Gone Baby Gone (Dvd) - Both

I have picked this movie up from Blockbuster at least two times. Jennifer and I could never bring ourselves to watch it. I’m not really sure why, but I think it has to do with the same magical force that does not allow us to watch all of our tivoed episodes of Law & Order. I think you just have to be in the mood for a crime drama.

The remaining paragraphs contain major spoilers so don’t read it if you don’t want the ending or the plot revealed, but then go watch it. It is certainly worth the four dollar rental charge.

Gone Baby Gone is a tale told in two acts. The separation from each act is so clean that it is almost two distinct tales. Kenzie (Casey Affleck) is a straitlaced private detective in a suburb of Boston, Mass. He is hired by the aunt of a young girl who has been kidnapped. The mother of the girl, the deservedly Oscars nominated Amy Ryan, replays her view of the kidnapping. This tale involves child negligence and indifference to the girls well being, she is presented as a wholly unfit mother. While pursuing the kidnapped child Kenzie joins forces with the detective on the case, Remy (Ed Harris). The two uncover a drug trafficking ring which the young girl’s mother seems tied to and they attempt to retrieve the girl. This plan goes sour and the first act ends with the victims death. As the second act progresses it slowly is revealed that Remy, the detective on the case, and the Uncle of the girl, played the by fabulously mustached Titus Welliver, are somehow tied to the kidnapping and the act of the victims botched retrieval was a lie. The little girl is still alive – hidden from the public. This kidnapping was never a drug-related act but an uncle’s act of salvation for the young girl. The uncle believes that the child would be better off outside of the mother’s reach. These details give the audience a dilemma and as Affleck’s character draws closer to the girls location the audience is seemingly forced to make a choice. Would you want a child to be reunited with a mother who barely wants her and who’s negligence has already put the child’s life at risk, or would you want the child to be raised by absolute stranger’s albeit well meaning absolute strangers? The obvious answer for the viewer, in my opinion, is to allow the girl to remain kidnapped and leave her alone. Affleck’s character cannot seem to allow this to happen though. Previously in the film Affleck’s character is given the chance to kill a child molester after stumbling into his den of iniquity and he takes his opportunity. The audience and the cops praise his character for performing this act of pesticide. However, Affleck’s character hates himself for this act. He feels he is morally repugnant for his impetus. And as the conundrum of leaving the girl be or reuniting her with her mother is presented he chooses the latter. Is this the morally correct choice? It certainly is the legally correct choice. And this is the brilliance of this film. After it ended I turned to Jennie and we discussed our particular views on the outcomes, did the child molester deserve death, should Affleck leave the girl with the well meaning family?

This being Ben Affleck’s first successful venture into film’s in a while it seems his course is laid out for him. He is an impressive director with a surefooted feel for Boston and its people. His script wasn’t dumbed down and provoked genuine discussion after the film.

8 out of 10: a well made crime drama that elicits a response. Ben Affleck should keep his seat behind the camera.

Revolver (Dvd) - Ashleigh

There has been a lot of bad press about this movie. A lot of it centers around the fact that with this film Guy Ritchie unsuccessfully tries to go back to his staple, gangster flicks, after laying the goose egg Swept Away (2002) starring his horrible wife. Still more of it points out the fact that a movie that was released in Britain in 2005 and took more than three years to come out in America (it went straight to DVD and came out last week on March 18, 2008) is not a good sign for the quality of a film. Still more of it focuses on the fact that this Kabbalah-centric film is too serious and too complicated for anyone to enjoy.

I must admit, I agree with all of these sentiments. But to make a short story long: After hearing, over three years ago, that Jason Statham would be returning to work with Ritchie I was elated.

A side note: I, like most twenty year olds, love Snatch (2000) and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). I own about fourteen movies and these two are privileged enough to be part of my collection. I don’t feel it is necessary to purchase movies for repeat viewings as I rarely view a movie more than once; the miniscule cases that I do actually watch a movie more than once, I purchase it. So, having these films in my library is a unique situation, thus as you can understand, I couldn’t wait for Revolver to jump the pond.

So, I waited. And waited. And eventually forgot. But, the other day while traipsing through the local Blockbuster Revolver stared back at me. I looked to my wife for the oh-crap-I’m-going-to-have-to-watch-this-aren’t-I look - it was there, but she approved! Jennie and I quickly exchanged our Project Runway season 3: Disc 3 from Blockbuster Online and hurried home. I had heard everything that was bad about this film, but I didn’t want to believe it. I tried to think that maybe people just didn’t like that he had made English Gangster Flick 3, because, as we can all admit here, Lock, Stock and Snatch are basically the same film. And if that were the case, if Ritchie had simply made another English Gangster movie I would have been happy. I tried to dismiss the critics. I thought maybe it took this long to cross the pond because Ritchie was unhappy with the packaging. Maybe, just maybe, this movie was so awesomely complicated that not many people got it and the film was waiting to be cracked open like an egg till all the juices flowed out. But, it was an egg alright, a horribly stinky rotten egg.

The movie centers around Jake Green (Jason Statham) who is told, after being released from prison, that he has three days before he dies, they don’t really bother to tell you what aliment he has. He is forced to work for gangsters who are extorting two other gangsters. There is a lot of money involved, people get shot, chess is talked about, and Statham seemingly gets existentially duped. I can’t even really describe why this movie was so awful but I will attempt to. There seems to be no motivation for Statham’s character to work with the first set of gangsters, he just simply starts working for them. Their motivation is also seemingly lost on me as they start a war between two other factions of gangsters for no reason. Why they do this and what they get from it - well, it turns out that they are figments of Jake’s imagination cooked up to force Jake trough the existential ringer. The worst part of this film comes in the form of a long monologue about how the only real con is the one that each individual portrays to himself, namely “I am me” and “me is greed”. This, according to Jake Green, is the biggest con of them all. Guy Ritchie attempts to show this inner struggle with an annoying shoutfest between Statham, Statham, and Statham. Using fast edits and overlapping tracks he attempts to create this dizzying fight between the ego and the I. And, I guess, the real Jake Green wins? But really did I care? The film ends and as the credits role Ritchie shows interviews with psychologists who wax philosophically about the greatest trick we play on ourselves is thinking “I am me.”

3 out of 10: Yes, it is as bad as you have heard, the only redeeming item would be particular shots which were chosen and shot to perfection.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Theatre) - Jennie & Matt

This film chronicles a hectic day for a recently out of work nanny who finds herself waltzed into the breezy life of an up-and-coming actress. Miss Pettigrew (Frances Mcdormand) fibs her way into becoming Delysia Lafosse’s (Amy Adams) social secretary after being fired from her previous nanny job. We are directed to believe that Delysia’s life is a whirlwind of men, sex, and stardom, but we are shown that this is all a lie and she is actually a poor girl from New York just trying to make in this world. This farce leads to a love quadrilateral that ends with the guy with the heart of gold getting Amy Adams. And on the way Miss Pettigrew finds love, the ability to smoke cigars, and a bite to eat.

If this all sounds very simple and somewhat stale I can understand that. But this movie was going for that 1960’s whimsy. It felt very much like Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) to me, in that oddly paced, wacky-love-winning-the-day kind of way. The problem is it didn’t go far enough. Back in 2003 Renee Zellweger and Ewan Mcgregor starred in a 1960s style farce called Down with Love (2003). This film took that style and ran with it, campy couches and all. I feel like Miss Pettigrew was attempting to compete with this but didn’t fully commit. Where Down with Love had the lame puns and the absurd misunderstandings, Miss Pettigrew wanted to find a middle ground, maybe to make it more relevant to today’s audience. This, however, makes Miss Pettigrew feel just a little bit stale and not fully confident with what it was trying to do.

I also feel compelled to add that Jennie, my wife, thoroughly enjoyed this movie. She particularly enjoyed Lee Pace, the entirely delightful lead from Pushing Daisies. She believes him to be her new celebrity crush. I'm not entirely sure how this effects the film, but I will admit he is particularly dreamy in this film, so there's that.

5 out of 10: A fun film, but Down with Love would scratch the itch in a much more satisfying way if you had both to choose from.

Funny Games (Theatre) - Ashleigh & Matt

The previews for this film make Funny Games out to be another torture porn movie that attempts to make the audiences squeamish with close-ups of dismemberment and murder. However, this is not an altogether accurate portrait that has been painted. Funny Games shows no actual violence on screen (other than one hit with a golf club to the knee). In fact, if it weren’t for the psychologically violent scenes this movie would be rather tame when compared with Hollywood’s recent fascination with blood and guts. And, this is to say nothing of the most fascinating aspect of this film.

The film begins with a mundane scene; a top down shot contains a family vehicle that is making its way to its summer house. George (Tim Roth) and Anne (Naomi Watts) are playing "guess the composer" as their son Georgie (Devon Gearhart) and his dog sit and listen. The strings ebb and flow along with George’s incorrect answer to Anne’s choice of symphony in their game and the whole family smiles, a happy upper-class family. A jarring scream rips through the theatre as John Zorn and Yamantaka Eyes replaces the peaceful classical music George and Anne are listening to and the title card is shown, the family continues to smile as the animalistic shrieks bleat through the theatre's sound system – truly an offsetting scene. The family reaches their distention and the games begin. Michael Pitt and his creepy, puffed-out-version-of-Leonardo-Dicaprio-self plays a disturbing ringmaster to the family circus that is about to take place and his companion Peter, played by the equally creepy and unibrowed Brady Corbet, begins the action with a seemingly neighborly request to borrow eggs. The boys use this ploy to eventually escalate an argument with George Sr. This argument ends in George slapping one of the boys and seemingly in retaliation the boys attack George with a golf club, again the only real violence shown on screen. As things progress Peter and Paul take the family into the living room and prepare them for the game they are about to play. Paul makes a bet with the family that they will not live to see the next morning. The family is eventually murdered one-by-one and by nine a.m. Peter and Paul take the family’s boat to another pier and knock on the door. They ask the neighbor who answers if they could borrow some eggs.

The unique twist of this film is Paul knowledge of the theatre’s audience. He “breaks the forth wall” multiple times either to goad the audience or to explain to Peter why different methods of murdering are more entertaining to the audience watching the film. If the son remains alive, argues Paul, then the drama will be more intense. The director of the film uses the usual tricks that horror films evoke and dismisses them just as easily. Case in point, the films sets up that a knife has been accidently left on board the boat, but when the murders take the last surviving family member out to the boat and a last chance effort at survival for the family member could be made, Paul and Peter simply take the knife and throw it overboard in an anticlimactic snub to the theatre audience wanting some sort of justice for the dead family members. As an audience member it is believed that evil will be triumphed over by the end of the film, or at least some sign of retribution will be present by the last frame and Funny Games does not deliver on this and as Peter and Paul point out by the end of the film, this is not usual. Haneke, the director, peppers this device in just the right amount. But, I did have one problem with Haneke’s methods. At one point in time Paul rewinds the film in an attempt to undo some action he deems unsatisfactory. I felt that that was a little too much in terms of meta-entertainment. But overall I loved the self-aware shtick. The soundtrack was delightfully stark causing scenes as innocuous as borrowing eggs to have an edge. And the performances by the actors were brilliant; I believe Pitt was born to play Paul. I don't really understand why Haneke felt like he had to recreate his 1997 thriller, but I enjoyed the effort.

8 out of 10: a delightful addition to a tired genre, dare I say, a new Psycho?

Howard the Duck (OnDemand) - Matt

I have to explain why this movie is even on this list. Notice, this is a Matt pick. Matt Siblo, brother and consistent contributor to this blog’s comments page, is visiting me this weekend as a surprise by my lovely wife and himself.
Now, last time Matt and I visited each other we watched six movies in two days. We love to do this: eat bad food, watch movies, and discuss them. Occasionally other topics sneak in, but these are rare occasions and often happen on the way to a movie. So, when we arrived back home from picking Matt up from the airport and Matt asked to view our offerings OnDemand the pickings were slim. So, Howard the Duck was chosen.

Howard T. Duck lives on a planet inhabited by anthropomorphized ducks whose civilization apparently evolved exactly as ours did; only ducks were the dominant species. Their civilization even has duck related media. This leads to such mallard-enhanced naming schemes as Playduck and Indiana Duck. After a hard day at work Howard sits in an easy chair and is instantly transported through a wormhole. He lands in Cleveland, Ohio and waddles out into our world where he is gawked at as he is a 3 foot walking talking duck. After getting thrown out of a punk rock club, I’m not sure how he got there; he is witness to Lea Thompson’s character’s potential rape. Howard comes to the rescue, I guess, by distracting them enough to be browbeaten by a 3-foot water fowl and a punk rock version of Marty Mcfly’s mom. Beverly, Lea Thompson’s poorly named character, almost instantly feels sorry for the poor mallard alien and asked if he wants to come over. This leads to a series of odd happenings that added to the running time of this movie and culminate in a very awkward scene in which Beverly seduces Howard. Matt and I were turning away from the T.V. at this point as no amount of Lea Thompson nakedness could make us stomach the idea of a duck and a woman. Eventually, this is broken up by scientists who break into Beverly’s house and tell Howard they were the reason he was brought here and they can get him home. This is about at the forty-five minute mark of an hour and a half duck movie so Matt and I were confused at how a resolution to this farce could take another forty-five minutes of our lives. Sadly, it could. Here is the fast version: Howard is brought to a facility where he was pulled down by some tractor beam, but as he arrives something has gone horribly wrong and another being has been brought back, but not from the duck-verse! It turns out it is a demon from some unknown demon-verse who possess a scientist and plans to take over the earth! The cops show up! Everyone runs! Howard gets separated from Beverly and this leads to a fifteen minute scene in which Howard flies an ultralight (a very small aircraft that looks like a hang-glider)! Howard kills the demon and destroys the tractor beam now he can’t get home! Beverly and her band play a monster gig rocking the song “Howard the duck”!

So, to say this is a waste of time is an understatement. An hour in Matt was pleading me to fast forward but I claimed that for the honesty of this blog I must watch the whole movie. Matt did this several times, but I refuted his pleas. This movie was far too long. Multiple scenes were pointlessly added and the ending took thirty minutes from my life which I could have used to brush up on my duck puns. This seems on par for George Lucas, who has done his best to hide this mallardy (yeah thats right, a duck pun), and hasn’t done something relevant since Last Crusade. But, Based on the premise of this movie I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. However, when the execution on a 37 million dollar project is this bad it is a thing to watch. 37 million-1980-dollars that is insane to think about. Matt and I weren’t entirely sure who this movie was even marketed to as it was too racy for 1986 kids to see (there were duck boobs), but the premise was too stupid for anyone else to see. The score, which was written by Academy Award winning composer John Barry, seemed out of place in this tottery world of ducks and Lea Thompson. But, it did help remind me of films like Flight of the Navigator (1986) and The Explorers (1985) which contained science fiction with a starkly family feel. So, maybe it did have some sort of audience that it thought it could cater to, but they were obviously misguided in thinking this film would reach anyone as this film eventually became known as a clausal bomb.

2 out of 10: bloated, overly long, and poorly executed, though some fun can be garnered from mocking it.