Tag Archives: Chris Pandolfi

Transit
Jun 14 2012

Transit (2012)

Nate (Jim Caviezel) is an ex-con who served eighteen months in prison for real estate fraud. In an attempt to reconcile with his wife and two sons, he drives them from Texas to Louisiana, where the plan was to have a camping trip in a remote area. The car ride is strained, to say the least. The worst offender is the oldest son, Shane (Sterling Knight), who has headphones permanently lodged in his ears and holds a grudge as only an angry teenager can. Little do any of them know that four robbers ransacked an armoured truck the night before and got away with $4 million in cash; knowing that they would immediately be spotted by a police roadblock, they stashed the money in a sleeping back on top of Nate’s SUV, fully intending to get it back once everyone got through the blockade.

Transit is a straightforward yet engrossing crime thriller, one that speaks the language of suspense so fluently that we willingly overlook some glaringly implausible technicalities. Although it relies a little too much on stylized action violence, especially during the final confrontation in a swamp shack, they are at the very least entertaining to watch. But to be perfectly honest, what I responded to more was the fact that Nate gets exactly what he wants, albeit in a much different way than he had planned. This traumatic experience unites the family in a way that a camping trip just wouldn’t have been able to do. Had the trip not been interrupted, had they made it to their destination and set up camp, the healing process would have been much slower, if not altogether stalled. Essentially, they’re brought back together through their mutual will to survive.

Adding considerable intrigue is that fact that, although we know him to be innocent, Nate’s wife, Robyn (Elisabeth Rohm), initially believes that he was somehow involved in stealing the money, and that he knows the people who are chasing them. When Robyn angrily leaves Nate on the side of the road with the bag full of cash, he tries to gain the upper hand by wading into the swamp and hiding the bag in a hollow tree. He’s soon found by the real criminals, as are Robyn and her children. The game becomes much more dangerous when Nate goes back to retrieve the bag, only to discover that it’s missing. Who could have taken it? Perhaps it was a man riding a motorboat, who casually passed not long after Nate first entered the swamp. But how could this man have seen anything that was happening, given the thick foliage? The film doesn’t’t attempt to answer this question, but I suppose it doesn’t’t really matter.

As the robbers attempt to extract information from Nate and his family, they engage in their own internal power struggle. One of them, Losada (Harold Perrineau), believes the ring leader, Marek (James Frain), should not be the one in charge. In fact, he believes that Marek’s girlfriend, Arielle (Diora Baird), has done nothing but slow them down. For Marek, this is clearly not about money so much as it is about power; at one point, he tells Arielle that he won’t lose to this man, which is to say that he will not let some random husband and father outsmart him. Even the getaway driver, the exasperated Evers (Ryan Donowho), is clearly afraid of Marek, at one point telling Nate to watch his back. Nate cleverly uses the tension between Losada and Marek to his advantage, although it only works just long enough to let him and his family escape.

There will inevitably be a violent, frenetic final confrontation. I can’t say that I was surprised by anything that happened. After all, that’s sort of how movies like this tend to be structured. Nevertheless, I did appreciate the technical aspects, namely the performances, the editing, the lighting, the choreography, and the tension. I also appreciated the fact that, although this film has its fair share of violence, it never once devolves into a sadistic bloodbath. This is true even when Losada chops off one of Nate’s fingers on the side of the road. I won’t say which finger he lost; I will say that it factors into the final shot of the film, one that seems threatening but is in fact the start – or, rather, the restart – of something good.

This movie is by no means groundbreaking in story or execution. It is, however, a competently made thriller that kept me involved from the first scene to the last. It has good casting, a decent screenplay, and plenty of suspense. It also has what I believe to be a compelling examination of a broken family on the road to healing. Sometimes it takes a lot more than a vacation to close wounds; it takes being thrust into an extraordinary situation and working towards getting out of it. It could even be argued that it’s the best way to determine how deep someone’s love truly runs. One could easily dissect the premise to find all the ways in which it couldn’t’t actually happen, but for goodness sake, that’s what suspension of disbelief is for. If you grant its assumptions, Transit will provide you with solid entertainment.

Written by Chris Pandolfi

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Safe
Jun 12 2012

Safe (2012)

Is it just me, or are these Jason Statham action films becoming harder and harder to tell apart? They say to go with what you know, but blast it all, I need to know if this man is capable of something other than fight choreography and witty one-liners. Safe is yet another film that exploits his physicality and completely ignores his potential for actual acting. On the basis of just about every movie he has ever been in, filmmakers don’t regard him as an artist but merely as a tool – the go-to guy for mindless stunts and relentless action violence. Is this because real acting isn’t his forte? If that’s the case, fine, but please have the decency to let me know this. Cast him in a role he’s unqualified for and let me watch him fail. At least then I can finally stop questioning the extent of his range.

Unfortunately, Statham’s typecasting is only part of what makes this movie so bad. Safe weaves a needlessly convoluted tale of crime and corruption, which is to say that audiences seeking the kind of cheap thrills Statham is known for are unlikely to make heads or tails of who’s doing what to whom and why. When we’re not trying to muddle our way through the plot, we must endure scene after scene of gun-pointing and shooting and brutal hand-to-hand combat, most of which are over so quickly and edited with such rapid-fire pacing that it’s virtually impossible to distinguish one move from another. At which point did cinematic action fall victim to such mobility extremes? If it isn’t in agonizing slow motion, then it’s cut together like a frenetic music video. Middle ground seems to have disappeared somewhere along the way.

The plot, as it were, involves a former NYPD cop named Luke Wright (Statham), who was at one time involved in a task force specializing in the assassination of terrorists. Ashamed of his actions, he took to being a cage fighter in New Jersey. During one of the matches, he didn’t take the dive he was supposed to take and ended up putting his opponent in a coma. He also got himself in hot water with Russian mobsters, who punished him by murdering his wife. Rather than kill him as well, they decree that he must live the rest of his days as an outcast of society; anyone he comes into contact with will immediately be killed. He spends the next year living as a vagrant in New York City, acting coldly to anyone that speaks to him. In a moment of weakness, he gave a homeless man his shoes. Any guesses as to what happened next?

As this is being established, and I should point out that the opening scenes are played out of sequence, we meet a twelve-year-old Chinese girl named Mei (Catherine Chan), whose savant-like math skills catch the attention of a ruthless mobster named Han Jiao (James Hong). He has his henchmen kidnap her and, under threat of murdering her gravely ill mother (conveniently unseen), transport her to New York, where she will keep track of all the illegal rackets going on in Chinatown. She’s eventually given an unbelievably long number written on a piece of paper and instructed to memorize it. She does so instantaneously. She was to have been given a second number, but Russian mobsters intervened – which is to say, they crashed their vehicles into those of the Chinese henchmen, shot most of them, and kidnapped Mei. It isn’t long before she escapes and crosses paths with Luke, who was about ready to commit suicide by jumping onto subway rails.

The confusion over the connection between the Russians and the Chinese is maddening. It only gets worse when it’s revealed that both are tied to a group of corrupt cops, all of whom have a serious grudge against Luke. They waste no time in showing it; he’s arrested and driven to a quiet area of the city, at which point they all take their turns beating the living hell out of him. But let’s get back to Luke and Mei crossing paths. For reasons not made apparent to the audience, Luke’s paternal instincts kick in, and he vows to keep her safe. Mei, who speaks fluent English without a trace of an accent, tells him about the numbers she had to memorize. He deduces that hidden within the numbers is a code. It’s around this time that yet another sub-plot is added to the mix, this one involving the Mayor (Chris Sarandon). There’s also more fighting and a lot of Luke taking control through lies and manipulation.

Putting aside the plot altogether, there’s absolutely nothing about the relationship between Luke and Mei that comes off as genuine. One essentially acts as a deus ex machina for the other, their situations contrived solely for the purpose of having the two paired together. It doesn’t help that Statham and Chan have no chemistry; never once do their characters exhibit anything resembling a pseudo father-daughter bond, or even basic friendship. Is this the sign that I was looking for, the one that would let me know that Statham is indeed a bad actor and only good for brutal stunt work? Or is it merely a matter of bad writing and directing? I honestly don’t know. I can’t even tell if Safe was intended to be taken seriously, given the awkward mix of cringe-inducing violence and flippant dialogue. This movie is a gigantic mess.

Written by Chris Pandolfi

Red ails large
Jun 10 2012

Red Tails (2012)

Red Tails is caught in a fatal tug-of-war between two narrative approaches. On one side, we have serious drama; the film is an historical account of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first ever group of African American fighter pilots to serve the United States military during World War II. On the other side, we have a stylistic homage; it’s a generic war movie rife with threadbare clichés, some lightweight, some melodramatic, all of it dated and hopelessly predictable. Perhaps if someone had come to a decision as to which film they wanted to make, there might have been something to get out of it. Had I been executive producer George Lucas, who invested an estimated $100 million of his own money into its budget and promotion, I would have opted for a more serious approach.

That’s because the real life story of the Airmen is far more compelling than the film-makers give it credit for. During World War II, many African Americans were still subject to degrading Jim Crow laws, and the U.S. military was racially segregated. It took just over twenty years of civil rights advocacy for Congress to pass a law amending the rules that prevented funding for the training of black military pilots. That was in 1939, two years before the formation of the Tuskegee program and five years before the all-black 332nd Fighter Group would be sent overseas to join the 99th Squadron in escorting the Fifteenth Air Force’s bombing raids across Europe. Even then, the War Department stipulated that blacks be put into separate military units and that they be staffed by white officers, who usually prevented them from advancing.

Not much of this background information is explored in Red Tails. It takes place in 1944, after the program had been established. This provides precious little context for audiences unfamiliar with the history of the Airmen. What the film-makers do explore has been filtered through a highly conventional lens, many scenes looking, sounding, and advancing as if they had been lifted straight from a 1950s war movie. At that time, Hollywood would freely indulge in contrivances and stereotypical characters, including the unyielding superior officers, the hotshot young privates, and the poor sons of bitches that would die after revealing their plans to return home to their women. This movie provides us with variations of all of the above. The dialogue, especially during the early combat scenes, was written in the cornball style of a Saturday matinee serial – a mixture of obvious puns, harmless goading, and preachy sermons.

When the issue of racism finally does work its way into the plot, it will immediately be obvious how much it has been simplified and sanitized. Bryan Cranston, for example, plays Col. William Mortamus, an inflexible white bigot who, naturally, speaks in a Southern drawl. He will on a few occasions butt heads with A.J. Bullard (Terrence Howard), a black colonel who correctly points out that his men deserve better than rusty hand-me-down planes. He delivers every line as if giving a child an ultimatum. And then there are the scenes with the Airmen stationed in Italy. The white pilots refuse to give them the time of day until the Airmen do their stuff during the bombing raids; at that point, the white men make the most miraculous and sudden of turnarounds, going so far as to salute the Airmen in broad daylight, inviting them for a round of drinks at the local bar (which they had previously been denied access to), and even shake their hands. If problems were this easy to solve, the world would indeed be a much better place.

Several characters are given their own dramatic situations. There’s friction between best friends Martin “Easy” Julian (Nate Parker) and Joe “Lightning” Little (David Oyelowo). The former likes to do everything according to protocol and masks his resentment of his unseen but nonetheless demanding father with alcohol. The latter is an ace pilot who takes foolish risks, on land and in the air. There’s the kid everyone calls Junior, although he would much prefer the nickname Ray Gun (Tristan Wilds); a bit inexperienced, he will eventually find himself in a POW camp and participating in a great escape with the white inmates. There’s Major Emanuel Stance (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), always with a pipe in his mouth, always having an occasion to deliver a firm but inspirational speech. The film-makers even find time for a soppy romance between Lightning and an Italian woman named Sofia (Daniela Ruah), the circumstances of which would be phony even within the pages of a dime store romance novel. Never mind the fact that they can express their love without knowing the languages they each speak.

For George Lucas, Red Tails was an odyssey, originally conceived of in 1988 but repeatedly postponed due to multiple script rewrites, many attached directors, and its rejection by every major studio because of it’s all-black cast, which they claimed would have made it impossible to market oversees. It’s a project he obviously cared about from the start. And yet … this is the best he could give us? I can give him credit for his trademark display of special effects; the aerial dogfight sequences, some edited in the style of a Star Wars space battle, are nothing short of spectacular. But all the digital wizardry in the world can’t compensate for a screenplay that relies on an inferior plot and one-dimensional characters. How tragic that a very real and very interesting chapter in American history has been marginalized by bad film-making.

Written by Chris Pandolfi

Avengers Assemble
Jun 6 2012

Avengers Assemble (2012)

Marvel’s The Avengers is the eagerly awaited convergence of the Marvel Studios superhero films, starting in 2008 with Iron Man and ending last summer with Captain America: The First Avenger. While it may not be appreciated or understood by those who have not seen the earlier films, and although it relies more on spectacle and less on plot, it’s nevertheless a fun and exciting action extravaganza – a comic book film in every sense. Having recently co-written and produced the highly overrated horror spoof The Cabin in the Woods, writer/director Joss Whedon delivers an entertaining escapist fantasy that’s just as funny as it is pulse-pounding. He also gives us plenty of eye candy, only some of which is enhanced by the film’s presentation in post-conversion 3D.

I have no baggage attached to the various characters or the comic books from which they came, so any potential observations or complaints that this movie is not faithful to its source material will fall on deaf ears. All I can respond to are the stories as they appeared on the big screen. Despite various writers, directors, and stylistic approaches, I’ve been pleased with the results. Even Thor, generally the least liked of the intertwined series, had just enough to earn my seal of approval. The standard was set with Iron Man, which remains the best of the Marvel series and still ranks as one of the greatest superhero films ever made. I think I was right in not expecting The Avengers to top it; it allowed me to enjoy the film for what it is and not for what it should be.

The plot revolves around the teaming of Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), a recently unfrozen Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Dr. Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo, the third actor to assume the role in the last ten years), the thunder god Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and the skilled archer Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) under the supervision of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the director of a covert government organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Essentially, the must save the world from Thor’s evil adoptive brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who plots to subjugate humanity by opening a wormhole and unleashing ruthless alien warriors. To achieve this goal, he must recapture a glowing blue cube known as the Tesseract, a powerful but potentially deadly energy source.

The rest is pretty much just window dressing. We have plenty comic book peril and violence; there’s hand-to-hand combat and laser blasts, exploding air freighters and smashing Hulks, hammering Thors and the devastation of Manhattan, which is essentially the go-to city for glorious destruction. We have floating monstrosities that look like giant eels clad in armour. We have numerous references to the previous Marvel films, including appearances by Gwyneth Paltrow, Clark Gregg, and Stellan Skarsgård (alas, Natalie Portman makes it in only as a portrait on a computer screen). We have mutual distrust amongst the Avengers and Fury’s hidden agenda. We have Loki acting like an arrogant dictator, forcing a large crowd of people to kneel before him. And yes, we even have a cameo appearance by Stan Lee.

Whedon has never been a master of dialogue, although his flippant style is perfectly suited for the Tony Stark character, who has always possessed a biting wit and a natural superiority complex. The rest of the characters sound a bit goofy, although I guess that was the intention. Consider Gregg’s character, Agent Phil Coulson; when he finally meets Steve Rogers in person, he drops his aloof mystique and becomes an excited fan-boy eager to have his collection of Captain America trading cards autographed. This movie proves that visuals have always been Whedon’s strong suit. In the case of The Avengers, he uses them to evoke not only excitement but also a sense of humour; some of the funniest sight gags are reserved for the Incredible Hulk, who truly is only good for smashing things.

Movies like Marvel’s The Avengers are a unique marketing opportunity – a franchise assembled from other franchises that will itself inevitably spawn a new franchise. This is not a criticism, merely an observation. As long as I’m being entertained, it doesn’t matter to me how much a product is packaged, even if it comes within an inch of its life. I was very much entertained. Having said that, I can’t help but wonder how much mileage this series has left. Can five separate films and one convergence adequately serve as the basis for an Avengers sequel? Will the original five inspire any sequels of their own? Story wise, I find myself growing wary. The last thing I want is for all the fun to stop. One of the quickest ways to make that happen is to allow franchises to overstay their welcome.

Written by Chris Pandolfi

Think Like A Man
May 30 2012

Think Like A Man (2012)

So far as I can tell, the intended purpose of Steve Harvey’s book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man was to give women relationship advice from a male perspective, which in turn would help them find the right man. While I have no opinion on his words of wisdom, I do have a thing or two to say about Think Like a Man, a film that injects Harvey’s book into the plot of a romantic comedy. Silly and uninspired, it doesn’t analyze his concepts in plausible, satisfying ways; instead, it applies them to manufactured vignettes in which the men are immature brats and the women are conniving and manipulative. There is no truth to any of the characters in this movie. They serve primarily as comedy relief, goofballs we’re made to laugh at instead of with.

Taking place in Los Angeles, the film is essentially a series of interconnected subplots, all examining relationships between specific categories of men and women. Steve Harvey makes continuous appearances on television screens in homes and bars with the specific purpose of promoting his book; the women, intrigued, all decide to buy a copy and apply whatever advice they glean to the men in their lives. At first, the men are thrown for a loop. Then one of them catches wind of what their women are doing, leading them to buy the book and attempt to beat them at their own game. And so we must wade through an implausible and childish battle of wits before reaching a conclusion so neatly gift-wrapped that it seems to have transplanted from a third-rate sitcom.

Here’s a run-down of the couples featured in this film. There’s a real-estate agent named Kristen (Gabrielle Union) and her boyfriend, Jeremy (Jerry Ferrara), who still hasn’t popped the question after nine years of being with her. Not only is she eager to motivate him apply for a job he’s qualified for, she also wants him to stash his collection of sci-fi memorabilia so that she can redecorate to her heart’s content. This would include getting rid of his couch, which has a colorful history to say the least. There’s Mya (Meagan Good), who’s fed up with one-night stands and decides to try out Harvey’s ninety-day plan on her new boyfriend, Zeke (Romany Malco). This will not be easy for him; a smooth talker who knows all the good pickup lines, he’s an unapologetic lothario with nothing on his mind apart from sex.

There’s a caterer named Dominic (Michael Ealy), who’s known for his lofty dreams. His current dream is to be a chef, and indeed, he has a talent for cooking. Into his life enters Lauren (Taraji P. Henson), a powerful executive who wants a man with a six-figure income and his own sense of power. Desperate to impress her, Dominic tells her that he already is a chef and is deciding between two restaurant offers. And then there’s Candace (Regina Hall), a single mom and Lauren’s best friend. She starts dating a man named Michael (Terrence J), who’s domineered by his mother (Jenifer Lewis). Needless to say, no woman is good enough for her son, least of all a single mother. Incidentally, Candace’s son, while perhaps a little too inquisitive, gets along splendidly with Michael.

Serving as both narrator and the annoying fifth guy character is Cedric (Kevin Hart), who spends most of the film acting like a fool and mooching off of Zeke. He’s in the process of finalizing his divorce from his mostly unseen wife, and claims to be all the better for it. All five guys are friends and spend most of their time either in a bar or on a basketball court, where (you guessed it) they waste much of their energy complaining about the women in their lives. Tagging along is a superfluous man played by comedian Gary Owen, who serves no real purpose other than to be the butt of PG-13-appropriate racial slurs. There’s even time for completely unnecessary cameo appearances by NBA players Metta World Peace, Shannon Brown, and Matt Barnes. Former WNBA player Lisa Leslie joins them as they successfully emasculate the main stars in a basketball game.

You know me. I’m usually the first to let a romantic comedy slide, simply because I accept them as nothing more than fantasy. But in this case, something went wrong. Think Like a Man regards genuine relationship advice as fodder for a series of inane jokes. The characters are so shallow, it’s as if writers Keith Marryman and David A. Newman know absolutely nothing about men or women. For all I know, maybe they truly don’t. Whenever Harvey appears on one of the many conveniently placed television sets, he always gives a piece of advice; each one had the potential to be applied to a complex and thought-provoking vignette, one in which the characters have a bit more depth to them. How sad that his book served as the basis for a film that shows no interest in real relationships.

Written by Chris Pandolfi

Chimpanzee
May 30 2012

Chimpanzee (2012)

The Disneynature documentaries had me initially. Their first two releases, Earth and Oceans, were marvellous films; I was especially taken with the latter, not only because it was a spectacular showcase of underwater footage but also because it raised awareness about the negative and positive effects we have on the environment. But then came last year’s African Cats, and while the visuals were undoubtedly stunning, I believed the film-makers went too far in their efforts to make it a dramatic narrative, which sort of goes against what documentaries set out to do. Now we have Chimpanzee. Although it suffers from some of the same problems as African Cats, namely the use of inherently manipulative narrative techniques, the film is a definite improvement. If they keep it up, Disneynature might have me again completely by next year.

Filmed over three years in the rainforests of the Ivory Coast and Uganda, Chimpanzee documents the life of a young chimp named Oscar. I have no way of knowing if his name – and, indeed, all the names applied to the chimps appearing in this film – was bestowed by Disney, the film-makers, or someone working for the Jane Goodall Institute, the latter being one of the production entities. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, seeing as names do make it much easier to identify specific subjects. Oscar is raised by his mother, Isha, in a tribe of chimps ruled over by the alpha male, Freddy. Survival depends in part on knowing where to gather food, and it’s the time of year when nuts are ready for harvesting. Unfortunately, this nut tree is located away from the safety of their territory, where they will be vulnerable to a rival tribe of chimps led by the aged Scar (a name that surely must have been influenced by Disney).

One of Scar’s attacks results in Isha getting separated from Oscar. Although we see nothing, narrator Tim Allen plainly states that Isha sustained heavy injuries and ultimately died. Oscar, being too young to fend for himself, becomes desperately malnourished. He’s rejected by the other mothers of the tribe, as they have their own children to look after. Astonishingly, he’s eventually taken in by Freddy, who up until then showed not the slightest interest in any of the young chimps, let alone Oscar. He feeds him, grooms him, and lets him ride on his back, just as mom used to do. But Freddy’s new-found paternal instincts threaten the safety of the tribe; he isn’t as watchful and attentive as he once was. Will he be able to protect his chimps from Scar and his tribe?

The film is at its best when it shows the chimps engaging in their daily rituals, including grooming, foraging for food, and using rocks, logs, and twigs as primitive tools. The latter allows for a few scenes of levity. It takes the right tools and years of practice to be able to crack a nut open, and it’s obvious that some chimps aren’t as quick to learn as others. One chimp has the darnedest time trying to open a nut with a log. It’s the wrong tool for the job; the fragile wood repeatedly breaks into pieces. Even when he finally figures out that only a rock can crack a nut, he learns the hard way that the other chimps aren’t familiar with the concept of sharing. If you leave a tool unattended, someone will come along and take it. And then there are the chimps that choose the wrong rocks, which are quite susceptible to chipping and end up doing nothing to the nut.

Allen’s narration is easily the most unique of the Disneynature documentaries. This isn’t to say it’s the most successful. Although he has a pleasant and distinct style of delivery, and although he generally gets by, there’s a casual quality to his voice that somehow doesn’t quite do the material justice. There’s a presence, but there isn’t much authority. There are times when he piles on the comedy a little too thickly, as when he verbalizes a chimp’s “thoughts” on the basis of its actions. It’s amusing at best, although it doesn’t take long before it comes off as disingenuous to the genre and condescending to the film-makers, who clearly put a lot of time and effort into capturing the footage.

Indeed, there’s a compelling (if brief) montage of behind-the-scenes footage shown during the end credits, in which we clearly see the film-makers struggling with thick foliage, uneven terrain, and insect invasions. Even then, it’s shown in the best possible light; everyone who appears on camera is usually laughing. It’s obvious that Chimpanzee was nothing if not a labour of love. The screening I attended was introduced by executive producer Don Hahn, who told the audience that some of the film was shot while Uganda was in the middle of a civil war. That in and of itself would have made for a very interesting documentary, but I won’t go off on a tangent. While not the best of Disneynature’s offerings, Chimpanzee is informative, entertaining, and visually striking.

Written by Chris Pandolfi

Darling Companion
May 27 2012

Darling Companion (2012)

Watching Darling Companion, I could tell that director/co-writer Lawrence Kasdan knew what he was after but had some trouble finding it. Strangely enough, this is surprisingly reminiscent of the film itself, which tells the story of a group of people having a great deal of trouble finding a lost dog. All the characters know that they want to find him, but actually reaching this goal will prove to be a tremendous physical and emotional challenge. It’s a well-intentioned movie, utilizing a reliable relationship plot and terrific actors that give decent performances, although I felt something overall was missing; it lacks the necessary style capable of elevating its merely entertaining and heartwarming premise into something more meaningful.

Before the story proper begins, we’re introduced to several characters. At the top of the list is Beth and Joseph Winter, who have been married for many years and live comfortably in the suburbs of Denver. Beth (Diane Keaton) is an empty-nester, with one daughter already a mother and the other a college student. The latter, named Grace (Elisabeth Moss), is visiting during a term break. Joseph (Kevil Kline) is a successful spine surgeon. He’s so successful, in fact, that he will spend a great deal of time on his cell phone – more time than is necessary, according to Beth. Despite many years of marriage, it’s obvious that the spark is no longer there. Beth thinks Joseph is distant and a workaholic whereas Joseph thinks Beth is overly emotional, especially since their children moved away from home.

The catalyst of the plot is a dog Beth and Grace find abandoned on a highway. Covered with dirt somewhat bloodied, they take him to a handsome young vet named Sam (Jay Ali), who immediately catches Grace’s attention. The dog is treated, and Beth takes him home. Although she and Grace give him a bath, she makes it clear to Joseph that she has no intention of keeping the dog. But you know how it goes in situations like this; one year later, he has been named Freeway and has become a part of the family. So too has Sam, who marries Grace at the family cabin in the Rockies. At this point, we meet Joseph’s sister, Penny (Dianne Wiest), and her new boyfriend, Russell (Richard Jenkins), who has a seemingly harebrained idea to invest their money into a Midwest English pub. This does not please Penny’s son, Bryan (Mark Duplass), who works with his uncle Joseph as a surgeon.

The plan is to stay for the weekend at the cabin. One morning, as Joseph takes Freeway for a walk, the former becomes distracted by a cell phone call while the latter becomes distracted by a scurrying deer. Freeway runs off and goes missing. While Joseph seems rather nonchalant about it, Beth goes into panic mode and launches a full-scale search-and-rescue effort, recruiting Joseph, Penny, and Bryan into the cause. Tagging along is the cabin’s caretaker, a gypsy woman named Carmen (Ayelet Zurer), who recently lost a dog herself and claims to possess psychic abilities. Her repeated visions, vague and arbitrary though they may be, act as a guide for the group as they split up into teams and search the woods for Freeway.

To deal with this right away, the sub-plot with Carmen does not work at all. Regardless of whether she’s a crackpot or genuinely blessed with a third eye, this is a relationship comedy/drama – which is to say, this not the kind of story that supports the inclusion of a character like this. It was a strained, random, and unnecessary move on the part of the film-makers. Straining it even further is the fact that Carmen rather quickly becomes Bryan’s love interest. Their attraction to each other stems from nothing made apparent to the audience, apart from the convenience of two single characters being in the same space at the same time. As fashionable as it is to adhere to the rule that opposites attract, the simple fact is that they don’t seem all that compatible.

Carmen aside, it’s obvious what Kasdan and his wife/co-writer Meg are trying to do here. Darling Companion isn’t really about the search for a dog; it’s about relationships in general and the processes of discover and rediscovery. Through this experience, Beth and Joseph once again learn to communicate, and Bryan learns to see Russell as something other than a lofty dreamer and a leech on his mother. Everyone’s heart is in the right place. Of that much, I’m certain. Having said that, the film is at times rather confused about its tone, shifting wildly from mild humour to serious drama to broad physical gags and caricature profiles. Perhaps the film’s deficits will be overshadowed by the audience’s desire for Freeway to be found. Of that, you won’t get a word out of me.

Written by Chris Pandolfi

The Moth Diaries
May 23 2012

The Moth Diaries (2011)

In the same vein as Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, The Moth Diaries is a dark brainteaser – a gothic psychological thriller that continuously challenges the audience’s perception of reality without coming to any definitive conclusions. Here is a film in which we cannot trust most of what we see or hear; we’re being toyed with, and whatever deductions we make stem entirely from what we personally bring to the experience. I know this is the case because many scenes are intentionally structured to be interpreted in two ways. That writer/director Mary Harron pulled this off without making it seem mechanical or contrived is something of a great achievement. We’re obviously being manipulated, and yet it’s done with such passion and cleverness that we find we don’t much care.

Adapted from the novel by Rachel Klein, it tells the story of Rebecca (Sarah Bolger), a sixteen-year-old starting a new semester at a very posh all-girls’ boarding school, which was a hotel over 100 years ago. Entries in her personal journal, coupled with very brief flashback sequences, reveal a deep personal tragedy, namely the suicide of her father, a published poet. When she first attended the school two years earlier, it was just after his death, and her personal life was still very much a mess. She found solace in Lucie (Sarah Gadon), who has since become her best friend. This semester, Rebecca feels lighter, freer, and generally much happier than she once felt. But things soon change with the arrival of a new student. Here enters Ernessa (Lily Cole), a quiet, dark-haired, pale-skinned young beauty.

Ernessa doesn’t seem unpleasant, not at first, although there are certain odd characteristics Rebecca notices. Why is it, for example, that she joins all the girls in the cafeteria yet never eats? She can’t be anorexic; physically, she looks like a normal teenage girl. One night, Rebecca wakes up, looks out her open window, and sees Ernessa pacing barefoot on the pavement. Lucie doesn’t seem to take notice of any of this. In fact, she’s quite taken by Ernessa, who helps Lucie study her German and Greek assignments. Lucie tells Rebecca that she’s not giving Ernessa a chance, and that although she has unresolved issues, Ernessa is a nice person once you get to know her. Rebecca doesn’t see it the same way. From her perspective, Ernessa is stealing Lucie away from her.

The new English teacher, Mr. Davies (Scott Speedman), is an outspoken admirer of Rebecca’s father. He even possesses a first edition of his book of poems. This, combined with his indisputably handsome features, leads to unshakable suspicions on our part, namely that he will cross a line with his students – or, more specifically, with Rebecca. There is one scene that clearly shows something physical, and yet the nature of Rebecca’s character soon gets us to wondering if that scene actually took place. But before that happens, he introduces his students to the world of gothic vampire fiction, which he says all contain sex, blood, and death. From this, Rebecca begins to suspect that Ernessa is herself a vampire. She looks at a group photo from 1907 and sees a figure that, although somewhat blurred, resembles Ernessa a great deal. She begins to smell something rotten emanating from Ernessa’s room, although no one else seems to notice it. When Rebecca sees Ernessa walking precariously on the ledge outside her window, it looks as if she reenters by literally passing through the glass without it breaking.

Rebecca’s world is repeatedly disrupted by a string deaths and gradual isolation from her friends. Ominous occurrences escalate in frequency. What are we to make of the scene in which Rebecca quite suddenly gets a nosebleed when Ernessa walks into the room … and Ernessa takes a small taste of Rebecca’s blood on her finger? Why does Ernessa’s room appear to be filled with thousands of moths, especially since a moth is central to a happy memory Rebecca has of her father? Lucie’s health progressively takes a turn for the worse, her energy draining day by day. Could it be that Rebecca is Ernessa’s real target? And what about the sudden appearance of a diary from 1907, in which a young woman vividly recalls a suicide?

The one question that’s never really answered is whether or not Ernessa is an actual vampire. It’s quite possible that Rebecca’s obsession with her, along with visions of incidents that have no rational foundation, stems from jealousy and the trauma of her recent loss. In a quietly tense scene, Rebecca toys with a razor blade – which, incidentally, came to be in her possession through unknown means – and wonders aloud if she carries the same “sickness” her father carried. Strange, how a film so untrustworthy in narrative can simultaneously be so intelligent and so absorbing. The Moth Diaries is an exercise in game-playing; we may not know what the rules are, or even if there are any rules, but we go along with it regardless out of sheer morbid curiosity.

Written by Chris Pandolfi

Goodbye First Love
May 17 2012

Goodbye First Love (2011)

Because it makes no grand gestures, Goodbye First Love is a deceptively simple movie. Essentially, it tells the story of a young woman torn between two men, both of whom she loves deeply but in completely different ways. Its simplicity is cleverly masked by a rather unconventional style, which is about as far removed from a Hollywood romance as it can be. The film flows rather organically, with most of the traditional cinematic enhancements stripped away. It’s less about plot and drama and more about character. It may not be immediately apparent, but we are witnessing a person on the road towards maturity. This isn’t to suggest she began at innocence, nor that she will end up understanding everything; all we know is that she’s in the process of becoming.

Her name is Camille (Lola Créton). When we first meet her, it’s 1999, and she’s a fifteen-year-old living with her parents in Paris. She’s having an intensely physical affair with a teenage boy named Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky), who has given up on school. Despite their repeated assertions that they each are the love of their lives, they argue very easily. This is easy to explain: They’re both still young and naïve, and they don’t yet know what they want out of life. Sullivan yearns to experience the world and plans a trip to South America with a friend of his. Camille is threatened by his wanderlust and continuously threatens to harm herself. If he leaves, he may forget about her entirely and meet another girl. She claims that she’s not looking for anything more than him.

Sullivan assures her that he will only be gone for ten months and that he’ll keep in touch. And so, off he goes. Camille copes as best she can as it transitions into 2000, receiving the occasional letter from Sullivan. In all his letters, he continues his practice of boldly asserting his love for her. They are, in fact, so bold that they come within an inch of being cruel and emotionally manipulative. In one letter, he tells with, rather poetically, that his love for her is holding him back. If he wasn’t so in love with her, if she didn’t plague his thoughts on a daily basis, he might actually enjoy his travels. Quite suddenly, the letters stop coming. A devastated Camille soon ends up in a depression clinic, at which point her father (Serge Renko) tells her that it’s finally time to take the next step.

Never once do follow Sullivan, whose stay in South America lasts much longer than ten months. We do, however, follow Camille over the next seven years. During this time, she finishes high school, attends a design college, studies architecture, and lands a job at a company run by a Norwegian architect named Lorenz (Magne Håvard Brekke), who’s separated from his wife in Berlin and seemingly estranged from his son. We see their relationship develop from employer and employee to casual acquaintances to emotional confidants to lovers. He may not express his love for Camille quite as vocally as Sullivan would have, but it’s obvious that he cares for her deeply. She too cares about him. It isn’t the same as it was with Sullivan, though. There’s more than just physical affection; there’s a clear understanding of who they are.

It isn’t until 2007 that Camille and Sullivan finally reunite. An exact date is not given, but it seems he had returned from South America quite a while ago. He now gets by as a photographer in Marseille, which he likes much better than Paris. Initially, it seems like their relationship has cooled and that they will continue merely as friends. But after a while, it’s obvious that the old feelings have resurfaced. I expected this from Camille, but I have to admit, I didn’t expect it from Sullivan. Memories of her continue to haunt him, and at one point, he tearfully wishes that they were back together. When Lorenz is called away on business, Camille and Sullivan regularly convene and make love, all the while sensing that what they’re experiencing isn’t likely to last.

Having gone this far in my review, I fear that I’ve made this movie sound like a sentimental tearjerker. It’s almost impossible to conceive of given the subject matter, but Goodbye First Love is about as devoid of sentiment as it could possibly be. Rather than indulge in fairytale contrivances, love and relationships are examined in terms of very plausible, very concrete physical and emotional needs. All leads to an indirect and rather languid ending, which is actually treated less like an ending and more like just another scene. As realistic as this may be, my innate American sensibilities had me longing for something a little more distinct. I’m not saying everything had to be wrapped up in neat little package, although some sense of closure would have been nice.

Written by Chris Pandolfi

Jesus Henry Christ
May 15 2012

Jesus Henry Christ (2012)

Jesus Henry Christ is preposterous, pretentious, venomous, and maddeningly unclear about what it wants to say and how it wants to say it. Much like the philosophy of art for art’s sake, the film’s quirkiness has no intrinsic value; it’s weird simply for the sake of being weird. We’re tempted to think that it takes a moral position, given the narrative usage of feminism, militant antiestablishment rhetoric, atheism, racial and gay intolerances, nontraditional family values, and the rewards and deficits that come from being a genius. In fact, the story is divorced from pretty much any sense of morality; all the beliefs listed above are not examined convincingly and are included primarily to be made fun of. In spite of all this, the film ends on such a mechanically upbeat note that it might as well have served as the ending to a sitcom episode.

Adapted by writer/director Dennis Lee from his own student film, Jesus Henry Christ tells the story of Henry James Herman (Jason Spevack), who was conceived in a Petri dish and born to an activist mother named Patricia (Toni Collette), with whom he’s on first-name terms. At nine months old, he was already able to speak complete sentences. At five, he was expelled from kindergarten for questioning the point of telling the teacher a word that begins with Y. Now at age ten, he has been expelled from a Catholic high school for heresy, having caused a riot after self-publishing a manifesto proclaiming that there is no God. A straight-A student, he remembers absolutely everything he sees and hears. He can speed read an entire book in a matter of minutes and can quote entire passages; he can even tell you what page and paragraph the passage was on.

He narrates a lengthy flashback sequence in which he details his mother’s family. It’s during this sequence in which Lee demonstrates how wildly wrong he is in what he believes is funny. On her tenth birthday, Patricia (Hannah Brigden) witnessed her mother burn to death when she tried to light the candles on the cake; her sleeve caught fire, and her husband tried to dowse them out with his glass of booze. Over time, Patricia endured the deaths of most of her brothers, and with the exception of the one with AIDS, all of them died very, very stupidly. The surviving brother dodged the draft by fleeing to Canada, leaving Patricia alone to care for her chauvinist father, Stan (Frank Moore). He’s in possession of a gold-plated Zippo lighter that prevented a bullet from killing him. He wanted nothing more than to pass it down to one of sons. Now Henry is in possession of it.

Henry knows he doesn’t have a father, although he doesn’t know the reason why. In a needlessly bizarre scene, Stan explains to Henry, in Spanish, that he’s a test-tube baby and that a little bribery led to the discovery of Henry’s half-sister. Here enters twelve-year-old Audrey O’Hara (Samantha Weinstein). Ever since unwittingly being the subject of her father’s psychology book, she has been mercilessly teased and tormented by her classmates. As a result, nothing but ice water flows through her veins. As for her father, Dr. Slavkin O’Hara (Michael Sheen), he’s consumed with so much stress and guilt that he spends the entire film in a medication-induced fog. Henry enters his life convinced that he’s his long lost father, a prospect O’Hara finds promising for a new book.

But is he Henry’s father? Is he Audrey’s? Over a decade ago, when he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and decided to harvest his sperm, he discovered that his wife was having an affair – with his German-accented doctor, no less. The resulting paternity case and the ensuing legal and financial conversations are occasionally interrupted by awkward scenes in which Henry and Audrey form a begrudging friendship. Needless to say, it’s harder for Audrey to let someone in than it is for Henry. All paves the way for a surprisingly conventional and borderline saccharine ending, which the rest of the film had not been leading up to. This sudden change in tone, while certainly much more pleasant, was jarringly inconsistent and inappropriate.

The title, as you may have surmised by now, is a play-on-words of the popular swear, “Jesus H. Christ!” which is repeatedly exclaimed by various characters throughout the film. It’s not especially funny. It is, however, a lot more tolerable than the recurring appearance of a radical Muslim convert who, despite being white, speaks in an exaggerated black street accent and spouts vile racial slurs about white people. Not only is this not funny, it’s actually kind of insulting. What point is Lee making here? Jesus Henry Christ has no ambition other than to be bizarre, esoteric, and in some cases, highly inflammatory. It displays attitudes and social movements, but never once does it actually say anything meaningful about them. Like a school bully, it mocks and torments simply because it can.

Written by Chris Pandolfi