Movie/TV Reviews

Bug

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

If you were expecting a disturbing horror movie or creature-feature, think again. This adaptation of a bizarre Off-Broadway play buzzes along like a bad drug trip.
Cocktail waitress Agnes White (Ashley Judd) lives in a seedy motel in the middle of Western nowhere, answering an incessantly and ominously ringing phone, dreading the day that her abusive ex-con husband, Jerry Goss (Harry Connick Jr.), will appear and torment her about how she, inexplicably, lost their son Lloyd in a supermarket.
Her tattooed lesbian lover R.C. (Lynn Collins) brings by Peter Evans (Michael Shannon), a shy, pleasantly polite Southern drifter with whom Agnes falls into bed. Soon after she’s smoked another roach and consumed another vodka and Coke, Peter confides his paranoid conspiracy theories about being the subject of a secret governmental medical experiment gone awry in which his body was infested with blood-sucking aphids – i.e.: bugs. Amazingly, he persuades Agnes that her body has been contaminated too. So they stock up on every insect repellent on the market, covering the floor, walls and ceiling with aluminum foil, and go into homicidal panic when Peter’s doctor (Brian O’Bryne) shows up on the doorstep.
Using Tracy Letts’ screen adaptation of his avante-garde play, director William Friedkin (“The Exorcist,” “The French Connection”) allows characters to indulge in tiresome, repetitive and seemingly endless monologues – never opening the psychological concept beyond the confines of a filmed stage production. The actors babble incessantly about imaginary creepy crawlies, none of which are ever seen on-screen. The performances are convincing, especially hunky Harry Connick Jr., who never gets involved in the buggy nonsense. But Friedkin’s direction is over-indulgent and his taste for gruesome gore seems insatiable. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Bug” is a reprehensible, repugnant 2. Pretentious poppycock!

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Oceans Thirteen

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Oceans Thirteen” (Warner Bros.)

Move over, Spidey, Shrek and Sparrow – Danny Ocean’s back in Vegas!
When trusting Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) has a coronary seizure after he’s been swindled out of half-ownership in a new hotel/casino by ruthless, egomaniacal Willy Bank (Al Pacino), Danny (George Clooney) summons the gang to avenge their old pal by breaking The Bank: rigging the gambling games so Willy loses millions, stealing his precious collection of diamond necklaces, and dashing his dreams of winning the coveted Five Diamond Award. The crime caper’s scheduled on The Bank’s Opening Night, July 3rd – and, being “analog players in a digital world,” the gang’s got a lot to learn in a short time in order to outmaneuver the impregnable Greco, The Bank’s artificial intelligence security system that not only thinks but also reasons.
Writers Brian Koppelman and David Levien (“Rounders”) and sophisticated director/cinematographer Steven Soderbergh explain the absence of Tess and Isobel (Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones) – “It’s not their fight” – so it’s Linus (Matt Damon) who romances Abigail Sponder (Ellen Barkin), Willy’s top exec. Otherwise, it’s about loyalty, professionalism and male camaraderie among Brad Pitt, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Eddie Jemison, Shaobo Qin and Carl Reiner.
Frank Sinatra starred in the original “Oceans Eleven” and its three sequels, so it resonates when Reuben recoils at Bank’s duplicity, saying, “You and I both shook Sinatra’s hand, and there’s a code among the guys who shook Sinatra’s hand.” Crassly, Bank snorts, “Screw Sinatra’s hand!”
Omnipresent Oprah makes an appearance and – at the conclusion – there’s in-joke bantering about Clooney’s “Syriana” poundage and Pitt’s well-publicized parenthood. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Oceans 13” is a cool, playful 9. It’s a winner as one of this summer’s guiltiest pleasures.

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Mr. Brooks

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Mr. Brooks” (M.G.M.)

It’s easy to understand why Oscar-winning actor/producer/director Kevin Costner decided to change his image by playing a schizophrenic serial killer who dutifully attends AA meetings as “an addict” and engages in imaginary conversations with his creepy, caustic alter ego (William Hurt) as he struggles to control his impulses.
While he’s a successful businessman/philanthropist – Portland, Oregon’s Man of the Year – Earl Brooks has a secret. He’s dutiful to his wife (Marg Helenberger) and a doting father to his rebellious daughter (Danielle Penabaker) but – late at night – he sneaks out to feed his lurid fantasies.
While Costner once ruled the summer with “Field of Dreams” and “Bull Durham” and won Oscars for “Dances With Wolves,” he’s also suffered setbacks with “Waterworld” and “The Postman.” But he’s always been a risk-taker and Mr. Brooks is a blood-thirsty psycho, no doubt about it.
The story begins with great promise, delineating his character and introducing a disturbed peeping-Tom (Dane Cook) who photographs Mr. Brooks as he slaughters a young couple in their bed. The twist is that he won’t go to the police with his incriminating evidence if Mr. Brooks will take him along on his next “outing.”
Hot on their trail is a tough detective (Demi Moore) who’s in the midst of a nasty divorce and being pursued by a vengeful escaped convict (Matt Schulze) determined to kill her. Too bad he doesn’t because Moore is so plasticized that she’s almost as detestable as her prey.
Writer/director Bruce A. Evans and co-writer Raymond Gideon suffer from a plethora of coincidences and contrivances, including making Moore a multimillionaire and introducing a startling genetic concept. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Mr. Brooks” is a violent, implausible 6. It’s Costner’s dark field of screams.

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Gracie

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Gracie” (Picturehouse)

Supposedly based on events from the adolescence of actress Elisabeth Shue, this is an amiable, totally predictable, underdog sports melodrama about a determined young girl who defies the odds to play high-school soccer.
Set in South Orange, New Jersey, in 1978, back when it wasn’t socially acceptable for females to participate in certain athletic endeavors, it revolves around Grace Bowen (Carly Schroeder) who, after her oldest brother dies in a car accident after his team lost to their archrival, attempts to break the gender barrier to take his place on the boys’ soccer team. She trains tenaciously, impresses everyone and scores the big goal to save the day. No surprises.
Since she’s obviously too old to star in this fictionalized but very personalized story, Elisabeth Shue plays her own – i.e. Gracie’s – overprotective mother, while her real-life director husband, David Guggenheim (Oscar-winner “An Inconvenient Truth”), gets tripped up with too little time-centric authenticity and too many clichŽs, like utilizing soaking rains and soggy violins to evoke sadness and Gracie’s setting a caged bird free to fly away.
From Lisa Marie Petersen and Karen Janszen’s screenplay, we learn very little about Gracie except her overwhelming soccer ambition, and the dialogue is heavily laced with declarations like “I am tough enough” and “You can do anything!” Elisabeth’s brother Andrew Shue, a survivor of “Melrose Place,” makes a token appearance as a teacher.
It’s sad that it’s so decidedly mediocre because Carly Shroeder (“Lizzie McGuire”) delivers a spirited performance, as does Dermot Mulroney as Gracie’s gruff but loving father, burdened with his own childhood issues. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Gracie” is an inspirationally formulaic 4. In every sense, it’s a vanity-propelled family project that would have played better as an after-school television special.

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Nancy Drew

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Nancy Drew” (Warner Bros.)

‘Way back when I was a ‘tween, I devoured all the “Nancy Drew” mystery novels written by various authors using the pseydonym Carolyn Keene.
Still passionate, determined and ambitious, 16 year-old Nancy Drew (Emma Roberts) moves from midwestern River Heights to Hollywood, where her windower father (“The O.C.’s” Tate Donovan) has rented the creepy estate that once belonged to famous actress Dehlia Draycott (Laura Elena Harring). Nancy chose the Draycott Mansion specifically because of the unsolved mystery revolving around the death of the glamorous film star.
While she’s determined to solve the case, Nancy, in her preppy penny loafers, must also adjust to making friends in a new high school where her vacuous classmates are obsessed with fashion trends. Then Ned Nickerson (Max Thierot), Nancy’s hometown beau, arrives in her cool, sky blue Nash Metropolitan convertible as a surprise, much to the chagrin of Corky (Josh Flitter), a fast-talking 12 year-old who has a crush on Nancy.
Emma Roberts (Nickelodeon’s “Unfabulous”) is a delightful revelation. With coltish energy and disarming naturalness, she has one of the most expressive young faces on the screen today, reminiscent of Aunt Julia. And Josh Flitter is an expert comic – with a veteran’s instinct for timing.
If only writer/director Andrew Fleming and co-writer Tiffany Paulsen had been as focused. They’ve created a retro teenager who is priggish, rather than charming – with self-confidence that borders on insufferable arrogance, inquiring: “Is there a law against common courtesy in Los Angeles?”
Desperate to be contemporary, it’s, nevertheless, wooden and dated although Nancy’s sleuthing is occasionally nifty – as is Bruce Willis’ uncredited cameo and Ralph Salls’ music. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Nancy Drew” is a sweet yet clueless 5. It’s quaint and campy, an odd combination.

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Surf’s Up

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Surf’s Up” (Columbia/Sony Pictures)

Are you ready for more anthropomorphic penguins? Since “March of the Penguins,” the lumbering, black-and-white birds have dominated the silver screen. Now they’ve waddled into yet another major ocean picture.
Like one of Christopher Guest’s mockumentaries, this animated comedy delves behind the scenes of pro surfing, profiling an up-and-coming teenage Rockhopper penguin, Cody Maverick (voiced by Shia LaBeouf), as he enters his first pro competition. After convincing a cynical talent scout (Mario Cantone), Cody leaves Shiverpool, Antarctica, hitching whale transport to tropical Pen Gu Island for the Big Z Memorial Surf Off, making friends en route with goofy Chicken Joe (Jon Heder).
While fast-talking promoter Reggie Belafonte (James Woods, channeling Don King) and coy lifeguard Lani Alikai (Zooey Deschanel) acknowledge Cody’s passion for surfing – and the hulking current champion, thug-like Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader), derides his audacity (“You’re goin’ down, snowflake!”) – it’s a reclusive veteran surfer named Geek (Jeff Bridges, channeling his “The Big Lebowski” character) who takes him under his flipper, teaching Cody that coming in first doesn’t always make you a winner: “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.”
Written and directed by Ash Brannon and Chris Buck, it’s supposed to be about cool dudes breezing on boards but, mid-way, it meanders so much that both kids and their parents are bound to get restless. One sure laugh comes when Cody steps on a spiny sea urchin and Geek knows that the only way to alleviate the pain is to piddle on the wound.
Sony’s colorful CGI doesn’t match that of Pixar or DreamWorks yet and the shaky, “handheld” camerawork evokes a Stacy Peralta surfing documentary. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Surf’s Up” floats with a laid-back 6, hitching aboard the “Happy Feet” penguin wave.

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A Mighty Heart

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “A Mighty Heart” (Paramount Vantage)

On January 23, 2002, journalist Daniel Pearl, South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, while investigating a link between the “shoe bomber” Richard Reid and Mubarik Ali Gilani, a Pakistani cleric involved with militant Islamic groups. As his six-month pregnant wife, Mariane, waited anxiously, the US consulate and FBI, working with Pakistani law enforcement, tracked down leads.
Michael Winterbottom’s documentary-style drama captures the desperation and intensity of the tragic five-week manhunt for Daniel Pearl. Dispassionately narrated by Mariane (Angelina Jolie) and based on her memoir, it traces Daniel’s (Dan Futterman) harrowing last night of freedom with flashbacks to happier moments during their marriage, eventually delineating the misery that breeds terrorism and declaring that dialogue should displace anger, prejudice and hate.
Despite the known outcome, screenwriter John Orloff maintains tension and urgency with Winterbottom using a gritty, handheld, cinema-verite style, intercutting Mariane’s vigil in the company of her comforting colleague Asra Normani (Archie Panjabi) with the suspenseful mystery of the Pakistani jihadists evolving within their own socio/political context. In some ways, “A Mighty Heart” is a follow-up to Winterbottom’s “Road to Guantanamo.”
In the most challenging role since “Girl, Interrupted,” Angelina Jolie delivers an utterly believable, incomparably powerful performance, commanding the screen with her own brand of low-key incandescence, evoking a heartbreaking mix of strength and sadness; there is no extraneous element in her work. Dan Futterman (Oscar-nominated for writing “Capote”) is convincing, as are Will Patton and Irrfan Khan.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “A Mighty Heart” is a timely, morally complicated 8. As Mariane Pearl poignantly concludes on CNN, 10 other people were killed by terrorists in Pakistan during the same month – and none of them were foreigners.

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Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” (20th Century Fox)

Although the original 2005 “Fantastic Four” was a forgettable entry in the superhero movie genre, following behind “Spider-Man,” “Batman” and “Superman,” kids loved the simplistic Marvel Comics mutant concept, and it was a surprising hit.
For the uninitiated, the Fantastic Four consists of Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd), a.k.a. elastic Mr. Fantastic, who can stretch and contort his body at will; Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), a.k.a. The Invisible Woman, who can project force fields; Johnny Storm (Chris Evans), a.k.a. The Human Torch, who can fly and burst into flames; and Ben Grimm (Michael Chiklis), a.k.a. The Thing, who is a super-strong rock-like hulk.
Now, the Fantastic Four learn they aren’t the only super-powered beings in the universe. At the request of Army General Hager (Andre Braugher) and Captain Raye (Beau Garrett), they must contend with the enigmatic Silver Surfer (vapidly voiced by Laurence Fishburne), the hunky harbinger of the arrival of amorphous, planet-devouring entity, Galactus, which takes ages to show up. Plus there’s villainous Dr. Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon), back after his apparent destruction in the first installment.
If this movie makes money, which it undoubtedly will, credit director Tim Story and visual effects supervisor Scott Squires (“Star Wars, Episode 1: The Phantom Menace”) and Weta Digital (“Lord of the Rings,” “King Kong”) for creating the title character, a bodaciously buff alien gliding around the galaxy on a surfboard. He actually looks like a shiny hood ornament, but don’t tell anyone!
Briskly paced at 90 minutes, the dialogue is dumb drivel and the acting is atrocious, so on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” glides in with a 5. The best parts were in the theatrical trailer.

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D.O.A.: Dead or Alive

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of D.O.A.: Dead or Alive (Universal Pictures)

After sitting on the shelf for almost a year after opening overseas, this smarmy, butt-kicking bikini-jiggle fest has finally made it into our local theaters.
Obviously based on a video game, it involves an invitation-only, top-secret martial arts tournament on a mysterious island in the Pacific Ocean that’s run by Dr. Victor Donovan (Eric Roberts). This malevolent mastermind injects all the contenders with nanobots that record data from their blood stream. This information is relayed into his computer system so he – and all viewers – can judge the frenetic fighting. Ah-ha, but he also has a hidden agenda involving virtual-reality sunglasses.
Feisty competitors include a father-daughter pro-wrestling team (Kevin Nash and Jaime Pressly of “My Name is Earl”); a sultry British jewel thief (Holly Valance of “Prison Break”) with an unreliable partner (Matthew Marsden) and an eye on stealing the stash in a giant Buddha; a rebellious Japanese Ninja princess (Devon Aoki) looking for her brother (Collin Chou) who never returned from a previous DOA tournament. Lurking in the background, there’s the DOA heiress (Sarah Carter of “Shark”) and a nerdy scientist (Steve Howey).
Not wasting time with much of a story, although there are four credited screenwriters, Hong Kong action fight choreographer Corey Yuen (“The Transporter”) concentrates on photographing the scantily clad, buxom beauties in imaginative – if contrived – hand-to-hand combat sequences in exotic locales, utilizing extensive wire work and cheesy CGI and a loud, electro-pop soundtrack. Think of a highly combative Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and you get the picture.
According to the press notes, this is the first Western production to be filmed in China’s Hengdian World Studios. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “D.O.A.” is a lasciviously trashy 3, shamelessly exploiting girl power.

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La Vie en Rose

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “La Vie en Rose” (Picturehouse)

Iconic chanteuse Edith Piaf was a Gallic Judy Garland – her life as legendary as her unmistakably soulful voice.
But instead of honoring traditional biography continuity, writer/director Olivier Dahan lets her story unfold in episodic, nonlinear fashion, transitioning from one time period to another with few defining guideposts, opening in New York City in 1959, then flashing back to her Dickensian childhood.
Born in Belleville, Paris, in 1915, Edith was abandoned by her mother and left in the care of her paternal grandmother, who ran a brothel in Normandy, where she was ‘mothered’ by a prostitute (Emmanuelle Seigner). In childhood, Edith went blind, regaining her sight only after a pilgrimage to honor Saint Therese de Lisieux. At age 14, Edith was reclaimed by her father, an acrobat who toured with a circus. Then she became a scrappy street performer in Pigalle, where nightclub owner Louis Leplee (Gerard Depardieu) discovered her, named her Piaf (“little sparrow”) and made her a star. The great love of her life was 1948 Middleweight Boxing Champ Marcel Cerdan (Jean-Pierre Martins) who died in a plane crash in 1949. Subject to bouts of rage, depression and alcoholic binges, Piaf was in a car accident which led to serious morphine addiction; she died of cancer at age 47 in 1963.
Curiously, Olivier Dahan chooses to barely allude to Piaf’s first husband and the loss of their baby and never notes her relationship with Yves Montand or heroic work with the French Resistance during WW.II.
What makes this bleak vagabond melodrama extraordinary is Marion Cotillard’s mesmerizing performance. She doesn’t play Piaf, she embodies her, lip-sync’ing to recordings. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “La Vie en Rose” is an evocative 7 – in French with English subtitles.

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