Movie #7: Mamma Mia (2008)

I feel a little bad writing this review. Not because I'm embarrassed I watched MAMMA MIA; I won't even use the excuse that it was my wife's idea to watch it. It was, but I could have easily said "no" and left it at that. I was interested, liked the cast, and don't really mind the music of ABBA, even if I can't say I'm much of a fan.

Oh, man. I am so not the target demographic for this film.

The basic premise is that Sophia, a young, vibrant and perfectly stereotypical Musical Girl^tm is about to married at her mother's idyllic hotel on the coast of Greece. She never knew who her father was, so after rummaging through her mother's diary she finds three potential candidates and secretly invites them all to her wedding. Hi-jinks ensue, all to the music of ABBA.

That's about it. There's some raunchy fun courtesy of Christine Baranski and Julie Walters, and it's slightly uncomfortable but strangely appealing to watch Meryl Streep sing and dance and basically act like she's 17 years old. But other than that MAMMA MIA is tired, proposterous in ways that echo better musicals without overcoming it, and even worse, a little boring. I suspect this would work much better in its Broadway incarnation than it does dressed up like a movie.

Movie #6: The Reader (2008)

Well written, well acted and executed with clarity and finesse, THE READER, based on the short novel by Bernard Schlink, is a solid piece of filmmaking that unfortunately suffers from being just that: a solid piece of filmmaking. It's a Volvo: solid, reliable, and gets you where you want to go, but not the type of ride you bring out to the weekend car show at the local Denny's.

Michael Berg is 15 when he meets Hanna, a much older woman who collects fares on the train in late 1950's Germany. Drawn together in a passionate affair for the summer, their lovemaking is intermingled with longer and longer bouts of Michael reading to Hanna. Why Hanna initiates this is uncertain, but as the summer unfolds it becomes apparent that the affair awakens yearnings and passions in both of them. The affair ends inexplicably, and Michael returns to his life, attending University and majoring in law. Now in his 20's, he crosses paths with Hanna again, this time as he observes a trial against a group of women accused of war crimes in WWII. Hanna is one of the accused, a Nazi prison guard at Auschwitz.

Director Stephen Daldry and screenwriter David Hare do a good job of moving the story along, jumping back and forth in time and using the adult Michael's (played by Ralph Fiennes) visit by his daughter as a framing device. Kate Winslet give another in a string of strong performances, having to both play across a number of years and garner the audience's support despite her crimes. But the standout performance is by David Kross as the young Michael Berg who, at 18, displays a masterful command of his emotions and abilities. Everything comes together just as it should, but besides Kross' performance THE READER refuses to stand out as anything other than a solid, strong film, which should be more than enough but, somehow, isn't.

Movie #5: My Bloody Valentine 3D (2009)

After traffic mishaps caused me to miss the showings for SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and GRAN TORINO I decided to jump in and experience my first live-action 3D film. MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D is a pseudo-sequel to the original schlocky 1981 horror movie. The major plot points of the original (kids hold a Valentine's Day party at an abandoned mine and are murdered by a psycho miner using a pick-axe) serve and the prologue to tell the story of what happens to the same town 10 years later when a series of killings lead the townsfolk to believe that the original killer isn't as dead as believed.

The 3D effects are generally a lot of fun, although a lot of scenes featuring establishing shots of either the town or cars made everything look like toys. The opening of the film has the best use of the effect, as the camera slowly moves from room to room in the hospital where, until recently, killer Harry Warden was in a coma. The films earns its R rating as body after body drip from the screen. Unfortunately the promise of the opening doesn't last through the rest of the movie, as a series of new murders occur and it's up to a batch of unbelievable 20-somethings to figure out who did it and why. The murders, when they occur, are fun to watch and there are some fun black moments, but lapses in logic and poor acting (except for Tom Atkins, who is great) leave this just another muddled mess in the end that's absolutely unnecessary in 2D.

A lot of people will argue that I'm not getting the point, that films like this are meant to be bad, and the fun is in the blood and guts and fresh ways of using a pick-axe. MY BLOODY VALENTINE has some fun to be sure, and the 3D is a pretty fun way to go for a horror movie.

But c'mon...this isn't a very good movie. If you know that, and you're with a bunch of friends and looking for some laughs and - by all means check MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D out as long as you can see it in 3D. In all other respects this is a completely unnecessary movie.

Short and Punchy

That's the tract I'm trying to take with the next batch of reviews, of which there are several. I really want to keep the majority of these short and to the point, with the rule of one poster of DVD cover image and one larger image at the end of the review, unless it's something (like I did with BREATHLESS) where I purposefully want to take a deeper view.

Also: the essay about the Oscar nominations is long, rambling, and seems to change direction. I know: I originally had something entirely different there that was about 4,000 words, which was way too long. I ripped out huge chunks of it, added new stuff actually related to the nominations, and that's why the piece feels rudderless and largely devoid of any style. I'm probably going to clean it up in the next few days when I have some time.

In the meantime,distract yourself with some of fine writing courtesy of the people listed over to the right. Great stuff.

Oscar Ennui

It wouldn't be much of a film blog if I didn't take a moment to talk about today's announcement of the Academy Award nominations.

In a word...meh.

Okay...that was the short version. Allow me to elaborate.

Was anyone really that surprised by what was nominated? Did you really think THE DARK KNIGHT had a chance? Understand: I really liked it a lot, but it wasn't a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination, and how could it have possibly stood up against the lure of the obvious Oscar bait that came out on late November and December?

To be honest I'm more bored than anything else. When the nominations were announced there was very little in the way of genuine surprise. On the good side Richard Jenkins and Robert Downey jr. both got nominations for outstanding work, but nothing for Michelle Williams in WENDY AND LUCY or anything for HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. Hooray for a screenwriting nod to IN BRUGES, but sadly the Coen Brothers get shut out. For every cheer there's a roar of rage.

But wait a minute. Isn't this how it's always been?

When I was younger it was a point of pride that I would quietly tip-toe out to the den in the early morning to sit in the blue glow of my television set, pad and paper in hand, an orange juice or coffee (when I was older) within easy reach, eagerly awaiting the nominations. Every announcement was a cause for celebration or dismissal, and if nothing it was a chance to argue endlessly with friends over what got left out, what would win and what should win.

Maybe a part of this was attributable to my youthful innocence and fairly narrow scope of film. Unless it was at my local multiplex or Blockbuster the chance I would be aware of many smaller or (God forbid) foreign films was practically nonexistent. I was content with what was presented to me as the cream of the crop, the choicest morsels in cinema.

But then this thing called "the Internet" happened. Lines of communication effectively shrunk the physical planet almost as fast as it expanded the film world I had previously taken for granted. Not only did I begin to hear about films of every size from every corner of the world, but for the first time it was becoming economically feasible to actually see them. And not only see them, but find others who also saw it, and talk to them about it. The workload doubled: not only was I compelled to partake of this celluloid cornucopia, but I had to wade through the limitless sea of opinion that accompanied it.

I had been steadily expanding my film palette for a few years, and I began to realize how that, as large as the world of film was, even domestic film, the platter from which the Oscar nominations were derived was of an equally impressive if opposite size.

Does this mean that the nominated films are bad? Or that the choices are completely at odds with what should be awarded? Not necessarily, and despite my utter lack of interest anymore that the Academy will reach out a little further and 1) embrace a wider range of films, and 2) acknowledge that there is no set "type" of film worthy of recognition, I'm still interested in all the nominated films. So far I've see three of the Best Picture films (MILK, FROST/NIXON and THE READER), and this weekend hope to catch a few more movies that have been nominated.

I love movies - big, small...the deal I made when I was a child still stood. Amaze me, make me feel, don't cheat me and I'm yours.

That's all I ask. So let's leave the ire and rancor that this or that wasn't nominated and just do that much more to see the things that are worth seeing.