Movie/TV Reviews

Redbelt

Susan Granger’s review of “Redbelt” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet exercises his passion for the world of martial arts in this somewhat compelling drama.
Financially-strapped Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) runs a jujitsu studio in a seedy section of downtown Los Angeles. His prize pupil is a compassionate Los Angeles police officer (Max Martini) who earns off-duty money as a bouncer.
“Competition is weakening,” Terry insists in his self-defense instruction. It’s all about honor. “I train people to prevail.”
Which is why he doesn’t hesitate to come to the rescue of a hapless movie star, Chet Frank (Tim Allen), who gets caught in a bar brawl. For this Good Samaritan act, Terry receives a $20,000 gold watch as a gift and an invitation to dinner, where he becomes involved in an insidious showbiz scam involving his disgruntled Brazilian wife (Alice Braga, Sonia’s niece), Frank’s dress-designing wife (Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet’s real-life wife), Frank’s unscrupulous agent (Joe Mantegna) and a corrupt promoter (magician Ricky Jay), who ‘fixes’ fights using three marbles to determine which contestant must compete in the ring with a handicap (blindfolded, one arm tied down, etc.).
As writer/director, Mamet keeps the fragmentary dialogue terse and the tension high, as seen through the camera of Oscar-winner Robert Elswit. With his muscled physique, soft-spoken manner and soulful eyes, Chiwetal Ejofor is sympathetic and convincing as the naïve samurai.
Problem is: the coincidental plot twists are implausible, as are some of the performances, particularly Emily Mortimer as an emotionally distraught lawyer who shows up on Terry’s doorstep one rainy night, igniting an unstoppable chain of events. And the title designates the ultimate fighting warrior. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Redbelt” is a sleazy, pulpy 6. Sometimes being enigmatic just isn’t as interesting as it should be.

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The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” (Disney)

One year has passed since four British schoolchildren, the Pevensies, encountered “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” but, when they return to Narnia, they discover that it’s 1300 years later in that magical realm – and a great deal has changed.
Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgia Henley) are summoned back by Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), the rightful heir to the throne who has been ousted from his castle by his evil uncle, Lord Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) of the warlike Telmarines. Since the lion leader Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) has been gone for 1,000 years, Caspian and the last remaining Narnian creatures (centaurs, minotaurs, satyrs) have taken refuge deep in the forest.
Stunned to find their beloved Cair Paravel ruined, their animal friends long gone and Narnia a darker, more savage place, the now-legendary Pevensies must prove themselves once again, even against the ice-trapped White Witch (Tilda Swinton). They team up with two Narnian dwarves – Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage) and Nikabrik (Warwick Davis), along with Reepicheep (voiced by Eddie Izzard), a chivalrous, courageous mouse – to restore peace and glory once again.
Adapting the second of C.S. Lewis’s seven Narnia fantasies, writer/director Andrew Adamson, along with writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, focus primarily on swashbuckling battle scenes with awesome production values, since their previously established primary characters have matured. Caspian initially arouses rivalry in Peter and romantic interest in Susan, marking the end of Narnia’s road for those two, leaving Edmund and Lucy to forge ahead on further adventures.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” is an imaginative, visually enchanting 8 – but, remember, as Aslan says, “Things never happen the same way twice.”

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The Visitor

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Visitor” (Overture Films)

Writer/director Tom McCarthy follows up his debut feature, “The Station Agent,” with this sophisticated, compelling drama.
Widower Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) is a disillusioned 62 year-old Connecticut College economics professor suffering from ennui; he’s been teaching the same course for years and no longer has any interest in his students or his writing. Yet when he’s sent to New York to deliver a paper at a conference, Walter’s stunned to discover that a young couple has moved into his seldom-used apartment in Manhattan. Victims of a real estate scam, Terek (Haaz Sleiman), an illegal immigrant from Syria, and Zaibab (Danai Gurira), his Senagalese girlfriend, have no where else to go. In an uncharacteristic act of compassion, Walter allows them to stay in the extra bedroom.
Aware of his host’s love of music and touched by his generosity, Tarek begins teaching Walter how to play the African drum. Gradually, through the vitality of percussive rhythm, a friendship forms – one than transcends differences in age, culture and temperament. But then Tarek is stopped by police in the subway, arrested as an undocumented alien and held in Queens for deportation. Suddenly, Walter’s listless life takes on new meaning as he becomes a lifeline for Tarek, hiring a lawyer and offering comfort to Tarek’s mother, Mouna (Hiam Abbass), who arrives from Detroit.
The title refers not only to imprisoned Tarek but also to detached Walter, whose consciousness is changed by a chance encounter. Devoted to understated dialogue and restrained gestures, Tom McCarthy’s story unfolds with subtle grace, as Richard Jenkins (the ghostly patriarch in “Six Feet Under”) captures the every nuance of a man rediscovering his humanity. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Visitor” is a timely, eloquent 9, a quintessential post-9/11 story.

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video/dvd update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s video/dvd update for week of May 9:

Hilariously satirical and shallow, Tom DiCillo’s “Delirious,” starring Steve Buscemi, reveals the soft, subversive underbelly of the sycophantic entertainment press – from battling rival publicist to eccentric bottom-feeders.
On the topic of vulgar vanity, Paris Hilton embarrasses herself once again, panting “A life without orgasms is like a world without flowers” in “The Hottie and the Nottie,” as Joel David Moore’s object of desire and best friend to an ugly duckling, played by Christine Lakin.
Continuing with sappy, disappointing romantic comedies, “Over Her Dead Body” stars Eva Longoria, Paul Rudd and Lake Bell; it’s about the battle between two women (one of them a ghost) for the love of one guy. There’s another apparition in “P.S. I Love You,” as Hilary Swank flounders as a grieving young widow whose late husband (Gerard Butler), an impetuous Irishman, keeps instructing her on how to rebuild her life; it wants to be “Ghost,” but Swank’s no Demi Moore and Butler’s no Patrick Swayze.
In “First Sunday,” Ice Cube and Tracy Morgan are bumbling petty criminals who concoct a desperate scheme to rob their neighborhood church and end up spending the night in the presence of the Lord, being forced to deal with more than they bargained for.
For youngsters, this week’s best bets are “Treasure Island Kids 2: The Monster of Treasure Island” and “Barney: Hi! I’m Riff,” introducing a new, six year-old Hadrosaur.
PICK OF THE WEEK: If you’re into existential cinema, Todd Haynes’ “I’m Not There” explores the tumultuous life and music of Bob Dylan. What this kaleidoscopic, non-linear meditation lacks in coherence, it makes up for in eccentricity with six actors, including Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett and Richard Gere, each representing a phase in Dylan’s chaotic life.

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Bloodline

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Bloodline” (Cinema Libre Studio)

Anything that questions the tenets of faith is immediately provocative and controversial and the hypothesis in Bruce Burgess’s “Bloodline” inflames the imagination and pushes the envelope.
This new documentary takes up where Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” left off, presenting evidence that may prove that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene not only married but their bloodline continued in the Languedoc region of southwestern France.
Traveling to the famed church at Rennes-le-Chateau, Burgess and Rene Barnett show the connections between the Church of Mary Magdalene, the Knights Templar and the threat from Opus Dei, utilizing clues in coded artworks with riddles and puzzles left by the priest Berenger Sauniere, who said he’d “found a tomb that could shake the Vatican to the core.”
Demonstrating initial skepticism, the filmmakers analyze artifacts and documents; reveal the discovery of a mummified female body draped in a white shroud with a distinctive red cross, along with relics and coins that were identified by the British Museum and biblical archeologists as dating from first-century Jerusalem; and interview two spokesmen from the secret society known as The Priory of Sion.
So what’s credible and what may be an elaborate hoax? You decide.
While the filmmakers acknowledge, “People sometimes prefer a lie to the truth,” what’s most intriguing, however, is the conjecture that this discovery could, in fact, presage the Second Coming by a further understanding and renewal of Christianity. As the filmmakers note: if Jesus did marry and have a family, that fact might humanize and amplify the significance of His teachings.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Bloodline” is an enthralling 7. If you’re at all intrigued, go to www.thetombman.com – and there’s more to be revealed since further archeological excavation lies ahead.

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What Happens in Vegas

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “What Happens in Vegas” (20th Century Fox)

As tepid romantic comedies go, this one should have stayed in Vegas.
Joy McNally (Cameron Diaz) is an insecure Manhattan commodities trader who was just publicly dumped by her fiancé (Jason Sudeikis). New Yorker slacker Jack Fuller (Ashton Kutcher) was recently fired by his father (Treat Williams) from a furniture-manufacturing job. Along with their respective pals (Lake Bell, Rob Corddry), they meet in Sin City and party hearty one night. The next morning, they wake up hung over – and married. Bickering immediately, they have no intention of staying together but Jack takes a quarter from Joy to put in slot machine and wins three million dollars – which they both claim. Seeking an annulment back in the Big Apple, a cranky judge (Dennis Miller) refuses to resolve the jackpot dispute. Instead, he insists that they try for six months to make their mismatched union work, meeting regularly with a therapist (Queen Latifah). So neatnik Joy moves into sloppy Jack’s apartment and open warfare is declared. In the meantime, Jack charms Joy’s boss (Dennis Farina) while Joy endears herself to Jack’s family.
While any sane couple would simply split the windfall and be thankful for $1.5 million, screenwriter Dana Fox and British director Tom Vaughan struggle with the implausible concept that both Joy and Jack are so selfish and mean-spirited that they’re ready to endure any number of indignities to battle it out. To the victor belong the spoils, etc.
Cameron Diaz is many things – but believable as a stockbroker isn’t one of them. And snarky Ashton Kutcher pushes the charm button too hard. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “What Happens in Vegas” is a flimsy, forgettable 4. Too bad they forgot to pack the fun.

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Speed Racer

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Speed Racer” (Warner Bros.)

If you’re into high-octane car racing, trippy Japanese anime and awesome visuals, this is spectacular family fare.
Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch of “Into the Wild”) is obsessed with racing. Despite the death of his adored older brother, Rex, who was presumably killed in an accident years earlier, the sport is a family passion. His dad (John Goodman) runs an independent racing team with the moral (and culinary) support of his mom (Susan Sarandon) and to the delight of his 11 year-old brother, Spritle (Paulie Litt), along with his pet chimpanzee, and Speed’s perky, helicopter-pilot girl-friend, Trixie (Christina Ricci).
When Speed’s recruited to join ultramodern Royalton Industries, he refuses, infuriating its owner (Roger Allam), who maintains that money rules and the biggest races are ‘fixed’ with the finishing order planned and controlled. If Speed won’t drive his Mach 5 for Royalton, the family business is in jeopardy, along with his life. After preliminary skirmishes, Speed teams up his one-time rival, mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox of “Lost”) who is working with a secret law-enforcement agency. The 91st Annual Grand Prix turns out to be a showdown with corrupt big business.
On their first writing/directing collaboration since the “Matrix” trilogy, Andy and Larry Wachowski spent $120 million – and every penny shows in the 2000+ edgy, vibrant, candy-colored, kaleidoscopic visual effects. They’ve invented a new process of combining CGI with live action, utilizing perspective control that allows two images to be in focus at the same time. Designed by ‘carchitects,’ their World Racing League is an acrobatic, full-contact motor sport, described as ‘Car-Fu,’ automotive martial arts.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Speed Racer” is an intense, adrenaline-pumping, unstoppable 8 – and don’t forget the sleek Hot Wheels tie-in toys, including 1,500 action-figures.

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A Previous Engagement

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “A Previous Engagement” (Buccaneer Films)

As Oscar Wilde said, “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”
So when Julia Reynolds (Juliet Stevenson), a Seattle librarian, talks her staid, jigsaw puzzle-obsessed husband Jack (Daniel Stern) into taking a vacation on the Mediterranean island of Malta, she has a secret agenda. Twenty-five years earlier, she made a date there with her first love, Alex (Tcheky Karyo). When the sexy Frenchman, now the editor of a literary magazine in Montreal, not only shows up but vows she’s still his one-and-only true love, Julia is faced with an aching dilemma. Should she leave her family since her two grown daughters have unexpectedly have shown up for the memory of an idyllic romance? And what will happen to unsuspecting Alex when he finds out?
Cleverly written and insightfully directed by Joan Carr-Wiggin (“Honeymoon”), it’s deliciously unpredictable, an emotional roller-coaster ride
or as Julia astutely observes, “If people knew who their mothers really were, the world would end.”
Juliet Stevenson (“Truly, Madly, Deeply,” “Bend It Like Beckham”) is magnificently fearless and desperately funny, striking not a single false note in a highly combustible mixture of emotions. Tcheky Karyo (“The Good Thief,” “The Patriot”) performs with cagey humor and dazzling delicacy, while Daniel Stern (“Home Alone”) is slyly surprising and voraciously smart. As an opportunistic divorcee, Valerie Mahaffey (“Desperate Housewives”) is a radiant comedienne.
Amped by a sensational ‘buy-it-now’ soundtrack that’s perfect for baby boomers, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “A Previous Engagement” is an irresistible 8. It’s the rarest of all things: an intelligent, sophisticated romance with real meat on its bones. You’ll leave the theater with a smile on your face and an answer to the question: Is that all there is?

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dvd/video update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s dvd/video update for week of Friday, May 2nd

“27 Dresses” is an amusing chick-flick with Katherine Heigl as a perennial bridesmaid who can’t find her own happy ending until she meets a cynical newspaper reporter (James Marsden). It’s a fluffy, frivolous indulgence for those who still enjoy the occasional wedding fantasy.
Adapted from the first book in Phillip Pullman’s sci-fi series, “The Golden Compass” involves a 12 year-old orphan girl (Dakota Blue Richards) who lives in an alternate world under the guardianship of icily manipulative woman (Nicole Kidman) who transports her to the frozen Arctic to find her adventurous uncle (Daniel Craig). It’s light on plot and heavy on CGI, particularly a spectacular showdown between two armored polar bears.
Like “Stomp the Yard,” the Canadian-made “How She Move” showcases another exhilarating urban dance form, starring Ruta Wesley as an energetic Jamaican who joins the all-male “Jane Street Junta.”
Aside from its incongruous title, “What Would Jesus Buy?” is Rob VanAlkemade’s funny and informative examination of the American commercialization of Christmas.
For kids, ages 6 and up, I highly recommend Trevor Romain’s “If You Don’t Take Care of Your Body, Where Else Are You Going to Live?” which issues a fitness challenge, along with his “Cliques, Phonies & Other Baloney,” “Taking the ‘Duh’ Out of Divorce,” “Bullies Are a Pain in the Brain,” “Facing Fear Without Freaking Out,” “How to Do Homework Without Throwing Up” and “What on Earth Do You Do When Someone Dies?”
PICK OF THE WEEK: In French with English subtitles, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is the story of how 43 year-old Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of Elle France, suffered a stroke and was left almost entirely paralyzed yet dictated a best-selling memoir, communicating only by blinking. It’s a testament to the indomitable human spirit.

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Made of Honor

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Made of Honor” (Columbia Pictures)

This romantic comedy is the first feel-good date movie of May.
Tom (Patrick Dempsey) and Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) have been platonic best friends since college – when he accidentally stumbled into her bed wearing a Bill Clinton mask, intending to seduce her roommate ‘Monica.’ Back then, he invented the ‘coffee collar,’ the paper sleeve that’s made him a millionaire.
Ten years later and still commitment-phobic, Tom’s into sport sex, seducing a different woman every week, never spending consecutive nights with any of them. But Sundays he always spends with Hannah – until a business trip takes her to Scotland, where she meets a hunky, irresistible nobleman, charming Colin McMurray (Kevin McKidd), who sweeps her off her feet and into one of his four castles. The realization that he’s going to lose Hannah jars Tom into the realization of how truly compatible they are and how much he loves her. Heartbroken, he’s determined to woo Hannah back and stop the wedding before she’s gone forever – even if that means enduring the wrath of her bridesmaids and competing in the Highland Games.
As one of today’s most popular leading men, Patrick Dempsey (“Enchanted”) delivers a cleverly roguish performance, and Michelle Monaghan exudes beauty and grace. Admittedly, Adam Sztykiel, Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont’s screenplay is superficial and predictable, albeit from the male perspective, but Paul Weiland’s engaging direction handles the formulaic plot with frothy, improvisational flair. And Weiland’s supporting cast – Kevin McKidd, Sydney Pollack, Kathleen Quinlan – couldn’t be better, nor could his choice of idyllic Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Made of Honor” is an exuberant 8. Boasting three (count ‘em) weddings, it’s a delightful, audience-pleasing, fun-filled fairytale of laughter and love.

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