Movie/TV Reviews

Penelope

Susan Granger’s review of “Penelope” (Stone Village Productions)

Giving a gender tweak to “Beauty and the Beast,” this is a contemporary fable about a princess who is cursed with a pig snout.
Many years ago, a heartless Wilhern aristocrat impregnated a young serving girl. Her mother, a witch, gave the family a curse that the next female child would be born with a deformity – a pig’s snout – that will only disappear when one of her own blue-blooded kind loves her. For generations, there were only sons – until Penelope (Christina Ricci).
When she was born, sleazy tabloid journalists, like Lemon (Peter Dinklage), so hounded the family that her overly protective parents (Catherine O’Hara, Richard E. Grant) faked her death. Sweet-natured porcine Penelope grew up sheltered in an attic bedroom, surrounded by toys. But now she’s of age – and a proper socialite suitor must be found.
One cad (Simon Woods), who escapes before he signs the required confidentiality agreement, babbles about the Miss Piggy encounter which alerts Lemon that Penelope Wilhern is still alive. Together they connive to hire Max (James McAvoy) to pose as a prospective husband and snap a photograph. But while clueless Max is charmed by her, he cannot propose, so Penelope flees into the outside world where she’s befriended by a bike courier, Annie (Reese Witherspoon, also executive producer), and, eventually, decides to go public.
Written by Leslie Caveny and directed by first-time filmmaker Mark Palansky, it’s a whimsical romance. Shedding her usual caustic persona, Christina Ricci cleverly embodies the plucky heroine and Peter Dinklage proves, once again, why he’s one of the best character actors on the screen today. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Penelope” is a plucky 7, as the ugly-duckling fantasy morphs into a satiric take on celebrity culture.

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Charlie Bartlett

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Charlie Bartlett” (MGM)

Mix the rebellion of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” with a bit of “Igby Goes Down” and a touch of “Rushmore” and you come up with this cautionary coming-of-age tale about teens’ recreational use of prescription medications and the necessity of parental involvement.
Kicked out of his very last prep school – this time for a scheme to sell nearly flawless fake IDs – rich kid Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) must enroll in a public high school. After enduring the ritual newbie hazing, confidently optimistic Charlie becomes partners with the class bully (Tyler Hilton), becoming the alienated, overly-pressured student body’s underground psychiatrist, dispensing not only counseling but also mood-altering pills (Ritalin, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Xanax, Prozac, etc.) from a make-shift office in the boys’ bathroom. These pharmaceuticals are made available by gullible psychiatrists kept on retainer by Charlie’s exasperated, ineffectual mother (Hope Davis).
Charlie soon becomes enamored of Susan (Kat Dennings), daughter of Principal Gardner (Robert Downey Jr.), whose transfer from iconoclastic history teacher to paper-pushing bureaucrat under pressure from the superintendent drove him to drink. While their relationship ripens, there are subplots including a suicidal reject (Mark Rendall) and a promiscuous cheerleader (Megan Park) with self-esteem issues.
Making their feature film debuts, screenwriter Gustin Nash and director Jon Poll go for high spirited exuberance over cynicism. With his gift for timing, disarming Anton Yelchin (“Alpha Dog”) lobs volleys over the heads of the grown-ups; he’s charming, sly, vulnerable and wholly sympathetic. Downey and Davis epitomize the frailty and disillusionment that – all too often – comes with age. And the climactic face-off between Yelchin and Downey cannot help but evoke undercurrents of Downey’s own drug-riddled past. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Charlie Bartlett” is a refreshingly clever 8. It’s tart, smart and fun.

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In Bruges

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “In Bruges” (Focus Features)

If you haven’t had your fill of senseless, bloody violence, here’s another dose of swearing and shooting blarney. Following in the sprockets of Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” it’s the story of two morally conflicted Irish gangsters from London.
“After I killed him,” hot-tempered Ray (Colin Farrell) explains in the introduction, “I dropped the gun in the Thames, washed the residue off my hands in the bathroom of a Burger King, and went home to await instructions.”
He’s told to go to the Flemish town of Bruges in Belgium with his older partner Ken (Brendan Gleeson) and await further instructions from their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes).
While Ken would just like to go sightseeing in the cobblestone streets of medieval Bruges, Ray is miserably remorseful about accidentally killing an innocent youngster while assassinating a priest in his confessional – an emotion he acts out by 1) attempting suicide, 2) beating up a Canadian tourist, 3) chasing a prostitute (Clemence Poesy), arousing the ire of her pimp (Jeremie Renier), and 4) obsessing about a surly, racist dwarf (Jordan Prentice) who’s filming a surreal Dutch art movie there. This infuriates homicidal Harry, who has ordered Ken to kill Ray – and is forced to interrupt his Christmas holiday plans to do it himself.
Irish playwright and first-time feature-film writer/director Martin McDonaugh blithely skips from one hackneyed, un-funny vignette to another, punctuated by repetitive, often incoherent dialogue, as one actor reiterates what another has just said. Plus, McDonaugh has a quirky penchant for red, as in blood, as those who saw “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” on Broadway can attest. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “In Bruges” is an offbeat, off-putting 5 – unless you’re really heavily into “guilt and sins and hell and all that.”

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Definitely, Maybe

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Definitely, Maybe” (Universal Pictures)

Making a contemporary romantic comedy isn’t easy but this one delivers an enjoyably romantic whodunit, just in time for Valentine’s Day weekend.
Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) is a 30-something Manhattan dad in the midst of an impending divorce when his precocious10 year-old daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin) returns from a sex education class demanding to know how her parents met and fell in love. That leads Will to tell her about his relationships with three important women in his life, changing the names so she has to guess which of them he married.
“It’s like a love story/mystery,” Maya burbles with endearing curiosity.
Is it Emily (Elizabeth Banks), his college sweetheart; Summer (Rachel Weisz), an ambitious, bohemian journalist; or April (Isla Fisher), his frazzled, free-spirited best friend?
Writer/director Adam Brooks (“Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason,” “Wimbledon,” “French Kiss”) obviously understands that romantic relationships don’t end, they change; that’s inherent for the believability quotient. Too bad producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner (“Four Wedding and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill”) didn’t insist on some judicious pruning because the less-than-sparkling banter runs on too long.
As a leading man, likeable Ryan Reynolds (“Van Wilder,” “Smokin’ Aces”) may be a bit on the bland side, but Abigail Breslin is as audacious and entrancing as she was in “Little Miss Sunshine.” And while identifying who wound up as her ‘mom’ becomes obvious, it’s helpful that Abigail could actually be the daughter of any of the three actresses. Derek Luke, as Will’s buddy/partner, scores as a comic foil, as does Kevin Kline as a political analyst with a penchant for younger women.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Definitely, Maybe” is a soulful, sweet-natured 7, proving that living “happily ever after” isn’t quite so easy.

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Over Her Dead Body

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Over Her Dead Body” (New Line Cinema)

Don’t believe the advertising: this is not a romantic comedy. There’s little that’s endearing and the laughs are scarce.
The fantasy begins as shrewish Kate (Eva Longoria Parker) and smirking Henry (Paul Rudd), a veterinarian, are about to get married in sunny Long Beach, California. But hours before the wedding, when a massive ice sculpture of a wingless angel falls and crushes her, the bridezilla is dead. By the time Kate gets her spirit act together in the all-white afterlife, it’s a year later. Once grief-stricken Henry is now attracted to Ashley (Lake Bell), a scatter-brained psychic/caterer who has been hired by Henry’s kooky sister, Chloe (Lindsay Sloane), to convince him he should get over his depression and “move on.” Perhaps start dating again. Jealous Kate doesn’t like this turn of events one little bit and decides to scare Ashley away. To add to the ghostly frivolity, there’s Ashley’s gay catering assistant, Dan (Jason Biggs). Yada, yada.
While Jeff Lowell is credited with writing “John Tucker Must Die,” this is his first attempt at directing – and it shows. His helming is not incompetent but it is inept, and his shamelessly derivative, sit-com script is filled with blandly idiotic, generic, one-dimensional characters and frothy, cinematic clichés, like the climactic rush to the airport with a possessed talking parrot.
Making a miniscule jump from her cloying “Desperate Housewives” character, curvaceous Eva Longoria Parker, who has adopted her NBA star husband’s surname, is a force to be reckoned with. Yet Lake Bell from TV’s “Boston Legal” gamely steals the picture right out from under Parker’s tiny, turned-up nose. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Over Her Dead Body” is a silly, campy, tepid 3. No hearts ‘n’ flowers here.

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Untraceable

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Untraceable” (Screen Gems)

There’s a serial killer on the loose in rain-drenched Portland, Oregon, a predator who tortures his prey on-camera, ramping the grisly, graphic violence with every gawker who clicks on his website to observe what’s happening. A counter reveals the accelerating number of hits as each new agony is unveiled.
One woman is hung, upside-down, from the ceiling and gradually lowered over sharp, rotating blades. A man is trapped inside a tank of water into which sulfuric acid is slowly dropped. When there’s a predetermined amount of Internet voyeurs, the victim – animal or human – is killed in front of millions of viewers.
FBI Special Agent Jennifer Marsh (Diane Lane) is a struggling, widowed single mother working in the cybercrimes division, along with her nerdy young partner, Griffin Dowd (Colin Hanks). Marsh is horrified by the streaming videos on killwithme.com, but this tech-savvy psychopath is virtually untraceable. And when she finally realizes that the anonymous stalker is striking too close to home, she gets help from her supportive mother (Mary Beth Hurt) and a Portland police detective, Eric Box (Billy Burke).
Written by Robert Fyvolent, Mark R. Brinker and Alison Burnett, directed by Gregory Hoblit (“Fracture,” “Primal Fear”) and photographed by Anastas Michos, it’s a formulaic, melodramatic, ultimately improbable cyber-thriller.
Don’t blame the actors. Diane Lane is convincingly conflicted, torn between work and family, and Colin Hanks – Tom’s son – acquits himself admirably, looking for love in cyberspace.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Untraceable” is a geeky, gruesome, repugnant 3. The moral – we’re told – is that the acting of choosing to watch makes us accessories to the crime; without an audience, presumably, there would be no murder. And without an audience, this disturbing police procedural should move quickly to the video store.

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Rambo

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Rambo” (Lionsgate)

Sylvester Stallone’s claim to fame is the iconic characters of “Rocky” and “Rambo,” and he doesn’t tire of recycling both of them.
“When you’re pushed, killin’ is as easy as breathin’,” growls ex-Green Beret John Rambo, who’s been living as a recluse in northern Thailand, where he runs a motor boat and wrangles poisonous snakes on the Salween River near the Burma border, where a long-running civil war still rages. Maybe he has clandestine meetings with Capt. Willard from “Apocalypse Now.” Who knows?
Then a group of Colorado human rights missionaries wamts to rent his boat to transport medical supplies and Bibles upriver to struggling Karen villagers; the Burmese military has strewn landmines along the roads.
“Are you taking guns?” Rambo inquires. Of course not! “Then you’ll change nothing.”
Rambo turns them down, but the group’s only woman, Sarah (Julie Benz of “Dexter”), convinces him to change his mind.
Yet after he drops them off at their destination, they’re ambushed and taken prisoner by sadistic Burmese soldiers. Of course, the church’s pastor (Ken Howard) relies on Rambo to execute a rescue mission. Reluctantly, the bandana-wearing renegade rounds up a squad of nasty mercenaries – and then the loud, violent, relentless carnage begins, taking the R-rating to its utmost, stupefying limits.
Claiming that he devised this fourth installment with geopolitical relevance – namely, to draw attention to the need for aid in war-torn Burma (Myanmar) – writer/director/actor Stallone has clearly made a vanity project. He’s even included a flashback sequence for those who managed to miss his first three Rambo excursions; seeing Richard Crenna again was an unexpected bonus.
While Stallone’s beefcake is a brawny testament to steroids, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Rambo” is a graphic, blood-drenched 2. Stay out of the jungle!

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Meet the Spartans

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

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

Slapstick spoofs don’t get worse than this wretched, “300”-inspired, extended skit from writers/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, whose previous parodies include “Date Movie” and “Epic Movie.”
Back in ancient Greece, the brave warrior/king Leonidas was trained as a sturdy, stoic Spartan, so when the invading Persian hoards threatened the sovereignty of his city-state, he left his wife and gathered an army of 300 loyal soldiers to face mighty Xerxes in a heroic battle to the death.
In this campy version, muscle-bound Leonidas (Sean Maguire), wearing only leather underpants, is gay, as is his hunky aide-de-camp (Kevin Sorbo). As is their custom, the scantily-clad men greet each other with a deep kiss, while the women get a smacking “high-five.” So despite the seductive efforts of Queen Margo (Carmen Electra), the frolicking fellows – along with 13 faithful followers – skip off to a battle at the “Hot Gates.” Hidden in their midst is the villainous Traitoro (Diedrich Bader), whose deeds serve his name, and their enemy is hideously obese Xerxes (Ken Davitian from “Borat”), whose nipple clamps keep coming off.
Friedberg and Seltzer not only skewer homosexuals; in addition, their ancillary targets include “Brangelina,” Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and the jury for “American Idol” – with parodies of “Ghost Rider,” “Happy Feet,” “Transformers,” even “Deal or No Deal.” Not to mention obvious product placements for Coke and Dentyne Ice, among others.
Actually, if you want to see a free, far-better satire on the same subject, go to YouTube and find the “United 300” spoof.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Meet the Spartans” is a witlessly crude, vulgar 1. It’s not too early to begin a Worst Movies of 2008 list – and this is the first entry. Be warned.

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27 Dresses

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “27 Dresses” (20th Century Fox)

Psst! Wanna sneak off to an old-fashioned chick flick?
Jane (Katherine Heigl) is a serial bridesmaid. One night, she’s even double-booked, shuttling by taxi between one wedding in midtown Manhattan and another in Brooklyn. Without doubt, self-effacing Jane is the most efficient, accommodating friend in the world, always putting others’ needs before her own, particularly her clueless boss, George (Edward Burns), on whom she has a secret crush.
But Jane’s put to the test when her spoiled, self-indulgent, seductive sister, Tess (Malin Akerman), breezes into town and steals not only George’s affections but also their mother’s wedding gown. Skulking in the background is a cynical newspaper reporter (James Marsden) on the wedding beat. He loathes his job and figures that a story on Jane’s nuptial fixation would make a great front-page feature for his section, adorned with photos of her in all of the garish bridesmaids’ outfits that she has squashed in her closet.
Katherine Heigl successfully springs once again to the big screen from TV’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” having ventured before in “Knocked Up,” and Judy Greer’s terrific as her tough-talking best-friend. Curiously, in both of her recent big-screen outings Heigl has chosen to play a character whose demeanor totally changes when she gets drunk at a local bar.
So why is this romantic comedy old-fashioned? Because the underlying message is that, basically, a woman’s life is meaningless without marriage.
Nevertheless, screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (“The Devil Wears Prada”) and choreographer-turned-director Anne Fletcher (“Step Up”) create a funny screwball farce, mocking the fashion police and brazenly “borrowing” from better wedding-themed movies. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “27 Dresses” is an amusing 7, a fluffy, frivolous indulgence for those of us who still enjoy the occasional wedding fantasy.

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Cloverfield

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

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

Using the Internet to arouse anticipation and then delivering a genuine sci-fi/horror/monster movie has proven to be a winning formula for “Alias” and “Lost” producer J.J.Abrams and director Matt Reeves.
As viewed from the lens of a spectator’s video camera, the story begins with a budding romance between twentysomethings Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and Beth (Odette Yustman) on a date in Coney Island. Then Rob is leaving for Japan, so his brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and Jason’s girl-friend Lily (Jessica Lucas) throw him a surprise party in SoHo. Rob’s best friend, Hud (T.J. Miller), has been assigned to camcorder duty, and Hud’s love interest is Marlena (Lizzy Caplan).
Suddenly, Manhattan is under attack by some giant creature and its parasites that emerge from the harbor – and the Statue of Liberty is decapitated. Amid the chaos, Rob’s cellphone rings; Beth is trapped in her father’s midtown apartment. Rob’s determined to rescue her with his partying pals trotting along behind. Meanwhile, the military has been summoned and everyone is in a state of panic. Although it’s never mentioned, apparently “Cloverfield” is the Department of Defense designation for the monster’s elimination.
Borrowing visceral elements from “The Blair Witch Project,” “Godzilla” and newsreel footage from 9/11, Abrams and Reeves work with writer Drew Goddard, cinematographer Michael Bonvillain, production designer Martin Whist, visual effects supervisor Phil Tippett and editor Kevit Stitt to create some scary, horrific moments, made all the more immediate and unsettling by the jiggly, hand-held camerawork which may induce nausea in those prone to motion-sickness.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Cloverfield” is a crudely naturalistic, yet innovative, effective 8. It’s already so successful that Hasbro is accepting orders for a 14” collectible monster with parasites to be shipped by September 30, 2008.

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