THE BOX The Box is the latest picture from writer-director Richard Kelly, who with the cult fave Donnie Darko proved that he’s one filmmaker able to think outside the box (ouch). Adapting Richard Matheson’s short story “Button, Button,” Kelly has fashioned a complex tale out of a simple premise: A solemn stranger (Frank Langella) hands a married couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) a box and informs them that if they press the button on top, someone they don’t know will die but they’ll be rewarded with one million dollars for their action. It’s not spoiling anything to reveal that the button does indeed get pushed (otherwise, it would be one helluva short flick), but no viewer can be expected to predict the myriad directions in which the movie travels. At its heart a fable about the moral choices we make and accepting the consequences of our actions, the film remains an original even as it touches upon other literary and cinematic sources to enhance its appeal: Sartre’s No Exit plays a part, as does the writing of Arthur C. Clarke (the latter in turn leading to a visual sequence worthy of 2001: A Space Odyssey, itself based on Clarke’s story “The Sentinel”). Admittedly, The Box doesn’t hold up as a morning-after title, since reflecting on its events will reveal a fair share of plotholes. But both its imagination and its ambition sprint far beyond anything offered in the creatively neutered likes of A Christmas Carol or Law Abiding Citizen, and Kelly doesn’t cheat in the final reels in a grasping effort to placate timid moviegoers. Conscientious in its actions yet radical in its approach, The Box demonstrates that, in this instance anyway, it’s hip to be square. ***
A CHRISTMAS CAROL Officially, the title is Disney’s A Christmas Carol, which is acceptable since it sure as hell isn’t Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. While it might be true that this animated version retains more of the literary classic than might reasonably be expected, it’s also accurate to state that a key ingredient of the novel – namely, its humanist spirit – is largely missing from this chilly interpretation. Director Robert Zemeckis, who used to make fun movies in which the spectacular special effects served the story and not the other way around (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump), has become obsessed with the motion capture process (this is his third consecutive picture utilizing this technique, following The Polar Express and Beowulf), and one gets the sense that he chose the Dickens chestnut not because of a desire to revive its moral tale for a new generation but because it seemed like a suitable vehicle for his new techno-toys. But Zemeckis can’t keep still, and rather than remain within the parameters of the meaty story, he follows in the footsteps of the recent Where the Wild Things Are adaptation by fleshing out a story that didn’t exactly cry out for extraneous material. But while Wild Things‘ additions at least made thematic sense, Zemeckis pads the material with such nonsense as Scrooge (Jim Carrey) being blasted into the stratosphere or dashing through the cobbled streets of London (a chase scene? Really?) while simultaneously turning into the incredible shrinking man. Carrey gives the role of the miserly Scrooge his all (he also voices a half-dozen other characters), and the 3-D effects (offered in select theaters) are expertly realized. But you don’t need glasses – 3-D or otherwise – to see that this holiday release is too diluted for adults, too frightening for children, and too tiresome for just about everybody. *1/2
COCO BEFORE CHANEL Like Young Mr. Lincoln, Butch and Sundance: The Early Years and the Che Guevara yarn The Motorcycle Diaries, Coco Before Chanel is one of those films that promises audiences a peek at the formative years of a historical figure, in that underreported stretch of life before fame (or, in some cases, infamy) came calling. Audrey Tautou plays Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, who went on to become one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century. For now, Coco is spotted as a struggling showgirl who makes the acquaintance of the rich Etienne Balsan (Benoit Poelvoorde) and soon becomes the in-house mistress at his large country estate. Writer-director Anne Fontaine (co-scripting with Camille Fontaine) initially downplays Coco’s sartorial impulses to such a large degree that the film never makes a strong connection between the opportunistic waif presented here and the international icon that would later rock the couture culture. Tautou’s Coco thus never emerges completely from the shadows, while two key characters, her actress friend (Emmanuelle Devos) and her one true love (Alessandro Nivola), never break out of their sketchily drawn biopic stances. That leaves the complex Balsan – equal parts sensitive gentleman and drunken boor – as the most interesting person on display, and Poelvoorde delivers a strong performance in the role. Ultimately, he’s the one who holds this knotty yarn in place. **1/2
COUPLES RETREAT For all its visual splendor, Couples Retreat never feels as liberating as its locale. Working from a script by Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau and Dana Fox, director Peter Billingsley (A Christmas Story‘s Ralphie, all grown up) oversees the project more like a foreman making sure the product gets turned out rather than a filmmaker injecting any personal style into the proceedings, leaving it to certain capable actors to provide any juice via well-timed witticisms and double takes. The premise finds married couple Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) imploring their friends to join them on a vacation to an oceanic paradise where the purpose is to reconnect spouses experiencing turbulence in their unions. The other six – overworked but content couple Dave (Vaughn) and Ronnie (Malin Ackerman), bickering spouses Joey (Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis), and divorce’ Shane (Faizon Love) and his 20-year-old girlfriend Trudy (Kali Hawk) – are led to believe that the workshops and counseling sessions are optional, but they quickly learn that everyone is required to take part. Before long, nerves are frayed, feelings are hurt, and all the relationships teeter on the edge of disaster. Amidst all the low-simmer shenanigans, Couples Retreat does make some salient (if obvious) points about the inherent difficulties in keeping any marriage fresh and vital. The movie would have benefitted from a more realistic ending than the feel-good slop force-fed to audiences by the heaping spoonful, but along the way, it at least feints in the direction of testiness before backing off. The characters played by Bateman and Hawk are too annoying to be funny, while Bell herself is too bland to be anything. But Ackerman and Love are pleasing to watch, while the lion’s share of the barbs are adroitly handled by Davis, Favreau and Vaughn. Ultimately, though, Couples Retreat is too mellow for its own good. Hardly paradise, it’s more like the cinematic equivalent of a leisurely walk around the park. **1/2
LAW ABIDING CITIZEN Vigilante justice in real life is, to put it mildly, highly problematic, but when it comes to cinema, who doesn’t occasionally feel some measure of catharsis in watching a sympathetic protagonist skirt around a deeply flawed legal system and exact his revenge on his own terms? Law Abiding Citizen initially appears as if it will be a modern rendition of the black-and-white Death Wish, as loving family man Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) must watch helplessly as his wife and little girl are murdered right in front of him. The killer (Christian Stolte) and his accomplice (Josh Stewart) are apprehended, but while Clyde wants them to pay for their crime, his lawyer Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx), who’s only interested in maintaining his high conviction-rate percentage, negotiates a deal. Cut to 10 years later, and Clyde sets out to get his revenge – not only on the criminals but also on the whole judicial system that failed them. Initially, Law Abiding Citizen makes all the right moves, and it’s fun to watch Clyde punch holes in the whole manner in which this country handles its criminal cases. It soon becomes clear that the film is going past the simple morality of Death Wish, which is fine had it continued to offer viewers thought-provoking scenarios. Instead, this turns into an ugly, sordid affair, a gruesome melodrama that, too afraid to tackle the issues it brings up, instead elects to transform into a ridiculous thriller about a psychopath terrorizing a city. Foxx’s character is ostensibly supposed to be the hero – or at least turn into one before the end – but Nick Rice remains a shallow, unrepentant lout whose final act is designed to earn audience approval but instead goes down about as easy as spoiled milk. By the end, the murdered wife and daughter are all but forgotten, and Clyde Shelton’s pain has been trivialized to an offensive degree. Justice may be blind, but it’s got 20/20 vision when compared to this movie that stumbles around in the dark with no hope of providing illumination. *1/2
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS Loopy enough to stand out from the homogenized pack but not bold enough to truly go the distance, this eccentric satire (inspired by Jon Ronson’s nonfiction book of the same name) proves to be a modestly pleasing piffle in which journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor, sincere but straightjacketed by an undemanding role) searches for a great story on the outskirts of the Iraq War and finds one in Lyn Cassady (George Clooney). Cassady claims to be a former super-soldier, a military man who had been trained in the ways of the paranormal in order to use psychic abilities to combat the enemy. Cassady and his fellow recruits flourished under the tutelage of Vietnam War vet Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), but once a devious soldier named Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey) entered the picture, everything went to hell. Now many years later, Cassady insists to Wilton that he’s on a covert mission, and he drags the inquisitive yet uncomprehending reporter along with him. Clooney and Bridges are both adept at giving off-kilter performances (let’s not forget that they’ve both headlined quirky Coen comedies), and they achieve the proper buzz in a picture that, until a protracted finale, gets high off the fumes of its own freewheeling inclinations. ***
A SERIOUS MAN Unpredictability is a constant in the Coen Brothers canon, but after the heavy lifting involved with the Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men, it wasn’t too surprising to see them tackle lighter fare with the quirky Burn After Reading. A Serious Man, however, defies all expectations. In many ways, it feels like a minor effort from Joel and Ethan (a sensation massaged by its modest production values and no-name cast), yet its subject matter is nothing less than man’s relationship with God. It’s a comedy through and through, yet it frequently carries the weight of a Biblical tragedy. In short, it’s unclassifiable – and also one of the best movies of the year. It audaciously begins with a Yiddish fable set in the far past before switching to the more recent past (1967) via the audible strains of Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love.” Its protagonist is Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), a Jewish teacher whose life start to unravel for no apparent rhyme or reason. His shot at tenure might get compromised by derogatory (and anonymous) letters sent to the school board, he has to contend with a failing student (David Kang) offering him a bribe, his socially inept brother (Richard Kind) is a nuisance and a leech, and his wife (Sari Lennick) has decided to leave him for “a serious man” (Fred Melamed). A weak-willed individual, Larry seeks answers for his Job-like predicament, but will he ultimately embrace his faith or reject it? The mysteries faced by the picture’s audiences are no more clear than the mysteries faced by Larry – small wonder, then, that the film’s best (or at least most quotable) line is “Embrace the mystery” – but then the Coens have never been one to do all the thinking for their fans. A dense, ambiguous work that doubtless rewards repeat viewings, A Serious Man examines the place that religion occupies in this stained world and (much like The Box) wonders just how far greater forces should take cause-and-effect when fundamentally decent people are involved. Regardless of how one interprets the results, it’s clear that A Serious Man is a celluloid godsend. ***1/2
THIS IS IT A sadness permeates the opening scene in the behind-the-scenes documentary This Is It, but it has nothing to do with Michael Jackson’s death. Instead, the sequence – filmed, like the rest of the movie, while Jackson was very much alive – centers on the talented young dancers and singers who auditioned to be a part of the King of Pop’s planned series of London concerts. As each person describes the thrill of being included in the Jackson legacy – many of them tearing up as they speak – they comment on how much this opportunity means to them, with a couple stating that this concert even gives them a newfound purpose in their unfocused lives. It’s a heartbreaking sequence, considering that Jackson’s death meant that none would be able to live the dream that seemed within their collective grasp. It’s a smart way to open the film, filling audience members with emotion before the man himself takes the stage to prepare for his mammoth undertaking. After all, many folks (myself included) turned away from Jackson once he made the complete transformation to tabloid freak, and, to be sure, certain audience members are sure to experience a initial wave of nausea as this physical grotesquerie with a dubious history gets ready for his close-up. But then an amazing thing happens. It starts with the music, those generation-spanning hits that have the power to produce instant bouts of affectionate nostalgia. Then there come the dance steps, not as fast and furious as before, but still deft enough to catch the eye. And finally, there’s the sheer spectacle, the showmanship that was arguably as responsible for keeping MJ in the light as any other aspect of his carefully built persona. Combined, these element make resistance futile, and for two shimmering hours, all the ghosts of scandals past melt away, leaving in their wake a boy whose only desire is to dazzle. Ultimately, This Is It doesn’t quite feel like a documentary, nor does it seem like a concert film. It’s clearly a love letter to the fans, but, perhaps more importantly, it’s an olive branch to the latter-day critics, cynics and naysayers, all of whom have probably shown up to bury Jackson, not praise him. But the joke’s on us. The movie keeps sensationalism and sordidness at bay, and by doing so, it allows us one final look at the Man in the Mirror, an unblemished view that reflects back nothing but a desire to let the music play. ***1/2
2012 The perfect follow-up for those moviegoers who were simply crushed when Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen wrapped up at a too-brief 142 minutes, 2012 contributes another 158 minutes to the cause of wham-bam-thank-you-man cinema. No effect is too preposterous, no sound too deafening, and no cliché too enormous to be left out of the latest end-of-the-world effort from director Roland Emmerich, who there but for the grace of God goes Michael Bay. 2012 brushes through the fuzzy science – basically, the sun is responsible for Earth’s impending doom, predicted by the Mayans way back when – in order to devote more of its time to its inane assortment of stock characters and the CGI effects that will wow some but fail to impress others (they alternate between impressive and obvious). John Cusack is the all-American protagonist, a stock underachiever who must rise from Everyman to Superman in order to save not only himself but his fractured family unit (ex-wife, distant son, chipper daughter). There’s also the well-meaning scientist (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the duplicitous politician (Oliver Platt), the self-sacrificing U.S. president (Danny Glover), the conspiracy-theory nut (Woody Harrelson, whose zealotry was a lot more fun to watch in Zombieland), and so on. Even “master of disaster” Irwin Allen liked to shake up the status quo in such films as The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, but Emmerich has no imagination: His A-listers live, his support players die. Worse, he subscribes to a rigid ethical code usually reserved for slasher films and fundamentalist diatribes: Likable characters tempted by the flesh suffer mean-spirited ends, as does anyone who dares to stand in the way of traditional family values. Such sermonizing takes a back seat, of course, to action sequences which run on the same loop: A vehicle misses getting crushed by only this much. It’s marginally exciting the first 20 times it happens, less so the subsequent 30 times it’s shown. Then again, practically everything about the picture is lazy and uninspired, making 2012 just one more blockbuster that’s strictly by the numbers. *1/2
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE In tackling Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s book, writer Spike Jonze and his co-scripter Dave Eggers have a difficult problem to overcome. Because Sendak’s book is so slender – certainly not enough to fill a 100-minute movie – the pair had to build on characterizations, alter some connecting tissues, and concoct entirely new scenes. The end result isn’t a bastardization of the literary classic, but neither is it a further canonization of the acclaimed source. It’s the sort of film certain to be poked, prodded, discussed, dismissed and/or deified. But ignored? Never. Max Records plays young Max, a troubled child not very adept at dealing with anger or frustration. After a spat with his single mom (Catherine Keener), Max bolts from the house, soon stumbling on a body of water where a small boat awaits him. Max sails away and eventually arrives at an island inhabited by large, furry beasts who alternate between sounding like confused children and neurotic adults. Max especially bonds with Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini), the most temperamental of the monsters, but he enjoys spending time with all these behemoths as they play various games and generally have a good time. But petty squabbles erupt among the beasts, and Max, who’s been made their leader, clearly doesn’t always have the answers or advice that the others hope to hear. Technically, Where the Wild Things Are is a stunning achievement, and the beasts – a combination of costumes and CGI – particularly look astonishing. But there’s a reason why Sendak’s book runs only a few dozen pages, and by blowing up the story, Jonze has in effect stripped it of much of its wide-eyed wonder. Both the book and the movie are children’s tales sporting a dark underbelly, but the film version, unlike its predecessor, is often too literal, resulting in a suffocating atmosphere that further undermines the simplicity of the tale. Like the wild things inhabiting Max’s world, it’s fascinating but also lumbering – and (to paraphrase The Troggs) it’s unlikely to make everyone’s heart sing. **1/2
This article appears in Nov 24-30, 2009.
