Review Tagged Articles at Cinematical

By Eric D. Snider (reprint from 1/19/09 -- Sundance Film Festival)

The premise of Precious is so unsettling and bleak that no one would blame you if you didn't want to see it: It's the story of an obese 16-year-old illiterate Harlem girl who's pregnant (for the second time) by her own father, lives with her monstrously abusive mother, and has almost given up on life. But if you do see it, you'll find that it's compelling and artistic, punctuated with warm humor and masterful performances, and ultimately triumphant and hopeful.

The girl is named Claireece "Precious" Jones (she goes by Precious), and she's played with astonishing rawness by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe. Narrating the film, Precious tells us the grim facts. Beyond the ones already noted, she is still in junior high school (where she's dumbly in love with her kindly math teacher); her first child, born with Down syndrome, is technically in her mother's custody but is actually cared for by her grandmother; and her mother, Mary (Mo'Nique), is a welfare-absorbing harridan who abuses Precious in every possible way, hating her daughter for "stealing" her man. Precious did no such thing, of course -- she was raped by her father -- but Mary is not interested in details.

Precious is directed by her principal to an alternative school called Each One Teach One. Her class is populated by other girls who dropped out or were kicked out of public schools for various reasons; it's telling that even in such a motley group, Precious is still the most timid, the most withdrawn, and the most messed-up. The teacher, Ms. Rain (Paula Patton), is dedicated to her work, perhaps the first adult to ever take a genuine interest in helping Precious. The other students might be Precious' first friends, too.

By Todd Gilchrist (reprint from 10/28/09 -- L.A. Screamfest)

I'm not sure exactly what quality it is that real people possess and actors lack, but any time a film pretends to document real behavior, either literally or as a reenactment, something is almost always missing. Sometimes the problem is a deliberate decision to enhance events with artificial emphasis or drama, and sometimes it's simply too great a sense of self-awareness in the actor, who knows he or she is performing. But while there are a precious few movies that nail that authenticity, notably the recent underdog-blockbuster Paranormal Activity, such is certainly the case in The Fourth Kind, a film that purports to build an argument for alien abductions using "actual" footage from case studies.

While much of the movie's so-called source material carries the convincing roughness and deficiencies of homemade, handheld recording, too much of it seems far too calculated, both in its technical proficiency and the performances contributed by its "real" people. Further, its accompanying reenactments by recognizable actors undermine the possibility that audiences can take its case seriously, all of which adds up to thriller that unravels easily even if it nevertheless occasionally qualifies as a scary good time.

By Peter Hall (reprinted from 9/28/09 -- Fantastic Fest review)

Quirkiness only carries so far. Napoleon Dynamite, the film that ushered in the career of Gentlemen Broncos director Jared Hess, is enjoyable because it cherishes the nervous twitches of puberty, identity crisis, and the weird kind of people who worship at Walmart strip malls. The director embraced his small-town roots to assemble a film in love with those who don't have any station in life, who have no big conflict in their mundane lives, and who have no particularly interesting story to tell, either. Hess' latest film, on the other hand, does have an interesting story to tell and it does have a three-act conventional conflict, but it barrels past being quirky into the weird-for-weird's-sake hinterland of comedy where subtlety is abolished in favor of broad, hit-and-miss gags.

Gentlemen Broncos could have been great. It's about a teenage boy (Michael Angarano) whose fantasy novel featuring an underdog hero on a nonsensical planet (Sam Rockwell) is stolen by not only his washed-up hero author (Jemaine Clement) at a crash-course writing camp, but two insufferable "friends" who want to turn the story into their cinematic gateway to Hollywood. The film often wanders out of the real-world of poor Benjamin's unenviable life and into the entertaining fantasy world of his childish writings, but for the most part it feels as directionless as the confused boy we're supposed to be rooting for.

By Eric D. Snider (reprint from 5/3/2009 -- Tribeca Film Festival)

The House of the Devil is a great name for a movie. It hearkens back to the days of grindhouse horror, when a film's title and its trailer told you basically everything you needed to know. Yet it's different from those movies, too, in that it prefers slow-building tension over frequent bloodletting and mayhem. You have to wait for "The House of the Devil" to deliver on its promises -- but when it does, holy crap. I know that isn't a very scholarly analysis, but seriously. Holy crap.

The film is set in the early 1980s, apparently, with appropriately synthesized rock on the soundtrack and lots of freeze-frames in the opening credits. Our perky young heroine, Samantha (Jocelin Donahue), is a college student who's sick of living in the dorms and is preparing to move into an apartment with her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig). Eager to earn some money to facilitate the move, Samantha responds to a flier posted on a campus bulletin board looking for a babysitter. Rather suspiciously (to me, anyway), the flier is blank except for a phone number and the words "BABYSITTER WANTED."

The clients are the Ulmans -- Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan) is a tall, gentle-voiced man who uses a walking stick; his wife (Mary Woronov) is old-school sophisticated, a woman whose evening wear requires fur. Samantha learns when she arrives at the house -- a huge old isolated place, I needn't tell you -- that the babysitting duties will be slightly different from the norm, but it's not a deal-breaker. And the Ulmans are offering a lot of money.

By Todd Gilchrist (reprinted from 9/23/09)

Cinematically speaking, there may be nothing worse than when an action star or purveyor of thrills starts taking himself too seriously. Such a transformation almost invariably begets a personal crusade, which often takes the form of a vanity project, and usually turns out about as well as The Quest did for Jean-Claude Van Damme, or On Deadly Ground did for Steven Seagal. Thai martial artist Tony Jaa launched his career with the original Ong Bak, and after that film and its superior follow-up, The Protector, made him an international sensation, he apparently started believing his own hype: Jaa not only co-directed Ong Bak 2, his latest film, but conceived it as the ultimate Thai adventure, reinforcing his own legend with a self-aggrandizing historical epic that somehow proves that you can actually make a movie without a plot – which unfortunately but perhaps predictably isn't a compliment.

Ostensibly a prequel to the original film, Ong Bak 2 chronicles a series of fairly awesome fights that Jaa's character Tien gets into en route to becoming a martyred national hero. There's some back story about the betrayal of Tien's parents and his training by guerrilla fighters in the jungles of Thailand, but for the most part the film is front-loaded with one scene after another where he beats the bloody pulp out of any and all comers. Meanwhile Jaa's mentor and co-director Panna Rittikrai documents the action with a surprising, satisfying lyricism, reminiscent of Zhang Yimou's Hero and House of Flying Daggers, but it seems obvious they're more interested in throat-ripping than truly capturing the poetry of Thai martial arts.

By Peter Hall (reprinted from 10/8 -- Fantastic Fest)

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant has the unfortunate fate of arriving at the height of the vampire resurgence. I fear a lot of potential movie goers will dismiss it as part of the wave, as a major studio (Universal) trying to rush an adaptation of a very popular young-adult book franchise in an attempt to capitalize on the Twilight demographic. And while I understand that sentiment, in this particular case it's a shame, because Paul Weitz' film stands tall whether it was made inside or outside this temporary rise in the vamp popularity. Remove the cynical marketing climate and The Vampire's Assistant is a charming, imaginative, and most importantly, very entertaining film for children, teens and adults alike.

Having not read any of the 12 books comprising author Darren Shan's young-adult Cirque Du Freak saga, I can't attest as to how faithful an adaptation it is, but the macabre world About a Boy director Paul Weitz has brought to life on film feels like the kind of mysterious wonderland I could have easily lost myself in as a child. That's not to say that The Vampire's Assistant is a children's film, far from it, but it's the kind of film that's full of content that's simultaneously adult and juvenile, the breed of subtle scripting that provides eye candy for teenagers and nostalgic mind candy for adults.

Well, he may have a head like a "f***ing orange" but Karl Pilkington has managed to go from being an unknown radio producer for UK comedian Ricky Gervais to standing in as his comic foil to becoming a best-selling author. And now he's getting into the movie review business. Well, not really, but the lovable weirdo did review Gervais' latest comedy, The Invention of Lying, with Gervais in attendance (which would probably be the stuff of nightmares for most film critics).

So what did Pilkington think of the movie? Well, if you're familiar with his work, then you know that you don't exactly get a straight answer -- but at least on the upside, he did say that the movie ended before he got too bored. Gervais' latest film centers on an alternate world where his character is the first person to invent the art of deception and quickly begins to use his newfound skill to woo a woman and earn fame and riches.

Now, obviously, if you're looking for a real review you aren't going to count on a man famous for saying "I could eat a knob at night" on-air, and a quick look around at some of your more 'legit' film critics has the comedy receiving mixed reviews. Luckily, though, the general consensus is that audiences will be treated to a smart if slightly uneven comedy, but just like Gervais' last film outing, manages to win you over in the end (and even Pilkington thought it was better than King Ralph, so that has got to count for something).

The Invention of Lying opens on October 2nd, 2009.

After the jump: at the movies with Ricky and Karl...

A few weeks ago, I asked "Will Chicks Dig Jennifer's Body?" and the responses were mixed. Unfortunately for fans of the movie (like myself), its opening weekend box office results were equally mixed, with JB bringing in $6.8M, putting it in fifth place, right behind the execrable and boring Love Happens.

Plenty of people have immediately written off the movie because they loathe Diablo Cody or Megan Fox. Fox is an especially contentious figure among women because she's young, she's hot, and she's as eager to be "exploited" by the Hollywood machine as she is to give it the middle finger. And Diablo Cody, well... As the talented and smart Karyn Kusama, director of Jennifer's Body said in an interview with Cinematical's Todd Gilchrist, "I feel like the issue of [Cody's] voice being strong and people having a problem with it is very interesting to me because I think there are plenty of writers whose work generates that discussion. I have just never heard Quentin Tarantino or David Mamet or Shane Black be called a whore in people's blogs; I am shocked sometimes by the vitriol."

The cycle of slavering adoration and vicious backlash Cody has been the subject of since she was the Next Big Thing with her book Candy Girl makes my head spin, and if I were her, I'd have hocked my Oscar and headed for the hills long ago. But she hasn't, and thank goodness for that because Jennifer's Body is the coolest, weirdest thing to happen to women in horror (and the women who love horror) in a long time.

Love Happens isn't just an unfortunate title because of the obvious pun I'm biting my metaphorical tongue over (okay... sh*t happens! I said it!), but because it's boring and lazy, and that pretty much sums up the movie itself.

Aaron Eckhart is as bland as pudding as Burke Ryan, a psychologist who lost his wife in a tragic accident, and for some reason turned his grief into a cottage industry for other people in mourning. Even with an incredibly successful book and seminars across the country that teach people how to be "A-OK!" instead of, say, dealing with their grief Elisabeth Kübler-Ross-style, Burke is miserable. Small details that are meant to humanize him and illustrate the grief and anxiety that is inevitable after a life-changing loss feel small and clichéd. He always takes the stairs instead of the elevator. And those lemons he tells his readers to make into lemonade? He pours a little Grey Goose into his glass when no one else is around. One of the other characters even makes a point of mentioning what a teetotaler he is.

Let's face it; none of us would be here if we didn't like talking about movies. If you are anything like me, you spend your days scouring for movie news, reading about your favorite films and directors, and sometimes even getting into the odd heated argument. So while most of us play armchair quarterback when it comes to the art of movie making, there are plenty of honest to goodness artists who love to talk about movies just as much as we do, and one person who needs no such prompting is Quentin Tarantino.

The director recently filmed an introductory clip to There Will Be Blood for Sky Movies and despite being a little surprised at the idea that Tarantino and P.T. Anderson are movie BFF's, it did get me thinking about some of the other directors who love to talk about the movies. The rise of the DVD commentary opened up a whole new world to movie geeks like myself, giving us the chance to learn more about the movies we love. But as interesting as it is to hear a filmmaker talk about their work -- sometimes I think it's even better to hear them talk about somebody else's movie.

After the jump; Tarantino's TWBB review, and more movie-making chatterboxes..