El Orfanato

In his follow-up to Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro proves once again that he is a master of imagination and visual wonder. The only catch? He didn't direct this time, just produced. He banked on newcomer Juan Antonio Bayona to helm the project, which proved to be wise. He captured the same visual scope of Pan's Labyrinth, but instead created a more traditional thriller. The Orphanage walks a thin line between a drama and a horror movie.

Belen Rueda plays Laura, a woman who grew up in an orphanage. As an adult she returned there with her husband, Carlos (Fernando Cayo) and adopted son Simon (Roger Princep), to open a home for special needs children. Strange things start happening when Simon begins to make invisible friends- friends from Laura's past. Things get stranger when Simon goes missing, and Laura begins to believe what he was seeing. Giving in to this madness, however, may be the only way to find her son.

Sometimes it's difficult to analyze the performances in a foreign language film. You're focused on the subtitles so you don't get all the subtle nuances of the performers. The good movies (The Orphanage included) somehow manage to make you forget that you are reading, and you almost begin to understand what they are saying. Princep gives a fantastically creepy performance, and Rueda is powerful. Cayo's character, Carlos, however, is a little flat, resting on an upsetting indifference towards everything that's going on around him.

The movie is much scarier than Pan's Labyrinth, but a much easier scare as well. It relies on some stilted scare tactics (dark shapes moving in front of the camera, etc), and a motif of creaking sounds and children's voices. I found myself tense for the entire movie, sort of like a Spanish language The Shining. Normally I would appreciate this, but there was much more here than just a scary movie. There were some very emotional parts that were over-shadowed because I knew something scary was going to happen. Beneath all these thrilling moments there is the story of Laura's undying love Simon, her desire to find him at any cost, and her need to make peace with her past. These were powerful, but were buried because you can't focus on this when something is standing in the dark corners in every shot.

It's interesting to see the visual magnificence tied to the rather dark story-line. Everything is big and gray, making the characters themselves seem very small. Everything, the visuals and the sounds, contribute to making this a sad movie. Don't worry, it's not nearly as sad as the ending of Pan's Labyrinth, and except for one scene, not nearly as graphic either.

3.5/5

Golden Globe Winners

Best film (drama): Atonement

Best film (musical or comedy): Sweeney Todd

Best director – film: Julian Schnabel - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Best actor (drama): Daniel Day Lewis - There Will Be Blood

Best actress (drama): Julie Christie - Away from Her

Best actor (musical or comedy): Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd

Best actress (musical or comedy) : Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose

Best supporting actor: Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men

Best supporting actress: Cate Blanchett - I'm Not There

Best foreign language film: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (France and US)

Best animated feature film:

Best screenplay: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen - No Country for Old Men

Best original score: Dario Marianelli - Atonement

Best original song: Guaranteed - Into the Wild

Best series (drama): Mad Men
Best series (musical or comedy): Extras
Best mini-series or film made for TV: Longford
Best actor (drama): Jon Hamm - Mad Men
Best actor (musical or comedy): David Duchovny - Californication
Best actor (mini-series or film made for TV): Jim Broadbent - Longford
Best actress (drama): Glenn Close - Damages
Best actress (musical or comedy): Tina Fey - 30 Rock
Best actress (mini-series or film made for TV): Queen Latifah - Life Support
Best supporting actor (mini-series or film made for TV): Jeremy Piven - Entourage
Best supporting actress (mini-series or film made for TV): Samantha Morton - Longford

Not exactly (or at all) as I had predicted. We'll see how the Oscars shape up.

One Missed Call

This is the worst Japanese remake yet- yes, it's even worse than Pulse. The original, "Chakusin ari" spawned 2 sequels, a made for TV movie, and now the American remake. Bare in mind, this was all within five years. I hope Chakusin ari was better than One Missed Call, because I could not imagine this piece of horror dung leading to sequels and remakes.

It takes advantage of that new-fangled technology- the cell phone. The premise is simple. You get a phone call and hear your own death. The catch is that the phone calls are coming from other characters- after they are already deceased. The voice mails are dated from the future, signifying the day and time when the recipients will die. So in essence, dead characters are calling (via the future) and leaving voice mails of the deaths of the people they are calling. I hope it's not just me, but none of this adds up. It's like there's just no concept of any sort of continuity.

Let's add into this muddled a mess a detective (played by Edward Burns) dead set on believing this supernatural nonsense that he does everything he can to protect the main character, Beth Raymond (Shannyn Sossaman), from...her phone. Wait, it gets even better. Let's also throw in an exorcism on national television.

One Missed Call follows the Japanese tradition of the vengeful spirit. This theme was tackled so well in Ju On and Ringu (The Grudge and The Ring). Apparently spirits don't adapt very well to technology. I think that this may have been one of the difficult aspects of this movie. In the Ring, the spirit travels via a VHS tape- a medium already out of date by the time the movie was made. This made spirit seem older and creepier. With these spirits zipping around through cell-phones, it loses this mystique.

Don't worry about the movie not making much rational sense- the characters do a fine job of saying exactly what they're thinking, and exactly what's happening. Watch it with your eyes closed and you won't miss a thing. And even if you have trouble following it, that's okay too. The last fifteen minutes throw any resemblance of reality out the window as the movie descends into idiotic randomness. I will say one good thing about the movie, though. The ring-tone they used was creepy as hell. I need to get it.

0/5

Year end roundup

I meant to do this...well...before the new year, but I wasn't exactly sure what to write about- so I'm a little late. As it is, I'm completely making this up as I go along.

I guess standard would be to talk about the best and worst of the year. Now, there are still a number of movies I haven't seen, so this clearly isn't definitive- and as always, I appreciate comments.

The Best:

I'm certainly not in the minority on this category. No Country For Old Men is certainly near the top for me. Though I haven't seen it yet, There Will Be Blood looks promising to be one of the best. One movie I know that won't get any consideration, but would put up there among the best is Once. As for the actual best picture of the year, I'd have to point to American Gangster. It just features everything that one comes to expect out of a best picture movie.

As for acting, I'm terrible in this category. All I can say is that I felt Don Cheadle hands down gave the best performance of the year.

When it comes to comedy, Judd Apatow owned 2007. Knocked Up was one of the funniest movies of the year, and Superbad was the absolute funniest movie I have seen so far this decade. It's a shame Walk Hard was so bad.

I saw a number of interesting documentaries. The First Saturday in May about the Kentucky Derby was very interesting. But for the best documentaries is would be a battle between Jonestown: The Life and Death of the People's Temple (the terrifying piece on Jim Jones) and The King Of Kong (the Donkey Kong documentary making nerdy cool).

The best animation of the year will go to Ratatouille is only because of Pixar's slight last year. Bee Movie and The Simpsons Movie, however were also rather good- much better than Shrek 3. The best animation of the year, however, is Persepolis- a French animation about a young Iranian girl.

The Worst:

Not much to say about this. I've only given away four 0/5's ever. These were Black Christmas, The Hitcher, Daddy Day Camp, and Bratz. All four of these were among the worst of the year (even though Black Christmas was actually last year). Close in the running, however, would also be Captivity and 30 Days of Night.

As for next year, there are certain movies I am rather excited about. I've bought into all the hype about Cloverfield, and am going to be there with bells on. In February will be Michel Gondry's new comedy: Be Kind Rewind. The Summer will bring us the new Indiana Jones movie, the next Chronicles of Narnia installment, and the high budget Speed Racer and Iron Man. None of these seem to thrill me too much. What does thrill me, however, is Wall-E (obviously cause it's Pixar) and The Dark Knight. For my dark horse pick, I must choose The Brothers Bloom. This movie about con-men, starring Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, and Mark Ruffalo, is writer/director Rian Johnson's follow-up to Brick (possibly my favorite movie of 2005).

There you have it, my quick recap of 2007, and my outlook on 2008.

Juno

Juno finally came to Savannah, so I made sure to catch the first showing. It's already garnered quite a buzz, being nominated for 3 Golden globes (movie, screenplay, and actress). Though it was quite good, I don't think it'll have the same success of last year's Little Miss Sunshine, or the painfully long lasting cultural integration of Napoleon Dynamite.

Juno is the story of a pregnant high-school student, giving up the child for adoption. It was advertised as a dark comedy, but don't be misled by this. Though it was filled with a wide array of funny lines, the vast majority of the characters are in general very sad. The jokes are delivered in a manner trying to deal with a hopeless situation. As the saying goes- if you don't laugh, you'd cry.

Ellen Page stars as the movie's title character. I have been a fan of hers since I saw her in Hard Candy 3 years ago. She's played an unlikely sexual predator, an X-man, and now in the most realistic role, a pregnant teenager. Her character seems to struggle with being an unpopular high-school student, dealing with issues far above her maturity level, and trying to retain a bit of edge. Throw into this volatile mixture the hormones of pregnancy, her relationships with the father, her parents, and the adoptive family, and her attempts understand what love actually is- you get an incredibly complicated character.

The rest of the cast is filled with a collection of some of my favorite actors. Michael Cerra is Paul Bleeker, the father. He had a surprisingly small role in the movie, disappearing almost entirely in the second act. Cerra's Arrested Development co-star Jason Bateman and Jenifer Garner play the adoptive parents. On the surface they appear to be happy suburban yuppies, but as the movie progresses, we're introduced to the problems that even they have. Finally, Allison Janney and J.K. Simmons play Juno's father and stepmother. They round out the interesting triumvirate of relationships in the movie. They have to, of course, deal with Juno.

Despite being a rather dark subject, with rather depressed characters, there are some funny parts. One of the highlights was Juno's mother berating the ultra-sound technician (a pivotal turning point in their relationship). The problem, however, is that the script was so meticulously crafted, much of it doesn't sound realistic at all. A prime example of this is Rain Wilson's mini-mart managing character shown in the trailers. His lines seemed more Judd Apatow than this more serious movie. Despite the scripted dialog, Page manages to make it seems natural for her character.

The only issues I had with the acting was that many of Juno's lines were delivered in a Napoleon Dynamite inspired deadpan, "I don't give a crap", gravelly voiced manner. If you don't follow, just wait til you see the scene with Juno and Paul's lab partners. I swore I was watching Jon Heder. This method of acting has been done to death by this point, and doesn't really enhance anything. Fortunately Garner's earnest performance, Bateman's morally ambiguous role, and Page's sad vibrato make up for these scripted shortcomings.

4/5

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

It's a shame Judd Apatow had to close 2007 on this rather sour note. Walk Hard reunited Apatow with director/writer Jake Kasdan (The TV Set). Unfortunately after a string of amazing hits this year (Knocked Up, Superbad) and some of the funniest movies over the past several years (40 Year Old Virgin, Ron Burgundy) Walk Hard is just an uninspired parody piece worthy of the "(Insert Genre) Movie" series.

Walk Hard is essentially a straight up parody of the musical biopic. It lampoons everything from Ray to the Doors. Mostly, however, it takes on Walk the Line- the Johnny Cash movie. John C. Reilly stars as Dewey Cox, a country musician who dabbles in about every musical genre while fighting the demons from his childhood. It closely parallels the actual Johnny Cash story, having Cox wrestle with infidelity, drugs, and a disapproving family. The movie may have been better if it hadn't taken the easy route of obvious parody.

The cast is exemplary. Reilly has a long resume of supporting roles, but it felt like he was just trying to channel Will Ferrel this time. Jenna Fisher stars as Darlene (the June Carter character). She hasn't made the best choices in movie roles (Slither, The Brothers Solomon, Blades of Glory) but she can really do no wrong in my eyes. The rest of the cast includes Tim Meadows and Chris Parnell as his band mates, Harold Ramis as a Jewish producer, Frankie Muniz as Buddy Holly, Jack White as Elvis, and Jason Schwartzman, Paul Rudd, Justin Long, and Jack Black as the Beatles. It even includes cameos by Eddie Vedder, Jewel, Lye Lovett, Jackson Browne, and the Temptations. Wow, that is lot of big names in this movie. Somehow it just doesn't add up the sum of its parts. Not even close.

Some parts of the movie were indeed funny. The scene with the Beatles was incredibly funny, complete with Yellow Submarine inspired acid trip. And the scenes with Elvis and Buddy Holly were also very entertaining. Unfortunately for every one of these genuinely funny moments, there were far to many that fell flat. Walk Hard being sampled by a rapper named Lil' Nutzzak? That's right, they wanted to package Cox and Lil' Nutzzak together. Far too many jokes based on his name.

The music was actually really good. Much like Spinal Tap created some truly catchy songs, Walk Hard definitely deserves the best original song nomination it's getting for the Golden Globes. This is a soundtrack I would even consider getting, as it provides a little taste of parody in all kinds of musical styles. Unfortunately, none of this makes the movie live up any where close to Apatow's other movies. He should stick with his original comedies and leave the parody to Jason Friedberg, who's probably working on Scary Movie 5, or Epic Move 2 by this point. Fortunately another string of promising movies by Apatow awaits in 2008.

1.5/5

Alvin and the Chipmunks

This movie was actually better than I was expecting. Even with visual effects master Rhythm and Hues taking care of the animated characters, I was not anticipating too much to come from Tim Hill (director of the reprehensible Garfield 2). I was pleasantly surprised with the Chipmunks. The animals were done with much more care, and I even enjoyed the plot a little.

Jason Lee stars as Dave Seville, a struggling songwriter struggling to find his niche. His problems are solved when he comes across three talking (and singing ) chipmunks. They proceed to simultaneously save Dave's career, and dismantle his life. Much to his chagrin, Dave begins to fall for Alvin (Justin Long), Theodore (Jesse McCarthy), and Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler), and think of them as family. Things go awry, however, when their representative from the record company, the villainous Ian (David Cross) manipulates the chipmunks to his own benefit. Don't worry, I didn't give anything away. You can see this coming within the first ten minutes.

This is, of course, a children's movie, so don't expect much in the way of plot or character development. But surprisingly, you don't have to sit through an hour and a half of awful, awful gags. The previews did not do a fair job marketing this movie. Those made it seem like the premise of the movie was "ha ha, they're chipmunks and they're acting like people." You begin to not even think of them as chipmunks, but as children. This is in part due to the focus places more them as characters, and in part due to the wonderful animation.

The horribly modulated voice acting was the part of the movie that really started to bug me. One thing that remained true to the original chipmunks was the painfully high pitched voices. Dennis DeYoung would be jealous. I don't suppose it would have been right to update the voices when they're already making them a sort of boy band. I just wish they could have been done better.

I found myself debating back and forth about whether they made the right decision about combining live action and animation, or whether it should have been done with pure animation. I think it could have been better with pure animation (god knows Underdog would have been) but they did a fairly decent job seamlessly incorporating the animation into the live action. Part of it may have been because they made the chipmunks look more like actual chipmunks than cartoons (as opposed to the bright orange blob that was Garfield).

I'm always amazed at how the perennially crude David Cross gets cast in family friendly movies. I laugh at every role he plays, though. Come to think of it, Jason Lee, nor Justin Long seem like logical choices for their respective roles. Lee plays the role really straight forward without investing too much in his performance. He's really not the star of the show, and you don't go into children's movies expecting award winning performances anyway. And as for the other three, they're voices are so heavily altered the performances are kind of lost.

This movie isn't a marvelous movie by any stretch of the imagination. It doesn't try to be. Nor is the worst of its kind. It's a mildly fun, well animated children's movie. That's all it is, and don't expect anything more.

2.5/5