A Serious Jew Movie

Grade: A

Yesterday, A Serious Man came to DVD. Two weeks ago, I paid to see it in theaters. That may seem silly, knowing if I just held off a little longer I could have just Netflixed it, but I stand by my choice. Not only did it allow me to be 9 for 10 on best picture nominees last week, but I was able to see how people reacted in the theater. Instead of the theater laughing all at once, I would find myself laughing alone at some parts, and others laughing alone later. And others probably weren't laughing at all. Which is why this has been one of the more debated movies of 2009. Some people responded to it, and some people didn't.

Jewish physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) seems to be living a good life, but all of a sudden things begin to rapidly unravel for him. His wife (Sari Lennick) announces out of nowhere that she's leaving him for smooth-voiced widower Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed), the titular serious man whose insistence on handling things "like adults" just make him all the more obnoxious. Larry's brother (Richard Kind) shows no signs of looking for an apartment as he spends all his time in Larry's bathroom draining a cyst. A Korean student is bribing him to change a grade. The Columbia record club is hounding him for payments on records he never ordered. Oh, and people keep dying right in front of him.

If all of this doesn't sound quite as bad as what happened to Job, Larry's biblical precedent, it's not. In fact, a lot of what happens to Larry happens less to him and more around him, a maelstrom of ridiculousness to which Larry is forced to observe. But as in the story of Job, the central question is why? The script is structured by Larry's meetings with three rabbis - young, older, and oldest - through whom he tries to seek some guidance. The best visit is the second, in which the rabbi tells an elaborate story that, while amusing, doesn't seem to actually have a lesson, much to Larry's frustration. In fact the story does have a moral, one shared by the movie: sometimes there are no answers. Which may make this one of the most Jewish movies ever made.

It's not just all the rabbis and Hebrew that makes people call this Joel and Ethan Coens' most personal movie yet. Set in a close-knit Jewish community in the 1960s, the characters here live much as the Coens must have growing up in Minnesota. And they truly do nail that world. Looking at the washed-over colors and drab architecture, it's amazing how similar it looks to pictures of the era my parents grew up in.

They also really understand what it was like growing up in that world, often to hilarious effect. Many of the funniest moments surround Larry's son, who listens to Jefferson Airplane on a walkman in Hebrew School while his teacher drones on about Hebrew verb conjugation and goes to his own Bar Mitzvah while stoned. There's the way everyone's answer to Larry's questions is "go ask the rabbi." And the way nobody actually knows the word for a Jewish divorce.

If this is the Book of Job though, it's not God bringing all of this down on Larry so much as the Coen brothers, and I think the movie can best be enjoyed if you view it from their perspective. Some people find the whole thing just depressing, and I imagine if you're really empathizing with the characters then you might think so. But there's so much absurdity that I couldn't imagine taking the movie at face value. I think a better criticism would be that the whole movie is some dark joke amongst the Coens, watching their characters squirm for their amusement. But hey, at least it's a funny one.

Especially if you're a Coen Brothers fan, A Serious Man impresses by being so entirely different from anything else they've made. It's hard to imagine it came from the same minds as No Country for Old Men. If I had to pick a movie it's most similar to, I'd probably land on Barton Fink, another odd one about internal crisis with an unusual ending (A Serious Man's ending won't confuse you like that of No Country for Old Men, but its bleak punchline may leave you just as unsatisfied). I might also go with The Big Lebowski, a completely dissimilar movie that oddly shares a somewhat similar tone.

There's a lot that's potentially off-putting about A Serious Man. It's very Jewish not just in the amount of Hebrew they throw at you early on, but in the entire style of humor they employ, and if you haven't chanted haftarah, you might feel out of the loop. The comedy is so pitch-black that you may not even realize the Coens are joking. But if you enjoy intelligent movies that pose serious questions, making you think hard about the fact that there's no intention of answering them, you'd be missing out not to see it. And while Sy Ableman may be a serious man, the movie itself is more seriously funny.

Hurts So Good

Grade: A

I know, I know, you're sick of people telling you to see The Hurt Locker. You know that every single critic thinks it's the greatest thing on the planet, but that didn't get you to see United 93 or any of those other depressing critics' picks either. Well, here's the thing: The Hurt Locker is not that movie. It is not a serious drama about the politics of Iraq. It is not moralistic and "good for you." It is a kick-ass action movie that is easily the most suspenseful thing you will see in any medium this year. And now that it's out on DVD, you've run out of excuses.

After an opening scene that puts you right into the action as an army squad's bomb defuser (Guy Pearce, in a cameo) is killed in an explosion mid-job, Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) is brought in as his replacement. He immediately butts heads with team leader Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), who's immediately put off by James' cavalier and unorthodox ways. James lives for his work, determined to work on the bomb til the last second no matter how many men with cell phones may be lurking in their perimeter.

The only real overall plot comes in the form of a counter telling how many days are left in the squad's rotation, but before they can come home there's a whole bunch of action sequences to survive. Each bomb defusion sequence is an exercise in pure suspense. Of course there's the expected suspense of which wire to cut and the wrong wire could lead to an explosion, but here the setting makes it a lot more than that. Because any cell phone can trigger the alarm, any random person could kill them all with the push of a button. So for any witness, it's always "what are they holding, what are they doing." And when Sanborn decides an area isn't safe enough to continue and James keeps on working anyway, there's drama.

A series of bomb defusing sequences sounds like it should get repetitive. And it would if that's all there was, but there's a lot more going on. No two defusion scenes are alike. In one, what seems like a single bomb turns out to be a whole lot more, and in another there's a person strapped to it. In between, there are a number of other events that occur - a desert stand-off, a friendship between James and a street urchin, the growing camaraderie between the teammates, and more.

Because although the action is topnotch, it's the characters that elevate this to something truly special. James is a classic American hero - the rugged individualist who breaks the rules to get the job done right. And Renner's performance is truly the definition of a star-making role. Handling both James' badass-ness on the job and his inner confusion over his priorities, Renner continually made me think of Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke or any other case where an actor broke onto the scene with an iconic character. We'll be seeing a lot more from him.

James' two teammates have less showy roles, but the interactions between the three of them are what make the movie. The relationship between James and Sanborn could be the conventional "clash at first but then become friends," but it's a little more complicated than that. There's always that slight distrust, and the danger that one of them might really act against the other. And despite often siding against James, Mackie makes Sanborn far more sympathetic and complex than his role might suggest. The third man in the troop is Spc. Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), the greenest and most fearful of the three. Through him, the other two get to act the mentor and we get to experience the dangers of war.

Not enough can be said for Kathryn Bigelow's direction, as who could have guessed she would make this movie? Not only is she most known for the Keanu Reeves surfing movie Point Break, but it's hard to imagine any woman directing so masculine a movie that the big emotional bonding scene involves everyone punching each other. But she nails the macho characters, she orchestrates the action scenes to maximum suspense, and she provides some truly amazing visuals. War may be hell, but there's a lot of beauty in her shots.

In many ways, The Hurt Locker feels like one of the great Vietnam classics - Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and especially Full Metal Jacket. Which makes The Hurt Locker not just "an Iraq movie," but the first classic war movie for the Iraq War. Many have said The Hurt Locker could take place in any war, which is both true and false. Certainly the biggest components of the movie - bomb defusing suspense, trust between soldiers, fears of war, the comforts of home vs. the rush of action - have nothing to do with Iraq. But the Iraq setting does influence the movie in many positive ways, from the added suspense of the potential terrorist with the cell phone to the eery arid landscapes to the complex relationships with the locals.

So if you've delayed seeing The Hurt Locker because you think it's of the same cloth as Rendition, Lions for Lambs, or any of those other moralistic flops, set aside your fears. This is a movie for anyone who's been waiting for a great war film, who likes suspense, or just wants to see some of the best developed and well-acted characters in any movie this year. Unless you want me and the critics of America to continue to harass you, you might as well go ahead and watch it. Then you can be the annoying one telling all your friends to see it.

Aliens Among Us

Grade: A-

Another week, another DVD release for a movie I saw back in August but haven't written about until now. I actually saw District 9 on opening day, back when all I knew about it was aliens and apartheid. I knew nothing about the plot, nothing about who the main character would be, if any, and no idea what to expect. And when watching such an original and innovative movie, that's a good way to enter. District 9 marketing team, well done.

But since by now I think most people know what the movie's about, I won't try to hide what it's about. The movie takes place in a future South Africa in which a group of aliens has landed decades earlier and has been stuck ever since. Given the epithet of "prawns" by the locals for their crustacean-like appearance, they were soon forced into a slum known as District 9 while the humans figured out what to do with them.

At the start of the movie, that answer comes in an order to move the aliens to an even worse slum, District 10. But since the humans must go through the motions of law and order, however ridiculous, a team is sent into District 9 to hand everyone eviction notices, led by weak-willed, son-in-law-of-the-boss Wikus (Sharlto Copley). In the course of his work Wikus ends up sprayed with an alien substance that begins turning him into one of the prawns. And when he discovers how little he can trust his employers to help him, he has no choice but to enter District 9 in search of a cure while on the run from his own people.

The first half hour or so is done entirely documentary-style, giving the history of human/prawn interactions while following the government workers into District 9. The whole section makes this alternate future seem plausible, and makes all the apartheid comparisons readily apparent without pushing it too far. But after so much sci-fi verite, I was relieved when Wikus began his transformation and I realized yes, there would be a Hollywood-style plot coming in, but one totally earned by the grittier opening.

What's not Hollywood is Wikus as a protagonist. In the beginning of the movie, he's a bit of an ass. He's selfish, incompetent, and weak. You think his transformation will force him to grow as a character, and it certainly does in many ways, but even towards the end he's still acting entirely for his own interests. At times he's a hard character to root for, but the combination of his intense need to get rid of the alien arm mixed with Copley's compelling performance make you feel for him anyway.

He's not the only one suffering likability issues. Pretty much the only likable character in the entire movie is Christopher, a prawn who Wikus teams up with in his efforts to become human again. Certainly all of the human characters make Wikus look like a saint, focused as they are solely upon alien weaponry in their efforts to confirm every "big corporations are evil" theories espoused throughout history. It may be a sci-fi action movie, but District 9 is one of the darker and more pessimistic things I've seen this year.

Which is why it's important that the story and the action are so strong, to give something to cut through the darkness. With a number of really cool alien weapons, including a man-piloted robot that outdoes anything in Transformers (though, admittedly, also appears in Avatar), there's a reason everyone was shocked at D9's budget. Especially towards the end, as the movie becomes a Wikus/Christopher buddy action movie as they fight against human and Prawn in their mission, the action sequences continue to amaze.

District 9 is that rare mainstream movie that's as thought-provoking as it is entertaining, and that rare allegory that doesn't gag you on its message. As unsympathetic as Wikus can be at times, he also feels real, which is maybe why we still side with him anyway. After all, who wouldn't do anything to get rid of an alien arm? I wish the movie hadn't been so fuzzy on who could understand whom when, but maybe that's just my preoccupation. And it's certainly hard to watch - both for the thematic darkness and some uncomfortable physical moments (he pulls off his finger nails!). But District 9 is easily one of the most original and affecting movies of the year, and puts an entirely new spin on a genre that could use one.

Wild and Crazy Nazis

Grade: A-

Coming to DVD today, Quentin Tarantino's epic World War II comedy action hit Inglourious Basterds, which I saw back in September but am writing about now. Depending on who you ask, it's either Tarantino's greatest work since Pulp Fiction, or a bit of a disappointment. To which I'd say, can't it be both? Thing is, IB is 90% brilliant, and what works is easily the most entertaining and creative stuff I've seen in movies this year. But it continually frustrates for refusing to go that extra 10%.

IB follows a number of different characters who all collide on one (very fictional) operation: a plot to assassinate Hitler and all of his top guys that SPOILER ALERT succeeds. Some of the wacky crew include: the titular basterds, a group of American Jews led by Southern accented Aldo the Apache (Brad Pitt, winning this year's least convincing Jew award) and "the Bear Jew" (horror meister Eli Roth). Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent), a French Jew who survived her family's death by Nazi to open a movie house and plot her revenge. Col. Landa (multi-lingual Christoph Waltz), a top Nazi hunter responsible for the previously mentioned family massacre. Plus a British spy (Michael Fassbender), a famous German actress (Diane Kruger), and....Mike Myers.

From Reservoir Dogs to Kill Bill, Tarantino has shown has ability to create iconic characters that great actors would love to play, and he succeeds again here across the board. Pitt leaves the blandness of Benjamin Button far behind as he hams up to hilarious effect as the uber-American Aldo. The women completely steal the movie, especially Laurent, who's so good you don't mind she has more screentime than any of the Americans. And some of the even more minor characters are so instantly fully realized you wish you could spend more time with them.

As for Christoph Waltz, he completely deserves all the praise he gets. He honestly deserves the Oscar just for the fact that he speaks FOUR languages FLUENTLY in the movie. As the Basterds make clear in one of the funniest scenes, most Americans can barely speak one. But on top of the languages, he also gives a completely brilliant performance as a jovial and charismatic Nazi who almost seems too nice to be a killer until he shows the menace hiding inside him. The lengthy opening scene, which seems at first a friendly call until his reason is gradually revealed, feels like a completed short film in itself. With the past two supporting actor Oscars going to villains the Joker and Anton Chigurgh, I think Waltz will cement the pattern.

Moving past the characters, there's a ton of stuff going on in the movie, and amazingly most of it works. Given this is Tarantino, there's a strong theme of movie appreciation, including the most celebrated line, "We respect directors in our country," as said by Shoshanna to her Zac Efron lookalike Nazi hero stalker. There's Tarantino's trademark dialogue, making even the lengthiest scenes zip on by in a very enjoyable fashion. There's a pleasant tone of comic camp, in some ways making this the movie I hoped Valkyrie would have been (but wasn't). And while I'm not usually one to advocate violence, there is something deeply satisfying in watching Nazis be killed. The final sequence where they pull off the operation is some of the finest vengeance porn I've seen.

So with so many great ideas, great scenes, great moments, and great characters, where's that 10% that doesn't quite get there? That it's all sometimes too much. As great as Tarantino's writing is, and I fully admit that it is, his celebrity has gotten big enough that he's become completely self-indulgent about it. The movie is comprised of five very lengthy sequences, despite the epic nature of the story, and single scenes drag on for 45 minutes at a time. Why? because Tarantino wants you to bask in the genius of his writing. In the opening scene, the sheer length builds the suspense and makes the scene better. But when the same technique is used later, it no longer feels fresh. You know from the start the scene will end in violence, so why drag it out for over a half hour to get there?

The over-writing feels like even more of a waste because of everything that was sacrificed to make time. Despite the trailers (and title), the actual Basterds could probably have been cut from the movie and the plot would be the same. We see their recruitment scene (shown in its entirety in the trailers), a single example of their scalping, and then it's on to the big assassination plot, which they play a relatively minor role in. The British spy and the German actress are really in charge, and Shoshanna turns out to be the real protagonist, having the better arc, more screentime, and the largest result on the finale.

The reason that's a problem is the Basterds are a great idea, and I would have liked to have seen a movie about them. There's such a mythology behind them - Aldo the Apache! The Bear Jew! - that it seems like we only see the surface of it. BJ Novak and Samm Levine barely seem to even have speaking parts as background Basterds. And Aldo feels more like a walking punchline than an actual character. With Shoshanna, Bridget, and Col. Landa all such real and interesting people, it's no wonder Tarantino would rather spend time with them, but it's also a shame.

So there you have it. Inglourious Basterds' biggest flaw is that it can't fit everything into a 2 hour, 40 minute running time (feels way shorter than Transformers). And that doesn't mean it needed to be a 6 hour miniseries, it means Tarantino needed to stop kissing his own ass and tell a tighter story. But if he did that, he wouldn't be Tarantino, and his movies invariably wouldn't be as good. Kill Bill probably didn't need to be two movies, but they are two great ones. As maddening as Tarantino can be, he's earned the right to get away with it, and Inglourious Basterds will end up as one of the most memorable movies of the year.

Food Porn: The Movie

Grade: B+

Julie & Julia is one of three movies I saw in August that I have yet to write about, and they're all conveniently being released on DVD over the course of three weeks beginning today. So if you want a movie that will make you feel good and feel hungry, add this one to your netflix queue.

Julie and Julia follows two parallel stories: in the past, Julia Child (Meryl Streep) works to write and publish her famous cookbook while living in Paris with her husband (Stanley Tucci), and in the present, Julie Powell (Amy Adams) sets out to blog her experience cooking every recipe in said famous cookbook over the course of a year.

Most reviews at the time said something to the effect of "the Meryl Streep sections are amazing because I love her, but the Amy Adams sections are a drag." I think that gives Adams too little credit. A lot of the best food scenes come from Powell's year of living deliciously, and if there's one thing this movie succeeds most in, it's food. Nora Ephron hired all sorts of food specialists to make all the food look amazing onscreen, and mission accomplished. If you aren't starving by the time the movie's done, you must have slept through it.

There's still plenty of worthwhile things to watch of the living variety as well. Meryl Streep, being Meryl Streep, manages to perfectly capture the joy and eccentricity of Julia Child, making the whole movie more fun for the energy of her performance. Stanley Tucci takes the thankless role of the supportive husband and gives it such a warmth that people are still talking about him for it. And Adams, continuing her string of cute and likable roles, takes the less exciting story of a blogger living in a small apartment and holds her own.

By the end of the movie, you'll probably want to get Julia Child's book and make some boeuf bourguignon. And even if you never do, it's nice to have a movie to get people excited to cook again. Or at least eat.

What I Saw Over Thanksgiving Weekend

People have different Thanksgiving traditions. Some people play football. Some people have loud fights with their families. I see movies. Last year I had a post on movies to see with your family in the midst of a turkey-based food coma. Much like last year, the perfect Thanksgiving movies got pushed to Christmas. But even without Nine and The Princess and the Frog, I found plenty to watch over the holiday weekend.

Grade: B+

First up, the movie I actually saw on Thanksgiving day. In a lot of ways, The Fantastic Mr. Fox is like The Incredibles, which I saw and loved during Thanksgiving five years ago. Again you've got a family in which the parents gave up their dangerous and preferred line of work to settle down with a family, only to come back to it after the father gets restless. This time they're foxes and not superheroes, but it still leads to a movie ostensibly for kids that's really more for adults.

Hating on Wes Anderson has become popular, between The Life Aquatic and The Darjeeling Limited, but Foxes is a strong step towards winning those former fans back. That dry, sardonic Wes Anderson style is still very much here, but it's used for something much more fun. A lot of the humor comes in the "animals acting like people" form, but the voice cast helps sell it. There's a bit of Daniel Ocean in George Clooney's Mr. Fox, a former chicken thief who misses the thrill. Anderson mainstays Jason Schwartzman and Bill Murray are back to keep things light. Meryl Streep is underused, but does a lot with what she's got.

All that said, there's still plenty of dark stuff to make you question whether kids should see it, as you'd hope from something based on a Roald Dahl book. Mr. Fox gets his tail shot off, and all the animals' lives are continually in danger from all the angry farmers. But the stakes make all the many capers legitimately suspenseful. Especially after the mopey Where the Wild Things Are, it's nice to find a kids' movie for adults that wants to excite instead of depress. Hence why it gets fantastic in the title.

Grade: B

When I walked in to see 2012, I was expecting it to be really stupid but fun, and you know, it delivered on both counts. Continuing a string of big-budget disaster movies from destruction master Roland Emmerich, director of Independence Day, Godzilla, and The Day After Tomorrow, 2012 boasts the least specific threat with the craziest amount of damage yet. From the trailer, it's hard to judge what's destroying Earth. Earthquakes? Fireballs? Mayans? Turns out to be some combination (of the first two), but you won't be listening to the talk of neutrinos in the earth's crust. You'll be watching shit blow up.

All of Emmerich's movies are basically the same, it's just a matter of recasting the roles and switching the targets of destruction, so it's probably easier to discuss 2012 with Independence Day in mind. The story starts when a scientist (Chiwetel Ejiofor filling in for Jeff Goldblum) discovers that, due to some evil neutrinos, the world will be destroyed in 2012. After telling his compassionless superior (Oliver Platt) and the president (Danny Glover), they form a plan to help a select group of the worthy survive the coming onslaught.

After a whole lot of prep, around 30-45 minutes into the movie we meet our actual protagonist, John Cusack (playing Will Smith), a writer with an ex-wife (Amanda Peet) and two kids. Somehow, the four of them plus the ex-wife's boyfriend wind up as the only people in America able to outdrive earthquakes, outfly explosions, and outswim floods to survive. Nothing about any of their escape scenes makes a remote amount of sense. Just try counting the number of times somebody falls into an earthquake-induced abyss and makes it out alive. But it doesn't matter, because there's high-quality disaster porn all around, like skyscrapers shattering on top of Cusack's limo and their plane magically bursting through smoke clouds.

There's nothing here we haven't seen before in any of Emmerich's other movies, but that doesn't mean 2012 doesn't still have its merits. For one thing, the explosions are probably bigger than in his previous movies. It is the end of the world after all. And to me at least Ejiofor, Cusack, Peet, Glover, and Thandie Newton make for a more appealing cast than that in The Day After Tomorrow (no offense). Though no matter how many famous monuments get destroyed (and there are a lot), nothing's as iconic as that destruction of the white house in Independence Day. As far as dumb action movies go, I'll take 2012 over Transformers 2 any day, but that doesn't mean I'll ever revisit (or remember) it.

While not catching up on movies in theaters, I also tried to make some progress on my Netflix queue, which I've been woefully neglecting ever since the TV season began (and pretty much all summer as well). First on the DVD front (to keep me entertained on the train) was Adventureland, a coming-of-age movie set in the '80s from the director of Superbad. But one thing I didn't realize from the trailer: not a comedy.

Jesse Eisenberg, known as "the guy that's not Michael Cera even though he plays the same characters," plays a college-grad with no job prospects who's forced to work at a local amusement park to pay for grad school. You'd think between bonding with the community of park workers, the wacky antics of such a place, and '80s nostalgia there'd be plenty here for laughs. And there are some, but there's a lot more angst as Eisenberg's character falls for Twilight-er Kristen Stewart, a fellow park employee who's sleeping with (gasp) Ryan Reynolds' married rocker/handyman.

The romance is cute and all, but it's nothing that hasn't been done in a million coming-of-age movies beforehand. It's Adventureland itself that makes the movie stand-out, especially strong supporting players like Martin Starr as an unlucky-in-love nihilist and SNL's Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as the married couple who run the park and account for approximately 95% of the movie's laughs. The drama's handled well enough that it's still enjoyable to watch, but if there was more Hader and Wiig and less moping, this might not have been left for Netflix.

Finally, Drag Me to Hell, a VERY well-reviewed horror movie that was hailed as a return to the comic horror Evil Deads of Sam Raimi's past. Maybe I just don't get horror - or this movie - but I'm not seeing the comedy. Yes, there are occasional moments of gross-out camp, especially when they bring the demon in question to form during a seance, but those moments seem vastly out of tone with the rest of the movie.

Playing into the times, the story begins when Alison Lohman's bank worker denies a gypsy woman an extension on her mortgage, and the woman returns the favor with a gypsy curse. Soon Lohman's being attacked by the toothless crone and a goat demon when not swallowing flies or bleeding out the nose.

Thing is, the movie hardly goes horror to horror. It actually spends a lot more time looking at her life at the bank and her relationship with boyfriend Justin Long (yes, the Mac guy). Since most of the movie is played straight and without camp, the campiness of the horror is less funny than disjointed. As such, I didn't find it funny - or scary - just sad. Now, I was going to have issues with this movie regardless because (SPOILER ALERT) she kills her cat to offer to the demon, which pretty throughly turned me off to it. But overall, it's definitely got its moments; it just doesn't congeal into a single consistent movie.

Observe and Be Puzzled

Grade: C+

Confession time: I saw this all the way back in February, a good 2 months before it even came to theaters. But after a few months went by and I hadn't gotten around to writing about it, it just made more sense to wait until it came to DVD, which, conveniently enough, is today. So if you had thought about seeing it in theaters then forgot about it, here's your chance.

So what took me so long? Guess I just didn't care enough. Back when this was in theaters, it was being called Travis Bickle: Mall Cop, for its attempts to mix Taxi Driver with that other mall cop movie. If that sounds like a weird mix, it is. The movie starts off well enough, with a self-important mall cop with dreams of becoming a police officer seeing a mall-wide streaker as his chance to shine. But somewhere around the midway point it stops being a comedy and gets really, really serious. Then it just gets violent.

Basically, the movie can't decide on a tone, so just when it's told you it's one thing it turns into something else entirely. The bigger problem is it makes a much better comedy than a drama about Seth Rogen's deep-seated desire to become a cop or action movie about Seth Rogen hitting/shooting everything in sight. So by the halfway point, the best is far behind you.

The strange choice of tones may be somewhat explained by the fact that this is director Jody Hill's first studio movie, having previously helmed cult comedy The Foot Fist Way (which launched Danny McBride's career) and funny HBO show Eastbound & Down (which I've been meaning to watch again). As those other projects show, he's clearly talented and has good ideas, but much of Observe & Report feels student film level, like he's still figuring out what to do with the resources he's now been given. So it may be better to look at this as practice for the funnier films he's likely to make in the future.

That's not to say the movie's a complete misfire. Even though Seth Rogen basically plays Danny McBride's character from The Foot Fist Way (and less effectively), this is a big departure from the Apatow characters he's been typecast into, and he largely succeeds in making you forget them. Better yet are the cameos - Danny McBride as a low-level criminal and Aziz Ansari as a mall employee have the funniest scenes in the entire movie. Had their scenes been more typical, this could have been a solid comedy. Instead, we'll just have to wait and see what Jody Hill does next.

Dollhouse is My Safe Haven

Last time I wrote about Dollhouse was after the pilot, at a time where it had promise but wasn't there yet. It took me the summer to come back to it, but having marathoned the first season in just a few days, I can say that it had a hell of a lot more than promise by the time the season ended. Dollhouse is not only completely different than anything else I've seen on TV (just try explaining it to someone who doesn't watch), but it's also easily the best first season for any Joss Whedon show (Firefly included). And as with many great shows, each episode is better than the one before it.

Although I just said how difficult it is to explain the show, the premise goes something like this: in LA, there's a facility where this secret organization imprints personalities into hot young people for whatever their clients wish. One day, any given hot young person (known as "actives" or "dolls") may be designed to give a guy a perfect date. Another day, a hostage negotiator. Or a master thief. Or a bodyguard/back-up singer.

That concept right there supplies some good procedural fun for the first 5 episodes (and as far as "mission of the week" shows go, it does legitimately do it well), but things quickly get a lot, lot better. Cause there's a number of other different things going on. First off, there's an FBI agent (BSG's Helo) out to expose the Dollhouse. For another, there's an ex-active named Alpha with a sociopathic streak who's got his eye on our girl Echo (Eliza Dushku), who, by the way, is starting to remember things between engagements. Toss in a loyal handler for Echo, a tech geek I hated at first but gradually grew to sort of like, and a sympathetic doctor (Amy Acker, better known as Angel's Fred), and you've got an ensemble worthy of a Joss Whedon show.

For awhile I've been wanting to write about Dollhouse to highly, highly recommend you watch it, but I'm also writing now having just seen the famous unaired episode, "Epitaph One," available only on the DVD set (thanks netflix!) In many ways, my feelings about the episode mirrored my feelings towards the whole first season: at first I wasn't all that into it, and by the end I couldn't be more pumped for season 2 and thankful the show got renewed.

See, "Epitaph One" is anything but a typical episode of Dollhouse. Designed as a series finale in case the show was canceled, it takes place ten years in the future, in a post-apocalyptic world where the imprinting technology has gone berserk in ways the show barely started to hint at. The episode follows a group of survivors not featured on the show (including Dr. Horrible's Penny!) as they find the Dollhouse and figure out how to find a Safe Haven (hence the title of this post) from all the craziness.

Watching a bunch of people I didn't know wandering around what seemed like the set of the new Terminator movie wasn't super fun, but once they get inside they hook up the machine and start bringing on "memories" - scenes with the real cast showing the future of Dollhouse. Some of what we see is kind of spoilery for where the show will actually get to go. But for the most part the episode does a great job teasing what's ahead - showing the barebones of the story without giving away any specifics. By the end of the episode, all major characters' fates are still unknown, and there's a sense that even Penny's story doesn't end there.

Even with only one major character featured in the non-"flashback" sections (and Echo only in a few scenes at all), it manages to blow your mind while still being a wonderfully dramatic and self-contained episode. And Dollhouse is now officially one of my most anticipated season premieres this fall. Seriously, you gotta check it out.

Back to the Future Again

Grade: B

Off the long list of movies I've seen in the past few months and haven't gotten around to writing about, 17 Again is making it on here because it releases on dvd today. So all of you Zac Efron fans, Matthew Perry fans, and fans of movies like Big that didn't get a chance to see this in theaters, now's the time to contemplate: to netflix or not to netflix?

As for those of you wondering why I saw this movie at all, much less in theaters, here's the thing: I'm in that third category (no, not the Zac Efron one). When I saw the trailer for 13 Going on 30 I was all like "Big rip-off, lame," but you know what? It was a total rip-off of Big and still awesome. Everytime I see the "Thriller" dance scene on TV I get hooked.

Much in the same way, 17 Again is a complete and unapologetic rip-off of Back to the Future. Not only does it crib plot points, but it makes direct allusions. Except it's Back to the Future in reverse, as this time Mike O'Donnell (Matthew Perry --> Zac Efron) is in high school with his kids, not his parents. Remember that scene where Marty McFly wakes up in bed pantless thinking it's all a dream til Lea Thompson wakes him? Same thing happens here, except it's Mike's daughter. Creepier? Probably.

But much in the way that 13 Going on 30 is a rip-off that reminds you what you like about the original, 17 Again still manages to capture enough of Back to the Future's fun to be a perfectly watchable and even enjoyable movie. Other perks: Zac Efron proves he can be charismatic without singing, Leslie Mann is better served than in Funny People, and Weeds's Shane plays a bully. Also, a subplot involving Mike's rich but dorky best friend (Reno 911's Thomas Lennon) and his quest to woo the school principal (Jan from The Office) scores most of the biggest laughs.

I'm aware that 13 Going on 30 went well beyond its Big premise to be a good movie in its own right, and 17 Again certainly can't compare. But still, don't be too quick to write this one off as a non-musical version of High School Musical. And remember - sometimes unoriginal can still be fun.

Zack and Miri Make Some Laughs

Zack and Miri Make a Porno is definitely a product of Kevin Smith 2.0: use a whole lot of raunchy humor to disguise the ridiculously gooey center beneath. But unlike Jersey Girl, and even Clerks 2 to a lesser extent, Zack and Miri's funny patches more than make up for a few seconds of cheesiness.

The title's pretty self-explanatory: high school friends Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) start making porn to pay their rent. That's a funny enough premise as is, but the supporting cast brings it to the next level: Justin Long's hilarious cameo as a gay porn star, Superman Brandon Routh as his porn star boyfriend (whose presence alone is the joke), Craig Robinson, always welcome, and Jason Mewes playing someone other than Jay.

Once the lovesfest starts, there's some pretty painful dialogue. Case in point: "We tried to fuck, but we ended up making love." Still, those moments are so obvious they're easy enough to ignore. And with leads as likable as Rogen and Banks, even lines like that don't offend. Zack and Miri may not stand with such Kevin Smith greats as Clerks and Dogma, but it's consistently enjoyable enough to be well worth checking out on DVD.

Pandas, Freckles, and Gossip, Oh My!

You might ask why I bothered watching Kung Fu Panda. It's a fair question. But after the Panda beat Wall-E in all the Animation Guild's awards, I was curious to see what would be losing to the robot come Oscar night. Getting past its obvious inferiority to the Pixar masterpiece, it's a surprisingly enjoyable watch, as far as straight-out kids movies go. Certainly if I was to take a kid to a movie, I could do far worse. The movie's best selling point is the animation. The various animated fight scenes do look really, really cool. I'm sure that's what the animators saw in it.

The Panda also stands out for its rather odd voice casting. Jack Black brings a little too much Tenacious D to his titular slacker. Angelina Jolie's voice has little enough personality you might think her Tigress is animatronic. Dustin Hoffman isn't the first name to come to mind when you hear "kung fu master." Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu are the token Asians in a movie set in China. And David Cross and Seth Rogen are clearly just there for the paycheck (seriously, Monsters vs. Aliens will be Rogen's 3rd animated movie. He really loves the easy money). Kung Fu Panda's not necessary viewing for anyone, but it's a perfectly nice way to waste some time.


Now to shift gears completely, Entertainment Weekly's TV critic, Ken Tucker, wrote this morning that he considers Jack's partner, FBI Agent Renee Walker, to be 24's weakest link this season. He calls her a "wimpy sentimentalist," a "sap," and even goes so far as to call her this season's Kim Bauer. Now, I personally think he's being rather hard on Freckles. Finding it difficult to hold a mother and baby at gunpoint seems like a rather reasonable response. Jack used to have some conscience issues once upon a time as well.

Now, I'm not saying she ranks on the list of memorable 24 characters, but how can you call her the weakest link with so many others to choose from? All Monotone does is make googly eyes at Uglier Sarah Jessica Parker and annoy everyone. Boring Boss seems to be the most extreme justification of torture, just because you'd never want to agree with someone like that. But the award for this season's Kim Bauer goes to the First Gentleman. Acting stupid and getting himself kidnapped? No contest.

Quick recap of Monday night's episode: Jack tries to become besties with his 3rd US president. Do you think when he asked President Taylor to "ask around" about him, he was referring to the dead and possibly dead Palmer brothers? Who else does he know that's still alive? Taylor eventually gives Jack his directive: find the First Gentleman within the hour. I like when 24 episodes have hourly goals; it gives them purpose. Plus, it meant the promise of a shoot-out at the end.

Meanwhile, Taylor lets Buchanan stick around and make policy decisions because she doesn't dare question the hair. Boring Boss enters the Jack Bauer Club...just to lecture everyone for the 8000th time about torture. Jack kills a guy because he's Jack Bauer. Freckles questions her desire to be Jack's torture apprentice for approximately one minute, 49 seconds. And Dubaku goes to confront his waitress girlfriend's wheelchair-bound sister for....reasons unknown. Seriously, does he actually plan on seeing the waitress again? Also, I think Uglier Sarah Jessica Parker is the mole. Otherwise what does she do?

Finally, the weekly gossip on Grey's Anatomy (why is the gossip so much better than the show? Watch any given episode to find that out). Costar James Pickens Jr. (The Chief) told Us Weekly that TR Knight and Katherine Heigl will both be leaving the show. Spoiler King Michael Ausiello at Entertanment Weekly says it's not a done deal, but it will likely happen sometime early next season.

Now, my first thought is to be happy for the actors. TR Knight's George has probably had around three lines an episode since episode four this season. Characters like "Nurse #8" have more screentime. Katherine Heigl's Izzie has had one of the stupidest subplots I've seen on any TV show in recent memory (you know which one I'm talking about). Watching the way these once-likable characters have been tossed aside is just sad, and both of the actors deserve to move on to bigger and better things.

But if they really leave, and only three of the original five interns remain, what's the point of even continuing the show? The show seemed to introduce a major new character every week, but the only one who survived was Army Doc. After another season, will there even be any Greys left? All I can say is I'm glad I stopped watching when I did.

DVDs for a Snowstorm

Today I celebrate my 100th post from a bus (gotta love the wireless on Bolt Bus). Leaving Massachusetts, I heard another massive snowstorm is coming tomorrow night. We only get a fraction of Boston's snow in New York; it's enough for a magical winter night without keeping anyone indoors. But for those of you stuck inside Tuesday night, here's some movies I caught recently that could make a good companion by the fireplace.

Hamlet 2



Hamlet 2 came out of Sundance a year ago as one of the biggest buys, only to completely fizzle at the box office last summer. Maybe it wasn't worth the $12 in theaters, but this enjoyably amusing comedy deserves a stronger second life on DVD. Hamlet 2 stars Steve Coogan, the incompetent and doomed director from Tropic Thunder, as incompetent though less doomed high school drama teacher Dana Maraschz. When the school principal announces the drama program's end, Dana sets out to prove its worth with an extravagant, time-traveling, musical Hamlet sequel.

The movie starts out by spoofing inspirational classroom movies like Dead Poet's Society and Dangerous Minds, a strategy that only sometimes pays off. And Dana's over-the-top buffoonery sometimes comes a little too close to the worst of The Office's Michael Scott. But as soon as the play-within-the-play kicks in at the end, with such awesomely terrible songs as "Rock Me Sexy Jesus," it's all gold. Throw in Amy Poehler, Catherine Keener, and Elizabeth Shue (as herself) in minor roles, and you've got everything needed for a great rental.

Wanted


When I first saw the trailer for Wanted, I thought it looked like a lame Matrix rip-off. After having seen it, I realize it is in fact an awesome Matrix rip-off. With Fight Club mimicking voiceover and such cheesy special effects as a bullet whizzing back into the gun it was fired from, there's nothing the movie won't unapologetically steal. And such no-holds-barred ridiculousness is exactly what a dumb action movie needs.

The plot has something to do with James McAvoy's office drone (Neo) being recruited by Angelina Jolie's more-creepy-than-hot shooter (Trinity) into a secret society of assassins led by Morgan Freeman (Morpheus). If you doubt that McAvoy, after The Last King of Scotland and Atonement, could make a credible action hero, you're probably right. But his hilarious overacting shows he's fully in on the fun. The plot twists at the end make little sense, but I'd be disappointed if they did. Wanted won't revolutionize how action movies look, but it's a great chance to turn off your brain.

On DVD: Hancock

Grade: B



Hancock starts with a pretty funny premise: What if a superhero was an alcoholic, apathetic fuck-up? And for the first half of the movie, this premise proves solidly entertaining. A lot of that has to do with the casting. Will Smith works well as the titular hero not only because he keeps you rooting for the not always likable Hancock, but because the idea of Will Smith as that type of asshole is itself part of the joke. Jason Bateman is also great as a Michael Bluth-like PR man named Ray who wants to help the world and thinks he can start with Hancock. His energy balances well with Hancock's initial gruffness. Between Hancock's destructive city-saving methods and his attempts to follow Ray's advice, there's plenty of comic material to be had.

Yet it seems the writers didn't think that premise could sustain a feature film. Maybe so, but that's no reason to practically start from scratch midway through as Hancock learns about who he is. Had Hancock mentioned his amnesia earlier, perhaps it might connect better. Or if his struggle to be liked wasn't completely solved midway through. Also, the first half is a comedy, the second half's not. The first half makes superheroes real, the second half is much more about mythology. But most importantly, the second half just isn't as good. The likability of leads Smith, Bateman, and Charlize Theron as Ray's wife goes a long way, as does goodwill earned early on. But you might feel somewhat duped if you went in expecting what the trailers promise.

On DVD: The Visitor

Grade: A-



The Visitor should have been a series of cliches. It's a message movie, a cross-cultural connections movie, and an old-guy-learns-to-live movie. By not pushing any of those too hard, it succeeds.

Richard Jenkins, a character actor best known as the dead dad on Six Feet Under, plays Professor Walter Vale, a man who sleepwalks through life. Changing the year on his course syllabus is the most thought he puts into his teaching. He tries to learn piano to remember his dead wife. But on a trip to New York, he finds his apartment has been rented out to Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Jekesai Gurira), a couple of illegal immigrants. After letting them stay, he befriends Tarek and learns to play the drums. And when Tarek gets arrested as an illegal immigrant, Walter feels compelled to help, especially as he connects with Tarek's mom, Mouna (Hiam Abbass).

Writer/director Thomas McCarthy (who also made the very enjoyable indie The Station Agent) has a lot to say about the treatment of immigrants in the United States today. But that thankfully takes a backseat to the characters. The message is there in service to the story and only once feels remotely didactic. Even then, it is more of a character moment than a lesson. By avoiding didacticism, the movie's point is far more effective.

McCarthy is more guilty of the cross-cultural cliche, but his look at the immigrant community in New York makes up for it. The street fair where Zainab sells her jewelry, filled with people from all over the world, is a part of New York less often seen on film. But Tarek is perhaps too good of a person to be wholly believable. Warm and friendly to Walter and the polar opposite of a terrorist, he makes a convenient sacrificial lamb for the film's message on immigration. But perhaps thanks to the actor, the character still feels real.

The heart of the movie though lies with Jenkins' central performance. Walter is hardly the grumpy grandfather from Heidi. He is after all nice enough to let Tarek and Zainab stay. He is just understandably lonely and bored with life. As Walter comes to care about first Tarek and then Mouna, Jenkins shows in the smallest of ways how drastically Walter's life has changed. He keeps the movie centered on the emotional, so that it never feels like a political film. Like Walter, The Visitor is small and low-key but packs a lot of heart. It was easy to miss it in theaters, but make sure to catch it on DVD.