Movie/TV Reviews

Factory Girl

Susan Granger’s review of “Factory Girl” (M.G.M./Weinstein)

If you don’t believe scandal sells, look at the casting of this movie. As London’s It Girl, model Sienna Miller was eager to play Andy Warhol’s beatnik chic muse Edie Sedgwick but it was felt she didn’t have a big enough name. Yet as soon as she lured Jude Law away from his wife Sadie Frost and their children, Sienna’s star ascended.
Within the framework of Edie narrating her life in retrospect, the story begins in 1964 as she arrives in Manhattan. The art student/socialite – with sturdy financial connections – meets the androgynous pop artist Warhol (Guy Pearce), only to be devoured by his hedonistic, avant-garde scene and her own descent into addiction. Warhol discards Edie after she becomes involved with a musician who is supposed to be – but, for legal purposes, is not called – Bob Dylan (“Star Wars” Hayden Christensen), who allegedly wrote “Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat” and “Just Like a Woman” for her.
When she goes through her trust fund, it’s a total shock. “How could I possibly be bankrupt?” Edie asks her financial advisor (Edward Herrmann). “My grandfather invented the elevator!” “Then,” he says, “you should be familiar with the concept of up and down.”
Written by Simon Monjack, Aaron Richard Golub and Captain Mauzner, and clumsily directed by George Hickenlooper, it’s the familiar, cliché-riddled show biz rise and fall with banal notes about substance abuse and the price of fame.
True, Sienna Miller looks like Edie but, as for that supposedly steamy sex scene with Hayden, the only heat comes from the fireplace behind them. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Factory Girl” is a fleeting, superficial 5 – and the end credits show photos of the actual Edie and people who actually knew her reminiscing about her.

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Breach

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Breach” (Universal Pictures)

Far more focused than “The Good Shepherd,” this spy drama exposes how the FBI tracked and trapped its own most dangerous and damaging double-agent.
On February 18, 2001, veteran FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested for giving the former Soviet Union top-secret documents over a period of 22 years and revealing the identities of U.S. agents, many of whom subsequently disappeared. This picture is based on true events that led to his subsequent conviction for treason against the United States.
It begins as an ambitious 26 year-old agent-in-training Eric O’Neill (Ryan Phillippe) is assigned to keep surveillance on quirky computer/technology expert Hanssen (Chris Cooper), who has been brought back to Washington, supposedly to set up an “information assurance” or security division to protect all classified FBI intelligence. Special Agents Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney) and Dean Plesac (Dennis Hasbert) head the task force that’s after Hanssen, who appears to be a devout Roman Catholic and devoted family man. But the duplicitous demands of the job eventually jeopardize O’Neill’s relationship with his trusting wife Juliana (Caroline Dhavernas), whose family is from East Germany.
Perceptive Chris Cooper captures the chameleon-like qualities of the bewilderingly contradictory Hanssen, playing off Ryan Phillippe’s affability, while writer/director Billy Ray (“Shattered Glass”) skillfully ratchets up the tension – with kudos also to co-writers Adam Mazer, William Rotko and the real-life Eric O’Neill, who served as special consultant.
Although the question of ‘why’ Hanssen chose to betray his own government is never answered – “The ‘why’ doesn’t mean a thing,” Hanssen says – the speculation is that it could have been ego and/or a desire to expose our notorious lack of security, prior to 9/11. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Breach” is a subtle, suspenseful 7. It’s a taut espionage thriller.

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The Number 23

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Number 23” (New Line Cinema)

This is a psychological thriller about obsession, insanity and the “23 enigma” that refers to the belief that all incidents and events are directly connected to some permutation of that number.
Each parent contributes 23 chromosomes to a child’s DNA. Blood takes 23 seconds to circulate throughout the body. There are 23 letters in the Latin alphabet; the ancient Egyptian and Sumerian calendars begin on July 23. Earth’s axis is off by 23.5 degrees. William Shakespeare was born on April 23rd and died on April 23rd. The list goes on.
So when dogcatcher Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) stumbles onto an obscure novel, “The Number 23,” he cannot stop reading it. This dark, convoluted murder mystery, revolving around a detective named Fingerling (alter ego Jim Carrey), seems to mirror Walter’s life, bringing up nightmarish fantasies and murky memories that intrigue and terrify him, much to the chagrin of his wife (Virginia Madsen) and teenage son (Logan Lerman) who see him scribbling gibberish on the wall, on his own body, everywhere.
Director Joel Schumacher (“Phone Booth”) desperately wants us to buy into first-time screenwriter Fernley Phillips’ numerology mystique with a conclusion reminiscent of “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” After all, the letters in Joel Schumacher and Jim Carrey’s names add up to 23; the letters in Jim Carrey’s and Virginia Madsen’s names add up to 23.
But the coincidental psychopathology is not convincing, primarily because of Schumacher’s lurid noir indulgences, turning shock into schlock, and Carrey’s sinister overacting – making one yearn for the poignant restraint he showed in “The Truman Show.” On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Number 23” is a murky, flawed 4. As a thriller, it just doesn’t add up.

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Ghost Rider

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Ghost Rider” (Columbia Pictures/Sony)

This pulpy cinematic Marvel comic book is aimed at teenage boys or adult males with rampant cases of arrested development.
Here’s the set-up: when teenage daredevil biker Johnny Blaze (Matt Long), who tours on the carnival circuit with his chain-smoking, cancer-riddled father (Brett Cullen), is offered a chance to save dad from suffering by selling his soul to the duplicitous Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) – he agrees, giving up his love interest, Roxanne (Racquel Alessi), to ride around the barren landscape, raising havoc.
Skip ahead to the adult Johnny (Nicholas Cage), who gobbles jelly beans (only yellow and red) and listens with rapt attention to music by the Carpenters when he’s not staging arena shows, astonishing crowds by defying death, jumping dozens trucks and a football field full of Black Hawk helicopters. But Johnny’s true mission is to eliminate Blackheart (Wes Bentley), Mephistopheles’ demonic son who is determined to create hell on Earth.
Despite a narrated explanation by gravel-voiced Sam Elliott, none of this makes much sense, nor is it supposed to, I suspect, including the inexplicable reappearance of Roxanne (Eva Mendes) as an inquiring TV reporter who can’t keep her shirt buttoned.
The gimmick is watching Johnny transform back and forth between his human and Ghost Rider form. With his skull aflame, he rides a motorcycle that changes into a fiery weapon of mass destruction. But even this gets tiresome quickly.
Perhaps writer/director Mark Steven Johnson (“Daredevil”) envisioned some sort of Evel Kneivel-meets-Faust concept, but the pyrotechnics took over. Maniacal Nicholas Cage is no Easy Rider, while Eva Mendes survives another cleavage encounter. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Ghost Rider” flames out with a 2. Hopefully, in the next incarnation of this franchise, they’ll go for a Ghost Writer.

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The Astronaut Farmer

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Astronaut Farmer” (Warner Bros.)

Think of it as a space-age “Field of Dreams,” this family-friendly fable about a rugged individualist who’s willing to take risks to achieve his dream.
Aerospace engineer Charles Farmer (Billy Bob Thornton) was once one of NASA’s astronauts-in-training but, before he got a chance to go into orbit, there was a family tragedy and he was called home to take over his father’s ranch in Texas. Ever since then, he’s wanted a second chance to travel in space.
So Farmer’s building a rocket in his barn with the help of his tech-savvy 15 year-old son Shepard (Max Thierlot) and the support of a loving wife (Virginia Madsen), two devoted daughters (Jasper and Logan Polish) and a grizzled father-in-law (Bruce Dern). Farmer’s neighbors are skeptical, often ridiculing him behind his back, and the bank is threatening foreclosure on his ranch. Yet when he purchases 10,000 pounds of premium-grade fuel over the Internet, the FAA, FBI, NASA and Department of Homeland Security suddenly take notice. Bureaucrats descend and a space-shuttle buddy (Bruce Willis) is dispatched to try to talk him out of attempting this solo space flight. Yet underneath his gentle, easygoing nature, Farmer’s determination is unswerving, despite several enormous setbacks.
“Somewhere along the line, we stopped believing we could do anything,” he says. “And if we don’t have our dreams, we have nothing.”
Twin writer/directors Michael and Mark Polish (“Twin Falls Idaho,” “Northfork”) exude Capra-esque imagination, allowing an affectionate sense of wholesome wonder and hope to overcome the underlying predictability and clichés, while Thornton’s surprisingly graceful dignity allows the audience to suspend disbelief, albeit momentarily. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Astronaut Farmer” lifts off with an unabashedly sentimental, inspirational 8. Talk about having The Right Stuff!

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The Lives of Others

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Lives of Others” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Deservedly, this is Oscar’s Best Foreign Film. Set in the mid-1980s in the German Democratic Republic before the fall of the Berlin Wall, it’s writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s haunting tale of obsessive voyeurism.
Gerd Weisler (Ulriche Muhe) is a captain in the Stasi, the Communitists’ secret police. He’s told by his superior (Ulrich Tukur) to install surveillance on Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch), a celebrated but controversial playwright who lives with charismatic actress Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck). From his attic perch, Gerd becomes addicted to watching their lives unfold, his own ‘live’ soap opera. Gradually, Gerd’s drab, solitary existence is significantly changed by what he learns about love, relationships, corruption, power, deception and betrayal, and a metamorphosis takes place. Eventually, he hides incriminating evidence and falsifies official records.
What emerges is a Cold War political thriller, revolving around surveillance and the state’s control of people’s lives – that’s also an intensely human drama. The script is subtle, the cast superb. But it’s von Donnersmarck’s deft, atmospheric direction that creates the intense claustrophobia.
“Over the years, there were several things that led me to make this film,” he says. “As a young boy, I found it interesting and exciting to feel the fear of adults during our visits to East Berlin. My parents were afraid when they crossed the border.and our friends from East Germany were afraid when others saw that they were speaking with us. Then I had this image of a man sitting in a bleak room, wearing headphones and listening to beautiful music even though he didn’t want to hear it.”
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Lives of Others” is an unforgettable 10, the most electrifying German film in more than a decade.

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The Lives of Others

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Lives of Others” (Sony Pictures Classics)

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Zodiac

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Zodiac” (Paramount Pictures)

If you expect this thriller to reveal much about San Francisco’s most notorious serial killer, known as the Zodiac, or his seemingly random victims, forget it. Instead, it’s about a cartoonist at the San Francisco Chronicle who becomes obsessed with the murders.
Although he’s always on the sidelines at editorial meetings, earnest Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) takes an immediate interest when, in 1969, two teenagers are gunned down at Lookout Point and the newspaper receives a cryptogram from the killer. Graysmith eagerly lurks around the desk of boozing, egotistical crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) when the Zodiac strikes again and again, taunting homicide detectives David Tocchi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Andrew Edwards).
But since the confusing crimes take place in different jurisdictions in an era before the electronic age of faxes, cellphones and the Internet, no arrest is ever made – and the case eventually grows cold. Except to Graysmith, who doggedly pursues every lead to write a book about the Zodiac enigma; his eerie research erodes his relationship with his wife (Chloe Sevigny).
While director David Fincher (“Se7en,” “Fight Club,” “Panic Room”) dutifully recreates the gritty atmosphere and ominous dread that gripped the Bay Area, screenwriter James Vanderbilt’s adaptation of Graysmith’s book resembles a police procedural, word-heavy with dates, details and drab, disjointed snippets of conversation. The simplistic characterizations are sketchy – with flamboyant, scene-stealing Robert Downey Jr. and Brian Cox, as pompous celebrity lawyer Melvin Belli, faring best. And since there’s no satisfactory conclusion to this true tale, the lack of emotional involvement with the various characters is a fatal flaw. Surprisingly lacking both fear and suspense, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Zodiac” is a disappointingly inconclusive 5, running a tedious 2 ½ hours. Yawn!

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Wild Hogs

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Wild Hogs: (Buena Vista/Disney)

Scratch the surface of suburbia and, underneath, you’ll find “weekend warriors” who are eager to ditch their offices and shelve their suits to don black leather jackets and jump on their Harleys for an escapist adventure.
Hoping to extend their fun, four long-time friends from Cincinnati decide to cut loose and hit the road to California, leaving their discontentment and dilemmas far behind. There’s Doug (Tim Allen), an insecure dentist whose wife has put him on a veggie diet; swaggering, wheeler-dealer Woody (John Travolta), whose supermodel wife has walked out on him; unemployed plumber-turned-wannabe writer Bobby (Martin Lawrence) with a shrewish wife and abusive mother-in-law; and painfully shy Dudley (William H. Macy), a mild-mannered, accident-prone computer geek.
As luck would have it, their supposedly life-changing trip hits several snags, including a scary roadhouse encounter with the nasty Del Fuego biker gang, led by volatile Jack (Ray Liotta), who take offense at their yuppie attitude and follow The Wild Hogs, as they call themselves, to New Mexico. (Stay for the end credits for more about those delirious Del Fuegos.)
Working from Brad Copeland’s flaccid, predictable, male-bonding script, director Walt Becker (“National Lampoon’s Van Wilder,”) relies on silly slapstick, failing to capitalize on the comedic potential inherent in his talented quartet. Homophobia runs rampant, not just in a subplot involving a lascivious gay cop (John C. McGinley). Wasted as window-dressing are the women: Marisa Tomei, Jill Hennessy and Tichina Arnold.
The most memorable moment occurs when an immediately recognizable wind-beaten biker shows up, advising them, “Ride hard or stay home.” On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Wild Hogs” laboriously revs in with a squealing, sputtering 4. Undoubtedly more fun to make than to watch, these wheezy city slickers are un-easy riders.

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The Last Mimzy

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Last Mimzy” (New Line Cinema)

When a mysterious box of magical ‘toys’ washes up on a beach near Seattle, two children embark on an exciting adventure that will change their lives.
Constantly distracted by electronic devices, the Wilders are a typical 21st century family: overworked dad (Timothy Hutton), overly cautious mom (Joely Richardson), isolated, self-doubting 10 year-old Noah (Chris O’Neil) and innocently precocious five year-old Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn). But when Noah and Emma find a curious black box, they discover a treasure trove: a crystal slab inscribed with obscure symbols, an ornate sea shell, a blue glass snail, rock-like ‘spinners’ and a stuffed rabbit that identifies itself as Mimzy.
As Noah and Emma play with these strange objects, their minds expand, catapulting them to incredibly high intelligence levels. While their creativity attracts the attention of Noah’s science teacher (Rainn Wilson) and his Buddhist girl-friend (Kathryn Hahn), their experimentation arouses the suspicions of Agent Broadman (Michael Clarke Duncan) of the Department of Homeland Security. But Mimzy’s on a mission: to transport into the future something that’s been lost in the past.
This sci-fi fantasy is based on Lewis Padgett’s “All Mimsy Were the Borogroves,” which was inspired by Lewis Carroll’s “The Jabberwocky.” Adapted by Bruce Joel Rubin (“Ghost”) and Toby Emmerich (“Frequency”), it’s directed by Robert Shaye, New Line Cinema’s CEO, who minimizes the distracting ‘secretive’ elements while evoking memories of Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.”
It’s intriguing that there’s some validity to the challenging science depicted in the film, according to Dr. Brian Greene, Columbia University physics professor, and Dr. Susan Smalley, UCLA neurobehavioral genetics professor. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Last Mimzy” is an enchanting 7. With its spiritual and metaphysical message, this fun-filled family entertainment goes far beyond whimsy.

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