Movie/TV Reviews

Gridiron Gang

Susan Granger’s review of “Gridiron Gang” (Columbia Pictures)

Based on a 1993 Emmy award-winning documentary, this true story about inner city thugs in juvenile detention who come together to forge a winning football team, neither scores nor inspires, except on the most superficial level.
Sean Porter (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) is a dedicated, hard-working probation officer at Camp Kilpatrick, the maximum-security last stop for violent teens before incarceration in an adult penitentiary. Dismayed over the recidivism rate, he believes that by forming a football team he can instill a sense of self-worth and discipline in these convicted felons. His first task is convincing the skeptical administrator (Leon Rippy) and his assistant (Kevin Dunn), then he has to find other high school coaches willing to compete against these repeated offenders.
“Let’s try the impossible,” he says. “The possible ain’t working.”
His biggest challenge is forming a cohesive squad since the grim boys, many from rival gangs, distrust one another. There’s surly Willie Weathers (Jade Yorker), who killed his mother’s boyfriend after his cousin died in a drive-by shooting in South Central L.A.; troubled Kenny Bates (Trever O’Brien), the token Caucasian; a surly Samoan known as Junior Palaita (Setu Taase); and Bug (Brandon Mychal Smith), the team’s water boy and mascot.
“This is your ‘hood now.You’re Mustangs!” Porter tells them.
Screenwriter Jeff Maguire has never encountered a sappy sports clichŽ or trite inspirational slogan that he doesn’t utilize. Director Phil Joanou peppers the predictable plot with some gritty glimpses of the real Camp Kirkpatrick in the Santa Monica Mountains but fails to navigate the melodramatic hurdles. So on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Gridiron Gang” is a formulaic 5, concluding with clips of the real Sean Porter and relating what eventually happened to each of the players.

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Jackass Number Two

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Jackass Number Two” (Paramount Pictures)

Idiocy comes in many guises, as do varieties of humor. So, here’s a quick quiz:
Do you have an obsession with bodily fluids?
Does a beer enema make you giggle?
Do you find vomit scenes hilarious?
Do you consider graphic proctologic trauma entertainment?
Do you really want to see someone defecate on-camera?
If you answered “yes” to these questions, buy a ticket for this sequel. It’s all here.
Blending the line between slapstick and sadism, Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O, Chris Pontius and director Jeff Tremaine have assembled a tasteless, repulsive series of life-threatening stunts and painful pranks, which began on MTV and jumped to the big screen. They wrestle snakes, cattle-brand themselves and pose as terrorists.
Redolent of recent headlines about the tragic stingray death of Aussie naturalist Steve Irwin, the guys perform what they call the Anaconda Ball Pit, involving three Jackassers, two snakes and a tank of plastic balls. Although – to his credit – after the Medicine Ball Dodgeball, Margera declares, “That was fun. Let’s never do that again.”
Even director Spike Jonze shows up to join these merry lunatics for some self-inflicted torture, most of which cannot be described in a family newspaper. And it all winds up at the end with a big Broadway/Hollywood-style musical number.
Adolescent boys are the prime audience, despite the R-rating for violence, language, nudity, alcohol and crude humor. I wonder what it takes to get an NC-17 these days. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Jackass Number Two” is a crude, depraved, imbecilic 1. It tells us something about the demoralizing state of movie audiences today when donkey dung like “Jackass Number Two” emerges as #1 at the box-office the week of its release.

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Flyboys

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Flyboys” (MGM)

Remember how film pioneer Howard Hughes was waiting for clouds in order photograph fighter planes in “The Aviator”? Director Tony Bill and cinematographer Henry Braham find clouds for the dogfights but are missing an emotional connection to their characters.
Opening in 1916, “Flyboys” are the American pilots who formed the Lafayette Escadrille, fighting for France against Germany’s Jagdstaffeln before the U.S. entered World War I. These idealistic Yanks report to Capt. Thenault (Jean Reno) for a brief training at a chateau in the French countryside.
Cocky Blaine Rawlings (James Franco) is an orphaned Texan whose family ranch has been foreclosed. William Jensen (Phillip Winchester) is the conflicted scion of a Nebraska military family. Briggs Lowry (Tyler Labine) is a rich kid trying to prove himself to a tyrannical father. Eddie Beagle (David Ellison) is a screw-up who has trouble hitting targets. Eugene Skinner (Abdul Sallis) is the boxer son of a former slave who appreciates Frances’ racial tolerance. Their squadron leader is jaded pilot Reed Cassidy (Martin Henderson), a loner with a pet lion, who says their life expectancy, is six weeks. That makes Rawlings’ relationship with a local girl, Lucienne (Jennifer Decker), all the more poignant in the film’s epilogue.
In the sky, the scenes soar, as the French bi-planes look extraordinarily fragile against the superior German tri-planes, particularly when a zeppelin appears. Back then, pilots didn’t wear parachutes and their only “contingency plan” consisted of a self-inflicted pistol shot. But the ground story never takes off because the pedestrian screenwriting lacks in subtlety and subtext, relying on clichŽs. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Flyboys” is a nostalgic 5, recalling a time when combat honor was inherent and pilots not only recognized one another in the air but fought their own personal duels.

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The Departed

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Departed’ (Warner Bros.)

Legendary director Martin Scorsese, a master of the gritty crime drama, has pulled out all the stops in this violent, blood-drenched tale of corruption. With its tangled web of intrigue and paranoia, it’s reminiscent of “GoodFellas” and “Mean Streets.”
At the Massachusetts State Police Department, there are two young recruits, both with roots deep in the Irish-American community. Ambitious Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is chosen by the Elite Investigations Unit to help take down the local organized crime ring headed by powerful mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). But what the cops don’t realize is that Sullivan’s first loyalty, since childhood, has been to Costello.
In contrast, there’s hot-tempered, street-smart Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio), who ostensibly gets booted out of the police ranks but is, secretly, sent back onto the rough streets of South Boston to infiltrate Costello’s inner-circle. Both are “moles” who, eventually, find out about one another – but not, ironically, through the risky relationship they share in common: a fondness for a particular police therapist (Vera Farmiga).
Sullivan and Costigan represent two sides of the same dented coin, each man choosing a different, but parallel path on a collision course littered with deception and betrayal.
Inspired by but not a remake of Hong Kong’s “Infernal Affairs,” it’s written with uncompromising film noir flair by William Monahan and wryly humorous input from Scorsese and Nicholson, who is astonishing and mesmerizing as the swaggering incarnation of evil. Nicholson dazzles! Leonardo DiCaprio captures the agony of Costigan’s internal conflict, while Matt Damon gives Sullivan a tough core of intelligence. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Departed” is a tense, terrific 10. But there’s a cautionary note in an unintended subliminal message: don’t join the Massachusetts State Police Dept. if you hope to remain alive!

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Employee of the Month

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of ‘Employee of the Month” (Lionsgate)

At a New Mexico-based branch of the Super Club discount megastore, there’s an underground battle for the “Employee of the Month” title which cocky, arrogant checkout clerk Vince Downey (Dax Shepard) has won 17 times in a row. Longtime box-boy Zack (Dane Cook) has heard rumors that the sexy new checkout clerk Amy (Jessica Simpson) will sleep with any guy who wins the award, which impels the perennial slacker’s sudden zeal for excellence.
Groundlings alum Dick Shepard and stand-up comedian Dane Cook draw on their skill and timing to elevate the marginal material, but pop singer/reality TV star Jessica Simpson (“The Dukes of Hazzard”) has yet to master the cinematic art of ignoring the camera, often staring right into it – with a vacuous expression – as if she were inadvertently caught on Alan Funt’s “Candid Camera.” Oops!
First-time feature film director Glen Coolidge – who wrote the screenplay with Dan Calame & Chris Conroy – exaggerates beyond credibility, including far too many moronic pratfalls and jokes about bodily functions. Plus, the story would pack far more of a punch if the outcome weren’t so predictable. There is one incongruous “in” joke revolving around the store manager named Glen Gary ((Tim Bagley) and his brother Glen Ross (Danny Woodburn), evoking Daivd Mamet’s play “Glengarry Glen Ross.”
Costumer Denise Wingate squeezes buxom Simpson’s ample assets into low-cut tops that seem more appropriate for ogling at Hooters, and the fact that filming too place at a Costco in Albuquerque is barely disguised, considering the Kirkland house brand remains on the shelves. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Employee of the Month” is a relentlessly idiotic 3, mildly amusing only the most undemanding moviegoer.

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The Last King of Scotland

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Last King of Scotland” (Fox Searchlight)

Despite the incongruous title, this is a gripping drama about Uganda’s iconic president Idi Amin, featuring an extraordinary, Oscar-worthy performance by Forest Whitaker.
The story begins in Scotland as an idealistic young physician, Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), graduates from med school. Eager to “make a difference” and have some fun, he impetuously takes a remote post in Uganda, where he attempts a liaison with the wife (Gillian Anderson) of the village’s hard-working British physician (Adam Kotz). While attending a rally for Idi Amin, the fledgling democracy’s newly elected president, Nicholas is summoned to bandage the General’s injured hand. Having served in the King’s African Rifles, Amin has a soft spot for Scotland, and, later, a hilarious scene shows Amin wearing a kilt, surrounded by Africans singing a Scottish song.
Impressed by Nicholas’ outspoken honesty, Amin makes him a seductive offer he can’t refuse: becoming his personal physician in Kampala, where Nicholas discovers that one of Amin’s wives (Kerry Washington) has an epileptic son whom he keeps hidden.
Enjoying unparalleled access to the highest realms of the government, Nicholas becomes aware that Amin is a murderous megalomaniac and that his own life is in peril.
In an absolutely terrifying characterization, Forest Whitaker captures Amin’s charisma as well as his charm, while the selfish na•vetŽ of James McAvoy (Mr. Tumnus in “The Chronicles of Narnia”) evokes compassion. Based on Giles Foden’s novel, insightfully adapted by Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock and meticulously directed by Kevin Mcdonald (“Touching the Void, “One Day in September”), it interweaves historical fact with fiction. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Last King of Scotland” is an eye-riveting 8, an edgy tale that doesn’t let go – despite horrifying images of violence and brutality.

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Flags of Our Fathers

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Flags of Our Fathers” (Paramount Pictures)

Two-time Oscar-winning director Clint Eastwood explores the story behind the most memorable photograph of World War II – and not since “Saving Private Ryan” has a historical wartime epic packed this kind of powerful emotional wallop.
On February 23, 1945, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal snapped a picture of five Marines and one Navy Corpsman raising the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi after a bloody, horrific 35-day battle in which 6,821 American soldiers were killed and 20,000 more were wounded. “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” made instant heroes of the random men in the picture. So, manipulated by the military, the three surviving flag-raisers (Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach) became an integral part of the government’s War Bond Tour. Trapped in the exploitive spotlight of symbolic adulation, they soon realized that the glory of celebrity fades fast, followed by disappointment and disillusionment.
Based on the best-seller by James Bradley with Ron Powers, the screenplay by William Broyles Jr. (“Apollo 13”) and Paul Haggis (“Crash”) reveals the fighting that led up to the photograph and what happened to the men after they returned home. Within their psychological conflict is justifiable skepticism of the mythology of hero-worship.
Produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Clint Eastwood (who also composed the musical score), there’s a spectacular visual scope although the complex, non-linear structure presents a challenge for the audience. Cinematographer Tom Stern fades out colors, often moving monochromatically between chaos and coherence – and the actors, particularly Adam Beach (“Windtalkers”), acquit themselves admirably. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Flags of Our Fathers” is a compelling 10 – to be followed in February, 2007, by Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima,” delving into the battle from the Japanese perspective.

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Marie Antoinette

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Marie Antoinette” (Columbia Pictures)

Sofia Coppola’s “The Virgin Suicides” and “Lost in Translation” delved into themes of isolation but the disconnection in Barbie Goes to Versailles is sheer folly. The lonely, extravagant young Queen does little but acquire clothes and consume sweet confections. Clothes I can understand. She’s royalty. But eating all those delicious pastries, bon-bons and truffles and not gaining an ounce – that’s unforgivable.
Ah, the story. It should be dramatic but isn’t. To solidify an international alliance, 14 year-old Austrian archduchess Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) is dispatched to wed the teenage dauphin (Jason Schwartzman) who will became Louis XVI. But try as she might, for seven years, Marie can’t get her mumbling, bumbling husband to consummate their marriage – until he gets some sex education from Marie’s brother, the Emperor of Austria. Then children arrive, along with the Revolution. But don’t expect to see heads roll on the guillotine – the plot peters out before that.
Coppola draws a satiric parallel between coddled Marie’s delirious decadence and the excesses of today’s pampered, partying pop princesses – like Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Perhaps that’s why she serves discordant rock music – like Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy” – to accompany the costume drama and calorie consumption.
Sumptuously photographed by Lance Accord at Versailles and the Petit Trianon, it’s visually stunning, capturing the glittering, pompous opulence and Champagne-soaked gossip of the French court. But Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwartzman are vacuous, expressionless ciphers in a baroque tableau – with caricature-like support from Judy Davis, Rip Torn, Asia Argento, Marianne Faithfull, Rose Byrne, Molly Shannon, Shirley Henderson and Jamie Dornan. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Marie Antoinette” is a lavish, fashionable 5 – if you’re fascinated by intricate shoes and towering coiffures.

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The Queen

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Queen” (Miramax Films)

Fascination with the death of Princess Diana continues in this docudrama, peeking behind the aloof facade of the House of Windsor when the British monarchy was in crisis in August, 1997, following the fatal car crash in Paris.
Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) has just been elected Prime Minister and his wife Cherie (Helen McCrory) is a well-known anti-royalist. Their first visit to Buckingham Palace is filled with quaint formality and archaic ritual.
Yet when the news of Diana’s tragic death is broadcast, Tony Blair voices the only “official” reaction. The Royals are sequestered at Balmoral in Scotland. Watching the news coverage, Queen (Helen Mirren) is troubled, concerned about her grandsons, but Prince Philip (James Cromwell) and the Queen Mother (Sylvia Syms) are oblivious.
Relying on precedent and miscalculating public sentiment, Queen decrees that since Diana is no longer HRH (Her Royal Highness), the Spencers should plan a small, discreet funeral. Only Prince Charles (Alex Jennings) perceives the icy insensitivity – “The two Dianas, the public’s and ours, bear no relation to each other.” – And responds by slyly, discreetly reaching out to Tony Blair as displays of affection for “the People’s Princess” overwhelm Buckingham Palace.
Examining tradition through the spectrum of political ambition and media savvy, Peter Morton’s screenplay is so well-researched and Stephen Frears’ visual direction is so devoid of sentimentalism that amusing gossip and speculation blend seamlessly with serious historical perspective. And it rings true, except, perhaps, when Philip crawls into bed, muttering, “Move over, Cabbage.”
In an Oscar-worthy performance, Helen Mirren skillfully embodies steely, stoic Queen Elizabeth and the rest of the cast cleverly capture the crucial mannerisms of their real-life counterparts. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Queen” is a spellbinding 9, majestic and magnificent.

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The Prestige

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Prestige’ (Touchstone Pictures)

Like “The Illusionist,” “The Prestige” is a turn-of-the-century tale about magicians. Only, this time, there are two instead of one.
In Victorian London, two competitors are determined to make their mark in magic. Charismatic, sophisticated Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) is passionate devotee of the art and his showmanship is unsurpassed, while coldly calculating, deeply secretive Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) has inventive ideas and more technically astute. Originally, they worked together but when a tragic accident claims the life of Angier’s wife, they become bitter rivals. When Borden creates a dazzling illusion, “The Transported Man,” Angier is obsessed with duplicating it – and Borden wreaks vengeance. But then Angier reads about the groundbreaking work of a maverick American electrical genius, Nikola Tesla (David Bowie), and travels to Tesla’s laboratory in Colorado Springs, where he buys an amazing ‘trick’ which transforms his life.
Based on a novel by Christopher Priest, writer/director Christopher Nolan (“Memento,” “Batman Begins”) has created an opulent, multi-layered mystery structured as sumptuous cinematic magic. Hugh Jackman and Chrisian Bale deliver riveting, often unexpected portrayals, while Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson and David Bowie add to the intrigue. Credit goes to real-life magicians Ricky Jay and Michael Webber, who served as consultants on the classic skills of prestidigitation and misdirection.
The title comes from the three acts necessary for any successful trick: 1) The Pledge, in which the magician shows something ordinary – which really isn’t ordinary at all; 2) The Turn, in which something extraordinary happens; and 3) The Prestige, which turns out to be a total surprise. That’s all the information I can give you – anything more would ruin the surprises for you. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Prestige” is an unconventional, cleverly enigmatic 8. It’s intricate, intriguing entertainment.

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