Repo Men (2010)

Repo Men takes place not so much in a dystopian future as a dystopian alternate reality. People can replace their organs, bones, and other body parts with artforgs, but the cost is so high that many people default on their payments. That's where Jude Law and Forest Whitaker come in. If you go 90 days without a payment, they track you down and repossess the Union's property without deference to that property's host.

Even if you haven't seen the trailer or TV spots, you can pretty much guess what happens: as the result of an accident, Law ends up with an artificial heart and a change of heart. He turns against the system. Violently. Really, really, violently.

The truth: I went into this one expecting little more than a) Law fighting against the system and b) violence and gore. This movie delivers on both counts. Around the halfway mark what started out as a smart, maybe even timely idea with a stylish execution goes off the rails, but it goes so spectacularly off the rails that it achieves its own kind of magnificence. There's a wildly erotic self-surgery scene, for Pete's sake. How can you not love it?

Law continues on his upward trend in my esteem. Once he's freed of the need to act the fop, he's also free to do the work. Though there was little moment I could have done without, he was otherwise delightful, as was Liev Schreiber in full oily salesman mode. For dedication to bananas-osity alone, C+.

Confidential to Jude Law: you know what would go well with your hairy forearms? Some chest hair. Do us a favour and stop waxing.

Wolverine, Star Trek, & Terminator Salvation

2009: The summer in tent poles (so far)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

This movie does not, as I had previously thought, have a double colon in the title. They are missing out. Of course, the movie's also missing things like interesting characters, plots that make sense, and my attention. Punctuation's the least of their worries. Screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods seem to have thought of this movie backwards from action set pieces (cool guys don't look at explosions) and then filled out the bare minimum of plot between them. Gambit (Taylor Kitsch, deciding to do little in the Cajun accent department, but otherwise rocking) was cut from the first movie because of the budget, yet they're still doing the least they possibly can with the character. And for what? So we can laugh when Logan (Hugh Jackman, who I always want to type as Huge Jackman - that's his porn name) cuts a sink in half with his new adamantium claws? So we can get a backstory on his amnesia that makes no sense whatsoever? So Liev Schreiber can run around making his evil villain the most fun (and dangerous) character in the proceedings? Actually, that's kind of worth the price of admission. Though, like Watchmen, the movie is never so good as its opening montage (as Jimmy and Victor go from war to war over more than a century, Jimmy becoming disillusioned and Victor gradually losing his humanity), Schreiber's line reading on "Ooo, shiny," is too good to describe. He deserves a better movie. D

Star Trek

J.J. Abrams, look at you! Here we have something that doesn't start in the middle, makes sense without endless exposition, and is a heck of a lot of fun in the interim. Apparently you and scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are finally figuring these things out. Best of all, you found an inventive way to reboot the entire series that works. And really, I don't know if I've ever seen anything as badass as a 12 year-old driving a car off a cliff. Chris Pine may be an excellent Kirk, all cocksure swagger with just the right stripe of intelligence to pull it off, but Zachary Quinto as Spock owns that movie from start to finish. So long as you've got those two in place, you're set. Well, kickass Bruce Greenwood, dreamy Karl Urban, and adorable Simon Pegg and Anton Yelchin don't hurt either. This might be going some place good. Maybe cool it with the solar flares next time, though. B+

Terminator Salvation

Another colon-less confusing title! Another Anton Yelchin movie! In this case he goes from being adorable with an overblown accent and a head of curls, to, quite frankly, a little bit sexy with his tight pants and guns and the come-with-me-if-you-want-to-lives. The casting is spot on for this kid to grow into Michael Biehn. I have no idea why writers John D. Brancato and Michael Ferris (and the legions of other writers brought on to do rewrites, of course) chose to saddle him with a little mute girl and then didn't have the good sense to kill her (for pathos not my personal amusement), but what are you going to do? I'd rewrite this movie if I could. I'd tell McG to rethink the lighting scheme (not a joke), to give dreamboat Sam Worthington some direction other than "yell a lot," to give dreamboat Christian Bale some direction other than "brood." We get that he can brood, and we love that about him, we really do. I suspect that if I were hunted for the entirety of my life, I would brood a lot, too. But then I'd remember the immortal words of Roger Ebert, and I'd get the stick out of my ass. I'd remember that my character calls for imagination. Mostly, though, I'd call up those bastards in charge of cutting my trailers and ads and thank them for spoiling the only innovative twist the movie had going for it: do you know that Worthington's some kind of terminator? You do? Too bad the movie spends its entire first hour waiting for you to find that out. Bloody hell. There really ought to be some communication when it comes to these things. I don't know if I would have made the movie less boring, but I bet it would have been a good start. C

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+

Pop Culture Round Up: August 16 - 22

How intense has this week been? This is old, old news. But still, aww! Seriously, though, you'd think it wasn't August with the level of stories worth reading this week.

"Northern Peaks"? Sounds about right.

Is Germany going to help everyone else get their art back? Like these people, maybe?

Criticism in crisis continues - it's not just for print critics anymore!

That's a shame because I would like to see what the brothers Nolan would make of Professor Hugo Strange.

It is strange, but I've always liked number 5. It's Liev Schreiber's (a man born to play Hamlet if there ever was one) possibly-incestuous take on Laertes that really makes it.

Are there people out there that don't want to see Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber face off? Do they have a pulse? What? I like Liev Schreiber!

Aw, matchmaker! Now there's someone whose life I wonder about.

"Elitism? Of course it is. But then, the love of books is surely a minority sport, isn't it?" Is it? I didn't think it was that hard.

"Parse for me, please, the distinction between 'sexual material' and 'sexual content.'" Heh. The MPAA's a broad target, but they're worth the effort to take aim.

Are you sure it's unfair competition, Brian? Maybe it's poor quality.

I, sadly, do not posses a killer instinct. Well, at least not one of a sociopath.

I'm all about these kinds of programs. It's important to make sure indigenous cultures don't die out.

Hee! John Cusack can't fact check, apparently.

I'm going to watch all of these.

You know, this is true. Sad, but true. Still, there are plots that I would like to see wrap up, and I miss Logan in a big way. Why has no one snapped him up for a plum role yet?

Wrong. If you want to know if something is age appropriate for your kid, read it yourself first. There remains no substitute for parenting.

Ha! "The man has really got some serious beard on him."

"Jay Baruchel as a high-maintenance mustached porn actor with performance anxiety." One can dream!

Hurrah! Just the other day I was watching the first one and running around going, "I always thought it would be Clemenza."

A-ha! Good thing smoking always equaled evil and death on Buffy then.

Give your friends faux tattoos. They even ripple!

Mourn Manny Farber by reading what's probably his most famous essay, "White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art."

Then again, maybe we are really August bored. Daily Intel gets into it with the Observer over Ed Westwick's face. Can't we all just agree that he's maybe a (sexy) vampire?

The Painted Veil (2006)

Premise: Kitty (Naomi Watts) marries Dr. Walter Fane (Edward Norton), who whisks her away from London to Shanghai. Bored with married life and her staid husband, Kitty begins an affair with Charlie Townsend (Liev Schreiber). When Walter discovers the affair, he drags Kitty to a remote village in the cholera-infested interior in 1925.

I know that some of you have been waiting with breath that is bated for my Top 10 list. I decided when I opened my Bytowne guide in January that it would have to wait until I got the chance to see this movie, which wasn't playing until March. As such, gentle reader, you have had to wait. Fortunately, patience is virtue, and you shall be rewarded in short order.

Although it was composer Alexandre Desplat's other score that received most of the attention this year, I found this one to be a much more masterful turn. It may seem odd to you to begin a review with the score, but the movie begins with the score gloriously out in the open, richly swirling about you. The theme envelopes the audience from the opening frame.

I found myself a bit resistant to the framing device early in the film, but I was able to settle into it. Watts brings a breathtaking openness to her roles, and she does astounding things with her silences. I think the think I like best about her, however, is how she is slowly growing on me. I can see her still smoothing out the wrinkles in her performances. She hasn't quite gotten to the point where I am convinced that she is fully embodying someone else, but she's getting very close. It's nice to see it happen.

Norton once again proves that he is among the greatest living actors, with a spectacular accent and quite a nice seat.* I was charmed Walter's early, bumbling attempts at wooing Kitty, surprised but not shocked by the depth of his desire to hurt Kitty, and seduced anew by the man he grew into in the face of the epidemic. Thank goodness Norton is finding worthy roles of late.

It is to Schreiber's great credit, as well as that of writer Ray Nyswaner, that I could easily see how and why Kitty was seduced by Charlie. I don't know that there is a person alive who wouldn't have felt a thing had s/he been on the receiving end of his description of the opera. Charlie's a rake, to be sure, but Schreiber makes him more of a character than an archetype. Too bad we see so little of him.

When I found myself thrown by just how terribly the Fanes would treat each other, I thought to myself, "Who is this guy?" The guy in question being director John Curran. How does he present two characters that make me want to yell, "Stop being dicks!" with just enough compassion to make me care about what happens to them? Then I realized he has already done it to me. Is this some sort of a genre I had been previously unaware of? The angry married couple in midst of a crisis genre? Curran might be its master at only two pictures. It was hard to know for whom to feel worse.

As inevitable as the conclusion is (it is based on a W. Somerset Maugham novel, after all), you are still touched by the circumstances that brought us there. The coda fell mostly on the unnecessary side. Fortunately, not enough so to write off the film entirely. A character study above all, the film is a deeply etched portrait of romance, betrayal, and love. A-

*For horseback riding. Get your minds out of the gutter. Okay, I also noticed that he has a cute butt. I'm only human.

Bonus: The sonnet from which we gain the title.

Nit-pick: I find it hard to believe that any woman, much less one of Kitty's breeding, would have been walking around with bare legs in that day and age.