Movie/TV Reviews

Monster

Susan Granger’s review of “Monster” (Newmarket Films)

Former glamour girl Charlize Theron delivers such a physically and emotionally intense characterization in this grim, gritty tale that it’s one of the year’s most outstanding performances. On the other hand, watching this film is like observing a fatal car crash, compelling yet repellent. It’s the bitter, sordid story of notorious Aileen Wuornos, who was glorified by the press that, inaccurately, dubbed her America’s first female serial killer after she confessed to murdering six men in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Raised by an abusive family, Aileen says she was repeatedly beaten and raped as a child, a speculation which writer/director Patty Jenkins uses to explain her profane paranoia, despairing depravity and monotonous victimization as a roadside prostitute. The brief period covered by this film is 1989-90, when Aileen was hooking along Florida’s highways and engaged in a lesbian relationship with naive Selby Wall (Christina Ricci). When a john turns violent, Aileen kills him in self-defense, pocketing his money and stealing his car. She doesn’t tell Selby at the time, but they both relish the new-found wealth. That windfall leads to more horrific murders which become an emotional vent for Aileen’s ferocious anger against men. Reminiscent in its bleakness to “Boys Don’t Cry,” for which Hilary Swank won an Academy Award, “Monster” could propel Charlize Theron to an Oscar. Credit makeup artist Toni G, who disguised the statuesque actress’s natural beauty with crooked teeth, mottled skin, etc., along with Theron’s 30-pound weight gain. For that reason, you might find this mediocre movie interesting. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Monster” is a unflinching, fatalistic 6. Curiously, the “Monster” refers not only to Aileen but also to a giant Ferris wheel that is part of her sad fantasy.

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Chasing Liberty

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Chasing Liberty” (Warner Bros.)

As the first teen comedy of 2004, “Chasing Liberty” is not that bad; it’s also not that good either. Evoking the spirit, if not the soul, of “Roman Holiday,” it’s the story of a reckless runaway U.S. President’s daughter, Anna (Mandy Moore), whose Secret Service code name is Liberty. This whiny, spoiled 18 year-old is fed up with the surveillance pros who scare off her potential suitors. So when Anna sees a chance to escape from her dogged agents (Jeremy Piven, Annabella Sciorra) on a pre-college trip to Prague, she hops on the back of a Vespa driven by a handsome hunk, Matthew Goode (Ben Calder). She doesn’t know that he’s a Brit working for the Treasury Dept., but he’s well aware that she’s a First Daughter who needs a protective escort. Not surprisingly, they fall in love en route to the Love Parade techno-gig in Berlin. It’s a predictable sit-com formula, including the romantic inclinations of Anna’s squabbling security detail. First-time screenwriters Derek Guiley and David Schneiderman litter the derivative script with clichŽs and fail to create any real jeopardy, so there’s no suspense or emotional growth in Anna’s photogenic flight as captured by cinematographer Ashley Rowe. Director Andy Cadiff (“Leave It to Beaver”) allows the potentially comedic sequences to drag on too long and, not surprisingly, the climax is lifted from “The Bodyguard.” Yet songbird Mandy Moore exhibits an on-screen charisma that many of her cohorts, particularly Britney Spears, so far seem to lack. Mark Harmon and Caroline Goodall score as Anna’s quarreling parents and Beatrice Rosen as her French pal. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Chasing Liberty” is a featherweight 4 that’s specifically aimed at tweens. For the real thing, rent William Wyler’s “Roman Holiday.”

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The Barbarian Invasions

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

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

In this contemporary French Canadian drama, writer/director Denys Arcand reunites some of the cast from his “The Decline of the American Empire”(1986), a highly acclaimed, art-house comedy of manners that revolves around a group of philandering Montreal academics. As the story begins, Sebastien (Stephane Rousseau) discovers that his estranged father, Remy (Remy Girard), is suffering from neglect in the overcrowded ward of a chaotic, almost dysfunctional Quebec hospital. “I voted for Medicare, and I’ll accept the consequences,” sighs the once-radical and hedonistic old man. But Sebastien is a successful venture capitalist in London, and he’s ready to open his wallet to diagnose and treat his father’s terminal illness. Using blatant bribery, he is able to circumvent the unwieldy hospital bureaucracy and union rules to transform an unused hospital wing into a fully-equipped, private suite. Then he tracks down the heroin-addicted daughter (Marie-Josee Croze) of one of his father’s former mistresses and convinces her to administer that illegal drug to dull Remy’s pain. Finally, he summons those whom his father once held near and dear to celebrate the final hours of this “sensual socialist” with love and attention. Think of a satisfying deathbed reunion of “The Big Chill”-types. Denys Arcand’s literate dialogue reflects an astute historical perspective while skewering the Canadian health care system and the superficial intellectualism of his well-delineated characters. Particularly memorable are Remy’s witty ruminations on “barbarians” throughout the history of mankind, concluding with the religious fanaticism of Al Queda. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Barbarian Invasions” is a poignant 9. It’s a provocative generational portrait.

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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (New Line Cinema)

If you’re looking for splattering bloody gore this Halloween, this is it. MTV veteran Marcus Nispel has remade the Tobe Hooper low-budget horror classic that initiated the slasher genre back in 1974. In fact, when it was originally released, there were rampant rumors that it was actually a snuff film. That movie was so scary it was banned by British censors until 1999. This reworked story by Scott Kosar – which deletes the political subtext of the Vietnam Era early 1970s – revolves around a group of five friends (Jessica Biel, Mike Vogel, Erica Leerhsen, Jonathan Tucket, Eric Balfour) who are driving a Volkswagen van back from a pot-purchasing trip to Mexico. En route to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert in Dallas, they pick up a battered teenager (Lauren German) who is aimlessly walking on a deserted road. But this hitchhiker’s unexpected suicide delivers them into the clutches of a demented Texas sheriff (R. Lee Ermey) who brags about sexually abusing suicide victims while wrapping their corpses in plastic. Then there’s the weird, inbred, backwoods family, particularly relentless Thomas Hewitt – a.k.a. Leatherface – (Andrew Bryniarski) who was modeled after serial killer Ed Gein, the Wisconsin farmer who butchered women and then draped their body parts around his house. Daniel Pearl, who worked with Tobe Hooper on the original, holds the dubious distinction of being the first cinematographer to shoot a remake of his first film. Only – this time – his depiction of the violence and fetid gore has gone into overdrive and overkill. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is a garish, gross, gruesome 1. How reprehensible is it? You may, literally, be sick to your stomach. Consider yourself warned.

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Love Actually

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

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

Writer Richard Curtis (“Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “Notting Hill”) turns director with this engaging, episodic romantic comedy set in London during the Christmas season. There’s the newly elected Prime Minister (Hugh Grant) who falls for a junior staffer (Martine McCutcheon), the PM’s sister (Emma Thompson) who fears her husband (Alan Rickman) is straying, a grieving widower (Liam Neeson) coaching his young stepson (Thomas Sangster) through the pain of puppy love, a reclusive novelist (Colin Firth) seeking solace in the South of France, a shy spinster (Laura Linney) yearning for a hunky co-worker, a nerdy loser (Kris Marshall) seeking sex, a bewildered bride (Keira Knightley) and an aging rock star (Bill Nighy). Their tales delve into the varied permutations of love – unrequited, romantic, married, platonic and familial – which make people happy, sad, silly, serious, contemplative, even cynical. But one of the risks of a writer directing his own script (like Robert Altman) is not knowing where to cut. For example, one storyline that should have been eliminated involves sweet-faced porn-movie stand-ins who fall in love on-the-job; their requisite nudity earns the R-rating which is a shame since this should be a feel-good, family-friendly romp. In the ensemble, Hugh Grant is dashingly debonair while Emma Thompson’s poignant heartbreak is Supporting Oscar-caliber as is Liam Neeson’s palpable compassion, but Billy Bob Thornton seems miscast as a lecherous, bullying American President. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Love Actually” is a sprawling, sentimental 7, as the warm, wistful, whimsical tales unfold and ultimately converge.

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The Matrix Revolutions

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Matrix Revolutions” (Warner Bros.)

There are two things to keep in mind before seeing this final installment in the Wachowski brothers’ epic sci-fi trilogy. First, you must have seen “The Matrix” and “Matrix Reloaded” in order to understand the plot, and it helps to be acquainted with the video game “Enter the Matrix.” Second, the entire story can be taken on two levels. While it’s fast-paced eye-candy for techno-geeks, it’s also a metaphysical action-thriller with a distinctly spiritual message. That understood, this dense, complex conclusion is stylishly conceived and meticulously executed. The plot opens with comatose Neo (Keanu Reeves), still searching for truth, trapped in limbo by Mergovian (Lambert Wilson) as his cohorts – Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss), along with Mifune (Nathaniel Lees) – attempt a rescue. Time is running out. The Sentinels are invading Zion, the combat rescue mission by the intrepid pilot Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith) faces catastrophic odds, and treacherous Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving), now in multiple forms, poses the most evil threat. Only Neo – with the help of The Oracle (Mary Alice) – can journey to the menacing Machine City to beg for peace with the hope of saving humanity. This time, the Wachowskis have all but abandoned giving consistent direction to their actors, whose performances vary from scene to scene. Instead, it’s all a fast-paced, spectacular narrative of special effects, a celluloid video game, that’s released concurrently in 35mm and in the huge IMAX format. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Matrix Revolutions” is an adrenaline-fueled, climactic 6. “Everything that has a beginning has an end,” yet the battle between good and evil continues and there is always the hope of resurrection.

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Elf

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Elf” (New Line Cinema)

If you’re looking for a spirit-of-the-season family film, this may jingle up some holiday cheer. Papa Elf (Bob Newhart) begins the tale, relating how – 30 years ago – an orphaned baby crawled into Santa’s sack of toys and was inadvertently carried back to the North Pole. Raised as an elf and trained to toil in Santa’s Workshop, disarmingly genial Buddy (Will Ferrell) fears he’s a “cotton-headed ninny-muggins” until he notices that he’s three times as big as everyone else and the only baritone in the Elf Choir. Clearly, he needs to find his proper place in the world. To trace his roots, Santa (Ed Asner) advises him to seek out his human father, Walter Hobbs (James Caan), even though the heartless Hobbs seems to have carved out a permanent niche on the ‘Naughty’ list. So Buddy treks through the candy-cane forest and sea of gum-drops to find the Empire State Building, where crusty, unsuspecting Hobbs works as a Scrooge-like book editor. The exuberant “deranged-elf-man-in-Manhattan” segment finds naive Buddy meeting the rest of the Hobbs family (Mary Steenburgen, Daniel Tay), working at Gimbels and giving confidence to a singing co-worker (Zooey Deschanel) – until Christmas Eve rolls around and Buddy must engender some Christmas spirit to ignite the magical Clausometer on Santa’s stalled sleigh. Problem is: neither director Jon Favreau nor writer David Berenbaum has a clear comedic vision as reality and fantasy collide. The story is underwritten and the pacing uneven. While Will Ferrell radiates wide-eyed wonder, his weird goofiness in the elf suit with yellow tights eventually wears thin. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Elf” is a silly, sweet-natured 6. Youngsters and “Saturday Night Live” fans will find amusement in its festive absurdity.

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The Human Stain

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

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

It’s easy to see why there were high Oscar hopes for this edgy romantic thriller. Anthony Hopkins is Coleman Silk, a distinguished classics professor and dean of faculty at a small New England college, who finds his personal and professional life shattered when he, inadvertently, utters a racial slur. Seething with rage, he barges into the life of a reclusive novelist (Gary Sinese), imploring him to write about this injustice. Then Silk launches into a passionate affair with an abused, illiterate young woman (Nicole Kidman) who milks cows, sorts mail and works on the janitorial crew. When her crazed, bitter ex-husband (Ed Harris) threatens them, Silk reveals a secret about his family that he has harbored for his entire adult life. Adapted by Nicholas Meyer from Philip Roth’s award-winning novel, the tragic morality tale is set against the politically-incorrect background of the Clinton sex scandal. And race is used as a metaphor for the rejection of the past, a theme that appears throughout Roth’s body of work. Director Robert Benton’s off-beat casting backfires. Both Hopkins and Kidman are ill-suited to their roles. While they depict the gentle May-December romance superbly, it’s disconcerting to see Hopkins’ piercing blue eyes covered by brown contact lenses and Kidman’s beauty is far too delicate and aristocratic. Although Wentworth Miller, who plays Silk as a young man, is actually bi-racial, he lacks the necessary charisma – which dilutes all the flashback sequences – although they’re superbly photographed by Jean-Yves Escoffier, who died several months ago. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Human Stain” is an uneven, slow-paced, heavily secretive 7, and the title refers to the indelible mark each individual makes on the world around us.

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Sylvia

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

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

Not to be confused with A.R. Gurney’s delightful play about a dog, this “Sylvia” is a bleak, depressing dirge about the poet Sylvia Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow) who suffered through a volatile marriage to British Poet Laureate Edward (Ted) Hughes (Daniel Craig) before committing suicide in 1963. “Dying is an art, like everything else,” she wrote. “I do it exceptionally well.” Their story begins in 1956 at Cambridge, where they meet at a school dance. It’s literary lust at-first-sight as Sylvia obsessively refers to Ted as “the black marauder.” Soon, they’re married and moving to America, where she accepts a teaching job. “She likes you because you’re dangerous,” Sylvia’s mother (Blythe Danner) tells Ted. But Sylvia’s also bitterly resentful about being overshadowed by her husband’s fame and overcome with jealousy about his flirtations with other women. “I love you,” he reminds her, but one is hard-pressed to figure out why since Sylvia comes across as a self-absorbed, pitiful creature. Nevertheless, they return to England, where Sylvia – now living in Devon with their two children – discovers Ted’s not only having an affair with a mutual friend but he’s also the father of the woman’s unborn child. Sketchily written by John Brownlow and directed by New Zealand-based Christine Jeffs (“Rain”), it’s a Gwyneth Paltrow performance piece, particularly considering Daniel Craig’s utter lack of charisma. Clearly, Sylvia Plath suffered depression from age nine, when her father died, and attempted suicide long before she met Ted Hughes, although her frenzied writings seem to blame him for her lifelong angst. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Sylvia” is a gloomy, grim 5, offering little to add to the literary legacy of either Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

Master and Commander: Far Side of the World

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Master and Commander: Far Side of the World

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger: “Master and Commander: Far Side of the World” (20th Century-Fox)

Set in 1805 during the Napoleonic Wars, this epic adventure begins off the coast of Brazil. British Captain “Lucky” Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) is stunned when his 28-gun warship, the HMS Surprise, is unexpectedly attacked and badly damaged not once but twice by the French frigate Acheron. Determined to find his elusive enemy, he tenaciously charts a dangerous, high-stakes chase across two oceans to the Galapagos Islands on the far side of the world. Based on Patrick O’Brian’s historical novels, Australian writer/director/producer Peter Weir (“Gallipoli,” “Dead Poets Society,” “The Truman Show”) and co-writer John Collee powerfully, yet subtly, create a fiercely complex yet fair-minded military hero – think Capt. Horatio Hornblower/ Capt. Ahab – and the intriguing individuals who comprise his bold and daring crew. There’s the ship’s surgeon, Stephen Maturin (Paul Bettany), an aristocratic naturalist who’s intrigued by the unique species of the Galapagos Islands. While they relax playing violin/cello duets, the Aubrey/Maturin friendship psychologically pits the conflicted traditionalist against the modernist. It’s natural for them to develop an emotional attachment to the young midshipmen who deliver powder to the gun crews, particularly 12 year-old Lord Blakeney (Max Pirkis). Russell Boyd’s cinematography, ILM’s visual effects, William Sandell’s production design and Lee Smith’s editing generate a harrowingly vivid authenticity to this claustrophobic, wooden world. It’s just too bad that patches of dialogue are unintelligible amid the noise and confusion. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” is a thrilling, sea-worthy 9. Embark on a rousing voyage in one of the year’s best adventures.

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