesses vulnerability in a childlike way that makes sense with her origins. Amalric is so rad. I love the way he turns on a dime (I love you! I kill you!). And Tom Ford, we owe you a great debt for those impeccably tailored suits.

I don't need gadgets. I like it when things blow up. I don't want to see Bond turned Bourne in a generic actioner. Where is the intrigue? Quantum has been moved into position as the shadowy conspiracy, and the survival of certain key players suggests that they'll be back in future installments. While that's great for Felix (Jeffrey Wright), what does that mean for the rest of the series? Why do I get the feeling that this is only part two of a trilogy? If so, what happens when it ends? B-

Casino Royale (2006)

I finally pulled the DVD off the shelf, so it must be time for a RE-view!

This was definitely a different sort of Bond and a thug, no doubt, but I found it sort of hilarious how everyone focused on the bodies he piled up and ignored that he was (maybe) a computer hacking super-genius as well. He broke into M's computer, her home, and her identity ('cause he knows her real name, see?)!

The only person who seems to care about these things is M herself, as she works in this strange vacuum/non-vacuum situation. Non-vacuum: co-writers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and (shudder) Paul Haggis put a lot of effort into showing us that MI6 is infinitely more connected to the British government than what was shown in the past (M attends meetings and answers to the Prime Minister, apparently). Vacuum: none of these people seem all that real. Few of them have names, much less characteristics, that would help them stick in your memory after you see the film. They blend together and disappear.

It gives the movie a streamlined appearance when it is anything but. Which is not to say that it's bloated, exactly. It tells one story, and it tells it very well, which is more than Bond movies have offered in a long time. Both Jeffrey Wright and Mads Mikkelsen are welcome presences, and, from the trailer, it looks like Bond is still pretty focused on Vesper's death, so it's best not to forget about that one.

Only I kind of want to. It's not that I don't like Eva Green generally or in the movie, but Bond-in-love sequence drags and drags. And it's not even that long. I suspect Bond getting his revenge on will be infinitely more exciting to watch. Until then, I'll tentatively stick with my original A-.

P.S. Does anyone else find themselves missing Miss Moneypenny? I really like Craig and Dench's interactions. Thanks to Gwenyth Paltrow's fantastic turn as Pepper, the Moneypenny to Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark, though, I find myself wondering what Bond's long suffering secretary is up to. Mailing out child support payments?

P.P.S How long do you think an actor of Craig's calibre will stay tied down to the role?

The Invasion (2007)

Plot: Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman), a Washington psychiatrist, slowly discovers that something very strange is happening around her but finds herself distracted by the sudden return of her ex-husband, Tucker (Jeremy Northam), and the attentions of her best friend, Ben (Daniel Craig). By the time Carol, Ben, and Ben's colleague Stephen (Jeffrey Wright) figure out what is going on, Carol has begun a frantic search for her son, Oliver (Jackson Bond), who has gone missing in his father's care.

Oh, forget it. It took me forever to come up with that, and there's no point in trying to be coy. It's the fourth film version of Jack Finney's novel, for Pete's sake. Fine -- you win. Alien virus takes over human race, turning them into mindless automatons. Oliver may be the cure.

I want you to know that I went into this with my eyes wide open. I fully expected it to suck. And, to be honest, it didn't suck quite as much as I thought it would. Mind you, now I am wondering which scenes were original director Oliver Hirschbiegel and original screenwriter Dave Kajganich's and which to credit to the Wachowski Brothers and James McTeigue. Knowing such things makes it a little tricky to know where to lay blame or praise. Let's just go ahead and call the whole thing not very good, shall we?

Now, it should be pointed out that I've never read the book or seen any of the other versions, so it's quite possible that I may complain about or praise an element that didn't originate here. Well, that's the way it's going to be. I can only comment on what I've seen.

Considering the fact that the plot is so basic (mother desires to protect child against all odds), it's pretty impressive the way the editors wring tension out of a lot of the encounters by moving backward and forward through time near simultaneously. The tension is greatly increased by showing us the beginning of some scary moment, cutting quickly to the aftermath, cutting back into the moment, then further to the end, and so on and so on. It's a clever device that keeps us interested in the 'how' long after we know the 'what.'

The tension is also surprisingly well drawn out by showing the change slowly affecting the city through repetitive shots. We watch Carol walk to work day after day, and the streets slowly morph from lively, jostling place to eerily quiet shadow lands.

Of course, the movie also tries to raises our sympathies in ways that fail spectacularly. Ooo, dogs can sense it! Well, then it must be bad! Aliens always are neglecting their pets! Oh, look -- that kid isn't with his mommy. Heartbreak. Except that part doesn't ring true: everything we've seen before that moment has suggested that pretty much any passerby would instantly turn that kid. So, not so much with the sympathies for that crying kid. In all fairness, I felt sorriest for the elderly woman who was injected* on the train, quietly remarking that she doesn't want a shot. Poor old lady! Who is going to protect her?

*With the alien virus, stupid "Goofs." And the helicopter landed in Baltimore. The movie sucked, but at least some of us managed to stay awake. Oh, look, I can update that page. That's more exciting than the entire movie. Damn thing only wants to listen to me about the helicopter. Oh, I'm a little off track, aren't I?

Shortly after I saw this movie, Em and I agreed that Craig is a stone fox. In fact, I submit that if stone fox finds its way into the dictionary, Craig's picture should appear next the entry. It was great to watch Craig and Wright in all their chameleon glory. This time around they are both reserved science types, although Craig gets to be twinkly and sexy, too.

Their combined talent made Kidman all the more difficult to take. I've long thought of her as good little actress, as adept with comedy as with drama, but this Botoxing her face right out of existence has got to stop. The voice provides plenty of emotion, and she can still squirt some tears out, but I need more. I know she's capable of more. Why won't she just let us see her? Sigh. At least her hair's a bit darker.

There's so much of this movie that doesn't work (spoilers!). The promotional material focused on the last third of the movie, robbing the picture of what should have been its moments of greatest tension. They make Carol's ex Patient Zero, but then they turn his attempts to infect Carol in a creepy pseudo-rape scenario that left me feeling cold. Why not just offer her a beverage like he did with the others? It only makes sense if virus maintains not only Tucker's memories and knowledge but also his feelings of inadequacy and desire to control Carol that he later discusses. Which also didn't ring true. You make a whole big deal about how emotionless the virus makes everyone, how it robs them of their free will, and then you have people turn around and do something that would have had the desire to do before they were infected? WTF? Having a character claim that the virus circumvents humanity's violent impulses and then threaten to murder a child in the same scene? Sort of confusing.

Oh, movie. You try to be political commentary about Iraq; you end up ham-fisted and annoying. You try to draw an ambiguous line about free will; you end up bludgeoning your audience with anvils. If I wanted to see that point made, I'd probably just watch the Jasmine arc from season four of Angel again. I'd be better off. C

Ed. Note: 500th post! Yay me, yay you, yay for everyone!

Casino Royale (2006)

Premise: M (Judi Dench) promotes James Bond (Daniel Craig) to double-oh. For his inaugural mission, Bond must track down Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), who launders money for terrorists, and defeat him in a high stakes game of Texas Hold 'Em. Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) is sent by the Treasury to oversee their investment, as they have provide Bond's 10 million dollar buy-in.

A few of us were talking in class the other day about how we wanted to see this movie , about the re-invigoration of the franchise, and the new direction of the protagonist. A return to the roots as Ian Fleming imagined them, to be sure, but far different from what we have seen in the past. At one point, while taking about how The New Bond isn't going to come across as a suave, pleasure-seeking playboy, one guy declared, "He's a thug." He said 'thug' so many times that it became something of a jarring credo, and I was wryly amused when M informed Bond that he is meant to be more than just that.

She's right, though, and Craig plays him as more of a cold-blooded mercenary than anything else. To be fair, this is Craig we are talking about, so he tends to be using his icy-blue eyes to conceal more than he'll ever show. Even so, this is by far a different sort of Bond. There's no Q, and he's not really one for gadgets - a gun and some serious hand-to-hand are his take down methods. In the past, Bond seemed to take out the baddie while stifling a yawn. Violence was a necessary component of his vocation. Here, however, Craig's Bond is something far nastier - he'll kill you, with his bare hands, just for the heck of it. There's an edge that has replaced the devil-may-care attitude of Bonds past.

Unfortunately for Bond, and fortunately for the viewer, there's a lesson to be learned on his first 00 mission. I inwardly cringed when I saw Paul Haggis' name flash on the screen. With two other screenwriters to temper him (Neal Purvis and Robert Wade) and the general possibility that the name that appears has nothing to do with the finished product, he appears not to have bollixed this one up. The bed-hopping and double-entendres are kept to a minimum, providing us with a sleeker, leaner, and, oddly enough, longer feature. From the opening adrenalin-pumping chase sequence to the utterly satisfying closing, you'll hardly notice the length.

Thank goodness Dame Judi remains in place after the re-jig. I adore her in this thoroughly anti-maternal role. She also happens to be the best looking woman in the pic.

I think we all know what happens to villains in this sort of movie, which is too bad. I enjoyed Mikkelsen as the number-crunching villain.

Can I just say one thing, though? What's with Bond villains and facial scars? Can anyone explain that to me?

Ah, well. It's the Bond we've all been waiting for, made possible by the darkness that has crept into, of all things, comic book movies. Enjoy this sinister delight. A-

Munich (2005)

Premise: After 11 Israeli athletes are murdered at the 1972 Olympics, Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) asks former bodyguard Avner (Eric Bana) to lead a team to find and kill the 11 men responsible for that bloody day. Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush) connects Avner with a getaway driver, Steve (Daniel Craig); a clean-up man, Carl (Ciaran Hands); a toy-designing bombmaker, Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz); and a documents expert, Hans (Hanns Zischler). Avner makes a contact with a man of no political accord, Louis (Mathieu Amalric), who trades information for an extravagant fee.

I'm just going to get the little stuff out of the way, so I can move on to the big issue at hand.

If the real Golda Meir was anything like Cohen's portrayal, that she was one of the most amazing women to ever walk the earth. To reconcile such a difficult political and religious decision while still acting like everyone's favourite spunky grandmother is an impressive feat.

Bana continues to astonish as a dramatic actor, mining the doomed dramatic fate business he took on in Troy. Avner's almost compulsive need for their victims to understand why they had to die was utterly compelling. It's difficult to imagine such a squeamish assassin, given that his squeamishness was more moral than physical.

All of the team worked together splendidly, but it was with a touch of sadness that I watched Craig as a hip swaggering, blood thirsty, accent nailing South African. He's so great a chameleon that you can hardly recognize him from role to role, and I'm more than a little sorry that we are going to lose him to 007 for at least the next few years. Oh, well, maybe he'll do one flick and quit. I can dream, right?

I would like to take a moment to point out how distractingly stylish Louis was. Open market shopping on a Parisian bridge, double breasted suit, three different patterns? What does this man want from me?

John Williams steals music, "era of the musical footnote" be damned. The under current of tension that he builds to such dramatic heights (with texture instead of dynamics) leading up to the first kill is powerful . . . until you realize that it's putting you in mind of Bernard Hermann's fantastic work in Psycho.

Eric Roth's screenplay, with touch ups by Tony golden boy Tony Kushner? Excellent.

Moving right along to the matter at hand: my relationship with director Steven Spielberg. Sometimes, a lot of the times even, I wonder what the big deal about Spielberg is. After all, the man doesn't direct movies, he directs events. To be honest, I've only seen a dozen or so, and I haven't fallen head over heels for many (maybe Catch Me If You Can and Saving Private Ryan).

And yet, with the exception of one sequence toward the end, this work was flawless. All the right notes hit and never without exceptional consideration and purpose. When he filled the screen with his final shot, I actually muttered, "son of a bitch." He's just that good.

I feel as though I should point out how heavy this movie is. I could barely lift my shoulders, utter a sound, or maintain a thought for hours afterwards. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't see it, and immediately, but simply that you should prepare yourself. A

P.S. Saw Martin Scorsese on Dinner For Five yesterday, making yesterday one of the greatest days ever.

The Jacket (2005)

Plot: Jack Starks (Adrien Brody) receives a head wound in the first Gulf War and develops retrograde amnesia as a result. Back home in Vermont, he is framed for murdering a cop and ends up in an institution for the criminally insane. Dr. Thomas Becker (Kris Kristofferson) chooses Jack for an experimental sensory deprivation treatment wherein Jack is put in a full body straight jacket and locked inside a morgue drawer. While inside, Jack sees another life, this one involving Jackie Price (Keira Knightley).

Second movie I've gone to see for the male lead[s] despite this particularly leading lady. I don't want to feel like I'm personally forwarding her career, but sometimes I wonder.

Knightley's attempt at an ingenue is not to be rewarded. Her character was over-the-top, just like her American accent which simply involved speaking in a poorly suited, exaggeratedly deep voice. There was nothing compelling about a character that was supposed to be broken and ends up coming across as bratty.

Wait, that's Mischa Barton's Marissa. Holy crap, kid, that's never something to aspire to be.

Brody was fantastic, though, every bit as frustrated and confused and angry and lonely and lovely as he needed to be. I felt bad that he is so much and can do so much, but the script didn't give him clear direction one way or the other. Sometimes it was a thriller, sometimes it was a love drama, sometimes it was both, sometimes it was neither. Because of the consummate actor I believe him to be, I believe he tried to fit his character into the whatever the movie was trying to be at that particular moment, so he can't be held accountable if it didn't all jive.

Jennifer Jason Leigh was there to hand me a beautifully understated performance combined with a bad dye job, and Daniel Craig stole the show with his scary physical chameleon-ness. If it weren't for those eyes, I'd never recognize him.

I didn't really understand where they were going with Craig's character. I thought, "So, what, everyone can do it? Are they supposed to be connected in some way? What does he see?", but, alas, those questions go unanswered.

Oooo, Brad Renfro and Steven Mackintosh were around as well! Hurrah!

Kristofferson gave it the old college try, but I felt like he was distancing himself. Maybe he was trying to do that through his character, a man divided between his paternal desire to help heal wounded souls and the more justice-minded desire to punish criminals for their sins.

Jay Maybury (director) and Peter Deming (cinematographer) kept the camera moving, lulling us with desolate and sterile winter landscapes and the griminess of the world around them. Maybury's a video director at heart, but it works for him here. The middle doesn't start sagging like it should, and he throws all his energy into keeping you from getting bored.

Although, and this is just a knit-picky point, but when you film a movie in Canada that isn't set in Canada, you should try to avoid having Canadian road signs in the frame. It's just a thought.

But, oh, Massy Tadjedin's screenplay. Gaping holes and leaps in logic abound. She wrote a great main character but neglected to fill in the rest. Also, what was the Jack-Jackie-Jacket combo supposed to signify? Is Jack the necessary prerequisite for them both?

Perhaps. B

P.S. I got to experience an entirely empty movie theatre for the first time this week-end. Joy!

Road to Perdition (2002)

Outline: Michael Sullivan, Sr. (Tom Hanks) must take his son, Michael, Jr. (Tyler Hoechlin) on the run in the winter of 1931 after Michael, Jr., witnesses Connor (Daniel Craig), the son of his boss, John Rooney (Paul Newman), murder another man.

Of course, the title is a little misleading. This movie should be called American Beauty Lite: All the heartbreak but half the clever. Such a disappointment.

I suppose that genius directorial debuts like Sam Mendes' don't go unpunished. You are apparently doomed to make the same movie again.

But April, you say, you can't tell me that present day and the Depression are the same thing. You're right. I also can't tell you that Hanks and Kevin Spacey are the same actor. I would, however, go as far as to say that they are actors of the same calibre.

In this case, Newman steps into the role of Chris Cooper's violent and confused father. Newman plays up his age with those slow, small steps, as well as a father's love for a disobedient son.

It's all so beautiful and compelling to watch, but there simply isn't an original word in David Self's screenplay. His earlier attempts, The Haunting (1999) and Thirteen Days (2000), are polar oppositions. It's so very strange. It's almost as though he doesn't really know what he's doing. He writes without considering the words he's using.

And if Thomas Newman recycles his score from American Beauty one more time, I'm going to find him and kick him. It's frustrating to hear talent like that and never hear that same ingenuity again.

What a waste. A beautiful and poignant waste but a waste nonetheless.