Movie/TV Reviews

The Nativity Story

Susan Granger’s review of “The Nativity Story” (New Line Cinema)

With blatant commercialism dominating December’s holiday season, this Biblical story revives the traditional Christmas spirit – like a glossy, cinematic crche.
The story begins 2,000 years ago as King Herod (Ciaran Hinds) of Judea orders the slaughter of all male children under the age of two to prevent the fulfillment of a prophecy that a new king has been born.
Previously, in Nazareth, a sulky, teenager, Mary (Keisha Castle-Hughes), reluctantly betrothed to the carpenter Joseph (Oscar Isaac), is visited by Archangel Gabriel (Alexander Siddig), and told that the will bear the child of God.
“Why is it me God has asked? I am nothing,” she inquires, sincerely bewildered.
(In addition, Mary’s older cousin Elizabeth (Shohreh Aghdashloo) discovers that she’s also with child, a boy who becomes John the Baptist.)
Understandably, Mary’s pregnancy stuns her family and Joseph feels humiliated – until Gabriel confirms the purity of her immaculate conception. Then, in compliance with the Roman census, Mary and Joseph embark on the perilous, arduous trek to his hometown of Bethlehem, where Jesus is born in a manger.
Screenwriter Mike Rich (“The Rookie”) and director Catherine Hardwicke (“Lords of Dogtown”) follow the straightforward, one-dimensional tale of the birth, the arrival of three bickering maji – following not just a star but a planetary convergence – and the massacre of the innocents, returning the story back to where it began.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Nativity Story” is an earnest, reverent, respectful 5 – but banal and tediously conventional compared with George Stevens’ “The Greatest Story Ever Told” and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “The Gospel According to St. Matthew.” And coincidentally, in real life, Keisha Castle-Hughes (“Whale Rider”) is a pregnant, unmarried 16 year-old – which has been capitalized on in the tabloids.

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Blood Diamond

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Blood Diamond” (Warner Bros.)

The powerful diamond merchant De Beers is concerned about the underlying message of this thriller – for good reason. ‘Blood’ or ‘conflict’ diamonds are mined in war zones and sold, clandestinely, to diamond cartels. Basically, ‘bling-bling’ here is ‘bang-bang’ there, contributing to the mutilation and slaughter of thousands of innocents.
In Sierra Leone during the 1990s, rebels for the Revolutionary United Front were terrorizing villagers. Fisherman Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou) was taken hostage and forced to work in the diamond fields. One day, he finds a huge pink diamond – and quickly buries it. This rare, valuable gemstone is a ticket out of Africa for his wife and daughters in a refugee camp and his son, who has been forcibly recruited as a ‘child-soldier.’ But Solomon needs help to retrieve it, so he agrees to join forces with Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), a wily diamond smuggler from Zimbabwe, and Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), an American journalist writing an expose: “Trail of Terror from Jungles to Jewelers.”
Writers Charles Leavitt and Marshall Herskovitz, writer/director Edward Zwick and cinematographer Eduardo Serra capture the complex human drama with its socio-political intrigue, although the dialogue often sounds like a history lecture. Djimon Hounsou delivers a fierce, compelling performance, Leonardo DiCaprio’s forceful maturity is a revelation, and Jennifer Connelly is earthy and shrewd.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Blood Diamond” is an exciting, adventurous 8. While the diamond industry website (diamondfacts.org) claims that 99% of diamonds are not ‘conflict’ by U.N. definition, the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in September, 2006, that conflict diamonds still enter the United States. So if you’re buying diamonds this holiday season, ask for a Kimberley Process Certificate; it assures consumers that their purchase does not finance war and human rights abuses.

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Apocalypto

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Apocalypto” (Touchstone Pictures/Disney)

After “The Passion of the Christ” generated nearly $1 billion in ticket sales, Mel Gibson took off for Mexico to write, direct, produce and finance this bizarre, action-packed spectacle, spoken in Yucatec dialect.
From about 2400 B.C. to the 15th century A.D., the Mayan civilization dominated Mexico and Central America with its extraordinary mathematics, astronomy, art and urban planning. But none of this ethnography is explored on-screen.
Instead, Gibson and co-writer Farhad Safina concentrate on its cruelty and barbarity, following a warrior named Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood, a Comanche/Cree Indian), who, along with many of his tribe, is captured by marauders and marched to a great Mayan city where he’s chosen as a human sacrifice. But, thanks to a solar eclipse, he escapes, racing through the rain forest and eluding treacherous pursuers to rescue his very pregnant wife (Dalia Hernandez) and young son who are trapped in a deep crevasse. Reunited with his family, having mastered his fear, he then faces a new danger: the landing of Spanish conquistadors.
Taken from the Greek, “Apocalypto” means “the unveiling” or “a new beginning.”
Cinematographer Dean Semler utilizes Panavision’s new high-definition Genesis camera system, achieving an exotic, compelling visuality, and the smeared blue body paint evokes memories of “Braveheart.” Graphically brutal with relentless, intense violence, the torture scenes are gruesome and repulsive, while the subtitles lack subtlety and conversational nuance; one simply states, “He’s fu**ed!”
Parallels between contemporary America and the Maya’s constant warfare and ruling corruption are blatantly obvious. As Gibson told Time magazine, “The fear-mongering we depict in this film reminds me a little of President Bush and his guys.” On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Apocalypto” is a savage 4, reflecting the morbid, sadistic manifestations of an angry, bitter man.

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Volver

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

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

Reunited with Spanish writer/director Pedro Almodovar for the third time, Penelope Cruz delivers a volatile, earthy, uncompromising performance in this loosely autobiographical surrealistic black comedy about an extended family of women in Madrid.
Raimunda (Cruz) and her sister Sole (Lola Duenas) are dutiful daughters, faithfully cleaning their parents’ and grandparents’ graves in La Mancha cemetery and visiting their elderly, senile aunt (Chus Lampreave).
Raimunda, who is married to worthless Paco (Antonio de la Torre), works two jobs to support her 14 year-old daughter, Paula (Yohana Cobo), whom Paco tries to rape. In self-defense, the teenager kills him. Resourceful Raimunda dumps Paco’s body in the freezer of a nearby restaurant that’s for sale. That’s where she’s contracted with a visiting film crew to cater lunches while the owner’s out of town. Meanwhile, Sole comes to believe that their late mother (Carmen Maura) is not dead, insisting she’s come back – seemingly supernatural – with sordid secrets to reveal, some involving Augustina (Blanca Portillo), a family friend who is dying of inoperable cancer.
Obviously influenced by Italian neo-realism, Almodovar accurately describes this convoluted tale as a cross between “Mildred Pierce” and “Arsenic and Old Lace” – to which I’d add a bit of soap opera thrown in. The title means “to return” in Spanish.
Almodovar’s prevalent themes of sex, religion and death are best characterized by cinematographer Jose Luis Alcaine’s deceptively subtle shot of voluptuous Penelope Cruz leaning over a kitchen sink, washing a bloody kitchen knife with a crufix hanging around her neck. In Spanish with English subtitles, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Volver” is a warm, whimsical 8. While superstitious, these three generations of women are ingenious, contriving clever solutions to life’s most perplexing problems.

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Failure to Launch

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Failure to Launch” (Paramount Pictures)

As date movies go, this misanthropic misfire is briefly amusing but instantly forgettable.
Tripp (Matthew McConaughey) is a 35 year-old luxury boat broker who still lives at home with his passive-aggressive parents (Kathy Bates, Terry Bradshaw). Why not? He’s coddled, catered to, and cleaned up after in comfy style. “It’s gonna take a stick of dynamite to get me out of this house!” this spoiled man/boy declares.
Obviously, he has commitment issues. To the rescue comes Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker), a “professional interventionist” hired to entice Tripp to vacate the premises. Predictably, Tripp and Paula fall in love. Did you doubt it for a moment?
While facile, unshaven Matthew McConaughey oozes with affable charm, Sarah Jessica Parker once again proves – after “The Family Stone” – that she’s best suited to the small screen (i.e. “Sex in the City”), particularly when she’s engaging in emotional prostitution. So it’s the likeable supporting players who propel the enjoyment.
TV writers Tom J. Astle & Matt Ember have given the NFL’s Terry Bradshaw some insightful lines like: “When I was growing up, nobody had self-esteem, and we turned out OK.” Not to mention his bare backside scene. Zooey Deschanel (“Elf”), as Paula’s boozy, moody best friend, steals every scene she’s in. One of my favorites was when she (never having read Harper Lee) wants to kill a mockingbird and tries to buy a shotgun and single bullet, or shell, from a hapless sporting-goods salesman (Rob Corddry from “The Daily Show”). Tripp’s nerdy buddies (Justin Bartha, Bradley Cooper) also amp the laugh quotient. And director Rob Dey never achieves the consistent tone that’s necessary for a screwball comedy. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Failure to Launch” is a barely sizzling 6. Why? The romance never ignites.

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Unaccompanied Minors

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Unaccompanied Minors” (Warner Bros.)

Missing every opportunity to make an amusing “Home Alone” comedy out of this stranded-in-an-airport situation, “Unaccompanied Minors” deserves to get lost.
It’s Christmas Eve and a major blizzard has shut down a midwestern airport. Among the stranded travelers are five mischievous youngsters who escape from a basement holding cell and stage a frantic free-for-all. There’s resourceful Spencer (Dyllan Christopher), sassy rich girl Grace (Gina Mantegna), trailer-park tomboy Donna (Quinn Shepherd), brainiac Charlie (Tyler James Williams of “Everybody Loves Chris”) and obsese comic-book geek Timothy a.k.a. Beef (Brett Kelly), who talks primarily with his Aquaman toy.
Their mission is to rescue Spencer’s little sister, Katherine (Dominique Saldana) and make sure she’s not disappointed by Santa Claus on Christmas morning. And their pursurers are the Grinch-like passenger-relations manager (Lewis Black), who had planned on spending the holidays in Hawaii, and his assistant (Wilmer Valderrama), along with the bumbling security guards (“Saturday Night Live’s” Rob Riggle and Kids in the Hall’s Bruce McCullough, Mark McKinney and Kevin MacDonald).
Ignoring the myriad of possibilities explored in “The Terminal” or even “Christmas Vacation,” writers Jacob Meszaros & Mya Stark, along with director Paul Feig (TV’s “Freaks and Geeks,” “The Office,” “Arrested Development”), come up with surprisingly little for the kids to do, even when they ransack the unclaimed luggage warehouse. The entire concept could be subtitled: The Joy of Vandalism. There’s a bit of sloppy sentiment and subtle commentary on divorced parents – with adult participation by Jessica Walter, Teri Garr, Tony Hale, B.J. Novak, Mindy Kaling and “The Daily Show” regular Rob Corddry – but on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Unaccompanied Minors” is a tedious 2. Clocked at a long, long 89 minutes, it’s a terminally boring layover.

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The Holiday

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Holiday” (Universal/Columbia)

Admittedly, this is a chick-flick. Guys may groan but gals are gonna love it.
Workaholic Amanda (Cameron Diaz) owns a successful Hollywood movie marketing company but can’t seem to relate to relationships; she’s just evicted her latest live-in (Edward Burns) after he’s been unfaithful with a 24 year-old receptionist.
Iris (Kate Winslet) is a London newspaper columnist who’s suffered for years from toxic unrequited love for a caddish co-worker (Rufus Sewell) who has just jilted her.
Both women are neurotic and quite miserable, faced with spending Christmas alone.
Surfing the ‘net, Amanda gets an impetuous idea: she’ll do a transatlantic house swap for two weeks – her luxurious mansion in sunny Los Angeles for Iris’ quaint Rose Hill cottage in snowy Surrey. Stunned, Iris agrees.
But what Amanda doesn’t expect is Iris’ sensitive brother, Graham (Jude Law), who lurches onto her doorstep the first night she arrives, tipsy from too much to drink at the local pub. And Iris is equally surprised to make the acquaintance of Miles (Jack Black), a sweet, self-deprecating film composer – and her elderly neighbor, Arthur, a crusty Oscar-winning screenwriter (Eli Wallach) who teaches her about cinematic leading ladies with “gumption.”
Nancy Meyers (“Something’s Gotta Give,” “What Women Want”) has come up with a contrived ‘What if?” wish-fulfillment premise – but it works. While Cameron Diaz does her usual, superficial ditz, Kate Winslet grows in sexy confidence and self-esteem before our eyes. Jude Law exudes a Cary Grant-like British charm and Jack Black is pleasantly engaging, if totally miscast. As for Eli Wallach, he’s a wonder; at 91, he’s now America’s oldest working actor. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Holiday” is a sugary, sentimental 7. Like “Love, Actually,” it’s the Christmas comedy you’ve been waiting for.

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The Pursuit of Happyness

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Pursuit of Happyness” (Columbia/Sony)

Based on a true story, this touching rags-to-riches tale takes its name from the misspelling of “happiness” scrawled on the wall of a San Francisco daycare center where Chris Gardner (Will Smith) deposits his five year-old son (Jaden Smith) every morning.
Back in 1981, Chris was an eager, industrious medical equipment salesman but most doctors weren’t interested in buying the high-density bone scanners in which he’d invested his savings. Financially desperate after his wife (Thandie Newton) leaves him, he recalls Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence and resolves to pursue his version of the American dream – becoming a stockbroker. That involves a big risk: competing with many other candidates during a six-month unpaid internship at Dean Witter Reynolds while enduring extreme financial hardship, including eviction and homelessness. Throughout this ordeal, Chris’ charismatic good humor, idealistic faith and dogged persistence never waver nor does his determination to keep his son with him and, using light-hearted fantasy, to protect the boy from emotional harm.
Inspired by a “20/20” segment on Chris Gardner’s ordeal, screenwriter Steve Conrad (“The Weather Man”) adds key dramatic elements, like Gardner’s amazing ability to solve the Rubik’s cube, along with a running amusement about the repeated theft and retrieval of missing bone scanners. Italian director Gabriele Muccino (“The Last Kiss”) artfully captures the angst of anxiety and the universality of hope.
In an understated departure from wisecracking roles, Will Smith embodies the essential anguish, exhaustion and tenacity for this struggle, and it’s not surprising that believable affection spills onto the screen since little Jaden Smith is Smith’s real-life son. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Pursuit of Happyness” is an optimistic, inspirational 8. The loving father-son relationship becomes a heartwarming holiday fable.

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Charlotte’s Web

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Charlotte’s Web” (Paramount Pictures)

In E.B. White’s novel, a tiny pig discovers that the most precious gift in the world is the bond of friendship. Now this beloved, quintessentially American children’s tale – which was previously made into a 1973 Hanna-Barbera cartoon – is on the screen in live-action, combining barnyard animals with “Babe”-like CG-assisted animatronics.
Set in New England, the fantasy begins when strong-willed, young Fern Arable (Dakota Fanning) realizes that her father (Kevin Anderson) is going to dispose of a runt-of-the-litter spring piglet. Determined to save his life, she rescues him, naming him Wilbur. When Wilbur (voice of Dominic Scott Kay) grows too big to be a house pet, he’s placed across the street in farmer Zuckerman’s barn where he’s befriended by Charlotte (maternal-sounding Julia Roberts), a very wise and gracious spider who lives high up in the rafters. Her devotion to na•ve Wilbur is boundless and, with the reluctant help of the selfish rat Templeton (voice of Steve Buscemi), she devises an ingenious way to try to save him from a porker’s inevitable fate in the smokehouse – much to the amazement of their comical barnyard companions (voices of John Cleese, Cedric the Entertainer, Oprah Winfrey, Kathy Bates, Reba McEntire and Robert Redford)
In addition to E.B. White’s whimsical characters, writers Susannah Grant and Kery Kirkpatrick, along with director Gary Winick (“13 Going on 30”) have added two dimwitted crows (voices of Thomas Hayden Church and Andre Benjamin), a rotten goose egg and the inevitable flatulence jokes. Visually, the film is glorious – and it all works, capturing not only every subtle nuance but the transcendent essence of E.B. White cycle-of-life theme. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Charlotte’s Web” weaves a magical 10, becoming the best family film of the year.

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Rocky Balboa

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Rocky Balboa” (MGM release)

World heavyweight champion Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is back in the ring – 30 years later – for one final round.
For those too young to remember, Rocky, a.k.a. the Italian Stallion, captured our hearts back in 1976, not to mention three Academy Awards, including Best Picture. “Rocky” scored seven other nominations, including Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. Then came five forgettable sequels.
Now Rocky’s a weary, depressed widower, mourning the death of his beloved wife Adrian (Talia Shire). His brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young) chides, “You’re living backwards; change the channel from yesterday.”
While awkwardly struggling to maintain a relationship with his yuppie son Robert (Milo Ventimiglia), who resents living in the shadow of his famous father, Rocky runs a small Italian restaurant in South Philly, extending friendship to a down-on-her-luck single mom (Geraldine Hughes) and her rebellious teenage son (James Patrick Kelly III).
One day, ESPN showcases a simulated match between athletes of different eras: the current, vastly unpopular heavyweight champ, Mason “The Line” Dixon (real-life boxer Antonio Tarver), and the young, vigorous Rocky.
That gets Rocky thinking about how much he misses the sport – and fight promoters are eager to stage a real-life rematch of the cyber-fight at the glitzy Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. Billed as an exhibition, it turns into far more.
Writer/director/actor Stallone’s assertion that “anything is possible, if you believe enough” still strikes a resonant, if corny chord. And his inspirational, nostalgic sprint up the grand steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is revisited, not only in the narrative but also, amusingly, over the final credits. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Rocky Balboa” punches hard with a heart-tugging, uplifting 8. “The last thing to age on somebody is their heart.”

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