Movie/TV Reviews

The Strangers

Susan Granger’s review of “The Strangers” (Rogue Pictures/Universal)

When you lock the door, you assume you’re safe, right? Wrong – if you happen to be in the Hoyt family’s isolated South Carolina vacation home at 1801 Clark Road on February 11, 2005.
After attending a friend’s wedding reception, James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) intended to spend the evening celebrating his engagement to Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler), complete with chilled champagne, rose petals, candlelight. But when she turned down his proposal, everything went sour and James phoned his friend Mike (Glen Howerton).
At 4 a.m., there’s a knock on the door and an inquiry, “Is Tamara here?” That triggers Kirsten’s yearning for Marlboros – and James eagerly departs to buy cigarettes. Then three unidentifiable, unwelcome “strangers” appear: wheezing Masked Man (Kip Weeks), Dollface (Gemma Ward) and Pin-Up Girl (Laura Margolis).
Exploiting our universal fear of a random home invasion, Bryan Bertino has attempted to create a terrifying psychological thriller, ostensibly based “on actual events,” leaving the possibility open that the creepy, irrational intruders stalking panicked Kristen could be manifestations of James’ fury at being rejected. It should also be noted that Bertino won the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ prestigious Nicholl Fellowship for his first-draft script and was subsequently asked to direct it.
In order for a story to be believable, the audience must suspend disbelief and, while he’s admittedly making his directing debut, there’s no excuse for Bertino’s careless continuity. The candles always stay the same length, never burning down. A phonograph is playing, then it isn’t, then it is. A hand is bandaged and it’s not. Plus the behavior is illogical. So, despite its tantalizing theatrical trailer, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Strangers” is a ghoulish, grisly 3. Sloppy cinematic details diminish the scare factor.

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Stuck

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Stuck” (THINKFilm)

Inspired by a bizarre, true story, this twisted thriller chronicles how an unfortunate pedestrian, a homeless man, is accidentally hit by a car driven by a telephone-chatting, hard-partying chick and his body becomes impaled in her windshield.
Rather than calling 911 or rushing him to a nearby hospital, panicked, pill-popping Brandi (Mena Suvari) drives home, hiding the car in her garage, callously dismissing pathetic pleas for help from Tom (Stephen Rea), who lost his job and has just been evicted from his apartment. Suffering extensive injuries, Tom’s obviously a goner, and Brandi’s got her own problems. A conscientious worker, she’s up for promotion at Silver Cedars Elderly Assisted Living, and a hit-and-run accident could hurt her chances. Besides, as her drug-dealing boy-friend, Rashid (Russell Hornsby), says, “Anyone can do anything and get away with it. Look who’s in the White House.”
So psychopathically selfish Brandi leaves moaning Tom lodged in her windshield. But rather than die, his survival instinct allows him to gradually regain enough strength and stamina to struggle out of the shattered shards of glass and wreak revenge.
Since director/writer Stuart Gordon – with co-writer John Strysik – is best known for “Re-Animator” (1985) and “From Beyond” (1986), it’s not surprising that he dishes out fast-paced, viscerally heavy doses of gushing blood and grisly gore along with sly subtext of social commentary. All of the characters are ‘stuck’ in a de-humanizing ‘system.’
As for casting, in real-life, the woman was an African-American. Why Gordon chose Caucasian Mena Suvari – her hair in cornrows – eludes me, particularly since many of our finer actresses of color are looking for work. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Stuck” is a ludicrous, horrifying 3. To describe this as ‘bleak’ and ‘brutal’ is an understatement.

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Savage Grace

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Savage Grace” (IFC Films)

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are very different from you and me,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. “They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.”
Perhaps that explains the privileged Baekelands. When beautiful, charming Barbara Daly (Julianne Moore) marries adventurer Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane), heir to his grandfather’s Bakelite plastics fortune, she makes no secret of her social ambition. And the arrival of their son, Tony, does nothing to slow her down. A lonely, precocious child, Tony becomes his mother’s confidante, setting the foundation for their future outrageous decadence as they traipse through Europe.
During his listless adolescence, Tony (Eddie Redmayne) is drawn to homosexuality, despite the attentions of gold-digging Blanca (Elena Anaya), whom he picks up on the beach and who runs off with Brooks. Shocked and embarrassed at her husband’s desertion, Barbara invites a bisexual ‘walker,’ Sam (Hugh Dancy), to visit and they wind up in bed as a threesome: Barbara, Sam and Tony.
Since incest is our of our society’s basic taboos disaster is inevitable.
Based on Natalie Robins’ and Steven M.K. Aaronson’s true story, the screenplay by Howard A. Rodman spans from 1946 to 1972. Director Tom Kalin’s (“Swoon”) primary problem is eliciting sympathy for this seriously dysfunctional family without divulging their amoral pathology, which is never explored in any depth. Julianne Moore’s vulnerability and sensitivity are admirable, as is Stephen Dillane’s indifference. But Eddie Redmayne plays debased and debauched from the getgo. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Savage Grace” is a strange, stylized, sordid 5, dealing with lurid, repugnant relationships.

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Sex and the City

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Sex and the City” (New Line Cinema)

As fashionista Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) says: “It’s all about labels and love.”
Writer/director Michael Patrick King has adapted his hit HBO show, set in Manhattan three years later. After an angst-ridden 10-year courtship, 40 year-old Carrie is engaged to Mr. Big (Chris Noth). She’s working on her fourth book, searching for “real estate heaven” (i.e.: the perfect closet for Manolo Blahniks, et al) and planning her media-event wedding. Stressed-out Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is discovering how infidelity can cripple her marriage to Steve (David Eigenberg). Charlotte’s (Kristin Davis) cup runneth over with her adoring husband (Evan Handler) and adopted Chinese daughter when, miraculously, she becomes pregnant. And 50 year-old Samantha (Kim Cattrall), who has relocated to “Lost” Angeles with her actor boy-toy (Jason Lewis), realizes that enduring love simply cannot replace the promiscuous sex she continually craves.
Lacking the savvy wit and snappy pacing of “The Devil Wears Prada,” it’s like several supersized TV episodes strung together – with the women suffering predictable crises that involve heartbreak and forgiveness, sentimentally washed down with Cosmopolitans. To spice up the melancholy, monochromatic mix, Jennifer Hudson (“Dreamgirls”) appears as Carrie’s personal assistant and, not surprisingly, she belts out one of the background songs.
Curiously, what was slyly titillating in half-hour segments becomes silly, superficial and overwhelmingly materialistic when stretched to nearly 2 ½ hours, filled with costumer Patricia Fields’ choice of glossy designer labels, including an opulent Vivienne Westwood wedding gown, topped with a bizarre bird chapeau. Plus blatant branding: Skyy, Glaceau Vitaminwater, Apple, Louis Vuitton, Mercedes-Benz, Coty fragrances, and the Internet’s Bag Borrow or Steal site.
On the Granger Movie Gauge, “Sex and the City: the Movie” is an indulgent, estrogen-propelled 6. Even with R-rated nudity, bigger doesn’t always mean better.

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video/dvd update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s video/dvd update for week of Friday, May 23rd:

James Garner returns to the role that made him famous in “The New Maverick, joining Jack Kelly from the original TV series to reprise brothers Bret and Bart Maverick. Together, they teach their British cousin Beau’s college-dropout son Ben (Charles Frank) the tricks of the trade with one last heist to capture train robbers and collect a big reward.
Continuing the genre, just in time for Father’s Day, “The Tom Selleck Western Collection” includes “Crossfire Trail,” “Last Stand at Saber River” and “Monte Walsh.”
A muddled mess, “Youth Without Youth” is Francis Ford Coppola’s first film in 10 years. Set in Romania, it’s era-spanning parable about language, love and reincarnation. And George Romero is back with “Diary of the Dead” as his “Living Dead” rise again in a documentary made by college students driving a beat-up Winnebago past all those zombie corpses.
Part morality tale, part sex romp, “Forgiving the Franklins” is an outrageously kinky, irreverent, thought-provoking comedy that was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival, focusing on an ultra-conservative Christian family whose Original Sin is removed.
“Our House” is an uplifting, enlightening documentary that explores what it’s like to grow up with gay or lesbian parents, and the documentary “Autism: The Musical” is a moving testament to love and hope in the face of a diagnosis that seems to be reaching epidemic proportions.
For kids, “ZakLand: The Shiny Surprise” introduces a live action/animated world filled with music and imagination, hosted by Grammy-nominated Zak Morgan.
PICK OF THE WEEK: In “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” Nicolas Cage embarks on another archeological quest; this time to find a missing page from John Wilkes Booth’s diary which implicates Ben Gates’ great-great grandfather in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. It’s chock-full of historical trivia.

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Son of Rambow

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

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

This subversively eccentric, low-budget British comedy recalls innocent days – long before YouTube – when kids made neighborhood movies just for the fun of it.
Somewhere in the English countryside in the early 1980s, 11 year-old Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner), the fatherless son of a gentle mother Mary (Jessica Stevenson), lives in a quiet, austere, restricted world, sketching scenes and drawing cartoons. He’s considered an outsider at school because his family is part of a strict Christian sect, the Plymouth Brethren, which forbids corrupting pleasures like newspapers, magazines, novels, music, dancing, motion pictures or television. But when troublemaking, also fatherless Lee Carter (Will Poulter) shows him a pirated copy of Sylvester Stallone’s “First Blood,” the first Rambo movie, and recruits him to help with a homemade action video to win a BBC film competition, Will’s imagination suddenly explodes. Despite their differences, the boys have a great time devising bizarre, often dangerous stunts and concocting home-made special effects, like Will’s flip-book animation. Meanwhile, a group of exchange students arrives from France and wreaks havoc in their village and, when their flamboyant, punk-Goth leader, Didier (Jules Sitruk), starts dominating the movie-within-a-movie, it precipitates a rift between Will and Lee which only friendship and a newfound concept of family can heal.
Best known for their music videos for Radiohead, Beck and Vampire Weekend, director/writer Grant Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith obviously drew on their own childhood memories, and their overlong rambling is saved from shambles by the guileless performances by the child actors and the final few minutes which are truly touching. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Son of Rambow” is a whimsical, coming-of-age 6. It’s poignant but lacks the punch that fully fleshed-out characters and a more cohesive story could deliver.

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Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” (New Line Cinema)

Those pot-loving Jersey dudes from “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” are back – and this time they’re mistaken for terrorists!
For the uninitiated, straitlaced math-major Harold Lee (John Cho) is a Korean-American investment banker and Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) is an impulsive Indian-American wannabe medical student. Having satisfied their marijuana-fueled “munchies,” they head off for a smokers’ holiday in Amsterdam. Problem is: when the half-baked slackers sneak a homemade “smokeless bong” onboard the plane, turbulence strikes, the bathroom door swings open, the bong is mistaken for a bomb and they’re suspected of being part of a North Korean al-Qaeda terror conspiracy. As the plane detours to Guantanamo Bay, what else can they do but run from the law and try to find a way to prove their innocence?
Hot on their heels when they escape from Cuba with the boat people is Deputy Chief of Homeland Security Ron Fox (Rob Corddry). And complicating their angst is the realization that Kumar’s ex-girlfriend, Vanessa (Danneel Harris) is about to get married in Texas and her fiancé has White House connections that could clear their names.
Writers/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg continue and amplify the vulgarly stereotypical and overtly political shenanigans that made their first film a hit, including graphic nudity, drug use, pervasive language and crude sexuality. While Neil Patrick Harris is back again, playing a gross-out version of himself, and there’s a visit to a bordello run by Beverly D’Angelo, the snickering filmmakers miss their chance to take on racial profiling in the war on terror.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” is a raunchy 3, not a high point for stoner comedies. Bongs away!

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (Paramount Pictures)

Indy’s back! After nearly two decades, he dons his famous fedora, snaps his bullwhip and delivers punches that still pack enough of a wallop to clinch this summer’s biggest blockbuster.
The fantasy-adventure begins in 1957 in the New Mexico desert, where Indy and his pal Mac (Ray Winstone) are pursued by villainous Soviet agents led by contemptuous parapsychologist Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett). After surviving an atomic bomb, Indy discovers he’s lost his teaching position at Marshall College (filmed on the Yale campus in New Haven) because he’s ‘under government suspicion.’ That’s when he meets motorcycle-riding, switchblade-toting Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf, channeling Marlon Brando/James Dean), who carries a message imploring the adventurous archeologist to search for the legendary Crystal Skull of Akator, which the Russians also covet. In the Peruvian jungle, along with the mysterious Mayan Skull, Indy finds his “Raiders of the Lost Ark” flame, irrepressible Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), whom he’d jilted at the altar. Plot-wise, that’s all you need to know. Let the surprises unfold.
Conceived by George Lucas, written by David Koepp, directed by Steven Spielberg, and punctuated by John Williams’ music, it’s far-fetched, fast-paced fun. Middle-aged Harrison Ford is a bit mellower but he’s still an intrepid, quick-with-a-quip leading man. All the stylistic Indy touches are there: the map with a moving red line indicating his travels and his inevitable encounter with a snake (a giant Olive Python), plus spectacular swordfights, ravenous red ants, subterranean caverns filled with gold, perilous plunges over waterfalls and lots of monkeys.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is a terrific 10, an awesome, thrill-filled roller-coaster ride that you don’t ever want to stop.

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video/dvd update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s video/dvd update for week of Friday, May 16:

On the 10th anniversary of his death, celebrate Frank Sinatra’s remarkable career with “Sinatra: The Miniseries.” Produced by his daughter Tina, it recalls Sinatra’s music and life with some astonishing personal revelations. There’s also “Frank Sinatra: The Early Years” (his first five movies), “Frank Sinatra: The Golden Years” (five more movies) and the “Frank Sinatra/Gene Kelly Collection” (three M.G.M. musicals).
From the sublime to the ridiculous, in the implausible, improbable comedy caper “Mad Money,” Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes form an unlikely sisterhood when they decide to rob American’s Federal Reserve Bank.
If you’re into thrillers, Diane Lane stars in “Untraceable” as an FBI agent tracking a tech-savvy internet predator who displays graphic murders on his website, leaving the grisly fate of each of his captives in the hands of the public; the more hits the site gets, the faster his victims die.
Because Li Yu’s sex drama “Lost in Beijing” shows a modern, if melodramatic, slice of 21st century city life, it was banned in China; basically a morality tale, it involves innocence and corruption along with poverty and wealth. A far better choice is the powerful documentary “Nanking” which chronicles the infamous 1937 Rape of Nanking, when 200,000 residents of what was then China’s capital were massacred by invading Japanese troops; Woody Harrelson and Mariel Hemingway, among others, read from journals and letters from a handful of Westerners who risked their lives to help.
For toddlers: “Bob the Builder: The Three Muskettrucks” and favorite friends in “Summertime Fun!”
PICK OF THE WEEK: Inspired by the remarkable story of Wiley College’s winning team, “The Great Debaters” stars Denzel Washington as the volatile, controversial coach who uses the power of words to influence a group of African-American students.

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Gomorrah

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Gomorrah” (IFC Films)

Forget about the Sicilian glamorization of “The Godfather.” This brutal Italian saga about corruption and violence reveals the ugly, soft underbelly of the Mafia-type organization that rules Naples and its infiltrates its environs through five intersecting stories about people who believe they can ‘work’ the system which generates over $233 billion worldwide each year.
Wearing a bullet-proof vest, Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) is the local bag man who makes weekly treks delivering cash payoffs to the families of dead or imprisoned gangsters in the dingy housing project called Vele di Sampi. He’s carefully watched by 13 year-old Toto (Salvatore Abruzze), who’s eager to get into the ‘family’ business. Older teenagers Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone) are delusional rebels-without-a-cause, and it’s their image, firing automatic weapons in their underwear, that’s been publicized in posters and in the theatrical trailer.
Then there’s the cocky businessman, Franco (Toni Servillo), who hires college-educated Roberto (Carmine Paternoster) to help fulfill a toxic waste disposal contract by dumping poisonous refuse in the district around Campania. And a master tailor, Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo), who agrees to make clandestine midnight treks to teach Chinese competitors the intricacies of haute couture.
Based on Roberto Saviano’s 2006 bestseller, the title is not only a reference to the despicable biblical city, it’s also a play on the word ‘Camorra,’ the name of the Neopolitan criminal conspiracy. Director/cinematographer Matteo Garrone, working with several screenwriters, including Saviano, has crafted a gritty, convoluted tale of the lethal results of a power struggle within the different factions. If only he’d differentiated the characters more clearly, it would not have been so confusing.
In Italian with English subtitles, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Gomorrah” is a gritty, intense 8, culminating in a declaration that the Camorra crime syndicate has caused 4,000 deaths in the last 30 years (more than any criminal or terrorist group), funneling money into both legal and illegal enterprises, including the rebuilding of Manhattan’s World Trade Center towers, while infiltrating transport, tourism, textiles and banking.

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