2011: The Worst Films of the Year

I've pretty much exhausted what 2011 has to offer and with a viewing of Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" some time this weekend, that will make it 113 films seen this year - some bad, some good, but as we all know, mostly bad. 

However, out of those mostly bad films I sat through this year, these ten were surely the worst. So before I get to the good stuff (Top 10 list coming later this weekend), here are the ten turds of 2011:

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#10
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"IN TIME"
Directed by Andrew Niccol
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Aside from its impeccable timeliness (no pun intended, I assure you), Andrew Niccol's "In Time", a sci-fi Occupy Wall Street allegory in which money is currency and two outlaws rob from greedy corporations who fund their immortality and give to the poor who literally live second-to-second, was one haphazard treatment of an admittedly promising conceit.
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The production design is stale, the performances are stiff and pretty soon the film devolves into a bunch of clean-cut 25 year-olds running and staring at their wrists. 
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#9
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"COLOMBIANA"
Directed by Olivier Megaton
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Revenge thrillers would appear to be an easy commodity to produce reasonably well, especially when you're Luc Besson ("Leon", "La Femme Nikita") but "Colombiana", the writer/director/producer's latest thriller with a slinky, female assassin, doesn't even produce guilty thrills, it's too sullen for that.
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#8
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"JUST GO WITH IT"
Directed by Dennis Dugan
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Not sure if Brooklyn Decker could look any better, but her film debut in this misguided romantic triangle couldn't have been in service of a more toxic affair. The fact that Sandler expects us to buy that his character would send both she and Jennifer Aniston into a fit of jealous hijinks is perhaps the best joke in the film. 
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#7
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"HORRIBLE BOSSES"
Directed by Seth Gordon
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Mean-spirited, misogynistic and terribly one-note, "Horrible Bosses" brought significant pedigree with its mix of young up-and-comers and wily veterans, yet the result - a series of misadventures surrounding the proposed deaths of their workplace bullies - was a shrill shreik of nonsense. 
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#6
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"THE ROOMMATE"
Directed by Christian E. Christiansen
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I don't know what was more humorous, the film's curious, derivative interpretation of what appear to be thrills or its otherworldly portrait of freshmen supposedly in art school. Either way, this laughable CW version of "Single White Female" takes a shoddily riveting 90's thriller and not only makes it arid and dim, it makes it worst of all, dull.
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#5
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"KABOOM"
Directed by Greg Araki
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Among the many films this year which either potently or haltingly set their principle story against the backdrop of the impending apocalypse, Greg Araki's "Kaboom" was the most uselessly realized. A poxy science-fiction mystery set in the middle of a sexual revolution amongst college students, the film is as ineptly executed as it was conceived.
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#4
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"WATER FOR ELEPHANTS"
Directed by Francis Lawrence
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Sara Gruen's bestseller took to the screen earlier this year in Francis Lawrence's glossy, passionless adaptation, a circus melodrama that's so baselessly unromantic and prosaic that it exposes Gruen's novel as the animal activist propaganda that it is. 
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#3
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"THE CONSPIRATOR"
Directed by Robert Redford
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Fatally rudimentary, Robert Redford's historical drama "The Conspirator" has a dusty, musty odor that permeates both visually and dramatically, nestling this Civil War-era tale of injustice surrounding the assassination of President Lincoln somewhere between old-hat and a corpse. 
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#2
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"REAL STEEL"
Directed by Shawn Levy
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Although Shawn Levy's blue-eyed cheek-pinch of a film attempts to make clever juxtapositions between human and machine, I always found its conceit - a sentimental father-son drama set in the world of robot boxing - rather bizarre (a feat the film's inconsistent futureworld does little to squelch). That being said, the biggest transgression against the film is its blubbery, overpowering sentimentality. "I want you to fight for me. That's all I ever wanted." Oh boy.  
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#1
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"BATTLE: LOS ANGELES"
Directed by Jonathan Liebesman
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 There wasn't a tougher sit this year than Jonathan Liebesman's soldiers-in-distress alien invasion actioner "Battle: Los Angeles". Derivative grunts-in-the-trenches action scenes are one thing, but the film's atrocious emphasis on characterization and its loutish emotional confrontations are truly unforgivable.

Thoughts on "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (2011)

Without question, David Fincher's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a much more accomplished, taut and ornamented adaptation of Steig Larsson's runaway bestseller than that wretched Swedish-language adaptation of a few years ago. 
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Anyone claiming differently is either someone I don't like or cinematically inept. Fincher's film is carefully composed, meticulously arranged and accented, and the performances around the horn (including that of the film's composers, the impeccable duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) are significant improvements. 
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The only question that arises is whether masterful compositions and flawless filmmaking can completely mask what a terribly ugly, boilerplate novel Larsson's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is, creating a fascinating disconnect, disparity between construct and material. 
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Boorishly violent and clumsily plotted, even Fincher can't hide the fact that the climax of the novel's bass-line murder mystery (or hell, the majority of the second-half of the film) feels like, at times, a CBS procedural. 
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Yet, like the true filmmaker that he is, Fincher turns this second or third-rate boilerplate stuff into something that is (although flawed) undoubtedly a work of his own. From the opening credits (which frankly, probably belonged in another film) it's clear that this is his show to run, and run with it he does - at least as far as he could go. [B-]

Thoughts on "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" (2011)

The production design on Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows", from the costume department to the art direction to Hans Zimmer's now-familiar score is, I must say, first-rate stuff - eye-popping, transportive, even soothing in its period detail, the sawdust in the air, the splintering of wood, the slush of mud in the street, etc.
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But beyond the film's rapturous facade, its welcoming, grimy-yet-lovely recreations, is the sneaking, inevitable feeling of weariness. Weariness in the film's aimless set-pieces, its over-plotting, its bloated runtime, its mumbling, shuffling gape from scene-to-scene, from clue-to-clue. 
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And in some way I almost respect and acknowledge Ritchie and his team for keeping the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle formula of slow clue accumulation followed by after-the-fact exposition and a climactic resolution, discovery and explanation of these facts, but after two films, the only resounding feeling to be gained from these middling, half-curious action-mystery hybrids is one of faint exhaustion. 
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I'm partly blaming the film's writers, who fail to justify their unruly length and roundabout storytelling and partly blaming Ritchie, who, although bizarrely flexing his slow-motion, camera-mount muscles during a second-half treeline escape, fails to wring tension or humor out of scenes that should otherwise bring nothing but. [C+]

Thoughts on "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" (2011)

Brad Bird's "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" is such a feat of high-tech globe-trotting spy-movie extravagance that it takes nearly the majority of the film's running time to reveal itself as a frivolous, hoary nuclear arms showdown. (Among the film's drawbacks, convolution is certainly not among them.) 
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Not that most - included myself - are complaining, because the kind of propulsive, glossy, high-wire stuff that this film is selling is delivered with minimum pretense and maximum exuberance. Trust me, one glance at a decidedly spry 49 year-old Tom Cruise clinging to the side of the Burj Khalifa (a 160-story skyscraper in Dubai) and frankly, you'll be willing to forgive its shortcomings.
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And this level of exemplary agility - the jaw-dropping stunt-work and the nerve and frequency of which it's on display - is more admirable and more intoxicating than anything seen this year in cinema's girth of mega-budgeted live-action behemoths. In fact, the first 90 minutes of the film work so well that you can almost overlook the rote, perfunctory and borderline-satirical action-climax that proceeds them. 
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But Cruise, whose wattage as a significant on-screen draw seems dimmer (at least in this country) with each passing day, nevertheless proves (in a way far more convincing than last summer's flimsy "Knight and Day") that when it comes to these kinds of physical, charismatic, suave action roles, nobody does it better - cue Carly Simon. [B]

Thoughts on "Shame" (2011)

I'm not entirely sold on Steve McQueen's "Shame", but this immaculately cold and detached portrait of a Manhattan sex addict is a real work of art. Every frame of this film appears calculated and carefully composed, as if every second was a still photograph hanging in a gallery, each contributing to a collective theme. 
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I'm not sure that McQueen isn't exaggerating considerably at times here (especially in the opening and closing scenes), but overall, the film paints an emotionally convincing portrait, not only of sex addiction, but of any unspecified addictive behavior - the need to be alone, the feeling of being trapped, cutting off ties with loved ones, the inability to communicate, etc. 
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Michael Fassbender, who can literally do no wrong at this point, is predictably sensational (as is his co-star Carey Mulligan), who along with McQueen, create moments of staggering clarity, which makes a few keys missteps all the more tougher to swallow. [B+]

The Playlist's Best Scores of 2011

I look forward to this list every year. The Playlist, a movie blog with a deceiving background as a music-in-movies specialty, released their list of the best scores/soundtracks of the year. Some are quite unsurprising ("Drive", "Attack the Block"), while others are delightful, less-than-expected inclusions.
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I personally don't think it gets much better than Cliff Martinez's stunning work on "Contagion", and kudos to Steven Soderbergh for allowing his pulsating, monotone electronic work provide the backbone to his chilling disease control procedural. 
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And I love the inclusion of Alex Turner's (of the Arctic Monkeys) work on "Submarine". Lovely acoustic tunes. 

"Shame" on Me

Seeing Steve McQueen's "Shame" tomorrow afternoon (thank you, NFL, for scheduling no games of consequence until Sunday night...), so certainly looking forward to that. With school pretty much wrapped up, it's time to play catch-up, so I'll be checking out stuff like "Beginners", "The Future", "Another Earth" and some other titles I missed this summer.
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Speaking of which, for some reason, I caught up with "Sarah's Key" and was honestly not very surprised to find it a doughy history lesson that finds false uplift through tragedy by framing story around pregnant, glum Kristin Scott-Thomas. Even she can't survive its obvious shortcomings, most of which, I presume, can be traced back to Tatiana de Rosnay's 2006 bestseller. 

Boyega for "Attack the Block"

For me, there's no more enduring performance this year than John Boyega's in "Attack the Block," Joe Cornish's slick, propulsive small-scale action-comedy hybrid which rose through the ranks of genre festivals to become one of the more noteworthy debuts of the year. 
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Boyega plays Moses, the leader of a young, petty street gang in an urban UK neighborhood, who rises above his more comically-styled homeboys to become the center of a film that subversively turns into more of a "Die Hard" action film than a "Shaun of the Dead" level satire. 
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And if you ask me, a good portion of the credit needs to go to Boyega, whose transformation from expressionless, hesitant slum rat to exterminating hallway-dashing hero provides the backbone for the film, which poignantly ends with his much-deserved final-reel appreciation. 

"Win Win" Catch-up

Tom McCarthy's "Win Win", which I just caught up with last week, is a truthful, affectionate family drama, one that's easy to snuggle up to and sympathize with, while still staying true to its self and never compromising its characters in a way that makes them dismissible. 
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With this film, McCarthy has further proven to be a practiced hand at portraying these kinds of honest, moving character dramas centered around unexpected relationships. His previous film, 2008's "The Visitor," had a pervasively solemn expression in examining the unlikely (and ultimately tragic) encounter between a lonely middle-aged professor and an illegal immigrant, while "Win Win" sees a seemingly honest rural Midwest family take in a teenager, which temporarily, at least, changes their lives for the better. 
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Alex Shaffer, playing the young, reserved Kyle who rediscovers his love for wrestling under his new temporary family, delivers the prize performance of the lot, his blonde mop and monotone delivery masking a subtle vulnerability and always present longing for dependency and support. On the whole, the film may be slightly too calculated, slightly too transparent to prove a knockout, yet its earnestness and its performances are nearly irresistible. [B]

The "Hugo" Debate

On the topic of Martin Scorsese's "Hugo," I consider myself - from the moment I left the theater until now - a fan. I love that this film (which is obviously breathtaking to witness and a strong counter-argument for the tasteful implementation of 3D) is such a strange detour for one of America's greatest enduring cinema icons, yet once you take it in, it feels like the product of no one else. 
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It's a film that, akin to many of Scorsese's works, is oddly structured (it begins as one thing, ends as another and has no problem taking its time to get there) and in the context of "children's adventure" films, seems to be rather anti-adventurous. 
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It's a warm, sweet tale about coming to terms with the past and moving on while recognizing our history. A considerable and active presence in film restoration and preservation today, Scorsese's own ideals and beliefs begin to bleed through with each passing frame (his technical prowess on display much sooner) until his influence, his persona, literally appears before you.
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That being said, I never considered the film to be something of a masterwork, and I squint my eyes and furrow my brow every time I hear it. I think it's certainly one of the more interesting works of the year - the reclamation of art and movie-making in the guise of a children's film - but my appreciation of it is just that, an appreciation. 
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I can't really argue with anybody pointing out its flaws or its inflated running-time, or the fact that Scorsese's passion feels more intense than the characters, yet I never felt lost or misled or fatigued by "Hugo", rather, I felt it gloriously wondrous to slip into and admire, yet too easy to slip out of. 

Lars and the Bleak Girl: "Melancholia" (2011)

In what could be perceived as the conclusion (or perhaps bridge) to Danish provocateur Lars von Trier's recent explorations of guilt and depression - beginning with 2009's much ballyhooed horror film "Antichrist" - the director's latest film, the apocalyptically beautiful "Melancholia" is as relatively restrained as a film about the end of the world (and coming from the self-proclaimed "greatest director in the world") could be.
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Which isn't to say that fans of the lurid extremes of "Antichrist" won't have anything to feast their eyes on here (in fact, they don't even have to wait past the title card as they're witness to a  balletic slow-motion prologue set to Wagner's "Tristan and Isolde" that perhaps outdoes anything the fearless von Trier has attempted before), but the kind of film that "Melancholia" is - a doleful, numbing meditation on recessive despondency, allegorically linked to the end of the world - will likely provoke less revulsion and more quizzical agitation. Unless, that is, you're like me, in which case the film will play like a cosmic revelation.
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Split into two parts separated by inter-titles (each a name of the two sisters), the first introduces Justine (played brilliantly by a morose-then-despondent Kirsten Dunst) a bride on her way to her own wedding reception, which quickly snowballs into a disaster, full of bluntly cynical dinner speeches, a bickering father-of-the-groom and, most importantly, a terribly disinterested bride. 
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Part two (easily the more bleakly entertaining and satisfyingly resolute of the two) is titled "Claire," the comparatively chipper of the two sisters (played by Charlotte Gainsbourgh) who frantically, obsessively, fears that the fictional planet (metaphorically called "Melancholia"), scientifically expected to merely pass by the Earth rather than collide with it, is nevertheless about to demolish all life on Earth. 
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Von Trier was initially interested in the concept of clinically depressive people behaving normally in a time of crisis, and Dunst's fixed detachment, her deadpan death wish throughout the second half serves as his portal into this morbid curiosity. 
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Of course, even the most ignorant of viewers could suspect the film's conclusion - a sonic wave of deep bass and Wagner strings that flood the auditorium in an example of a film that still justifies the trip to the theatre - an all too rare example, perhaps. [A]

Reviews at Home: "Conan" (2011), "Cedar Rapids" (2011) and "The Roommate" (2011)

In-between spare moments where I'm not thinking about Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" (more on that later, by the way), I've managed to sit down to watch all manner of (mostly) terrible films at home, plus a few that weren't too painful and some that were quite good, honestly.
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Top of mind, Marcus Nispel's "Conan the Barbarian" is an over-lit, over-blown spectacle that (in what is becoming an all too common trend) eschews comparisons to the original film by proclaiming literary conception as its source of inspiration, a silly double standard considering the likelihood of a retake slim without the existence of John Milius' 1982 camp classic starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in his breakthrough role. 
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Nispel's vision is far too crass and vulgar, his landscapes too digitized, washed with orange-blue skies and shiny seaside ports, and yet after its bloodthirsty, distasteful first half, the film pants through its midsection and then collapses from exhaustion. It's a primal scream towards the sky that falls on deaf ears. That Rachel Nichols sure is fetching, though. [C-]
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Although it stars Ed Helms ("The Hangover") and isn't afraid to drop a dirty joke or two or three, Miguel Arteta's "Cedar Rapids" is as much a Frank Capra film as it as a lewd, R-rated middle-aged comedy. 
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Like "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" or "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", the film is about an idealistic small-town man who travels to the big city (Cedar Rapids, Iowa isn't exactly New York or D.C., I'll admit) where his ideals and beliefs are tested by obscenities and corruption. 
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Arteta directed last year's "Youth in Revolt," a rather unsuccessful-yet-curious coming-of-age Michael Cera comedy, and while that film felt too familiar in certain respects and rather flimsy, it did take chances and felt sporadically unique. "Cedar Rapids" is a more refined, mature slice of comedy, one that will likely be appreciated by classic film buffs for its moralistic center and by bawdy comedy fans for its fearless sense of humor. [B-]
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For some reason (okay, because it's on Starz every other hour) I watched Christian E. Christiansen's "The Roommate", a riotous, deathly ineffective horror-thriller that can't even wake up its actors, much less the audience. 
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Familiar with the film's obvious influence, 1992's similarly schlocky, yet far more perturbed "Single White Female," I had a vague curiosity in this dorm room update, which is amazingly quite worse than even the most pessimistic could expect. 
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Whether its the film's comatose, emaciated leads (I mean that both figuratively and literally) Minka Kelly and Leighton Meester, the director's dull, thrilless hands or its unintentionally uproarious vision of freshmen in art school, "The Roommate" is a stolid, plodding amber-tinted bore. [D]

Thoughts on "The Muppets", "My Week with Marilyn"

"The Muppets" is simply a joyous reunion tour, a get-the-gang-back-together send-off like no other, and I say this as someone with almost no prior exposure to the original TV show and subsequent movie spin-offs throughout the 80 and 90's. 
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Jason Segel, who stars in and co-writes along with Nicolas Stoller, brings his doughy sarcasm both behind and in-front of the camera, managing to make the film both earnestly nostalgic and blithefully self-aware - it's hilarious, it's catchy and it's irresistibly endearing. [B]
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Contrary to what you may believe, "My Week with Marilyn" is not a sequel to "Me and Orson Welles", although the two are nigh copies of one another, both middling, compelling-but-slim reenactments that will titillate classic film enthusiasts and the non-educated alike, at least for their meager durations. 
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Like Christian McKay's Orson Welles personification, Michelle Williams bravely inhabits the title role here of Ms. Monroe, capturing her playful, voluptuous sexuality and her frightfully flimsy self-image, yet the film is so positively scant of any everlasting substance, that it practically wilts as you walk out of the theater. [C]

Thoughts on "The Descendants", "Hugo"

I've been furiously trying to put together my final projects for school, spend time with the family and still keep up with the latest movies, so consider this a what-have-I-seen-lately purge, of sorts.
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First up for Thanksgiving week was Alexander Payne's "The Descendants", a nearly de facto Oscar contender far before anybody had the chance to see it, what with its behind-of and in-front-of-the-camera talent. 
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What I found was a film that was certainly the work of a singular artist, of brave tenacity and real-life sensation (how else do you describe a film that so dryly, so openly spews vitriolic daggers at a helpless, soon-to-be-deceased loved one?) that nevertheless produces a highly unemphatic and resoundingly pat resolution about the importance of family. 
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Considering the pedigree of Mr. Payne (a man I still adore for his smashing 1999 high-school satire, "Election"), the biggest condemnation I can lay at the feat of "The Descendants" is that, despite its warped, almost uncomfortable mid-life cynicism, it's resoundingly bland. 
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Its more elevated attempts at a laugh are both broad and vulgar and rely almost solely on a paper-thin iteration of a supporting character, the long-haired, surfs up boyfriend, Sid, who seems to be there for no other reason than he makes a good punching bag. 
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Not to mention the film's nearly unlistenable soundtrack, which barely wavers from emotive native-tongued moaning over a ukulele or other slack-key guitars, proving about as useful an adhesive between scenes as a moist piece of chewing gum. 
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I do give the film credit for important yet all-too-rare refusals to adhere to formula and going in some surprising places with a few supporting characters, yet these exceptions eventually prove to be far too infrequent, the film, far too floral and flavorless. [C]
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On Thanksgiving Eve Day, I ventured into Martin Scorsese's "Hugo" blissfully unaware of the magical cinema voyage that I was about to embark upon. Upon first glance, the film may seem like an artist attempting to slum it with a base genre film (in this case, a eye-popping children's 3D adventure), yet the film that "Hugo" is at the beginning is far from the one you end up with in the end. 
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Surprisingly, it's a Scorsese film through-and-through, full of his technical virtuosity and camerawork, his protracted, elusive story structure and his impassioned love for the cinema and its history and preservation. 
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It's very much a film that will leave too many young viewers a bit groggy and tired with its bloated running-time and scarce comedic gags, yet their paying adults will recognize and respond to its sweet, cathartic resolution of life-remembrance and the reconstruction of a lost artist. 
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In this way, "Hugo" is the stealthiest, most auteuristic family-marketed film since Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are". Both are not only fantastic films, but examples of talented directors working outside of their comfort zone (established properties for big money studios) that nevertheless feel like the work of nobody else. [B+]

Review: "J. Edgar" (2011)

When 81 year-old (and presently overactive) Clint Eastwood was announced to take on a biopic on the founder and long-time director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, one would not have predicted a film that not only examines Hoover's precarious, reckless and secretive methods, but his (mostly speculative) life as a closeted homosexual. 
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Although seeing as the script (a largely muddled and circular narrative, with nary a steady moment in sight) was written by "Milk" scribe Dustin Lance Black, an openly gay rights activist himself, the film, what with its repressed, tragic love story at its center between J. Edgar (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), seems to make a bit more sense.
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Beginning in the early 1920's and ending with Hoover's death in 1972, the film blurs by and touches upon the long-standing and controversial FBI director's career, from his days fighting gangsters in the Depression to the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh Jr. to his last days protecting secret files from the President. 
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Eastwood is in comfortable visual form here, using, as he once did with "Flags of Our Fathers", "Letters From Iwo Jima" and "Changeling," his prototypical desaturated colors and dramatic side-lighting with extreme contrast, in flickering quantities, the illusion of black-and-white.
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Yet I sense, no matter what his ideals are, that he's uncomfortable with at least a minority of the film's homosexual context. Not that he's homophobic or physically repelled by it, but just simply naive to it, for these scenes seem unfit for the sledgehammer subtleties of Clint. 
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Or perhaps what I'm sensing is a disconnect between performers, or perhaps performers and their older, liver-spotted self. Leonardo DiCaprio, no stranger to early 20th-century biopics himself, is able, even exceptional at times, as the titular J. Edgar Hoover, although his partner-in-crime-stopping, Clyde Tolson, portrayed by Armie Hammer, has so much bad make-up on in his final moments that we almost forget who he is.
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Throughout the film, there is the faint echo, the glimmering legibility of the portrait of a man in denial, in seclusion, in frustration to come to terms with who he is - the legend that will be printed in his untitled biography or the real man behind the facade of his elevated desk - yet the film's emotional center is nearly mute, muffled under the weight of prosthetics and fast-walking ineptitude. [C]

Quick Thoughts: "Puss in Boots" (2011)

I'm not a particularly knowledgeable or dependable barometer on the canon of DreamWorks properties post-2001's "Shrek," but I can say that "Puss in Boots," the latest offspring of that film that so enchanted viewers a decade ago, is better than the last two sequels and I haven't even see them. 
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Which isn't so much a gleeful rave of this feline spin-off, but rather a condemnation of the floundering "Shrek" franchise that so dwarfed most of the goodwill from the original with its three sequels, each more punnily titled than the last. 
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Having said that, "Puss in Boots" is, for the most part, a pretty delightful little film, a Zorro-styled sand-and-sun swashbuckler with traces of Spaghetti western elements all under the umbrella of DreamWorks Animations' cheeky realm of fairy-tale satire.
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There are portions of the film that reek of narrative convolution (holy flashback!) and childish pandering (we have to end every animated film with a dance number?), but on the whole, the film - essentially a Cain and Abel tale set against the backdrop of a quest to find the golden eggs up Jack's beanstalk - has a classic adventure feel that the filmmakers clearly mined for inspiration. [B-]

Trailer: "Snow White & the Huntsman" (2012)

There's been so much news-feed garbage piling up about these two dueling "Snow White" projects that I'm not even sure I can separate the two, yet Rupert Sanders' "Snow White & the Huntsman" is the first out of the gate with a trailer.
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I have to say, at the very least, it doesn't look just all that dreadful, does it? I'm convinced the music is some sort of remix of Zach Hemsey's trailer music for "Inception," but I'd imagine that Universal is going to turn quite a few heads with these two-minutes. 
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The other project, by the way, is Relativity's "Mirror, Mirror", set to release in March of 2012 with Lily Collins as Snow White, Julia Roberts as the Queen and Armie Hammer as the Prince. Tarsem Singh will direct. 

Thoughts on "Tower Heist" (2011)

Brett Ratner's fortunately topical "Tower Heist" is, for its majority, a semi-flat, moderately engaging heist comedy that nevertheless never really takes off. That is, until Eddie Murphy shows up. 
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The highly-skilled, highly-missed comedic actor, who disappeared into a vat of atrocious, doughy children's films for the last decade including "I Spy", "Daddy Day Care" and the abominable fat-suit comedy "Norbit", has returned to nearly peak form here as the petty criminal Slide, whom Ben Stiller enlists as the mind behind the crime due to his apparent experience in the matter. 
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Of course the film quite amazingly mirrors the current events at Wall Street and cities around the world, where protesters line the streets damning the corporate greed and imbalance of power which so permeates the country. 
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"Tower Heist," which gives a face to this ruthless greed in Alan Alda's Arthur Shaw (who among other crimes, has essentially stolen all of his employees' life savings) is very much the 1%, his scheming, revenge-minded tower-servants, the other 99. 
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Contrary to Andrew Niccols' sloppy, half-baked "In Time," which uses the current social unrest and lopsided power balance to allegorical effect, "Tower Heist" makes no mistake, bringing its power-to-the-people agenda to the forefront, the here and now.
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It's true that the film likely works better as a slice of our times wish-fulfillment rather than a comedy, yet in a film that's full of performances either disappointing or merely adequate, Murphy's presence is a giddy sight for sore eyes that considerably elevates the proceedings. [B-]

Filmspotting Top 5: Director Departures

In what I hope becomes a weekly series here at The Ludovico Technique, I'm hoping to mirror (or rather copy) the excellent weekly podcast out of Chicago, Filmspotting, and doing my own Top 5 list in accordance to their designated topic. 
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Last week it was Top 5 Director Departures (in response to Kevin Smith directing "Red State") and thus, I'm here to provide my own list of five of the more unique, who-saw-that-coming directorial departures, so here we go:
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#5

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Alfonso Cuarón, "THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN" (2004)

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The Mexican-born director of "Y tu mamá también" certainly couldn't have been the obvious choice to adapt the third of J.K. Rowling's decidedly British mega-novels, yet the film is often cited as one of the best in the series. "Azkaban" was certainly a massive leap forward for the series, maturing the previous films' glittery, pre-pubescent messiness into the realm of the wicked.

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#4

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Joe Wright, "HANNA" (2011)

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The British prestige director, most noted for his costume dramas "Pride & Prejudice" and "Atonement" would seem to be the least likely candidate to have directed this (excuse my bluntness) badass action-film fable about a mysterious teenage girl (Saoirse Ronan) on the run from secret government organizations. The film bears Wright's trademark camerawork, yet its electro-pop soundtrack and idiosyncratic characters put Mr. Darcy firmly in its rear-view. 

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#3

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Robert Z. Leonard, "THE BRIBE" (1949)

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In perhaps the ultimate departure, one-man MGM musical factory Robert Z. Leonard directed this stylish, sleazy noir, the vastly underrated and underexposed "The Bribe". Considered a fairly substantial critical and commercial disappointment, the film, essentially a slip-shod 'B' movie at MGM, is surprisingly a rather brilliant and convoluted film noir with luscious atmosphere (it takes place in Central America) and a climactic shootout amidst a fireworks show that is quite the set-piece.

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#2 

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Frank Capra, "LOST HORIZON" (1937)

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I've never considered "Lost Horizon" to be an overwhelmingly terrific film, but I'm an absolute sucker for Golden Age meccas (that is, larger-than-life Hollywood productions) and Capra's "Lost Horizon" is not only a remarkably well-made super-sized epic (based on James Hilton's novel about a plane that crashes in a utopia in the Himalayas) but a rather stark contrast to the kind of idealistic social/political dramas that dominated Capra's filmography.

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#1

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Paul Thomas Anderson, "THERE WILL BE BLOOD"

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Ten years removed from his 70's porn odyssey, "Boogie Nights," Paul Thomas Anderson was at a creative crossroads, unsure what to do after his similarly unique career choice with 2003's "Punch-Drunk Love". 

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Settling on Upton Sinclair's novel "Oil!" as a source of inspiration and adaptation, Anderson loosely crafted a sprawling oil epic the likes of which no one could have anticipated. The film, which examines the ruthless Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) as he maliciously, uninhibitedly carves out a wealthy business in the California oil fields, is an American masterpiece about greed, corruption and the morally bankrupt pursuit of wealth and power.

Quick Thoughts : "The Thing" (2011)

As a devout loyalist to John Carpenter's 1982 version of "The Thing," I approached this prequel/remake with an admittedly great deal of skepticism, but I feel confident in saying, even with my biased outlook, that Matthijs van Heijningen's update just isn't very good.
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Showing us what happened at the Norweigan camp which found and accidentally let loose the imitative title creature, the film is almost dead-on-arrival, going through the motions of Carpenter's vision with very creative touches of its own outside of perhaps a creepy dental identifier and a female lead.
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Instead of Rob Bottin's spectacular practical effects, we get CG mock-ups, instead of Ennio Morricone's eerie, persistent score, we get tired sound design and jump scares and instead of Kurt Russell and his sombrero, we get generic movie scientist Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
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When attempting to judge the relevancy and stand-alone effectiveness of a remake, prequel, sequel or otherwise, I always ask myself, "does the film do enough to establish its own identity or is it purely imitation?" Ironically enough, the answer is firmly the latter. [C-]

Review: "Take Shelter" (2011)

An oncoming storm plagues the visions of a young husband and father in Jeff Nichols' sophomore effort, "Take Shelter," a keen, deeply psychological portrait of a man either at wit's end or God's beckoning. 
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Michael Shannon plays said man, Curtis LaForche, a construction worker caring solely for his wife (Jessica Chastain) and their hearing-impaired daughter (Tova Stewart) in rural Ohio. Curtis begins having recurring dreams of increasing intensity in which he is helpless to protect his family from nature's wrath, most frequently the threat of a violently thunderous, tornadic storm. 
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Curtis slowly recognizes his surreal, illogical fear and seeks help (his mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when he was just ten), yet he can't resist the urge to take out an expensive loan to stock and expand upon the old backyard storm shelter, which occupies most of his time. 
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Shannon, no stranger to playing fragile, psychologically-strained characters like in Sam Mendes' "Revolutionary Road," is in tremendous form here, bringing surprising vulnerability and empathy to his blue-collar family man. We don't root for Curtis' decent into madness, but rather wish him to healthiness, like a loved one of our own. 
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Writer/director Jeff Nichols (whose 2007 debut, "Shotgun Stories", starred Michael Shannon as well) says that he wrote "Take Shelter" while dealing with fits of anxiety himself. Using the storm shelter and its accompanying visions of nature's wrath, he finds a fitting metaphor for not only the threat of change and uncertainty (the storm itself), but the place of solitude and then salvation (the shelter). 
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And in this way, the film is not only about the question of literal sanity, but the uneasy weight of dependability. In this way, the film becomes akin to the parental anxiety of responsibility as seen in David Lynch's "Eraserhead". 
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But even at its most base, most instinctual level of genre, "Take Shelter" represents, along with Sean Durkin's "Martha Marcy May Marlene," a new wave of existential horror far more frightening for its acute, fragile depiction of the human psyche than any demonic, house-possession folly that the studios can drum up these days. [B+]

Quick Thoughts: "In Time", "Anonymous"

Andrew Niccol's sci-fi thriller and corporate allegory "In Time" is, almost from the first few minutes, some kind of disaster. Even with a cast of young, sexy up-and-comers, the film is so logically nonsensical that to call it "half-baked" is a disservice to the word "half". 
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Like most science-fiction these days, "In Time" is simply a pastiche of genre tropes, except the film doesn't even have a fresh coat of paint to help wash it down. A "Logan's Run" introduction gives way to a shoddy against-the-system uprising a la "Bonnie and Clyde" or "Robin Hood", with the film's rob-the-rich-to-give-to-the-poor bassline ringing timely, if obviously so, as we watch protesters in Wall Street and around the country condemn the imbalance of power. 
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Yet for what the film has in opportune thematic timeliness, it completely lacks in narrative traction or sensibility, essentially dissolving into a film about people running around looking at their wrists. Money is currency in "In Time," and if that's the case, 2 hours is too steep a price to pay for what you get here. [D]
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Well, Roland Emmerich has done it, he's gotten old people to see one of his movies. My sparsely attended, elderly-skewed audience spattered with an approving golf-clap at the conclusion of his latest, "Anonymous," an Elizabethan Era yarn of historical conjecture regarding the perceived work of William Shakespeare. 
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The film nearly loses its audience in the first thirty minutes, clumsily framing its quill-and-ink, ruff-and-puff mystery-thriller in a bevy of storytelling devices, testing our ability to decipher and memorize each name with its proper face. 
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And although the film occasionally, eventually comes through in a way, it never quite sinks its hooks into the viewer, resembling one of Emmerich's least bombastic and restrained works, which, in fact, turns "Anonymous" into a bit of a middling costume drama - what no apocalypse? [C+]