Directed by: Terry Gilliam
Starring: Heath Ledger, Matt Damon, Jonathan Pryce, Peter Stormare, Lena Headey, Monica Bellucci
Rated: PG-13 for violence, frightening sequences and brief suggestive material.
Parental Notes: This is a strong PG-13 -- Terry Gilliam is known for including disturbing elements in his films and this is no exception. Viewers will encounter a pulverized kitten, a living corpse, a horse which swallows children, and plenty of grim fairy tale elements.
Terry Gilliam is a master of creating fantastical worlds. Whether it’s the dystopic future of “Brazil” or the surrealist quasi-present of his animations with “Monty Python,” he excels at turning the churnings of the mind into resonant images on the screen. “The Brothers Grimm” is no exception. It’s a mud-spattered fairy tale with a streak of the weird, a story of the triumph of the imagination over cynical realism, and a celebration of all those stories we read as children.
The tale follows two brothers, Jake (Heath Ledger) and Will (Matt Damon). Jake is a dreamer and a scholar of fairy tales while Will is a charming, conniving realist. Together, along with a pair of helpers (Richard Ridings and Mackenzi Crook), they make a living by ridding villages of supernatural problems. Well, by making the villagers think they’ve rid them of a supernatural problem. They have a knack for show business, or at least Will does, and Jake knows enough about what the villagers believe to make their cons convincing.
But this is French-occupied Germany in the era of Napoleon and French rationalism. When the local general, Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce), gets wind of their fraudulent dealings he comes up with a choice for them: either go to a benighted town which has apparently lost ten little girls to a cursed forest and figure out what’s going on, or be executed for their crimes. Both Delatombe and his pet torturer Cavaldi (Peter Stormare) are evil in true fairy-tale mode -- so much so that when Cavaldi accidentally splatters a cute little critter around the room in one scene, we are hardly surprised when Delatombe picks the fragments of meat off his face and consumes them.
The brothers are not fools, and figuring that the “curse” is the product of a rival set of con artists, they head off for the town. What they find, of course, real magic, complete with an evil queen (Monica Bellucci). The village is suitably muddy (anyone who’s seen “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” knows Gilliam’s predilection for mud), and packed with characters like Angelika (Lena Headey), huntress who is suitably tough and beautiful. She knows the secrets of the forest, and tries to convince the brothers that the magic is real.
The look of the film is amazing -- by turns realistic, sumptuous, gritty, and dreamlike. It is truly a fairytale of its own, only writ large. The mud and blood are pure Gilliam, but so are the spun gold and lace. Gilliam has his own inimitable style, much the way that directors like Tim Burton and Steven Spielberg do, and this is very much a Gilliam film. Sadly, the computer graphics are not quite up to the mark of the rest of the film -- where the costuming, makeup, and sets are fantastic, the CGI monsters are often laughably cheesy.
“The Brothers Grimm” also suffers from the classic Gilliam flaw: you have to let yourself get swept up in the story and not question the world’s rules too much. Nearly anything goes when there’s magic involved, and although there is clearly a system to the way the magic works in this film, it is never explained. The basic fairy tale rules are followed, though. The wicked are punished, the good who fall from grace are given a chance to redeem themselves, and the winners live happily ever after.
“The Brothers Grimm” is an odd film, a very Gilliamesque film, and while it won’t be to everyone’s taste, it might just satisfy those with the peculiar worldview to which Terry Gilliam caters.
Directed by: Wes Craven
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Rachel McAdams, Brian Cox
Rated: PG-13 for some intense sequences of violence, and language.
Parental Notes: This is a solid PG-13 thriller with action, suspense, and good-looking leads. There's some violence, and while it's not especially graphic, it is rather creepy in spots. "Red Eye" is probably fine for teens and mature preteens.
"Red Eye" suffers from the same issues as a great many films: its premise is almost unutterably stupid. If you set the premise aside, it's fairly good. It has decent acting, a strong heroine, and some good jokes to ease the tension from the main plotline -- but these aren't enough to overcome the ludicrous setup. Overall, whether you'll enjoy the film depends largely on whether you can accept the premise as believable, or at least ignore its implausibility.
The film revolves around two people: Lisa (Rachel McAdams) and Jackson (Cillian Murphy). Lisa works as a manager at a prestigious hotel in Miami, and has been away attending a sudden funeral. On her way back, she meets Jackson, who seems charming at first but soon reveals that he needs her to change a guest's hotel room at her hotel for nefarious reasons. He further informs her that he has an agent standing by to kill her father if she refuses. The rest of the film is taken up with her attempts to foil his dastardly plan.
There is one immediately obvious flaw in this: how is it possible that Lisa is the only one with enough authority to make this change? Furthermore, once we see the nefarious plan in action, it becomes obvious that it would have been just as easy to carry out with the original room assignment. Well, and her father could foil the entire plan by looking out his window, noting the creepy guy in the car across the street, and calling the cops. But then, of course, there wouldn't be much of a movie.
"Red Eye" benefits greatly from its central actors. Murphy is phenomenally creepy as Jackson and McAdams displays plenty of spunk (eventually) as Lisa. Unfortunately, the screenwriters apparently felt it necessary to make sure we were aware that Jackson is really, really evil, so he spouts some very Snidely-Whiplash-style dialogue between sequences where he is genuinely threatening. Still, Murphy makes good use of his icy blue eyes and boyish handsomeness (given a more mature look with some stubble) and although at times his dialog is ludicrous, he never stops exuding menace once he gets going.
Lisa is a welcome surprise in this genre: a woman who starts out in stereotypical "terrified, weeping female" mode but manages to realistically shift gears and start creatively trying to outwit her enemy. The realism comes from a bit of exposition about two-thirds of the way through the film when she tells Jackson a little about her history to try and get him off his guard. It's refreshing to see a woman fighting back competently, though frustrating that coup-de-grace is given to another, male character.
Although the story is based on inanity, Lisa's attempts to save the day are actually very clever. Ranging from hidden messages to a well-timed sneak attack, they are solid things that a regular person might think of if they were moderately intelligent. She also has a great deal of courage once she gets over her initial terror, and that in and of itself is a pleasure to see. Guys get to hog so much of the glory in action/thriller films that it's great to watch a woman do something other than die to provide motivation for the hero.
There's humor to lighten the mood (although, admittedly, some appears unintentional), and overall "Red Eye" is fairly entertaining. However, it is not especially well-crafted and the plot holes will be frustrating to connoisseurs of excellent action/suspense films like "The Fugitive."
Directed by: Paul Provenza
Starring: over 100 comedians, including George Carlin, Robin Williams, Chris Rock, Billy Connoly, Whoopi Goldberg, Eric Idle, Carrot Top, and the editorial staff of The Onion.
Rated: No rating, but clearly intended for adults.
Parental Notes: Parents, take the rating note to heart. This is not a film for kids. Indeed, it's not a film for teenagers either, unless they are incredibly mature. Setting aside the likelihood of any child who sees this movie to tell their own filthy version of the joke at the most inopportune time, most kids won't really understand the point of the film, and so it will bore them. This is a grownups movie.
"The Aristocrats" is a first for this reviewer: it is a film which contains no visual nudity or violence and yet is incredibly obscene. It consists almost entirely of interview footage -- people sitting in chairs or on sofas and chatting about an interesting topic, and yet it also contains descriptions of unspeakably disgusting acts. "The Aristocrats" is about a famous joke, told by comedians for other comedians for decades, and it is not for the faint of heart.
The joke is very simple: someone (usually the whole family but sometimes just a representative of them) walks into a talent agent or booking manager's office and describes a vaudeville act which is absolutely shocking -- the versions told in the film include various forms of excrement, incest, bestiality, and so on. The agent or manager asks the name of the act, and is told it's the Aristocrats. The punch line may seem anticlimactic, but it's generally not the point; the point is to shock the audience as much as possible. That's why the middle part of the joke is left up to the teller. It is, as many people have observed, more about the singer than the song.
Penn Jillette, of the famous magic/comedy/shock team Penn and Teller, and Paul Provenza spent a great deal of time interviewing comedians about the joke. They got them to tell their versions and to discuss it in general -- its humor, history, and variation. For some of those interviewed, the words are unimportant, it's the style: Whoopi Goldberg's variation includes priceless sound effects, Kevin Pollack tells it in a flawless Christopher Walken impression, and the Smothers Brothers get the humor entirely out of their delivery. Indeed, in some cases, the words are barely present: Eric Idle tells a version in gibberish and a Billy the Mime does a silent version. When Bob Saget tells his version (arguably the filthiest in the film), he is interrupted and doesn't even get to the end.
But again, that isn't the point. What makes the joke work is how the audience reacts. "The Aristocrats" is all about the power of words and the part the audience's imagination and emotions play in making a joke effective or ineffective. The original versions of the joke seem almost tame now, and indeed, some of the comedians interviewed suggest that to make it really work these days you have to figure out what people hold sacred and desecrate that -- merely being filthy is fairly common now and is no longer truly offensive.
What is truly offensive these days? It depends greatly on who you ask. There are those who will find even the tame versions of the joke offensive, and those who will find none of the versions in the film shocking. Even the discussion of the joke's effect includes foul language, detailed descriptions of sexual acts, and so on; there are those who will find that horrifying and those who will find it tame.
When this reviewer saw it, much of the audience was howling with laughter, but several people also walked out in disgust. The joke tends to provoke "I can't believe he/she just said that!" laughter rather than "how hilarious!" laughter; it's in the same vein as "South Park," which derives most of its humor from putting surprisingly foul-mouthed kids in unbelievable situations (and indeed, the creators of "South Park" contributed their own animated version of the joke). The joke is not all that funny in and of itself, after all.
As a documentary, "The Aristocrats" has flaws. It cuts too frequently from camera to camera and from person to person; one almost gets the impression that it was edited by a blender. The audio and video quality are towards the home-movie end of the scale. The interview subjects laugh at their own tellings of the joke. And yet, somehow, it works -- provided the subject matter doesn't send you screaming from the theater.
It's a fascinating film for those interested in the power of words and unperturbed by detailed, frank discussions of incredibly filthy things. Those with fine sensibilities or tender ears would do best to stay away. The film is unrated, presumably because it would have been given an NC-17 rating by the MPAA, and the AMC Theaters chain has announced it will not be showing it. That should be a fair indication of how foul the language is here. Unsurprisingly, whether a given person will enjoy this film depends almost entirely on their sense of humor.
Directed by: Jay Chandrasekhar
Starring: Sean Williams Scott, Johnny Knoxville, Willie Nelson, Jessica Simpson, Burt Reynolds
Rated: PG-13 for sexual content, crude and drug-related humor, language and comic action violence.
Parental Notes: Some parents may have concerns with the racial and sexual humor of the film, but overall it's a fairly average PG-13 rating. Not too scary for preteens, but maybe too intense (or too racy) for kids under 10.
There's a certain kind of movie Hollywood seems to specialize in: the big, dumb action flick. Sometimes they rely on awesome effects to hold your attention. Sometimes they rely on unbelievably attractive actors. But sometimes you get the feeling that the actors were just having a grand ol' time making it and kinda hope you'll have as much fun as they did. "The Dukes of Hazzard" is definitely of the last sort. The entire cast is clearly having barrels of fun, and if you can ignore the fact that the film itself is so profoundly stupid as to border on offensiveness, you can have a lot of fun.
The story is straight out of the old show: Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds) has a dastardly plan to make himself rich at the expense of Hazzard county. The Duke boys, Bo (Sean Williams Scott) and Luke (Johnny Knoxville), are a couple of troublemakers who spend their time racing cars (Bo), chasing women (Luke), and delivering their Uncle Jesse's moonshine. The figure out Hogg is up to something and along with their cousin Daisy (Jessica Simpson) and Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson), they set out to stop him. What makes the film so dumb is its insistence on having incredibly moronic predicaments for its characters to get into.
The Duke boys, at various times during the film, pretend to be Japanese (successfully), smoke out with some sorority girls, drive their Confederate-flag-bearing car through a major urban area (where people of various ethnicities and political persuasions see it and react accordingly), get their faces covered with soot so they look like they are wearing blackface while driving said car (you can imagine how well that goes over), and so on. Now, it's clear to us that the boys have their hearts in the right place: they are proud to be Southerners but don't appear to be racist themselves (though the various African-American friends they had in the show are not in attendance in the film). But some of these jokes are so dumb it's hard not to roll your eyes and groan. They bring nothing new to the table.
The movie dances around the idea of Southern racism without really resolving anything, and does the same for sexism: Daisy Duke may not be wearing quite so high-cut shorts as she did on the show, but she's showing a lot more midriff than we saw on TV back then. She can put chauvinists in their place as well as one would hope (as is on display in the trailers for the film) and she even complains about having to flaunt her assets to help out her cousins when they're in jail, but does that kind of self-awareness really keep the film from being sexist?
But we're distracted from these issues by loads of car chases, silly comedy sequences, and some wonderfully dirty jokes courtesy of Uncle Jesse. Every actor in this film has a twinkle in his or her eye, as if to say "look how much fun we're having! We don't mean any harm, naw!" Burt Reynolds in particular is clearly having ten kinds of fun in front of the camera, hamming it up in his white suit and being delightfully wicked.
Ultimately, whether or not the film satisfies is dependent entirely on its audience. If you can let go of your intelligence and just have a ton of fun along with the folks on the screen, you'll have a great time. But if you just can't quite let go of the significance of the Confederate flag or if the objectification of women annoys you, you will probably feel like you're being beaten over the head with a mason jar of moonshine. This is a love it or hate it kind of film, with very little room for a middle ground.
--30--
Directed by: Gary David Goldberg
Starring: John Cusack, Diane Lane, Christopher Plummer, Stockard Channing
Rated: PG-13 for sexual content.
Parental Notes: This is a fairly standard romantic comedy. There's some bawdy material but nothing graphic. Really, the most damage it might do to your children is give them unrealistic expectations in life.
John Cusack is a staple of romantic comedies. Starting with "Say Anything" and running through "Grosse Point Blank," "High Fidelity," and "America's Sweethearts" he's made a significant chunk of his career out of playing men who are utterly perfect except for their odd little neuroses (lack of ambition, mild psychosis, obsessive record collecting, etc). If you like the kinds of romantic comedy John Cusack tends to be in, you will almost certainly enjoy "Must Love Dogs," which has the added bonus of being about a pair of middle-aged lovers who are actually played by middle-aged actors.
The story is standard: girl-meets-boy, girl-loses-boy-due-to-misunderstanding, girl-wins-boy-back. Sarah (Diane Lane) is a recently divorced preschool teacher having trouble getting back on the dating wagon. Her huge family, led by her widower father Bill (Christopher Plummer), tries to get her to go out a bit and one of her sisters puts up a personal ad for her on a website. Sarah gamely goes along with it and goes through a series of dates familiar to anybody who's had any interaction with the online dating scene.
Meanwhile, Jake (John Cusack) is trying to get over being dumped by his wife. He makes racing boats by hand but nobody wants to buy them to race because they're wooden rather than fiberglass ("they don't win," he says, "but they lose beautifully"). Jake refuses to sell a boat to a man who wants to cut it up and hang it on his wall as decoration because he values his creations more than the money he could get for them. He gives internet dating a shot, and when he and Sarah meet sparks fly even though they get off on the wrong foot in classic manner. Their second date goes a lot better, but things can't go too smoothly or there wouldn't be much of a movie; conflict presents itself in the form of Bob (Dermot Mulrooney), the rakishly sexy dad of one of Sarah's students.
Sure, it's formulaic, but that's kind of the point. We don't go see romantic comedies to be surprised by the twists and turns of the plot. They are the movie equivalent of ice cream: sweet, enjoyable, a known quantity, and something of a guilty pleasure. This isn't suspenseful or surprising, it's a charming reinvention of the same story that comes out a dozen (or more!) times a year in slightly different guises.
Where romantic comedies live or die is in their characters. If they're not sufficiently interesting, the film is dead in the water. Fortunately, "Must Love Dogs" has charming characters who are actually middle-aged or older. Bill strings along several senior citizen dates, including the free-spirited Dolly (Stockard Channing) who handles his caddishness with fantastic wisdom. So what if we've seen these "quirky but lovable" folks a hundred times? The characters are fun, the dialog is sweet, and it's refreshing to see forty-year-old actors playing forty-year-old characters, not to mention a pair of over-sixty actors playing a romantic couple.
The only significant flaw in "Must Love Dogs" is that the film degenerates into pure clichés for the last 10 minutes or so, as though the filmmakers were trying to make sure they included as many as possible. Sure, romantic comedies are clichéd in and of themselves, but do we really need that many typical moments jammed into that short a span of time? Fortunately, the rest of the film leading up to that is standard John Cusack romantic comedy fare: charming, sweet, a bit quirky, and solid as a love story. There isn't much new to see here, but then, that's why we keep coming back, isn't it?