I’m Not There: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

The musical biopic genre sorely needed a fresh approach, something that wasn’t going to follow the paint-by-numbers “Behind the Music” formula of rise, fall (due to drugs, of course), rise from the ashes, and eventual contentment that most of these stories (Ray, Walk the Line, and the upcoming parody Walk Hard) seem to follow, but could still sum up the career and capture the creative spirit of the musician, and that’s exactly what Todd Haynes has done for Bob Dylan with I’m Not There.

Haynes’ choice to use six different actors to portray Dylan (or a Dylan-esque figure) seems head-scratching, but think of each actor and story segment as a representation of a certain phase of his career (for example, a 12-year-old black kid embodying the early development of Dylan’s musical tastes and style, which was heavily influenced by the blues) and the whole idea makes such brilliant sense – even if you’re not overly familiar with Dylan’s biography, which I’m not – that you wonder why no one’s ever tried it before.

Not all of the segments work (Richard Gere’s was boring and didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the movie), but the flashiest and most radical interpretation is Cate Blanchett’s androgynous portrayal of the late 1960s, Don’t Look Back incarnation of Dylan that seemed utterly unlikable, yet was surely formed by the endless attempts by fans and media to mold him and his music into the defining voice of a generation, a burden that would probably make almost any artist run and hide. Blanchett’s performance might be seen as too gimmicky to deserve an Academy Award (although you could probably say the same thing about her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator), but she should absolutely score a nomination and if she wasn’t already considered the best actress on the planet, this should give her the title.

Lions for Lambs: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

When I first saw the teaser trailer for Lions for Lambs, I was a little bit irritated because it didn’t tell me much about the movie, other than Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise, and Robert Redford were in it – with Cruise asking Streep if she wants to win the war on terror and Redford scolding someone with “Rome is burning, son!  And the problem is us, all of us, who do nothing!” – and the story probably had to do something with the war in Iraq.

It turns out, however, that the trailer (again, a teaser) captured almost everything this movie is about, which is basically a 90-minute lecture by Redford (though he didn’t write the screenplay) directed at three sources: the government, for getting us into this predicament and appearing to be clueless as to how to get us out of it; the media, for brainlessly selling this war to the American people without asking tougher questions and challenging those in power; and young people – perhaps college students, more specifically – for being too cynical and apathetic to affect change in this country when they’re in an ideal position to do so.  But the actors most certainly sell it, especially Redford as the antagonistic, yet nurturing professor that many of us were fortunate to learn from in college, along with Cruise in a role that’s perfect for him, because his character is just a little too polished, but very opinionated, and arrogant enough to think he has all the answers.

Those who prefer to go to the movies to escape that sort of stuff or just don’t prefer having a finger wagged at them will probably hate this thing (and judging from the critical consensus and last weekend’s box office, that’s the majority opinion), but if you really liked The West Wing, and enjoyed seeing characters trading intelligent, passionate ideas and opinions, engaged in serve-and-volley dialogue that makes you think about the world we’re currently living in, you might just dig it.

The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford: A Four-Sentence Movie Review By the Windbag Ian Casselberry

Whenever I hear that a movie is featuring Jesse James, I’m reminded of the dozens of times I watched The Long Riders on whatever movie channel we had once we got cable, how glorious the gunplay and sex (and Caine as a cowboy!) was to my grade-school self, and how that movie (along with the Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone flicks) surely must have influenced my current affection for Westerns.  Unfortunately, The Long Riders was a long time ago, and to the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been a portrayal of Jesse James (and that includes the one with Colin Farrell and the chick from Heroes) that’s come anywhere near a movie that made me run around our townhouse complex with my friends, shooting die-cast metal six-shooters (cap guns were the shiznit, I reckon), and constantly getting me in trouble with neighbors – and thus the manager of our complex.

Going into this version of the James story, I knew that it was going to be slowly and deliberately paced, with plenty of long, lingering shots of wheat stalks swaying in the wind and clouds moving along the sky, along with the added tedium of characters contemplating… whatever the hell the voiceover narration (blurgh) told us they were contemplating, but was also confident that the presence of Sam Shepard (for any Western to be good, it must have Shepard, Sam Elliott, or Robert Duvall in the cast), as well as the assassination referenced in the title meant that the movie wouldn’t be missing too many key ingredients.

The more I think about it, the more I feel like the fable-like tone of the movie – including the camera’s loving adoration of Brad Pitt simulating the culture’s fascination with the outlaw, and everyone in James’ company shivering with fear and suspicion, reminding us that this “hero” was a thief and a killer – is actually perfect, better suited to deal with a legend and whatever tales might come with that, rather than attempt a closely historical account that could demystify any memories – from movies, storybook, or otherwise – that some of us might still enjoy.

Pushing Daisies: A Four-Sentence TV Review

Maybe it makes me feel like a smarter pop culture consumer, or maybe I just yearn for something different among much of the like-minded entertainment we’re served these days, but I tend to have a soft spot for movies and TV shows (and books, even) that are near-impossible to sum up in one sentence, and Pushing Daisies most certainly fits in that category.

Okay, it’s the show about the guy who can bring people back from the dead with one touch and happens to use that talent to solve murders on the side, which helps supplement his pie shop, but that’s kind of a run-on sentence, and if you’ve been reading these Four Sentence Reviews for a while, you know I don’t often favor such comma-filled, punctuation-exploiting, word-bloated rambles.

I’m not sure there’s ever been a television show so infused with whimsy, romance, and pathos, featuring an utterly charming lead character who’s encountered so much tragedy in his life that it compels him to shut himself off from many of the emotional comforts we all crave, and whose supernatural talent pays the bills, but also happens to keep him from experiencing the only true happiness he’s ever really wanted.  Not everyone will like Pushing Daisies (I can think of some friends who might not care for it), and its quirky, goofy, sweet, surrealist tone (which is very reminiscent of the movie Amelie, if you saw that) will either be loved or hated by viewers, but if the rest of the series lives up to the pilot episode that premiered last Wednesday, this is a show that deserves to be appreciated for daring to be different and challenging the limits of programming that television can give us.

3:10 to Yuma: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

“Women want to be with him, and men want to be him” is a cliche often reserved for figures such as James Bond or George Clooney, but I think it can also apply to Ben Wade, the roguishly charming, lethally homicidal, yet curiously ethical outlaw played by Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma. At certain points during the movie, it seemed almost comical to me how Wade magnetically attracts the attention of anyone in the room with him (especially the few women in the story; “Howdy, I’m Ben Wade – bad-ass and total sex machine“), but it’s entirely believable, given that outlaws were likely the celebrities of their day. In the presence of such a mythic figure, people let their curiosities and inferiorities overwhelm them, which explains the motivations of every other character in the story – particularly Christian Bale’s Dan Evans, who seeks to redeem himself in the eyes of a family and community that looks down upon him – and gives Wade the physical and psychological advantage in every situation. If I’ve made this sound all character-driven and talky, don’t worry because it also brings all the gunfighting, shoot-em-up violence you could ever want in a modern Western, mostly thanks to Wade’s sidekick, Charlie Prince, who allows Ben Foster to re-invent himself from a guy who’s played mostly wussies (like on Six Feet Under) to an unhinged killing machine.

The King of Kong: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

As someone who spent many of his pre-adolescent days pushing quarters into arcade video games, The King of Kong showed me what I could’ve been if I’d had a) more disposable income at that age, b) a little bit of discipline (I could give up on something fast if I wasn’t any good at it), c) fewer interests (comic books and drawing were big with me back then), and d) perhaps a better mode of transportation than a bicycle.

But even if I’d taken video gaming more seriously, I’m not sure I’d have reached the smileless obsessiveness of guys like Billy Mitchell, who assumes a cold-blooded, take-no-prisoners pose to not only explain his achievements in his chosen hobby, but to defend the honor and presumed integrity of the record scores he’s set, and makes an absolutely fantastic villain for this documentary. The story also has a perfect underdog hero in Steve Wiebe, a husband and father of two (the scene in which Wiebe plays his record-setting game while his son is pleading with him for attention is one of the funniest things you’ll ever see/hear), who plays Donkey Kong as a way to console himself after being laid off from his engineering job, finds a sense of purpose in pursuing Mitchell’s record score, and seeks some fulfillment in a life that’s presented quite a few letdowns.

The world these people live in, or choose to enter, is so bizarre – with all of its self-imposed rules, ethics, biases, and alliances – that it almost seems like another existence (well, maybe not for those of us who spent our summers having our senses flooded by electronic beeps and jingles in darkened arcades), yet the movie gets you to feel something – whether it’s sympathy, empathy, or disdain – for them, which is kind of amazing to experience.

P.S. (This doesn’t count among the four sentences) To the college kid in front of me in the ticket line who opted for a different movie because he “hates documentaries,” I feel sorry for you.

The Brave One: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

At the beginning of The Brave One, we see Jodie Foster’s character walking around New York City with a microphone and digital recorder, recording sounds of civilization for her radio show, which made me wonder if we were about to see what might happen if Ira Glass ever lost his mind and decided to go on a vigilante killing spree. That’s not quite what happens, but having a female protagonist (one whose petite size Neil Jordan emphasizes throughout the film) still provides a bit of a twist on the Charles Bronson-esque revenge movie genre.

Unfortunately, once that premise is established – despite frequent attempts to explore the psychological ramifications of what’s happened to Foster’s character and how she decides to deal with it – this turns out to be a rather conventional, violent action movie that carries an almost superhero-ish sense of empowerment fantasy with it, which I didn’t expect, given the talent in front of and behind the camera. The most interesting aspect of the story is the relationship that develops between Foster and Terrence Howard’s detective – with the vigilante who really wants to be caught (or maybe killed) because she doesn’t know what she might do next, and the cop who not only questions whether or not he can bust someone he’s become fond of but also might envy someone who gets to roll out some 9 MM justice on the scumbags of society – but it leads to an unbelievable, borderline ridiculous resolution that practically makes a joke of the entire movie.

The Host: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

What’s so wonderful about The Host is that it doesn’t follow any of the monster movie conventions that we’ve become accustomed to over decades of watching these sorts of films. Instead of teasing us with little glimpses of whatever mutant fish-thing is terrorizing Seoul, keeping the beast in the shadows while building up to a full reveal in the movie’s climax, the filmmakers throw the monster right in your face in full daylight near the beginning of the story. You see how it moves across land with two big arms, you see its freakish jaw with four parts that fly open to reveal all kinds of sharp teeth, you see the fins and flappers that protrude from various parts of its body with no seeming rhyme, reason, or symmetry, and you see that tail that not only can snare its prey, but also propel it acrobatically beneath man-made structures like nothing we’ve ever seen before.

Why do Asian filmmakers seem to be able to make better monster movies than their American counterparts (excepting – hopefully – J.J. Abrams’ “Cloverfield/Monstrous/01-18-08/Overnight“), seamlessly mixing comedy and tragedy with action, drama, and character development, while also including a little bit of a message about environmentalism?

Rescue Dawn: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

I’m so grateful this movie wasn’t made in the ’80s, because it probably would’ve starred Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Sylvester Stallone, depicting Dieter Dengler as some superhuman bad-ass who could mow down dozens of Asians with a gun that’s supposed to be mounted on a helicopter, rather than held by hand, while also making bombs out of bamboo, rice, and grass that could wipe out entire prison camps, and making certain friends I grew up with feel as if they had some sort of personal connection to a war that ended when they weren’t even born yet.

Anyway, I keep telling myself that someday I’m going to have a week-long, Netflix-fueled Werner Herzog marathon, as I’ve often heard various film critics and assorted friends speak glowingly of the obsessive characters whose stories he creates during insanely grueling film shoots. I don’t know if Rescue Dawn is toned-down or more conventional Herzog, but it’s apparent that Dengler’s eventual triumph over both his captors and the Laotian jungle he escaped into is a story that Herzog admires greatly. Christian Bale might be one of the great underrated actors of our time, especially considering what he puts his body through for each role, but the real revelation in this movie is Steve Zahn, who shows he is capable of much, much more than the stupid goofball roles Hollywood has given him throughout most of his career.

Live Free or Die Hard: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

A few years ago, Mis Hooz and I were watching Mission: Impossible II, and after a scene in which Tom Cruise and Dougray Scott leaped off of motorcycles going full-speed and collided with each other in the air, a woman behind us blurted out “What-ever!” and we were cracking up for the rest of the movie. I was reminded of that several times while watching Live Free or Die Hard, especially when Bruce Willis drove a police car full-speed at a toll booth, presumably quite comfortable in the knowledge that the car wouldn’t go through the booth, but somehow use the booth as a ramp that would launch it into a helicopter at least 50 feet above the ground. John McClane has that kind of understanding of physics, yet apparently has next to no knowledge of computers, even though one might imagine it would be difficult to be promoted to lieutenant detective in the NYPD without knowing how to use one. But don’t get me wrong – I was pretty impressed with how Len Wiseman managed to make typing, downloading, and plugging in seem rather exciting, but mostly, I enjoyed the hell out of seeing $#!+ get blown up, jacked up, and shot up real good.