Movie/TV Reviews

The Band’s Visit

Susan Granger’s review of “The Band’s Visit” (Sony Pictures Classics)

The best news out of the Middle East so far this year is this fresh, funny, engaging take on cross-cultural miscommunication.
The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra has been invited to play at the Arab Cultural Center in Israel. It’s an important assignment since budget cuts and internal reorganization have threatened the Egyptian musicians’ very existence.
Dressed in crisp, powder-blue uniforms and observing full military police protocol, they arrive at the Tel Aviv airport with no one to greet them. Unable to contact their Israeli hosts or the Egyptian consulate for help, they board a bus that’s, ostensibly, bound for their destination but, instead, wind up on the barren outskirts of a tiny desert town.
Faced with seven hungry, bewildered men, the stoic orchestra leader, Tewfiq (Sasson Gabai) seeks help from Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), the proprietor of a small cafe. Realizing their plight and the fact that the next bus won’t come until the following day, she not only feeds them but arranges for Tewfiq and his men to stay overnight with her and some of her less-than-hospitable friends. Inevitably, the evening leads to some curious confusion, a bit of chaos and a large measure of compassion – on both sides.
Israeli writer/director Eran Kolirin’s shrewdly imagined characters, full of resonant human feeling, propel the subtle, wryly comedic story. Sultry Ronit Elkabetz, sizzling with sexuality, and Sasson Gabai, poignant as the uptight widower, make an unlikely duo, but the best scene involves ladies’ man Haled’s (Saleh Bakri) gently picaresque encounter in a roller-skating rink.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Band’s Visit” is a droll, charming 9. It’s a shame that a technicality – there is English, as well as Hebrew and Arabic – disqualified it from Oscar contention.

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Michael Clayton

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)

Faced with moral corruption within the corporate culture, a lawyer gets sucked into a dangerous cover-up when a colleague threatens to expose the conspiracy behind the settlement of multimillion-dollar class-action suit against one of his firm’s major clients.
While Michael Clayton (George Clooney) has always yearned to be made partner, he’s spent 17 years as a “fixer” for New York’s prestigious Kenner, Bach & Ledeen. When there’s a sticky or embarrassing situation, Clayton has the contacts to minimize the mess or make it disappear. But, at 45, and a divorced father with a young son, he’s broke and in debt – the result of gambling and a failed family business venture. So when the lead litigator (Tom Wilkinson), previously diagnosed as a manic-depressive, has a crisis of conscience while defending U-North, a multinational agrichemical conglomerate, the senior exec (Sydney Pollack), who is negotiating a crucial merger, puts Clayton in charge of the case. But U-North’s ambitious, duplicitous chief counsel (Tilda Swinton) knows there’s been corporate malfeasance and her job rests on protecting their interests – at any cost.
Most of the plot is revealed in flashback, after Clayton’s car explodes in flames on a deserted country road. Despite its scrambled structure and trenchant dialogue, long-time screenwriter (“The Bourne Identity” and its sequels) and first-time director Tony Gilroy makes this character-driven, multi-layered legal thriller compelling. Also credit Robert Elswit’s (“Syriana,” “Good Night and Good Luck”) cinematography and James Newton Howard’s subtle musical score.
Along with power-player George Clooney – terrific in challenging confrontational scenes – it’s packed with top-notch supporting performances from Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton and actor/director Sydney Pollack. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Michael Clayton” is an arresting, engrossing 8. It would be a crime not to see it

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The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (Warner Bros.)

When a film’s running time is 2 hours and 40 minutes, it’s often because the writer is also directing – so there’s no one to tell him to cut out 40 minutes, or else!
Back in the 1870s, Jesse James (Brad Pitt) was the country’s most notorious outlaw. Celebrated in dime novels, his exploits were legendary. As years pass, most of the original gang members die and Jesse’s brother (Sam Shepard) retires. Hanging on the coattails of his older brother Charley (Sam Rockwell) and longing for acceptance is fawning, hero-worshipping 19 year-old Robert Ford (slyly played by Casey Affleck, Ben’s real-life younger brother). History records Ford as “the coward” who shot 34 year-old Jesse in the back, but the plot delves into the psyches of both gunslingers and what may – or may not – have precipitated that infamous murder.
Jesse James is said to have been charismatic and complex, but you’d never know it from Brad Pitt’s stolid, stoic performance, most remarkable for its pensive stillness – a trait which served Gary Cooper well in many Westerns.
Based on Ron Hansen’s novel, it’s self-indulgently adapted and languidly, pretentiously directed by Andrew Dominik, whose previous experience includes TV commercials, music videos and “Chopper” about the notorious Australian criminal Chopper Read. Perhaps it’s also not the best judgment to have the star (Brad Pitt) also serve as producer.
Since it’s so tedious to watch, the cameo by Washington pundit James Carville as the Governor of Missouri is a welcome diversion. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” is a turgid 4, making one wonder why it takes such a long, long time to kill Jesse James.

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Into the Wild

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Into the Wild” (Paramount Vantage)

Sean Penn has adapted Jon Krakauer’s book about a rebellious, 22 year-old Emory college graduate, Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), who gave away or destroyed his money, cut off all ties to his family, tramped around the country and wound up alone in the Yukon wilderness, where he died in August, 1992.
Among the first people McCandless rejects are his troubled but caring parents (William Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden) and devoted sister (Jena Malone). He’s then befriended by a South Dakota wheat farmer (Vince Vaughn), an aging hippie (Catherine Keener) and an elderly widower (Hal Holbook) – who act as surrogate family, trying to dissuade him from taking off for Alaska to live off the land.
When McCandless finally arrives in the wilderness – stubbornly ignorant about survival skills – he stumbles across an old, abandoned Fairbanks school bus that’s conveniently been converted into a shelter. By whom we’re never told. He settles in, lopes around the landscape, reads Leo Tolstoy, Jack London, Henry David Thoreau – and slowly starves to death.
What’s bizarre is the way writer/director Penn idealizes and never questions this self-destructive, totally egocentric adventurer, as though there were something admirable about his foolish, reckless, anti-social behavior. McCandless’s romanticized character is saved from being insufferable by the open-faced geniality and kind intelligence radiated by actor Emile Hirsch, who became emaciated during the course of the filming.
Visually arresting, it’s nevertheless photographed by Eric Gautier as if it were a car commercial – one of those scenic wonders where the newest model is perched atop a mountain peak, as if that had any relevance to the consumer’s driving experience.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Into the Wild” is a bleak, pretentious 5 – with the pathos stretching a tedious 140 minutes.

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Golda’s Balcony

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Golda’s Balcony”

Not only is this poignant portrait of Israel’s former Prime Minister Golda Meir riveting and powerful, it also reminds and enlightens us about the origins of the current Middle East conflict.
A tenacious and resilient woman, Golda Mabovitch was born in Kiev, Russia; raised in Milwaukee; emigrated to Palestine with her husband, Morris Myerson; and spent many years in a kibbutz, where – while making matzoh balls in the kitchen – she plotted and planned the creation of Israel.
Tony Award-winning playwright William Gibson’s incisive story begins as the ailing Meir recalls facing her most terrifying moral dilemma at the height of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Israel is in crisis and defeat would mean the obliteration of the Jewish State. While she had an inkling that trouble was brewing, Moshe Dayan, her defense minister opposed launching a pre-emptive strike, fearing worldwide condemnation. That leaves Meir begging U.S. President Richard Nixon – through intermediaries – for the phantom fighters that he’d promised.
The great revelation – which I never knew – is that strong-willed Meir had secretly supervised the creation of an immense underground nuclear weapons arsenal called Dimona, which was labeled as a desalinazation plant. Faced with possible extinction, Meir held up the nuclear trump card to Nixon, which hastened the delivery of the fighter jets.
Valerie Harper’s uncanny portrayal is often amusing and remarkably authentic; in addition, she impersonates cohorts like David Ben-Gurion and Henry Kissinger. It’s a versatile, tour-de-force performance. Director Jeremy Kagan’s visual montages of photographs and newsreel footage add to the veracity as he amplifies what is, essentially, a one-woman show. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Golda’s Balcony” is a timely, amazing 8, illustrating the ironic absurdity of going to war to achieve peace through the redemption of the human race.

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Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?” (Lionsgate)

Tyler Perry is a cultural phenomenon as creator of a hugely successful series of formulaic, Christian-themed, sin-and-redemption movies, specifically targeted at an affluent African-American audience. And ever since his movie debut, “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” his films have not been screened for critics – hence, the delayed review.
In this latest, set at an annual retreat in a Rocky Mountain resort, four married couples, and friends since college days, delve into the strengths and weaknesses of each other’s marriages. There’s a well-meaning romance psychologist/author (singer Janet Jackson), married to an award-winning architect (Malik Yoba of TVs “New York Undercover”); a sassy, hard-drinking beauty tycoon (Tasha Smith) with her confrontational, VD-infected husband (Michael Jai White); and a workaholic, BlackBerry-obsessed lawyer (Sharon Leal of “Dreamgirls”) who’s ambivalent about motherhood and her pediatrician husband (played by Perry). But the central couple is a despicable philanderer (Richard T. Jones) and his self-effacing, obese wife (singer Jill Scott), whose girth gets her booted from her airplane in the film’s opening sequence – because they bring along a “friend” (Denise Boutte).
Blending comedy with melodrama, Tyler Perry achieves a tad more subtlety than in his preachy, stereotypical “Madea” films, even “Daddy’s Little Girls,” aided in great part by the effective acting ensemble and Toyomichi Kurita’s cinematography. But his strong, sexy female characters are still too shrill and obvious in their evangelical instincts and the men are, inevitably, wayward.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?” is a compassionate, therapeutic 5. In Perry’s clichŽ-filled scenarios, nearly all white characters are depicted as conscious or unconscious bigots, which is a shame – in this day and age – since relationship issues are not delineated along racial lines.

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Rendition

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

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

Considering the incendiary subject matter – the use of torture to extract information – this political thriller should be a lot more compelling than it is.
The title refers to America’s highly controversial “extraordinary rendition” policy, granting the government the right to hold anyone suspected of terrorism – without evidence or legal counsel; indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this month not to hear Khaled el-Masri’s case on the basis of state secrets.
Reese Witherspoon plays the pregnant wife of Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwaly), an Egyptian-born American chemical engineer on his way home to Chicago from a business conference in South Africa. Because there’s a suspicion that he might be linked to the death of a top CIA official in a suicide bombing in an unnamed North African country, he is abducted to a secret detention facility near Marrakech, Morocco, where he’s stripped naked and tortured. A rookie CIA analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal) is forced to observe the horrifying “interrogation” by a sadistic Arab (Israeli actor Igal Naor) whose daughter (Zineb Oukach), coincidentally, is secretly involved with the brother (Moa Khouas) of the leader of the radical Islamic group that her father is investigating.
Meanwhile, stateside, frantic Isabella heads to Washington D.C. where, conveniently, her old college beau (Peter Sarsgaard), coincidentally, works for a Senator (Alan Arkin). But this has little influence with the CIA’s terrorism chief (Meryl Streep), hiding her iciness under a cloak of patriotism.
Kelly Sane’s murky, confusingly structured script reeks of melodrama which – to his credit – Oscar-winning South African director Gavin Hood (“Tsotsi”) does his best to underplay while examining the repercussions of our “war on terrorism.” On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Rendition” is a troubling yet disappointing 6. Warning: the torture scenes are authentic and agonizing.

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Gone, Baby, Gone

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Gone, Baby, Gone” (Miramax Films)

Ben Affleck makes a powerful directorial debut with this timely yet perplexing crime thriller about two private investigators searching for an abducted four year-old Boston girl.
No one could call irresponsible Helen McCready (Amy Ryan) a good mother. An admitted substance abuser (alcohol, cocaine, heroin), she’s thrust into the media spotlight when her four year-old daughter, Amanda, is kidnapped from their dingy apartment.
Distraught and dissatisfied with the investigation led by Capt. James Doyle (Morgan Freeman) and his Crimes Against Children unit, Amy’s aunt, Bea McCready (Amy Madigan) and her husband, Lionel (Titus Welliver), hire a team of young private detectives (Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan) who are familiar with the seedy denizens of their Dorchester neighborhood’s tight-knit underworld. Reluctantly, Capt. Doyle agrees to let them work with his experienced cops (Ed Harris, John Ashton), and they soon discover that $130,000 belonging to an unsavory Haitian drug dealer known as ‘Cheese’ (Edi Gathegi) went missing not long before Amanda disappeared. Could there be a connection?
Adapted from a novel by Dennis Lehane (“Mystic River”) by Aaron Stockard and Ben Affleck – who won an Oscar for co-writing “Good Will Hunting” – it’s filled with intriguing moral and ethical ambiguity. As a Boston native working with cinematographer John Toll, Affleck achieves the emotion-driven, working-class authenticity essential to the story’s believability.
Fresh from his villainous performance in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” Casey Affleck (Ben’s younger brother) demonstrates his versatility as the perseverant, albeit baby-faced private eye. (In an amusing jibe, he’s told to go back to his Harry Potter book.)
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Gone, Baby, Gone” is an enigmatic 8 – with a challenging conclusion that’s bound to ignite conversation after the lights go on.

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Slipstream

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Slipstream” (Strand Releasing)

Considering that the dictionary defines slip stream as “the current of air thrust backward by the spinning propeller or an aircraft,” Anthony Hopkins has creatively transposed this aeronautical concept into an avante-garde, admittedly experimental, absurdist through-the-looking-glass glimpse of behind-the-scenes movie-making.
Evolving in a non-linear fantasy is the convoluted tale of a clearly unstable Hollywood screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffler (Anthony Hopkins), who is working on a murder mystery that’s being filmed in the California desert. Whirling in and out of his conscious and sub-conscious mind are his wife, Gina (played by Hopkins’ real-life wife, Stella Arroyave, making her screen debut); an aspiring blonde actress (Lisa Pepper); loquacious Aunt Bette (Fionnula Flanagan); a perplexed, baby-toting film director (Gavin Grazer); caustic cinematographer (Chris Lawford); obnoxious producer named Harvey Brickman (John Turturro); several long-suffering, somewhat maniacal actors (Christian Slater, Jeffrey Tambor, Michael Clarke Duncan, Camryn Manheim, S. Epatha Merkerson) and – miracle of miracles! – 93 year-old Kevin McCarthy recalling “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”). There’s also an amusing Dolly Parton look-alike (Charlene Rose), talking buzzard and furry tarantula.
Structurally reminiscent of Christopher Nolan’s non-linear, dream-like “Memento” with a dab of David Lynch thrown in, it’s written and directed by Anthony Hopkins (Oscar-winner for “The Silence of the Lambs”), who also composed the musical score. Working with cinematographer Dante Spinotti and film editor Michael E. Miller, Hopkins utilizes a visual cacophony of rapid cuts, old movie clips, stock footage and color film stock changes, often punctuated with seemingly random, out-of-context sound bites.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Slipstream” is a stream-of-consciousness, playfully surreal, satirical 7. As Hopkins notes, it’s the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party – and be sure to stay for the somewhat explanatory epilogue that occurs after the credits.

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Things We Lost in the Fire

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Things We Lost in the Fire” (Paramount/DreamWorks)

In her American debut, Danish director Susanne Bier tackles love, loss, jealousy, rage and recovery from drug addiction in a melodrama that unfolds slowly.at the pace of a death march.
Over the years, successful Seattle real estate developer Brian Burke (David Duchovny) has remained friends with his childhood buddy, Jerry Sunborne (Benicio Del Toro), a heroin addict, much to the chagrin of his uptight wife, Audrey (Halle Berry). But when Brian goes out for ice cream one night and is killed by a wife-abusing drunk, Audrey makes sure Jerry comes to the funeral, where he vows to quit drugs. Lost without a man around the house, Audrey invites him to move into an empty garage room that was damaged in an electrical blaze. While her precocious children – a 10 year-old girl (Alexis Llewellyn) and six year-old boy (Micah Berry) – are delighted, she’s ambivalent: kind and grateful one moment, rude and resentful the next.
Faced with overcoming Allan Loeb’s discordant, unrealistic, heavy-handed screenplay, Halle Berry tackles her first substantive role since her Oscar-winning turn in “Monster’s Ball.” Problem is: her querulous, one-note widow has no backstory: no job, no friends, no interests except her children. So it’s Benicio Del Toro’s cleverly nuanced performance that’s most memorable.
Director Susanne Bier cinematically interprets ’emotional intensity’ through endless close-ups of dark, sad eyeballs; this may be her austere European sensibility but it begins to resemble an ophthalmologist’s training film. When she’s not examining eyes, Bier’s into an earlobe fetish, having Audrey invite Jerry into her bed to cure her insomnia by pulling on her earlobe. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Things We Lost in the Fire” is an agonizingly morose, tedious 6, redeemed only by some remarkable acting.

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