Movie/TV Reviews

The X-Files: I Want To Believe

Susan Granger’s review of “The X-Files: I Want To Believe” (20th Century-Fox)

There are no alien abductions, no space invaders, no conspiracy theories, nothing spooky or supernatural – just Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) at odds over whether a pedophile priest really has the psychic ability to solve a string of grisly murders.
A female FBI agent has gone missing in snowy West Virginia and the only ‘lead’ investigating Agent Dakota Whitney (Amanda Peet) has revolves around Father Joe (Billy Connolly), a convicted, excommunicated pedophile priest who leads them to a severed arm that’s buried in an icy field. Glowering Agent Mosley Drummy (rapper Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner) is sure the allegedly clairvoyant priest is a phony but he does seem to have an inexplicable psychic connection to what’s happening, especially when another local woman vanishes without a trace. So Dr. Dana Scully is summoned from her full-time hospital practice – she’s desperately trying to save the life of a young boy who is dying of a rare brain disease – to find her erstwhile partner, Fox Mulder, now an isolated, bitter recluse, distrustful of the Bureau where he and Scully worked for so many years.
Mulder believes in parapsychology; Scully is skeptical. So what else is new?
Writer/director Chris Carter, who created the original “X-Files” series, and his co-writer Frank Spotnitz toss in religious issues, faith, psychotic Russian entrepreneurs, even experimental stem cell research. Yet it’s basically a routine crime drama – think “C.S.I.: West Virginia” – that’s only heightened by the undeniable on-screen chemistry between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, neither of whom have been able to successfully parlay their TV fame into individual screen careers. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The X-Files: I Want To Believe” is an all-too-familiar 5. Some things never change.

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dvd update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s dvd update for week of Friday, July 18th:

Giving a gender tweak to “Beauty and the Beast,” “Penelope” is a contemporary fable about a princess (Christina Ricci) cursed with a pig snout and how she defies her overly protective parents and is befriended by a bike courier (Reese Witherspoon); eventually, the ugly duckling fantasy morphs into a satiric take on celebrity culture. The arduous, dumbed-down “College Road Trip” finds a small-town Illinois police chief (Martin Lawrence) trying – in vain – to control the life of his beloved 17 year-old daughter (Disney channel star Raven-Symone) who outwits him at every turn. And if you’re tempted to “Meet Bill,” don’t. Starring Aaron Eckhart (“The Dark Knight”) and Jessica Alba, it’s a labored screwball comedy about privileged people yearning for fulfillment. On the other hand, if you liked “The Ring” and “The Grudge,” there’s “Shutter,” an English-language horror movie by Japanese director Masayuki Ochiai; this time the creepy device is a photograph, lots of photographs, revealing a mysterious woman. In the tradition of Michael Apted’s “Up” series, “21 Up South Africa,” where a group of children, first filmed in 1991 at the age of seven, are now 21. Rich and poor, black and white and “mixed-race,” they offer unique insights into the social and political upheavals that occurred after apartheid ceased. Created by Connecticut dancer/mom Liz Milwe and director Michel Negroponte, “Hip Hop for Kids: School House Hop” introduces a fun way to get in shape – with easy-to-follow, step-by-step instruction, featuring high-energy Hip Hop master Roger G. PICK OF THE WEEK: “The Year My Parents Went on Vacation” is a droll, coming-of-age story set in Brazil in the turbulent year of 1970. That’s when a soccer-obsessed 12 year-old boy is hastily dropped off at his elderly grandfather’s apartment in Sao Paulo. But the old man has died and the ethnically mixed neighbors take care of him.

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The Dark Knight

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.)

In the “Batman” movies, it’s always the villains who steal the show – and Christopher Nolan’s latest installment is no exception. Heath Ledger is dangerous and demented as the Joker, a cackling symbol of insane, unpredictable anarchy that’s both timely and relevant in today’s grim, chaotic world.
While billionaire Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale) has chased gangsters from Gotham City, the criminal community has rebelled, creating a far greater threat by turning to a villainous mastermind known as the Joker, whose cruel savagery is so unrelenting that he twists the souls of the Caped Crusader, District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and Police Lieut. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman).
“Criminals are complicated,” observes Wayne’s astute butler Alfred (Michael Caine). “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
While it’s macabre, even tragic, to watch Ledger (“Brokeback Mountain”) in his garish war paint, knowing that he died of a prescription drug overdose after filming ended, his malevolent performance has already generated talk of a posthumous Oscar, following in the footsteps of Peter Finch, who won in 1977 for “Network” two months after he died. And he’s ably supported by brooding Bale, Caine, and Morgan Freeman, as Lucius Fox, who provides Wayne with high-tech gizmos and gadgets, like a Batsuit and new two-wheeled Bat-Pod. Unfortunately, Maggie Gyllenhaal is given little to do but smile and shriek as Rachel Dawes.
Christopher Nolan (“Batman Returns,” “Memento”) – who wrote the script with his brother Jonathan – propels the action-filled crime drama at a brutal, frenetic, often confusing pace. Yet on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Dark Knight” is a thrilling, terrifying 10. Once again, the Joker’s wild!

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Meet Dave

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Meet Dave” (20th Century-Fox)

Eddie Murphy knew what he was doing when he skipped the premiere of his new movie; he was avoiding a public embarrassment.
In this sci-fi comedy, Murphy plays a human-sized spaceship and its tiny captain controlling the craft from a deck in the spaceship’s head. With his home planet Nil facing extinction, Dave Ming Chang (Murphy) and his crew are dispatched to Earth to mix with the humanoids while searching for an essential device that was intended to absorb all the water from our oceans so the Nilians can have the salt. That involves Dave’s landing at the Statue of Liberty in his pristine white suit and gaining the trust of a young boy, Josh (Austyn Lind Myers), and Gina, his hippie single mom (Elizabeth Banks).
While the outlandish alien set-up is amusing for about 15 minutes, the sloppy script by sit-com veteran Rob Greenberg & Bill Corbett (“Mystery Science Theater 3000”) quickly sputters and stalls, leaving director Brian Robbins (“Norbit”) little to work with except toilet humor, cultural references like “Star Trek” jibes, and Murphy’s usual slapstick shtick, turning all too often to maudlin moments with Elizabeth Banks and Gabrielle Union, who plays his inch-tall extraterrestrial cultural officer. Miniature menace comes from Dave’s power-hunger “No. 2” (Ed Helms).
Going back to his raunchy “Beverly Hills Cop” days and subsequent hits like “48 Hours,” “Doctor Doolittle,” “Coming to America,” “Shrek,” even “Dreamgirls,” Eddie Murphy has proved himself as one of the screen’s most engaging comedian/actors. So his participation in debacles like this and “The Adventures of Pluto Nash” is inexcusable. He desperately needs better advisors.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Meet Dave” is a tedious, time-wasting 3, apologizing to family-friendly audiences with, “Sorry, Earth, sometimes No. 2 happens!”

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Brick Lane

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Brick Lane” (Sony Pictures Classics)

There are many stories about immigrants’ feelings of alienation – and this one revolves around a subservient Muslim girl’s gradual transformation into a decisive woman.
When she was young, Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee) vowed never to leave her younger sister and their beloved Bangladeshi village, but as a teenager she was married off to a pompous, portly, older businessman, Chanu (Satish Kaushik), and expected to build a life in East London’s shabby, immigrant-filled Brick Lane district where, years earlier, carts rolled from kilns in the countryside to the city’s construction sites.
Two school-age children and 16 dutifully banal years later, Nazneen is still dreaming of returning ‘home’ to see her sister. Unable to afford the plane ticket, she obtains a second-hand sewing machine and begins working as a seamstress to make extra money. That’s how she becomes involved with young, politically militant Karim (Christopher Simpson), who brings her men’s pants to stitch. Far more than just ‘an affair,’ their relationship redefines how Nazneen views herself, her foolish husband, their daughters and their lives.
Based on Monica Ali’s expansive novel which was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2003, writers Abi Morgan and Laura Jones faced the monumental challenge of choosing what to discard and what to retain. While their screenplay retains the clandestine romantic intrigue, its great complication comes from the events of 9/11 – after which anti-Muslim prejudice dominated much of Great Britain. And director Sarah Gavron indulges in a few too many shadowy pastoral reminiscences, augmented by Robbie Ryan’s lush photography. On the other hand, the acting is uniformly good – with Satish Kaushik familiar from Bollywood films. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Brick Lane” is a poignant, subtle 6, tackling cross-cultural conflict and racial intolerance.

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Mamma Mia!

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Mamma Mia!” (Universal Pictures)

Meryl Streep is amazing! There is nothing this gifted actress cannot do – and she’s a sensational choice to bring ABBA’s irresistible frolic to the screen.
Set on a sunny Greek island, it revolves around bride-to-be Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) who yearns to have her father give her away. Problem is: her feisty, free-spirited mother Donna (Meryl Streep) has never told her who he is. So when Sophie discovers her mother’s diary and realizes that, when was conceived, Donna was involved with three different men – Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Harry (Colin Firth) and Bill (Stellan Skarsgard) – she secretly invites them to her wedding. Chaos ensues and complications inevitably arise, yet Donna and her wickedly zany BFFs (best-female-friends Christine Baranski and Julie Walters) sing and dance their way through the celebration.
Unfortunately, writer Catherine Johnson and theater/opera director Phyllida Lloyd haven’t a clue about musical movie-making, nor does cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos. And if this genre is to enjoy the revival that was trumpeted when “Chicago” won Oscars, stage veterans must hone their cinematic credentials. Imagination must soar and the camera must swirl along with the dancers, and if the role demands warbling, singing talent is essential. Rex Harrison may have ‘faked it’ in “My Fair Lady” but Pierce Brosnan is no Rex Harrison; his foray into musical comedy ranks with Clint Eastwood’s “Paint Your Wagon.”
On the other hand, when Streep belts “Dancing Queen,” you just gotta move; her “The Winner Takes It All” breaks your heart; and her “Slipping Through My Fingers” causes misty eyes. And it’s brilliant using colorful locals as a glitzy Greek chorus. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Mamma Mia!” is an uplifting, finger-snapping, energetic 8. It’s awfully good, meaning “Money, Money, Money” at the box-office.

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dvd update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s dvd update for week of Friday, July 11th:

In anticipation of next week’s theatrical release of “The Dark Knight,” there’s “Batman Gotham Knight,” a two-disc anthology of 40-years of Batman animation history. Bonus features include a retrospective of villains, “A Mirror for the Bat: The Evil Denizens of Gotham City,” and “Sneak Peek: Wonder Woman.”
With summer in full gear, “Down the Barrel” is an exhilarating surfing documentary with four top competitors defying the uncontrollable ocean, catching the perfect wave from Hawaii’s Bonzai Pipeline to the Barrier Reef in Tahiti.
“Bonneville” teams Jessica Lange, Joan Allen and Kathy Bates on a middle-aged cross-country road trip, and Meg Ryan headlines “My Mom’s New Boyfriend” with Antonio Banderas as the man in question and Colin Hanks as her FBI-agent son.
The documentary “Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten” profiles the Clash frontman and self-described “punk-rock warlord” who died of a heart attack in 2002 at the age of 50, mixing concert clips, home movies and recollections from his associates.
From Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai, “My Blueberry Nights” features singer Norah Jones as a brokenhearted young wanderer who bonds over blueberry pie with Jude Law, the owner of a tiny New York café; while each scene is beautifully composed, it doesn’t jell.
“The Tracey Fragments,” about a troubled teen, is a failed cinematic experiment except for a fine performance by Ellen Page (“Juno”). Canadian filmmaker Brian McDonald uses a dizzying split-screen technique, resulting in a video collage that’s a trial to endure.
PICK OF THE WEEK: In “Stop-Loss,” filmmaker Kimberley Peirce (“Boys Don’t Cry”) angrily delves into what’s happening to troops currently serving their country in the Middle East, specifically, the government’s retention policy known as the backdoor draft; Ryan Phillippe, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Abbie Cornish star.

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The Last Mistress

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Last Mistress” (IFC Films)

In the midst of summer froth, here’s an opulent French bodice-ripper from writer/director Catherine Breillat, who is obsessed with gender politics, specifically female desire and sexuality.
In 1835 in Paris, the elderly Vicomte de Prony (Michael Lonsdale) and the middle-aged Countess d’Artelles (Yolande Moreau) dine and dither vicariously about the mischievous dalliances of their fellow aristocrats. Their juicy gossip focuses primarily on dissolute Ryno de Marigny (androgynous newcomer, Fu’ad Ait Aattou), a notorious libertine who wishes to marry young, innocent – and very wealthy – Hermangarde (Roxanne Mesquida) and must first obtain the permission of her curious grandmother, Marquise de Flers (Claude Sarraute)…and there’s this complication of his 10-year involvement with a voluptuous, uninhibited, capricious Spanish courtesan, Vellini (Asia Argentino), who is said to be the illegitimate daughter of an Italian princess and a famed Spanish matador. Consumed with jealousy, the jilted Vellini then brazenly follows de Marigny and his naïve bride on their honeymoon and, scandalously, makes no attempt to be inconspicuous.
Adapting this costume melodrama from Jules-Amedee Barbey d’Aurevilly’s novel, Breillat (“Fat Girl,” “Romance,” “Sex is Comedy”) perceives post-feminist sexual politics through an angry, dark-hued lens, candidly equating passion with violence. There’s a scene where Vellini licks blood from her lover’s wound after he’s shot in a duel, murmuring “I want to drink his blood, no one can stop me!” And another in which she rakes a hairpin across de Marigny’s face, exciting him with the playful gesture. That viewpoint and the ensuing talkiness get a bit tedious. But the smoldering, uninhibited, simulated sex scenes add spice, so on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Last Mistress” is a steamy, sumptuous, sensual 7. Think of a 19th century “Fatal Attraction” in French with English subtitles.

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Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (Universal Pictures)

Another week, another comic-book superhero movie. But this one is different.
Back in 2004, before he made “Pan’s Labyrinth,” wildly imaginative writer/director Guillermo del Toro introduced Mike Mignola’s Hellboy (Ron Perlman) to the screen. Born in the flames of hell and brought to Earth as an infant to perpetrate evil, Hellboy was rescued from occult Nazi forces by Dr. Trevor Broom (John Hurt), who made him into a crime-fighter and defender of the human race.
So when the cat-loving, cigar-chomping, Tecate-swilling Hellboy is summoned by the elite, top-secret B.P.R.D. (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense) in Trenton, New Jersey, he and his sarcastic, pyrokinetic (and secretly pregnant) girl-friend Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) must battle the Underworld’s ruthless Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) with his lumbering troll henchman, Wink (Brian Steele) and the fantastical 16’-tall robots who comprise the Golden Army.
At Hellboy’s side are the half-fish/half mammal aquatic empath Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) and the officious protoplasmic mystic Dr. Johann Krauss (John Alexander/James Dodd, voiced by Seth MacFarlane), along with perpetually flustered B.P.R.D. agent Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) and Prince Nuada’s twin sister, ethereal Princess Nuala (Anna Walton).
“Mythology and folklore have always been present in ‘Hellboy’ comics, and we didn’t go there in the first film,” Mike Mignola notes. “So instead of Rasputin, Nazis, mad scientists and H.P. Lovecraft-type stuff, we went for the supernatural.”
Among their most intriguing, creepy creations are the dainty-but-deadly Tooth Fairies, who ravenously devour calcium, and the plant-like Elemental, standing 70’ tall after water activates its growth. And their Troll Market evokes memories of George Lucas’ iconic “Star Wars” Cantina.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” is a chaotic yet spectacular 7, a dark fantasy/horror tale.

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Days and Clouds

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Days and Clouds” (Film Movement)

Back in 2000, Silvio Soldini struck an emotional chord with “Bread and Tulips.” Now he’s back with a middle-aged, upper middle-class Genovese couple caught in the throes of life crisis precipitated by a financial upheaval.
When Elsa (Margherita Buy) receives her doctorate as an art historian, her proud husband Michele (Antonio Albanese) gives her lovely antique earrings and invites all their friends to a lavish surprise party. But the next morning, he’s forced to reveal the truth that he’s been hiding for the past two months: he’s been pushed out of the company he founded and is now jobless. They’re going to have to downsize: cancel their vacation abroad, dismiss their maid, put their spacious apartment on the market, sell their boat and cut expenses.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Elsa wails. “I hate not knowing things.”
In the following months, as they work their way through embarrassment, frustration and shame, their basic marital commitment is sorely tested as they become increasingly alienated not only from others, including their grown daughter, but from each other.
In order to stay solvent, Elsa abandons a beloved fresco restoration project to work as a telemarketer and as a part-time secretary to a shipping company executive in the evening. Idealistic Michele takes a job as a motor bike courier and then turns to renovating apartments with two of his former employees.
The dilemma that Silbio Soldini and co-writers (Doriana Leondeff, Francesco Piccolo, Federica Pontremoli) delineate revolves around the interconnectedness of love, money and status, a timely, relevant topic. Superbly acted in Italian with English subtitles, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Days and Clouds” is a sensitive, subtle 7, sympathetically detailing the devastation of economic insecurity and the regeneration of a marriage.

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