Movie/TV Reviews

Bride Wars

Susan Granger’s review of “Bride Wars” (20th Century-Fox)

June is the traditional month for brides but January is the month for Hollywood’s duds, so the timing for this chick flick is understandable. Yet the box-office appeal to women who lined up for “Sex and the City,” “Mamma Mia!” and “27 Dresses,” which occupied the same slot last year, is minimal. New Yorkers Liv (Kate Hudson) and Emma (Anne Hathaway) have been best friends since childhood, when their mothers took them to lunch at the Plaza’s Palm Court, so they’ve always dreamed of the perfect (i.e. extravagantly expensive) wedding at that luxurious hotel across from Central Park. When their respective boyfriends (Steve Howie, Chris Platt) propose, they rush off to chic wedding planner, Marion St. Clair (Candice Bergen). But because of a clerical error, both nuptials are scheduled for the same date, same time, same place. Oops! Immediately, Liv, the confident corporate lawyer, and Emma, the kind-hearted elementary school teacher, transform into “Mean Girls,” deceitfully sabotaging each other’s preparations. Liv sends Emma chocolates, day after day, so she’ll gain weight and burst out of her Vera Wang dress. Emma slips orange dye into Liv’s tanning salon formula so she emerges looking like a mango. And so it goes. Screenwriter Greg DePaul, Casey Wilson and June Diane Raphael propagate the odious concept that women become snarling, selfish harridans when they cannot have their own way. Neither of the brats – I mean, Bridezillas – nor their friends, have a shred of self-realization, connecting their entire sense of worth to their ability to find a prospective husband and to drag him to the altar in high style. And director Gary Winick (“Charlotte’s Web,””13 Going on 30”) seems content to focus on the fluffy, childish fights. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Bride Wars” is a floundering 4, particularly since the funniest moments are in the trailer; if you’ve seen that, you’ve seen the movie.

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January 9 DVD Update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s dvd update for Friday, January 9:

“An American Carol” is a no-holds-barred, off-the-wall comedy that “lampoons contemporary American culture, particularly Hollywood,” written, directed and produced by the master of questionable taste, David Zucker (“Airplane!” “Scary Movie 3 & 4”).
Based on the same historical events that inspired Tom Cruise’s “Valkyrie,” “The Plot to Kill Hitler” is David Wolper’s historical recreation of the 1944 attempt by Nazi High Command Officers to seize control of the German government.
Al Pacino and Robert De Niro team up as veteran NYPD detectives in “Righteous Kill,” investigating 14 vigilante murders targeting those who slipped through the judicial system, including a pedophile priest. Much of it was filmed in Bridgeport.
Those “Superbad” dudes Seth Rogen and James Franco are back in the reefer-raunchy “Pineapple Express,” as stoners-on-the-run tracking a rare, high-grade of marijuana.
Nicholas Cage is a brooding, introspective hitman-for-hire in the toxic, tedious “Bankok Dangerous,” a misadventure more accurately described as Bangkok Boring. Even more dismal is “Babylon A.D.,” a futuristic, sci-fi thriller that’s been publicly disowned by its writer/director Mathiew Kassovitz as “pure violence and stupidity.”
Influenced by Woody Allen’s “Everyone Says I Love You,” Alain Resnais’ “Same Old Song,” is a series of interconnected love stories in which characters break into song – lip-synching popular French hits – to convey their unspoken thoughts. It’s an engaging adult romp.
PICKS OF THE WEEK: Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson and Billy Bob Thornton star in “Eagle Eye,” a race-against-time thriller in which a mysterious phone call transforms two unsuspecting Americans into the country’s most wanted fugitives who become unwitting accomplices in a diabolical assassination plot. And Ricky Gervais channels the supernatural in the wryly sardonic comedy “Ghost Town,” as meddlesome spirits bedevil him after a ‘biochemical anomaly’ occurs during a routine colonoscopy.

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Adam Resurrected

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Adam Resurrected”

If you’ve been waiting for a surreal, abstract film that tries your patience and defies comprehension, this cinematic ‘psychic crisis’ is for you. Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum) is a Holocaust survivor, a German-Israeli circus clown and magician-turned-Berlin nightclub performer and sometime resident of the fictional Seizling Institute, a massive, Bauhaus-style experimental ‘rehabilitation’ center in the Negev desert. His mind is totally traumatized. He survived the death camps because he, literally, became the ‘pet’ of sadistic Commander Klein (Willem Dafoe), living in a pen with a Jew-hating German Shepherd and groveling obediently on all fours. When his own family, among others, was marched into the gas chambers, Adam was forced to serenade them on the violin as a Weimar diversion. A man in ruins, a shattered soul, floundering after the Allied liberation, he lives off money he stole from Klein and makes his way to Israel. While he astounds the asylum’s medical staff with his psychic abilities, Adam’s greatest challenge comes in the form of a barking boy who is introduced to him by the chief, Dr. Gross (Derek Jacobi). Raised on a chain, this feral child (Tudor Rapiteanu) actually believes he’s a dog. Can the unhinged man-treated-like-a-dog find redemption, even spiritual resurrection-to-sanity by rescuing the boy-who-believes-he’s-a-dog? Adapted by Israeli-born Noah Stollman from Yoram Kaniuk’s 1968 stream-of-consciousness novel and chillingly directed by Paul Schrader (“The Walker,” “American Gigolo,” “Affliction”), it veers into the complicated territory of edgy, dark comedy, as Adam struggles with the turmoil known as ‘survivor guilt,’ punctuated by sexy romps with beautiful Nurse Gina Grey (Ayelet Zurer). Jeff Goldblum (“Jurassic Park,” “The Fly”) traverses this psychological prism with compelling abandon, delineating and dissecting Schrader’s and cinematographer Sebastian Edschmid’s heavy-handed symbolism. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Adam Resurrected” is an inexplicable 3. It’s eclectic and esoteric, a sardonic turn-off to a mainstream audience.

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Last Chance Harvey

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Last Chance Harvey” (Overture Films)

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, this wry romantic comedy about two lonely, middle-aged losers is filled with hearts and flowers. Struggling jazz pianist-turned-commercial jingle-writer Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman) knows his job is in peril when he takes off from Manhattan for a weekend in London to attend his estranged daughter’s wedding. Hurrying through Heathrow airport, he ignores Kate Walker (Emma Thompson), who’s taking a survey for the Office of National Statistics. But their paths cross again at a bar where befuddled Harvey is drowning his sorrows after learning that his daughter Susan (Liane Balaban) has chosen to have her stepfather (James Brolin) walk her down the aisle, and spinster-like Kate is fending off incessant phone calls from her demanding, overbearing mother (Eileen Atkins) who’s convinced her mysterious neighbor is a serial killer. As destiny would have it, Harvey misses his flight back to the States and is subsequently fired over the phone by his sleazy, impatient boss (Richard Schiff). Gradually, despite a stumbling, awkward reticence on both their parts, a gentle, supportively comforting relationship between them grows, as Kate earnestly convinces Harvey he must overcome the hurt and humiliation of being so callously excluded from the ceremony and attend the upcoming reception, not only delivering a heartfelt toast but graciously dancing with his noxious ex-wife (Kathy Baker). While British writer/director Joel Hopkins’ (“Jump Tomorrow”) bantering dialogue flows naturally with emotional honesty, he scores the most points for his spot-on casting. Teamed once before in “Stranger Than Fiction” (2006), Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson work together with a mature, disarming ease, evoking poignant memories of Paddy Chayefsky’s “Marty.” If only Thompson’s supportive character had been as fully delineated as Hoffman’s, the story would rise to another level entirely. Nevertheless, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Last Chance Harvey” is a charming, sentimental 7, delightfully celebrating the hope for midlife love.

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Defiance

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Defiance” (Paramount Vantage)

This is the amazing, true-life story of how the three rugged Bielski brothers fled from rural Poland into the Belarusian forest in 1941 and managed not only to hold off the German Army by grudgingly working with Russian partisans but also to conceal 1,500 Jewish civilians during the Holocaust. Their admirable saga begins when Tuvia (Daniel Craig) and Zus (Liev Schreiber) discover that Nazis have murdered their parents, along with many others, as part of the mass execution in the Novogrudok ghetto. Only their terrified younger brother, Asael (Jamie Bell), has survived, crouching in a cellar. After they take vengeance on the killers and gather some weapons, the trio flees into the dense woods where they find other refugees in hiding. Despite an unexplained animosity and rivalry between them, Tuvia calmly emerges as the group’s idealistic, protective leader, while Zus, the angry fighter, forges an uneasy alliance with Russian soldiers. For three years, the tough, tenacious Bielski Otriad, as they became known, bravely and nobly run a remote, secret community dedicated to survival. Inspired by Nechama Tec’s non-fiction book, it’s a shame that screenwriter Clayton Frohman and director Edward Zwick chose not to tell – as Paul Harvey would say – the rest of the story: i.e. how the surviving Bielskis emigrated to Brooklyn, where they worked as cab owners and truck drivers. An early development script started with a customer in the back seat of a taxi suddenly realizing he was being driven by a Bielski; too bad they didn’t go with that narrative frame instead of a linear, historical narrative. Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber are convincing, so on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Defiance” is an earnest, intense 8, asserting, “Each day of freedom is a victory.”

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The Spirit

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Spirit” (Lionsgate Films)

Big-screen comic-book adaptations can only go so far, as proven by Frank Miller’s first solo effort as writer/director, after sharing credit with Robert Rodriguez on “Sin City” and collaborating on “300” and “Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.” Derived from Will Eisner’s seminal 1940’s graphic series, set in Central City, it introduced The Spirit as a crusading murdered cop, Denny Colt (Gabriel Macht), who mysteriously returns from the dead, dressed in a suit, red tie and fedora. He was one of the first masked avengers. His nemesis is a crazy criminal called the Octopus (Samuel L. Jackson), aided by Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson), Plaster of Paris (Paz Vega) and assorted henchmen (played by Louis Lombardi). And there’s a stolen elixir of eternal life. Stilted, subsidiary characters flit in and out, like The Spirit’s boss (Dan Lauria), his doctor Ellen (Sarah Paulson), even his childhood sweetheart-turned-jewel-thief, Sand Saref (Eva Mendes). Visionary Frank Miller falls flat here, sacrificing a potential franchise. Using starkly contrasted visuals (inky black, stark white, streaks of crimson), he’s created a bleak yet bland, big-screen illustration, a self-conscious, weirdly pointless parody. Neither The Spirit nor the Octopus characters are developed, so there’s no emotional commitment, meaning there’s less at stake when they fight. And the props for their scuffles include a toilet seat and a kitchen sink. As for dialogue, it’s peppered with threats like, “I’m gonna kill you with all kinds of dead,” and stilted commands like, “Shut up and bleed.” It’s no wonder that the actors look inept. Even the production values are murky or maybe Miller didn’t care that back in the 1940s there were no cellphones. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Spirit” is a hyper cartoon-like 2. Give up on this ghost.

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December 26 DVD Update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s dvd update for week of Fri., Dec. 26th:

Something’s rotten in the state of Arizona as a delusionary Tucson high-school theater teacher (Steve Coogan) writes a garish sequel called “Hamlet 2” in an effort to save the drama department. It’s intermittently amusing but it wastes a lot of potential; a sharper script might have made a big difference.
In the ultimate, ultra-violent sports event, “Death Race,” starring Jason Statham and Tyrese Gibson, hardened criminals race to earn their freedom; it’s the ultimate demolition derby and the bonus documentary shows how the jaw-dropping, stunt-driven spectacle was made.
Rather than a re-make, Diane English’s version of “The Women,” starring Meg Ryan, Eva Mendes and Annette Bening, is a cinematic sacrilege when compared with George Cukor’s hilarious 1939 comedy, adapted from Clare Boothe’s play and starring Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and Norma Shearer. Even English’s feminist context of empowerment seems muddled. Female friendship deserves better.
Winner of the 2007 Sundance Grand Jury Prize under its original title “Padre Nuestro,” Christopher Zalla’s “Sangre di mi Sangre” is a suspenseful drama about the immigrant experience, centering on a father’s reunion with a son he never knew he had. The twist is that the teen is an impostor (Armando Hernandez) who met the real son (Jorge Adrian Espindola) in a tractor-trailer filled with undocumented Mexicans and stole his identity.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Ethan and Joel Coen’s silly, satirical “Burn After Reading” is a farcical thriller about dumb, middle-aged misfits caught in capricious CIA paranoia. It’s not the contrived plot that matters; it’s the lunatic execution, as the Coens are masters of broadly-drawn characters and stylized visuals. As the story goes, they asked George Clooney, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt to “embrace their inner knucklehead” to embody their moronic characters.

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Bedtime Stories

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Bedtime Stories” (Disney)

After hitting a humorous home-run with “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan,” Adam Sandler bunts with this family-friendly fairy tale. Bumbling Skeeter Bronson (Sandler) works as a handyman at a hotel once owned by his father (Jonathan Pryce) that’s now under the aegis of germaphobic Barry Nottingham (Richard Girffiths), along with his heir-apparent manager (Guy Pearce). When Skeeter’s uptight, divorced sister Wendy (Courteney Cox) loses her job and has go out of town for a few days to interview for another one, she arranges for her schoolteacher friend Jill (Keri Russell) to care for her kids but, since Jill goes to night school, she asks Skeeter to babysit them in the evenings. Although he barely knows his young niece (Laura Ann Kesling) and nephew (Jonathan Morgan Heit), Skeeter – with the help of his room-service waiter buddy (Russell Brand) – discovers that he really enjoys entertaining the children with bedtime stories, particularly when some of his outlandish wish-fulfillment fantasies, the ones the kids have edited and amplified, start to come true in real life. Screenwriters Matt Lopez and Tim Herlihy dream up adventures in a medieval castle, the Old West and outer space but only on the most superficial level. It’s a strong indictment of the writing when a bug-eyed guinea pig gets the most laughs. Sandler amiably does his usual shtick, even if he’s getting a bit old to be the man-child, but a subplot involving Guy Pearce and Lucy Lawless falls flat. Director Adam Shankman’s pacing doesn’t seem to differentiate between a clever gag and a dumb one, making the 99-minute running-time seem like far longer. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Bedtime Stories” is a tepid, tedious 3. It’s an imaginative idea that’s never fully developed.

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Nothing But the Truth

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Nothing But the Truth” (Yari Film Group)

Obviously inspired by the incarceration of Judith Miller, the former New York Times journalist, who in 2005 was jailed for contempt of court after she refused to cooperate with a grand jury investigating the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson as an undercover CIA operative, filmmaker Rod Lurie has crafted a timely political drama that tests the limits of journalistic integrity. Rachel Armstrong (Kate Beckinsale) is an ambitious reporter for Washington-based Capital Sun-Times, a fictional newspaper. From an unidentified source, she discovers that her son Timmy’s (Preston Bailey) classmate’s mother, Erica Van Doren (Vera Farmiga), an Ambassador’s wife, is the CIA agent who challenged an administration-held belief that Venezuela was behind an attempted assassination of the U.S. President. Rachel’s story blows Erica’s cover, which galvanizes a federal prosecutor, Patton Dubois (Matt Dillon), into action, asserting that she’s a threat to homeland security. Despite the assistance of a top-notch lawyer, Albert Burnside (Alan Alda), Rachel is held in contempt and winds up in prison on charges of treason, while her sniveling husband (David Schwimmer) takes up with another, obviously less principled woman. Best known as the “Underworld” vampire, Kate Beckinsale’s performance is a revelation in this melodramatic good vs. evil parable in which, eventually, the ‘unnamed source’ is revealed – and it’s a dandy surprise. So is having real-life, eminent First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams as the trial judge. To his great credit, Rod Lurie is one of the few writer/directors who specialize in strong, intelligent protagonists, evidenced by Joan Allen in “The Contender” and Geena Davis in TV’s “Commander-in-Chief.” On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Nothing But the Truth” is a thoughtful, incendiary 7, stressing the ever-increasing threats to civil liberties in the name of national security.

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Revolutionary Road

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Revolutionary Road” (Paramount Vantage)

Just how entertaining is the dissection of a bad marriage? “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is a classic and “War of the Roses” was hilarious. But this is just depressing. The Wheelers are a self-absorbed, middle-class couple who – in the mid-1950s – move to a lovely house in Connecticut on a tranquil cul-de-sac called Revolutionary Road. Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) commutes to Manhattan as a low-level salesman for Knox Business Machines where, years ago, his father worked; he gulps martini lunches with the guys and occasionally dallies with a compliant secretary (Zoe Kazan). Meanwhile, April (Kate Winslet) struggles to fit into the boring, submissive, stereotypical housewife mold, caring for their two children (who are rarely seen). Disillusionment soon sets in, as infidelities surface, along with bitter recriminations. Impulsively, April proposes chucking their mundane life and escaping to Paris, shocking their neighbors (David Harbour, Kathryn Hahn) and realtor (Kathy Bates) who often visits with her outspoken, mentally disturbed son (Michael Shannon). But Frank finds the promise of a promotion into the new field of computers too tantalizing to resist, particularly when April discovers she’s unexpectedly pregnant again. Working from screenwriter Justin Haythe’s adaptation of Richard Yates’ novel about conformity and consumerism, British director Sam Mendes occasionally evokes the candid black humor that typified his similarly themed “American Beauty,” back in 1999, while other snippets are remarkably similar to AMC’s TV series “Mad Men.” But Mendes’s formidable ace-in-the-hole is his talented real-life wife, Kate Winslet, whose every glance, every gesture embody her desperation and frustration with the chunky man-child played by her “Titanic” co-star Leonardo DiCaprio. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Revolutionary Road” is a hopelessly bleak, disturbingly detached 7, resembling all too many other downbeat suburban-angst melodramas.

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