Summer Movies: Good News/Bad News

Ah, summer, the scent of stale cinematic crap ready to fill the air. So often when I sit down to watch another over-hyped, star-driven blockbuster I foolishly let myself think that maybe this one will be a case of good news. You know, the pieces fit, the parts connect, the script was only re-written 9 times as opposed to the usual 52, and, finally, my prayers have been answered and a remedy to the unending humidity has been found. Instead, it's usually a case of bad news and I stumble out of the theater praying for winter (cinematically and meterologically).

Therefore I decided to take this little idea to heart in my annual summer movie preview and examine what the Good News might possibly be in some of the season's biggest releases and, on the flip side, what we can expect to be the inevitable Bad News.

“Star Trek.” Good News: William Shatner, wearing a polk-a-dot vest, makes a bloated cameo in which he constantly steps on the lines of Chris Pine (playing Kirk) and then serenades the crew of the Enterprise with "I've Got the World on a String" in a scene clearly improvised by Shatner on the spot while Simon Pegg (as Scotty) unsuccessfully attempts to wrestle him offscreen. Also, Victor Garber turns up as the Federation President in an eerily “Alias”-like scene in which he tortures a Klingon with a cravat and blowtorch. Bad News: The film involves one-too-many kung fu fights, an eerily “Lost”-like scene in which the crew of the Enterprise keeps hearing mysterious references to "The Others" (a group headed up by Scott Bakula) and a painful attempt at an homage to the “Italian Dinner” conversation from “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” that fails terribly. The film is universally hailed as being “worse than Star Trek V”.

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”. Good News: At the glitzy Las Vegas casino premiere director Michael Bay is eaten by a lion. The film flops. Shia LaBeouf takes a 12 year sabbatical to "find himself", Megan Fox decides to set aside acting to focus full time on a career of looking glamorous in various celebrity gossip magazines and Spike Lee announces that he will not be giving John Turturro any more obligatory cameos as punishment for appearing in this movie. Bad News: The film is so successful Michael Bay is commissioned to remake “The Third Man” and promptly announces that in his version the Harry Lime character will show up in the first five minutes because “who has the patience to wait so long to see him?”

“Terminator Salvation”. Good News: Christian Bale nails it, becoming the definitive John Connor. Bad News: Director McG goes overboard, scoring the film to the hits of Fatboy Slim, making the entire second act a montage and is ultimately done in by his decision to film the whole movie with handheld cameras. Audiences around the world ask for their money back as they vomit up their Milk Duds from motion sickness.

“Angels & Demons”. Good News: Midway through the movie Tom Hanks looks around, perplexed, and shouts: “Where is Audrey Tatou?! I only agreed to do this with Audrey Tatou! That's it! I'm walking!” He then storms off camera and is replaced for the remainder of the movie by son Colin in the hope no one will notice the difference. They do. It bombs. Reinvigorated, Hanks produces an award winning HBO miniseries based on the life of Benedict Arnold. Bad News: The film is a hit despite horrendous reviews. Hanks signs on for 10 more sequels and directs “That Thing You Do! 2” starring The Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus.

"X Men Origins: Wolverine". Good News: Due to the internet leak that allowed millions of people to see an unfinished rough cut of the action picture a month in advance, star Hugh Jackman decides to punish the perpetrators by reshooting the entire enterprise himself in a mere 3 weeks, transforming it into a re-telling of the musical "South Pacific" set in the "X Men" universe. Bad News: Hugh Jackman announces he will punish the perpetrators by agreeing to co-host next year's Academy Awards with Jessica Simpson.

"Land of the Lost". Good News: Will Ferrell is okay. The movie treads just enough water to be a box office success. Bad News: A film critic for the LA Times writes, "You know what? I think I'm a little sick of Will Ferrell." With one critic having finally said it, the floodgates open and critics from Topeka to Tokyo pile on Ferrell. Desperate, Ferrell does a beach volleyball movie, a ski jumping movie a pro bass fishing tour movie, and a rom com with Kate Hudson so putrid even Matthew McConaughey passes on it. They all fail miserably. Nowhere else to go, he returns to Saturday Night Live, lamely pitching skit ideas about Janet Reno. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, Lorne Michaels says he will air them only to have the show "run out of time" every week.

“Funny People”. Good News: Bruce Springsteen makes his long rumored cameo in this Judd Apatow comedy and grants release of his legendary unreleased tune “Lovers in the Cold” on the film’s soundtrack. Bad News: Bruce Springsteen chooses against making a cameo and Jon Bon Jovi turns up instead. Springsteen grants release of his recent song “Queen of the Supermarket” on the film’s soundtrack.

“Public Enemies”. Good News: Michael Mann cranks out his fourth official masterpiece and Billy Crudup (playing J. Edgar Hoover to Johnny Depp's John Dillinger) finally earns his first Oscar nomination. Bad News: It winds up more like “Ali” than “The Insider” while Billy Crudup's career officially stalls and Johnny Depp becomes so distraught over the film's fate he immediately agrees to appear in five more "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequels. Michael Mann meanwhile can't raise the finances for his next crime saga and finds himself making "Last of the Mohicans: Hawkeye & Cora, The Married Years", causing me to run up and down Michigan Avenue screaming obscenities.

“G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”. Good News: There are scenes in which we see Sienna Miller as The Baroness twirling her finger in a scotch while gunning down an enemy with an automatic weapon, interrogating an adversary by taking a drag from a cigarette and blowing smoke in his face, and telling Snake Eyes "take off that f---ing mask already, you f---ing pisant". Bad News: Sienna Miller never drinks, never smokes, and never swears. Booooooring.

(Not) Playing With The Boys

Recently, late at night, looking for a movie showing on TV to which I could drift off, I happened upon 1986's #1 box office hit "Top Gun" showing on Bravo. Perfect, I thought, and settled in to watch the scene where Tom Cruise asks out Kelly McGillis and she shoots him down except she really doesn't and "slyly" hands him the note telling him to be at her place later that night and then Tom Cruise gets up to leave which leads to this memorable exchange:

Slider: "Crash and burn, huh, Mav?"
Maverick: "Slider, you stink."

Then I smiled for I knew precisely what was coming next, perhaps the film's greatest sequence - the volleyball game between Tom Cruise, Anthony Edwards, Val Kilmer, and Rick Rossovich set to Kenny Loggins' immortal "Playing With The Boys". I couldn't wait!

Except the next thing I knew the movie was cutting to Tom Cruise roaring down a beachfront road on his motorcycle to the soft strains of "Take My Breath Away" and then he was showing up, late, at Kelly McGillis's house for dinner. "Where's the volleyball scene?" I literally asked aloud to an empty room. Now I was wide awake. No drifting off. I was confused - incensed, even. This is worse than the time they colorized "It's A Wonderful Life", I thought. I rewound the DVR to make sure my eyes had not deceived me. They had not.

BRAVO EDITED OUT THE VOLLEYBALL SCENE IN "TOP GUN".

What is "From Here To Eternity" without Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr making out on the beach? What is "Ben Hur" without the chariot race? What is "Dr. Strangelove" without Slim Pickens riding the nuclear bomb? What is "There's Something About Mary" without the hair gel?

And what, I ask, is "Top Gun" without the volleyball scene?

Sugar

In the event of a really good Sports Movie film critics will often trot out a familiar phrase. For instance, if it's a film about baseball they will say, It's not a baseball movie, it's a movie about a baseball player. Yet, that phrase would not even come close to serving "Sugar" justice. "Sugar" is not a baseball movie, it's a movie about a young man who plays baseball. Make sense? Key words: Young Man.

It's a movie that pays no interest to the usual cliches of the genre. In fact, the film does not even relegate itself to the genre. It's something else. Truly. Very early on Manuel "Sugar" Santos (Algenis Perez Soto), a native of the Dominican Republic, is hanging out with some friends and says how he can throw a 95 MPH fastball. A pal says, big deal, he once threw a 98 MPH fastball when he was up in America playing for a farm team in the minor leagues. Then why, Sugar wonders, are you back here at home selling cellphone chargers on the street. The friend laughs, a little, and then a sad smile skates across his face which gives way to obvious pain. Sugar sees it, too. But they don't say anything. They don't have to. It's obvious but it's not made obvious. I mean, what a moment! And that's what Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck's (the writing and directing team that also earned Ryan Gosling an Oscar nod for "Half Nelson") movie does over and over. Nothing is forced, nothing is shoved down your throat, nothing is overdone when it can be so, so understated and graceful.

Sugar is a good hearted, hard throwing pitcher, and a rising star, in a Dominican baseball "academy", set up for the benefit of American Major League baseball teams who can ferret out the best talent and send it off to its various minor league teams in the States. All these players seem grateful for the opportunity despite the rigid lifestyle and all of them harbor big league aspirations, though obviously some are more realistic than others.

Sugar's dream is realistic. He is called up to spring training in Arizona with the Kansas City Knights, the fictional team his academy represents. We see him with his family before he departs and it is clear they believe in him, too. It is also clear how much Sugar cares for his family and how much he does not want to let them down.

Soon after spring training Sugar is assigned to a Single A team in Bridgetown, Iowa. You see him making his arrival, cruising past endless miles of cornfields and I realized that while this sight may always bring a smile to my face, it can bring just as much terror to someone else's.

He stays with an elderly Iowa couple, polite to a fault, and he meets a young girl to whom he might be a little attracted. She takes him to a meeting for Evangelical youths in her basement where he doesn't understand a word. He often doesn't understand what is being said to him. The only English taught at his academy seems to be single words not useful beyond the context of baseball. When his Iowa coach is giving him the usual mumbo jumbo about "controlling your emotions" Sugar dismisses him, in Spanish, with "You talk too fast."

The baseball scenes are handed beautifully, never resorting to grand drama with a booming soundtrack. Most of the moments on the diamond allow only for the sounds of a game, a decision so refreshing that is the only word I can think to use. (There is one montage during the baseball season, yes, but even then the filmmakers have the good sense to score it to a kick ass TV On the Radio song.) He does well. He is injured. He struggles. But these developments are not portrayed in the usual EKG style, shooting from HIGH to LOW and back again. It moves at a real pace and, thus, lets the changes in Sugar and his plight happen naturally.

The movie is as much about a person transplanted to a strange world he does not understand as it is about a specific sport. But, again, Sugar's misunderstandings of his new home are not overdone. This is a movie where the camera often does nothing more than sit back to consider its characters. There are so many small interactions that loom large.

The third act travels to places I did not anticipate in any way. (If you go to movies looking for exactly what you expect, stay far, far away from "Sugar".) I will not discuss them in detail as you deserve to discover them on your own but this is where the true theme begins to emerge and you realize that what you are watching goes far beyond any "knuckle curve" Sugar may have mastered.

Not that "Sugar" belittles the game it so diligently portrays. The end of this movie is absolutely perfect. Remember the Kevin Costner flick "For Love of the Game"? Probably not, and that's probably because the movie failed for two solid hours to ever summarize its own title. But in only about 60 seconds or so the conclusion of "Sugar" takes that other movie's title and says here - right here. This is it.

My Great Movies: Heavenly Creatures

The afternoon before February's Academy Awards in which Kate Winslet earned her long awaited Oscar I sat down to re-watch her first movie for the first time in a long time and it, as it always has and always will, enveloped me. Never have I started "Heavenly Creatures" and not finished it. It might seem strange when you consider its dark nature, based on the real-life story of Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker who in 1954 New Zealand, afraid Pauline's mother was conspiring to keep the two dangerously close best friends apart, murdered her in horrific fashion. Yet, it is eerily and deeply compelling, to see it once is to never forget it.

The inability to turn away could stem from the jolt of terrifying electricity at the start, a 50's-styled travelogue of the film's setting, quaint Christchurch, New Zealand, "City of the Plains", giving way to the wrenching shots of the two girls, played by Winslet and Melanie Lynskey, running up a garden path, screaming, faces covered with blood. And then it flashes back to the beginning of their story.

Winslet as Juliet, stricken with lung disease and in need of a warm climate, has come to Christchurch with her mother and father (Diana Kent and Clive Merrison), who is set to become President at the local college. She is introduced to her new class which contains Pauline (Lynskey), severely quiet and shy, who is drawn to Juliet the instant she cockily corrects the French teacher. Before long they are squirreling themselves away from their classmates, sitting off to the side, showing off their respective scars. "All the best people have bad chests and bone diseases," claims Juliet. "It's all frightfully romantic." It's clear that Juliet is more attractive and outgoing than Pauline but they are both loners and, most importantly, they are both creative and that is where the true compatibility lies. The film takes great care in painting them as two people who come alive to the fullest only when they are around each other and that, of course, is what ultimately leads to the tragic conclusion.

Juliet contracts tuberculosis and is cordoned off in the hospital where Pauline cannot visit and so the two girls write letters to one another in the guise of characters in their make believe world of Bovaria and when Juliet is finally released this intense infatuation with fantasy only increases.

Their parents feel the relationship is too intense. They even suspect lesbianism, though they would never utter this dreaded word aloud. It is decided the girls must be kept apart. Eventually Juliet's father is pressured to resign as President of the local college which coincides with he and his wife's decision to get a divorce and they determine to send Juliet away, all on her own, to South Africa, "for the good of (her) health." This is the last straw. The girls scheme to escape to America where their they can get a publishing contract for their fanciful stories except Pauline does not have a passport and must get permission from a parent to acquire one. Knowing this will not happen, the girls, far gone in their delusions, decide it is Pauline's mother (Sarah Peirse) who is preventing this escape and, thus, they determine to kill her, framing it as an accident, so they can run away together.

I feel that solely from a filmmaking standpoint - direction, acting, writing, production - only a very few films have ever come close to achieving utter perfection and "Heavenly Creatures" is one. Peter Jackson has said it was less he than his life partner and co-writer Fran Walsh who pushed him to make this film and, at initial glance, especially when you consider at the time Jackson's only films were "Bad Taste", "Dead Alive", and "Meet the Feebles", he may seem a strange person to helm this particular film when, in fact, his immense skill with visual effects made him the perfect choice. He maintains realism with the real life material but whenever Pauline and Juliet enter their fantasy world Jackson's camera dives deep into it as well, presenting castles ruled by figures made of clay, including one in the likeness of Mario Lanza, "the world's greatest tenor." In one infinitely creepy sequence the girls are pursued by a black and white Orson Welles. The more detached the two become, the more these effects are ratcheted up, which is to say they are in complete service of the story.

The two lead performances are extraordinary and even more so when you consider that it was not only Winslet's first movie but Lynskey's, too. Lynskey, unfortunately, may now be best known as the stalker next-door neighbor of Charlie Sheen on the sitcom "Two and a Half Men" while most remain unaware of this movie's existence. She is perfect as the dour, pouty Pauline, hunched over, arms crossed in the beginning, lighting up only whenever Juliet is around. Her transformation is believable and the way she icily cuts off everyone around her as the movie progresses contrasted against her complete (the detached way she sleeps with a boarder at her parents' house at one point is downright disturbing). Winslet, on the other hand, is jovial, always smiling and laughing, though making it clear hysteria lurks just around the corner. She speaks in such a way that suggests always nearly being out of breath and when her parents make any mention of leaving her alone her sudden shifts to anger are jarring.

The screenplay is delicate, allowing us to see the girls' relationship strictly from their vantage point, so as to show their deep empathy for one another but not necessarily force-feeding that empathy to the audience, and also fairly presenting why people on the outside would be wary of their closeness.

In not taking sides the movie opens itself up to the ancient, irritating question, "What were they trying to 'say'?" Why make a film about such a terrible real-life event? Jackson and Walsh spoke to many of the actual participants and examined Pauline's diary entries (the film presents these entirely in Pauline's own words) and other facts of the relationship very closely, but why dredge up these past nightmares for those involved? The reasoning may lie in the film's structure itself.

The trial that followed the murder was a national event with lawyers on both sides attempting to lend reason to what occured. Insanity, lesbianism, all of it was addressed. Yet the movie concludes immediately after the murder. The trial is left offscreen and, thus, the film chooses not to specifically provide a reason for what happened. It presents the facts of the story to the best of its ability and leaves the rest to the audience without pretending to have the ulimate insight into human behavior.

At the time of the film's release in 1994 it was revealed that the real Juliet Hulme was, in fact, the crime author Anne Perry, living in Scotland. The esteemed Roger Ebert writes: "Watching her on the 'Today' program, talking forthrightly about the events of 40 years ago, I got the impression of a sensible, thoughtful woman for whom the murder is as much an enigma as for everyone else."

Our society tends toward a need to rationalize and to find closure, most especially in situations that reveal the darkest side of human nature. If these events can be explained away then we feel as if we are still in control but by simply showing us the events leading up to the murder and nothing more Jackson and Walsh's argument would seem to be the opposite. Eugene Ionesco once wrote: "Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible."

State of Play

(Note: I am issuing a spoiler alert before I say even one word. Got it? Good.)

Do you know why "All The President's Men" was such a good movie? It was such a good movie because the writer (in this case, William Goldman) was writing strictly from fact and because he was writing strictly from fact his script could not fall prey to the totally played out third act reversal that has become standard fare for these sorts of movies. Thus, when the reversal inevitably shows up in "State of Play" I wasn't thinking, "I'm shocked! Shocked, I say!" I was thinking, "Oh, no, heeeeere we go."

I'm not here to discuss director Kevin Macdonald's message in relation to the accelerated death of newspapers nor to address what might have been a few subtle shots at myself and my blogging brotherhood (if by subtle you mean sliding onto the roof directly above the audience and dropping anvils on their heads). I'm here to discuss his movie and how it was made.

It opens with a trio of deaths: a junkie thief, a pizza man, and a young, comely intern (is there any other kind?) for Senator Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) who has apparently committed suicide by throwing herself in front of a subway. Or has she? Two reporters at the Washington Post...whoops! I meant the Washington Globe, my apologies!...are tracking these developments. Intrepid Cal McAffery (Russell Crowe) is on the trail of the initial two murders and a young, naive gossip blogger with a They-Just-Don't-Make-'Em-Like-This-Anymore name of Della Frye (Rachel McAdams) is following up the notion Collins was having an affair with his intern, what when you consider she had been the lead researcher on his Congressional committee investigating Pointcorp - your usual scandalous company that, in this case, is turning American soldiers into mercenaries for hire - and upon announcement of her death Collins goes on live TV and sheds some tears.

Ah, but that's not all. Not even close. Cal is personal friends with Collins (a subplot that needed more fleshing out) and used to date Collins' wife (Robin Wright Penn) in college who is now essentially separated from her husband though when times get tough she will not hesitate to do what she has to do and make like Mrs. Eliot Spitzer, standing by her man. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Globe's editor, Cameron Lynne (Helen Mirren), rants and raves about "deadlines" and how they are "behind" a story they were once in front of and how other papers are putting out what sells and that the Globe needs to be doing the same even if part of her might know the potential story possesses some true worth. Wait, I haven't even mentioned poor Jeff Daniels who falls prey to the esteemed Roger Ebert's Law of Economy of Characters.

The movie really does some nice things for the first two acts. Cal is not above bending the rules to his advantage - sometimes bending them with extreme prejudice - and at one point the Globe choosing to sit on some key evidence, which is within their rights, has adverse consequences. It's nice to see a main character that has a certain amount of nobility but is not noble, if you know what I mean. Crowe, appearing to have gone through that famed method process of his by putting on the pounds and letting his hair grow, distinctly comes across as someone who would be as darn dogged as he is.

The rapport that develops between Cal and Della once their editor assigns them to work together allows for many good moments even if it's basis is in the taking-the-protege-under-my-wing angle. One moment calls for him to say - and I'm going from memory here so I apologize - "You're not a blogger, you're a reporter" and she says "At last" and then laughs a little. Now just reading it here, and probably reading it in the actual screenplay, made it seem quite corny but the way Crowe and McAdams say it make it come across like the characters are having some fun with that old cliche. It's good, good stuff.

McAdams is just perfect for this role. She's at once determined and in over her head and makes both these concepts ring true simultaneously. The way she demands her editor to keep her on the story is just so in character I laughed out loud. (A word here about McAdams. I know I stump for a lot of actresses on this blog, and I think it's important because it's much tougher for actresses to get good roles in this game, but I think that 10, 15 years from now - and I want to stress that I sincerely believe this - we could be viewing McAdams as the pre-eminent American actress. It's why someone needs to give her a movie. I don't mean a supporting role like this, I'm talking about the primo part. I'm talking about the Russell Crowe part in "State of Play", and even a little more. I'm talking about the whole shebang. Risk it, producers, and you will be rewarded. I promise. Give her a movie. Please. In fact, the unfortunate plight of actresses is underscored in this movie by the appearance of Viola Davis, a recent Oscar nominee, for God's sake, appearing in but a single and rather unmemorable scene.)

Robin Wright Penn is not afforded a whole lot of screen time but is rather moving and gallant in the little she is given. Her unspoken understanding that this was all part of the deal, that it goes with the territory, is well done and there is something both terribly sad and, yet, terribly moving when she turns up at the Globe offices with her husband near the end. The political marriage is a beast I don't think any of us will ever fully grasp and something of which I personally would never ever want any part.

But, to return to cliches, the end is the hardest part of a movie and "State of Play" merely re-illustrates this notion. The wheels are already starting to slip and slide a little at the start of the third act (though a certain actor who I did not know was in the movie and whose identity I will therefore not reveal to allow you the same surprise as me injects a bit of life into the proceedings) but if it had wrapped up with the moments of Cal and Della having a little whiskey at their desks, well, I might have gone home a whole lot happier. That said, the writers would have needed to tweak and adjust some things at other points in the movie, particularly in relation to Cal and Collins' friendship, but would that have been so hard? Yes, personal relationships have been stained but we've put the truth out there, regardless of the medium, and that's what matters. It could have been a slow fade to black instead of the turbulent, talky conclusion we receive.

Astute viewers will notice the credits indicating the movie was Written By Matthew Michael Carnahan And By Tony Gilroy And Billy Ray, which is to presume that due to the presence of the first "And" that Mr. Carnahan wrote the initial script and Gilroy and Ray were brought in for re-writes. I discussed Gilroy, the writer/director of "Duplicity" as well as the fantastic "Michael Clayton", last week and Ray was the writer and director of the excellent journalism film "Shattered Glass". Admittedly, Ray has a few other dubious credits but Gilroy? A hack he is not, and so I wonder how and where the script went wrong. Were Gilroy and Ray called in 48 hours before filming and told, "The third act. We need a sudden reversal. Oh, and gunshots. We need gunshots. If someone isn't wielding a gun in the last ten minutes of this movie I'm gonna be very upset. Make it happen."

Imgaine, if you will, that in the "All The President's Men" there comes a moment when Woodward and Bernstein are about to file their story and then John Dean happens along to offer congratulations and, by the chanciest of chances, says a few lines that appear harmless except when he leaves Woodward re-runs these lines over in his head and realizes that - gasp! - "It was Dean. Dean was the mastermind of the entire cover-up. My God. This changes everything!" And then they go hustle around the D.C. streets some more and we hear more exposition when we were already expositioned-out and now whatever message the filmmakers were trying to convey is lost in this useless need to shock and awe. Do you know how mad you would be?

Gigantic

At the end of this film I felt a little like Uma Thurman in "Pulp Fiction" looking at herself in the mirror right after she's snorted some coke (except, of course, for the coke snorting part). Remember that smile on her face? For her, in that moment, life was gooooood. "Gigantic" is Matt Aselton's first feature film and it heralds colossal promise. Like the recently reviewed "Sunshine Cleaning" and "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" it debuted at Sundance and so, yes, it is quirky. We'll say, mighty quirky. But if quirky is well made? If quirky is combined with poignancy that isn't sappy? If the dialogue is mostly good? If the acting is pretty much uniformly outstanding? If you're rooting for the guy and the girl at the heart of the story to get together not because you're supposed to but because you really, really want to?

Paul Dano's meek Brian works as a salesman at a Swedish mattress store that is high-end despite its seemingly rundown nature. He is the youngest of three brothers, so much younger than them, in fact, that they are about fifteen years older and people used to confuse Brian's parents (Ed Asner and Jane Alexander) for his grandparents. Brian's sole dream in life is to, ahem (entering Sundance territory), adopt a Chinese baby. Wait! Hold on! Don't get yourself in a dither! Stay with me!

One day a blowhard but hugely successful, and just plain huge, businessman (John Goodman) thunders into the store and purchases a $14,000 bed since he has one heck of a bad back - so bad, in fact, when he rides in cars he, ahem, has to lay down in the back. He sends his youngest daughter, Harriet (Zooey Deschanel), or Happy, as she's called, to purchase the bed for him and see about the details. It's the Meet Cute, sure, but, o' blessed me, what a Meet Cute! She....no, no, no, I'm not saying. You will have to see for yourself. But it's sweet and it feels totally real despite its roots in the Meet Cute vernacular.

Everything that follows spins off from these details. Brian and Harriet, of course, draw closer. Their conversation in a doctor's waiting room is note perfect. They both read magazines. She wonders what he is reading. He says it is an article about Tibetan monks playing basketball. So he wonders what she is reading. She says, "Mostly ads." (Even better is Brian's coworker who greets people by asking "What's up" and then, without so much as a pause, answering his own question with "Not much.")

Perhaps this relationship will strain Brian's desire to adopt that baby. His family is supportive of this decision even though you sense they do not completely understand it. His brother, John (Ian Roberts, who you might fondly remember as the "very literal doctor" from "Arrested Development"), solution to Brian's desire is not only humorous but completely in character and, thus, a truly loving gesture on his behalf even if Brian disdains it.

Harriet's father does not fully grasp Brian's idea, either, and asks all sorts of bottom line questions. Yet, he also seems to admire Brian for having the resolve to pursue it so decidedly. Goodman's performance is rather wonderful. He's racist and sexist and a homophobe and so on and so forth but you can also tell he is quite loving to those closest to him, though he never overdoes it.

As Brian's father, Asner projects more warmth and even projects it in the face of a Sundance-y (no other way to say it) scene when he and his sons at their family cabin indulge in some halluciginec mushrooms and then take a walk in the woods where, in spite of the basis of the moment, some real father-son bonding occurs despite the scene's basis in absurdity.

Not executed as well, however, is the subplot involving a homeless man who seems to trail Brian everywhere he goes, moments that usually wind up in him beating the tar out of poor Brian. You can probably guess where this might end up even if you don't see the movie. I can see what Aselton was trying to convey with this storyline but he could have done it in a much more worthwhile manner. Oh well, Springsteen's debut album had some clunkers, too.

The rough patches are so much more than merely redeemed by the good stuff and the film is thankfully intelligent enough to know Brian's lifelong passion would not necessarily be outweighed by these sudden and new events. It is a film of remarkable assuredness for a first time writer and director. I'm giddy to think of the possibilites for his next feature. It might just be like Uma Thurman returning to her table from the bathroom to find her food waiting for her.

(Note: This film appeared in Chicago for only one week at the Siskel Center so you will be probably have to wait for Netflix. Not to worry, though! "Fast & Furious" is still showing on three billion screens in America to tide you over until then!)

Where Have You Gone, Madeleine Stowe?

The passages still resonate with me, still put a lump in my throat, even though I have seen them at the absolute minimum 377 times. It's "Last of the Mohicans" and our plethora of main characters are hiking beside a rushing river and Duncan (Steven Waddington), the British officer, wants to know why Hawkeye (Daniel Day Lewis) is headed west when "there is a war on" and all the "colonial scouts (are supposed to be) in the militia." Hawkeye replies: "I ain't your scout. And I sure ain't no damn militia." The camera registers Duncan's dubious reaction but the doesn't end there, and instead quickly pans left to the face of Cora Munro (Madeleine Stowe), lingering for a split second. She's not quite as dubious. She's pensive.

Next we're at an isolated cabin where all the inhabitants have been viciously slaughtered by an indian war party. Duncan says they should "look after" the bodies. But Hawkeye and his brother and father advise to leave the bodies where they are and march off toward the woods. Cora objects. Hawkeye ignores her. She objects again: "I have seen the face of war before, sir, but never war made on women and children. And almost as cruel as your indifference." Hawkeye stops. He turns. He marches right at her. (And forget all of that physcotic over-acting he does in "There Will Be Blood", okay? Toss all of that out the window. This - this moment when he marches right at Madeleine Stowe with that defiant expression is the most terrifying moment in the whole Day Lewis canon.) "Miss Munro," he says, "they're not strangers. And they stay as they lay." Now notice Cora's reaction. She backs up, yes, and her body language wavers just a bit, but her gaze never relents from his eyes. Not once. What would you do if he came striding at you with that look? Tuck tail and run, that's what you'd do. It's what I'd do. It is not, however, what Cora does.


Recently I caught an hour long special on the Reelz Channel, filmed several years ago, in regards to the ouvre of Michael Mann, the director of "Last of the Mohicans", and they interviewed Madeleine Stowe in relation to her role. But the words that stuck with me the most were these from Mann: "Daniel and I met with a lot of women and within ten minutes of Madeleine walking in the door he and I looked at each other and our eyes connected and we knew she was it. They are where great actors go. They are totally in the moment. They are in 1757. Death is tomorrow morning."

To truly be in the moment with someone as great as Daniel Day Lewis is not easy. The man is a force of nature. If you don't bring it, you will get swept away. Madeleine Stowe brought it. It was a most immense accomplishment. It's a performance that means the world to me. It's a performance that transcends the boundaries of "performing", the actress merging with the character, and vice-versa. And on the heels of that accomplishment she seemed poised for stardom and appeared in Robert Altman's "Short Cuts" and in Terry Gilliam's "Twelve Monkeys".

She was beautiful, sure, but more than that she was elegant. She had grace. As Elaine's brief nemesis Mrs. Landis noted on "Seinfeld": "You can't have a little grace. You either have grace or you don't." Madeleine Stowe had it. Her performances were often fierce, but she was always willing to let the characters demonstrate vulnerability. Off camera, she kept a low profile, was reclusive, seemingly adherent to a code only she understood (which would, perhaps, explain why she and Day Lewis had such staggering chemistry), and then for a 2 year period in the 90's she left acting altogether to focus on raising her children. It was totally noble and, thus, perhaps what did her in.

That window in the movie business opens and shuts awful quick and I wonder if even such a brief hiatus left the window closed on Ms. Stowe. She returned in 1998 with "The Proposition", a film I remember being excited for due to her presence. It vanished quickly, as did the films which followed - "Impostor", "The General's Daughter." She surfaced again at the start of this decade as one of the Suffering Housewives in "We Were Soldiers" and then fell back off the grid.

A look at her IMDB profile since leaves me heartbroken - nothing but titles of TV movies, "Octane", "Saving Milly" and a brief run on a TV show with Jeff Goldblum called "Raines" that I didn't even know existed. Currently she's filming a movie called "The Christmas Hope" for Lifetime. This? This is what it's come to for Cora Munro? She popped a musket ball in a mo-fo's face. She worked in the surgery. During The French & Indian War she told her father - a British colonel, mind you - that she might just have to support the French if his idea of "justice" was so convoluted.

Yet, my judgements may be too harsh. I cannot assume to speak for her. In the documentary "Searching For Debra Winger" Rosanna Arquette attempted to determine why the renowned actress of the title up and left acting (before eventually returning) in the 90's. The film made it quite clear that good roles quickly diminished for actresses of a certain age - namely, above 40. Well, Madeleine Stowe would have turned 40....in 1998. Then again, when Arquette finally tracked down Winger she indicated her self imposed exile had less to do with quality parts than for a desire to live the parts of her life she had been missing because of the movies.

This is a decision that demands respect. Maybe Madeleine Stowe made the same decision. Maybe she simply wanted to earn money in low profile movies to stay out of the spotlight and thereby keep focused much more on her family. But maybe not. It would seem we may never know the real answer. Nonetheless, as far as I'm concerned, her immortality has already been stamped.

But someone still needed to say that the movies miss her.

Transsiberian

Brad Anderson's thriller set (mostly) on a train as it chugs through the bleakness of eastern Russia creeped me out, even though the movie is far from excellent, and I'm gonna tell you why.

Here's the skinny: an American couple, Jessie (Emily Mortimer) and Roy (Woody Harrelson), have been in China doing work for their church and Roy, who thinks that his wife thinks that he isn't adventurous enough, has booked passage on a transsiberian train so they can do a little sight-seeing in Moscow. He is a train enthusiast (I thought Harrelson did the best job in the film). She used to be a, shall we say, Bad Girl, who now only smokes and never drinks. Their bunkmates on the train come in the form of a couple of wayfaring strangers, Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and Abby (Kate Mara). He is vivacious. She seems to have a past with which Jessie can connect. But Jessie also connects with Carlos. Perhaps a bit too much. And soon enough a Russian cop (Ben Kingsley) will figure into the whole ordeal.

The film has some issues, no question. For starters, there are way too many Is This Ominous Or Isn't This? moments. As in, Carlos, who may be a good guy or may not be, will be acting all friendly with his new American pals and then suddenly we hear a minor chord on the soundtrack and his smile turns into a foreboding grimace and so we think, "Hmmmmm....maybe all is not as it seems." This happens - I'm estimating here - 244 times. God, I hate that crap.

Second, the third act devolves into a big action setpiece that feels to have happened at the request of the film's financial backers. Plus, all the strands at the end get tied up too neatly.

Still, though, some of the early passages of the movie creeped me out because, like Alfred Hitchcock, I think suspense always plays better than action. It's why my two favorite horror films are still "The Blair Witch Project" and "Alien", and why my least favorite parts of "Alien" are the last ones where Sigourney Weaver does battle with the Alien itself. But "Transsiberian" has something else going for it. The movie belongs to a genre the esteemed author Chuck Klosterman has termed "'Nobody Believes Me' movies....They are narratives in which something terrible happens to the main character (such as having his wife kidnapped), but everyone the character tries to notify assumes he's insane. Whenever I watch a movie like this, I get nervous. I always feel like I'm about to vomit." I'm with you, Mr. Klosterman. "Nobody Believes Me Movies" give me the willies.

Imagine, if you will, me - played by, let's say, Topher Grace at his most "That 70's Show"-ish - locked away in some cavernous place in the middle of nowhere in the Russian countryside with a crazed Russian pointing a gun at me and hollering about drugs and money. Do you think I would have the werewithal to find a way out of this cavernous place? Especially if I was in the middle of Sibera with no shoes? (How the characters don't get frostbite when they don't have shoes is something....woah, now I'm sounding like one of those moviegoers I hate. Never mind.) Do you think I could then get aboard a train and figure out how to get the thing up and running?

The answer: No. Absolutely not. I'm done. And so is my wife. We're buried in the snow and no one sees us again.

If I'm Kurt Russell in "Breakdown" do you really think I can drive my car into a raging river and survive? Stare down the barrel of a gun? Dangle precariously from the back of a semi? Nope. Sorry, Kathleen Quinlan, but no one knows what happens to you. J.T. Walsh wins.

If I'm Harrison Ford in "Frantic" and I get out of the shower and my wife is gone do you really think I'm capable of scouring the streets of Paris to find her? I call the authorities, report her missing, maybe put up some fliers, end up drinking my sorrows away at the corner tavern, and never see my wife for the rest of my life.

Maybe that's the idea. A remake of "Frantic" with Topher Grace. "Guys? Has anyone, like, seen my wife? Guys? Help?"

Duplicity

There is a marvelous moment maybe a third of way into writer/director Tony Gilroy's second feature film when a scene that has already happened happens again at a different time in a different place for different reasons and you know what? It's just as entertaining as it was that first time.

Like his first feature, "Michael Clayton", this one is eminently watchable. "Duplicity" is, I suppose, a thriller with twists and turns but I could not care less about the sleight of hand. I've said it before, I don't like to guess ahead when I watch movies. I want to live moment to moment and Gilroy makes every moment worth the price of admission. Well, almost, but we'll get to that later.

Consider a sequence over the opening credits. The movie is about two rival business magnates played by Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson. We see a long shot of two private jets on a rainy tarmac opposite each other. We see the two men marching toward each other, yelling. We see them get into a fist-fight. But it's all done in extreme slow motion. And is almost unfathomably hilarious. I was laughing out loud, literally, the whole time. This is how the movie chooses to establish their immense dislike for one another. It could have been some standby exposition-laden opening but, nope, we get riotous slow motion fisticuffs with facial expressions from the two actors so wonderous I won't even attempt any colorful descriptions. I mean, I could write about this scene for days and days. You're probably thinking I've overhyped it for you but, nope, trust me, I haven't. It's un-overhypable It is just so entertaining, so....watchable. (In fact, it pairs brilliantly with the closing credits sequence from "Michael Clayton" when you watch George Clooney not do anything in a back of a cab for five minutes and think, "Damn, why is this so gripping?")

Clive Owen and Julia Roberts are Ray and Claire. They are employed, respectively, in the counter intelligence (or something like that) departments of Giamatti's company, Equikrom, and Wilkinson's company, Burkett & Randle. Burkett & Randle is set to make a prophetic announcement about a new product. Giamatti wants to steal this product for himself. It turns out, however, that Claire is, in fact, a mole within Burkett & Randle and working for Equikrom. Ray is made her "handler", a fact which does not sit well with Claire. Except then the movie flashes back and we realize that, in fact, Ray and Claire are working together. Except maybe they are trying to play each other. And God knows what else may be going on.

Are there plot holes amidst all these duplicitous developments? Undoubtedly. Maybe another viewer can nitpick for you and find them but I'm not the guy to do it because it doesn't matter to me. I was too busy having fun.

This is a movie that is all about style and chemistry. I'm beginning to really like Clive Owen and this is a good role for Madam Julia. She doesn't have to emote real feelings and instead plays a kinda heightened reality. (Have you ever noticed how Julia Roberts walks in movies. She walks like a person who knows she is walking in a movie.) The only real acting she does involves sitting across a table from another woman and remaining expressionless. Perfect! Julia can handle that, no problem! They work well together and their lines crackle and they globe trot to so many locales (even Cleveland!) that I lost track at some point. Attempting to ascertain who was playing who was the furthest thing from my mind.

It's why I utterly loathed the second-to-last scene. I will tread carefully and not reveal specific details. I will simply say it is a classic Explanatory Scene. Maybe it needed to be there so people wouldn't be confused. But in the scene that follows the audience, I would argue, should be feeling exactly like Clive and Julia. But they aren't, and they aren't because of that Explanatory Scene.

It makes me think of those two fantastic sequences in "Burn After Reading" with J.K. Simmons and David Rasche at Langley - since when was making complete sense a requirement for rollicking entertainment?

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh

Rawson Marshall Thurber's debut was the comedy "Dodgeball", uneven, though it had its moments, and he chose to follow it up with his own adaptation of Michael Chabon's novel "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh". I enthusiastically applaud Thurber for challenging himself with tougher material and not merely copying his formula - that said, this movie is not good. It's just....well, not good.

The voiceover is not good. Thankfully it is only included in the first 15 minutes or so of the film because it might be the worst voiceover I have encountered. Let me give an example. At the start of the film our main character, Art Bechstein (Jon Foster), is at a restaurant to have dinner with his father (Nick Nolte, whose face is as weathered as the Oklahoma plains during tornado season). A couple ominous men sit at another table, watching them. "Don't look at them," says his father. "They have nothing to do with your life." Perhaps you can guess who these men are, perhaps not, but it casts an air of mystery over the dinner. Oh. Except it doesn't. Because the voiceover tells us everything - Art's father is a notorious mob boss in the steel city and these two men are with the FBI.

Later, Art is approached at the book store where he works by a mysterious guy in a leather jacket and a motorcycle helmet who demands that Art come with him. Scary stuff, right? Who is this guy? What does he want? Where is he taking him? From events preceding it, you probably know, but you don't know for certain and, thus, it grips you. Oh. Except it doesn't. Because the voiceover tells us everything. The guy in the motorcycle helmet is Cleveland (Peter Sarsgaard), the boyfriend of a beautiful girl Art met the previous night.

It repeatedly does this at the start. The prose used for this narration (no doubt taken directly from the novel - I haven't read it) is fine but it sucks all the wind out of these opening passages. All sense of drama is blundered. It's just hideously used. If it had gone on the whole movie I honestly might have walked out.

The lead performance by Jon Foster is not good. He seems a nice, genuine person who is trying really hard to make this movie work but he does not. He does not even come close. A lot happens to this kid and not much of it feels authentic. He just fumbles around, scene to scene, not changing on the screen even though he's changing on paper. He reminded me of a low rent Josh Hamilton, the lead from movies like "Kicking and Screaming" and "The House of Yes". Very, very laconic. But Hamilton always makes you feel like there is a whole lot more rippling beneath the surface, waiting to be dredged up. Foster makes you feel like what you see is what you get and, believe me, you don't see much.

The Dream Girl is not good. You know, The Dream Girl, the perfect, angel-haired woman who magically materializes and with whom our lead character will instantly fall in love. Whine all you want about Kirsten Dunst and Natalie Portman in "Elizabethtown" and "Garden State", respectively, but at least they were given characteristics. They were defiantly themselves, whether or not they were liked by the audience. But Jane Bellwether, The Dream Girl of "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh", is a big slab of cardboard. And here's the ultimate kicker! The Dream Girl is played by Sienna Miller! My Dream Girl! If a movie's Dream Girl is played by your actual Dream Girl and you still don't find the Dream Girl believable, well, that is a spectacular breakdown on all levels. (Not that Ms. Miller isn't beautiful in the film. When she's taking shots with the fingerless gloves....I mean, in the name of Helen of Troy....but I digress.)

The scenes are not good. I know that sounds broad but it's true. The old adage in filmmaking is start the scene after it's already become interesting and end the scene before it stops it being interesting. All the scenes here feel as if Thurber either started it after it stopped being interesting or stopped it right before it became interesting. The material seems as if it should be pulverizing, the relationship between Art and Jane and Cleveland ripe for heavy drama. I felt there was a lot to explore but Thurber just never went exploring. More interaction and less montage, please.

I hope Thurber does not let this deter him and I hope he tries tough material again next time and doesn't revert back to "Dodgeball 2". But I also hope it's even the tiniest bit more successful.

Cookie's Fortune Weekend

Easter. Ham, Cadbury Eggs, and, of course, "Cookie's Fortune". There is no better time to watch it and so, if you haven't, ignore that network TV showing of "The Ten Commandents" (27 hours long, though it feels like 41) this weekend and check out Robert Altman's classic instead.

Take Me Home, Country Roads

Forget the recent film "I Love You, Man" and how it is supposedly a "bromance". Nuh uh. The greatest bromance ever captured happened last night, circa 8:25 PM CST, on NBC's "The Office", when former romantic rivals Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) and Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) reveal themselves to be newfound friends before a new female receptionist finds them turning into romantic rivals once again which turns into a 90 second guitar/banjo duel to John Denver's "Country Roads" to impress said receptionist which turns again and reveals the greatest "bromantic" moment these eyes have ever seen. It's a short film. Really, it is, with a beginning, middle and end. You can tell they are friends and then you can tell they are setting that friendship aside to compete for this woman and then you can tell they are tossing out the competition to stay friends and you don't even need any of the background I just gave to see it.

Most TV is crap. This is the golden chalice of the medium. Watch it at once.

Adventures in the Screen Trade

So I just finished reading the famed book about the movie business "Adventures in the Screen Trade" written by the famed screenwriter William Goldman (truth be told, he's more "famed" now for talking and writing about movies than actually writing movies. His last three screenplays - the last one came 6 years ago - are "Dreamcatcher", "Hearts in Atlantis" and "The General's Daughter". Uh....) and, I have to say, it's pretty fabulous.

You will end up liking Paul Newman even more than you already did and Goldman's breakdown of a specific scene in "The Great Santini" involving Robert Duvall and why it's so great and how and why it probably would have been messed up with anyone else is just amazing and really puts into perspective why are there are so many crappy scenes in Hollywood movies. The book is really, really hilarious and really, really scary. It should make someone like me stop and say, "Wait, why am I spending all this money to submit scripts to contests and ship them off to Hilary Swank's agent when I could be putting that cash away in my 401K even though I never look at my 401K anymore because it makes me want to drink an entire bottle of Dewar's in three minutes?" But, of course, I won't say any of that and instead keep ridiculous hope alive, baby!

Anyway...there was one passage in the book that I simply had to pass along to you, my faithful readers, that seems to say it all and so here it is verbatim:

Allan Burns, a writer friend, recently emerged from a creative meeting in which the studio head only had this comment to make: "The script's got to be twenty-five percent funnier."

A few weeks later the guy asked after the rewrites. Allan, who co-created 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' and can be funnier than most people, replied, "Well, I'm only eighteen percent funnier so far, which means I'll have to be thirty-one percent funnier the rest of the way."

And the studio head didn't know it was a joke: What he said was, after some thought, "Sounds about right."

Ladies and gentlemen, the Hollywood screenwriting process!!!

Adventureland

Ever since I first heard it, twelve, maybe thirteen years ago, I had fantasized about writing and/or making a movie that included the poetry of my favorite Velvet Underground song, "Pale Blue Eyes". I imagine we all have a few tunes like that, wherein it comes on and we kick back and close our eyes and daydream about some non-existent cinematic moment. Well, Greg Mottola (writer and director of "Adventureland") made my daydream come true and I think it was at that exact moment I realized that, yes, I was enjoying his movie. Well played, Mr. Mottola, well played indeed.

The year is 1987, a time when jeans were stonewashed and Whitesnake roamed the earth. James (Jesse Eisenberg) has graduated from college. He will travel to Europe in the summer and then enroll in graduate school at Columbia in the fall. But then fate, as it must, kicks him and his family in the head. His dad gets demoted which means they cannot finance the european vacation which means James has to move back home to Pittsburgh which means that because he essentially has no employment history to speak of ("I've never driven an asphalt truck, per se") the only job he can get is in the "games" division at a raggedy amusement park called Adventureland where its owners (Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig) explain that when it comes to the games "no one wins a giant ass panda" which means his first day James will watch as someone wins a giant ass panda due to some bending of the rules which means James refuses to hand it over which means the customer threatens him with a knife which means Em (Kristen Stewart) swoops in and hands over the giant ass panda which means we've got our Meet Cute.

James and Em, who brings to mind the eloquent Prince phrase "never seen a pretty girl look so tough", begin a tentative romance but she is also involved with Connell (Ryan Reynolds), the park maintenance man who is older, married, and prone to talking about how he'll be moving to L.A. once he gets his band together. (I wish this movie had actually been made in the 80's so the young Val Kilmer could have played this part. Not that Reynolds is bad but, man, I would be surprised if Mottola's script did not describe this character as looking "suspiciously like a young Val Kilmer".)

There are many others moving to and fro about Adventureland. There is Joel (Martin Starr), who smokes a pipe and shows James the ropes and there is the guy who always greets James by punching him in, shall we say, The Groinal Region (this is about as lowbrow as the movie gets but this character has to be there because there is always at least one jackass like him around) and there is the radiant Lisa P. (Margarita Levieva), who brings to mind the eloquent Jon Bon Jovi phrase "a school boy's dream", with whom everyone at the park is in love. And her name, by the way, is note perfect characterization. Not Lisa, mind you, but Lisa P, which is exactly how it works with girls of this sort. It's like my friend Rory and Incredibly Hot Kate From German Class. Specifics, man.

The particulars of the plot are not all that earth shattering but then Mottola never makes those particulars the point. The film has a lazy rhythm and not lazy as in Evincing No Effort but as in the feeling of the lazy summer days during which the film is set. Much of the dialogue feels natural and is funny in a laid back way (I greatly enjoyed James explaining how a Shakespeare sonnet assisted in a breakup). The primary characters are shaded fairly well and, thankfully, the film does not get too mired in obsessively slamming the fact that it's 1987! 1987! 1987! in our face.

It's why the end left me a tad disappointed. I cannot help but feel there was a bit too much that "happened" when the film seemed to be crying out for more of an easy-going fade out but, even so, I don't think the arc of James' summer at Adventureland gets ruined. He's grown up when it's all said and done but you also know there is a whole lot left to be learned.

Alien Trespass

This homage to the alien invasion B movies of the fifties isn't pointless, as some critics have claimed, since, you know, the point is that it's an homage, but what "Alien Trespass" does not do is bring anything new to the table.

The setting is Mojave, a desert town in California, that contains a diner where the locals gather, a movie theater showing "The Blob", and not a lot else. We are introducted to the usual suspects: a pipe smoking astronomer (Eric McCormack), his buxom wife (Jody Thompson), a teenage guy and his gal and their greasy haired friend, a waitress (Jenni Baird) who dreams of saving enough money to move to "Sausalito", and, of course, my favorite, the police chief (Dan Lauria) who is but two days away from retirement.

Which is why Chief Dawson gets so dadgum irate with all these reports of a monster wreaking havoc throughout the town even though his disbelieving deputy Vern (Robert Patrick, and do you think this guy will ever get to play someone nice?) investigated the site of a supposed meteorite crash and reported back that it was nothing more.

Except, of course, it wasn't just a mere meteorite but a flying saucer, allowing for a gigantic one-eyed space creature that likes to suck all the nutrients out of pesky human beings, leaving behind only a puddle, to escape, meaning the alien piloting the ship, Urp, must take the form of an earthling (in this case, McCormack's Dr. Lewis, which is a great plot development for him because it allows him to forgo the troubling requirement of having to act) to track down the creature and save the town.

The plucky townfolk will fight back, and some will wind up puddles, and you can pretty much figure out who will be standing come the final reel, and that's all well and good, and the whole enterprise is quite loving, and clearly the director, R.W. Goodwin, and his writer, Steven Fisher, want to do this genre justice but most of it feels like we're watching an experiment that never really turns out right but never really goes horribly wrong either. It's stuck in neutral. I bet they all had a good time making this movie but, by golly, I wanted to see it on the screen.

Tim Burton mined this same territory in "Mars Attacks!" and what that film did was not only adhere to its terrible forefathers but also manage to make its own mark. I think of Pierce Brosnan's deftly hilarious line readings as a (gasp!) pipe smoking doctor and Annette Benning's new age goofiness and Natalie Portman's drollness that was so severe it seemed to take the cardboard acting of the fifties B movies as a starting point and then go several more layers beneath it. (I don't even have to mention the immense brilliance of the Tom Jones cameo, but I will. "There's a martian right behind me!") It allowed for a wonderfully wacky twist on the Everyday Item that is discovered to be the one alien weakness. "Alien Trespass" has the Everyday Item, too, and I actually smiled when I realized they were setting it up just because it made me feel warm inside but it's just an example of how Goodwin's film always colors within the lines.

In the end "Alien Trespass" winds up just like so many of the movies it is spoofing that no one really remembers.

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day

I came this to 2008 Bharat Nalluri film, based on the novel by Winifred Watson, to quench my sudden thirst for Amy Adams in the wake of "Sunshine Cleaning" when I suddenly found myself simultaneously washing out the god-awful aftertaste of "Leatherheads". The setting: London in the late 30's. Oh, to have been alive in the late 30's! Cocktail parties and swing music and....World War II. Right. Never mind.

Frances McDormand is Miss Pettigrew herself, a harumph of a woman who has just been let go by her employment agency and, thus, steals the assignment right off her ex-employer's desk to be the "social secretary" for wannabe starlet Delysia Lafosse (Adams). When Miss Pettigrew first shows up at the expansive, cinematic loft where Delysia is staying, which is owned by Nick, who runs a nightclub where Delysia sings, she finds Delysia currently sleeping with Phil, who is a producing a West End play in which Delysia yearns to get the lead, except that Nick is on his way back home and so Delysia needs a little assistance in a grand juggling act to ensure Nick doesn't see her with Phil and vice versa and this doesn't even mention the fact Michael, who plays piano at the club with Delysia and really, truly loves her, is also on his way to the loft with some mighty important news and, though it's against her nature, Miss Pettigrew finds herself a willing participant in this massive charade.

What a virtuoso sequence to (essentially) open the film! Twenty minutes, at least, in this one setting, people going into rooms, out of rooms, up the stairs, and down the stairs, and up the elevator, and down the elevator, and out onto balconies, and all of it exciting and fresh, even though you've seen this sort of thing before, and by the time it ends the movie has accomplished the most tricky part and made this odd couple of Delysia and Miss Pettigrew two real pals who will now hit the town to attend a fashion show and get Miss Pettigrew a bit of a makeover and then return to the apartment for an important party and then wind up at a nightclub where an air raid siren will not beckon the start of WWII but the burgeoning of true love (in more ways than one).

McDormand is great as Miss Pettigrew. She makes her inevitable arc convincing without overdoing it. She still maintains the same persona at the end as she had at the beginning and it's more like Delysia has helped her draw out the other characteristics she had but had never shown. Her love interest comes in the form of a Joe (Ciaran Hinds), a lingerie designer who, as it's said, can always see a woman for who she really is. And, pardon me for saying so, but Ciaran Hinds is one keen dude. Maybe this guy should be playing Bond? I mean, it would be a totally different Bond, older, wiser, less shooting people with laser pens while jumping out of airplanes and more witty banter at cocktail hour.

And, of course, there is Amy Adams. ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION, RENEE ZELLWEGER?! This is different era acting! She is decidedly of the period but never ever a characature. Her line readings are all tart and sass but consistently sweetened with sugar. (Reader: Did he really just write that sentence? Me: Yes, I did!) She is delightful and loving and caring but cunning and maniuplative, though in a very delightful, loving, caring way. Her constant smiles when she thinks she might be caught in a lie feign innocence that is at once fake and real. She has dreamlike aspirations for herself and is hiding a secret (duh) but I think most of us do that because most of us have dreamlike aspirations for ourselves. All this, and she sings too! And take special note of how the movie has enough intelligence so that she makes her ultimate decision on her own an instant before it would have been made for her.

I dig Amy Adams - like, a lot. I dug Amy Adams in this movie. I dug everyone else in this movie. I dug this movie. (What's that sound? Why, I think it's your netflix queue calling out for you to add this movie to it.) It's the cat's meow.