Let's Not Listen: Film and TV reviews

Diary of the Dead

I'm totally submitting this to Funny or Die

People who videotape their lives and upload it to YouTube are fucking jackasses. That’s the primary message of George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead, the fifth installment of the auteur’s zombies-can-teach-us-anything series. There’s more, ostensibly—Romero is, after all, famous for soaking his films in as much social commentary as blood. But for moviegoers who may find searching for yet another parable about our post-9/11 world tedious, Diary wields its “criticism” of bloggers and MySpace addicts as if it were the bludgeon and you the brain-feeder.

The problem isn’t so much Romero’s lack of subtlety as the emptiness behind the bile. The sequel isn’t a continuation of 2005’s apocalyptic George A. Romero’s Land of the Dead, in which survivors adjusted to coexisting with a zombie majority. Instead, Diary is the original Night of the Living Dead by way of Cloverfield: Corpses are suddenly walking again, and film student Jason Creed (Josh Close) and his generic pals are making their own mummy movie in a Pennsylvania forest when they hear the news. Most of them go all Chomsky, believing the news is exaggerated, and even once they’re proved wrong and hunker down in an RV, Jason insists on filming it all—so that the world, at least the parts of it where WiFi still works, can learn the “truth.” This does not go over well. “If it’s not on camera, it’s like it never happened, right?” sneers Jason’s annoying girlfriend, Debra (Michelle Morgan), about every five minutes. “There will always be people like you!” Jason’s alcoholic, British caricature of a professor (Scott Wentworth) says with unjustified disgust. And so on, as the gang encounters empty hospitals, a power-hungry black militia, and a mute Amish dude who’s handy with a stick of dynamite.

Also: zombies, of course, and though Romero doesn’t really do anything new with them—he even recycles a shot from his Day of the Dead—he does come up with some bloody/cool disposal ideas, including a murder-suicide. Plus, Diary won’t make you spill your own guts; its hand-held camera feels wielded by a professional and not, as in Cloverfield, a spastic 8-year-old. It’s even edited: Debra, as she explains in droning voice-over, had a change of heart and helped Jason put together the project we’re watching, The Death of Death, including not just their own footage but images of Katrina, riots, and other moments of real-world chaos they grabbed from the Internet. The visuals are interesting; Debra’s constant analysis of humanity, video-obsessed or otherwise, is not. “It used to be us against us, now it’s us against them,” she intones, meaninglessly. “Except they…are us.” Whatever. Could someone eat her already?

Nanking - The Violin

There’s a chance you might have learned a few facts about Japan’s invasion of Nanking, China, while studying World War II in school or zoned out in front of the History Channel. In 1937, you might recall, the Japanese bombed the capital of China at the time until it fell, then tortured, killed, and raped some 200,000 citizens within six weeks. Another 200,000 found refuge in the “Safety Zone,” a small piece of land established and guarded by ­Westerners—among them a Nazi businessman—who sought to spare the Chinese too poor to flee as the Japanese soldiers adopted what was called the Three Alls Policy: Kill all, burn all, loot all. To this day, some Japanese dispute these numbers and even deny the atrocities themselves; it’s the Asian Holocaust.

You may think you know these things, but until you’ve seen Nanking, you have no idea.

In Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman’s documentary, an elderly Chinese man weeps as he recalls trying to escape with his family. His mother was stabbed as she nursed his baby brother in an attempt to quiet him; the infant was plucked by a bayonet and tossed aside like trash. For a while, both survived, the baby crawling over bodies toward his mother’s voice and drinking her milk while her wounds gushed blood. It wasn’t for long. “I thought, Mom just died,” the survivor tells the camera. “What should I do?”

Nanking, which can’t by any stretch of the imagination be considered entertainment, is full of such stories, told from various perspectives—the tormented, the tormentors, and the saviors. Even the dead speak: In addition to interviewing witnesses, Nanking’s directors also brought in actors to personify men and women who were instrumental in maintaining the Safety Zone, using their letters and diaries. It’s gimmicky, but most of the time it works. Jürgen Prochnow, as sympathetic Nazi businessman John Rabe, and John Getz, as missionary George Fitch, who smuggled 16 mm footage of the war crimes (some of which we see here), channel ghosts quite naturally and, in Getz’s case, poetically, finding a rhythm in Fitch’s words. Even Woody Harrelson, arguably the most famous face here, disappears as he stoically speaks as surgeon Bob Wilson.

Mariel Hemingway, however, is considerably less successful in a role that’s crucial to the sliver of sunshine the filmmakers try to force in the closing minutes of Nanking. Hemingway portrays Minnie Vautrin, the American dean of a women’s college located within the Safety Zone. In time, the Chinese came to refer to her as the Goddess of Mercy: Vautrin risked her life to block the Japanese from harming her students, according to tearful commentary from survivors as well as Vautrin’s own journal entries. But Hemingway never fully embodies the heroine, never lubricates her dialogue beyond table-­reading stiffness.

It’s a significant failing, but the remainder of the film is far too powerful to be sunk by it. Nanking bombards you with words and images of acts too barbaric to fully absorb. Japanese soldiers casually describe rape techniques. Old women recall sacrificing themselves to save family members. While these people speak, you see a city destroyed, its citizens running in fear or piled on top of one another when their attempts to flee backfired. The last chapter of Nanking shows the area reborn, with soaring music playing as we’re reminded of the efforts of Vautrin, documentarians, and others who put themselves at risk to not only save the Chinese but tell the world the full story. It’s here, and it’s unflinching.

 

The Violin opens with violence and closes with high tension—but in between, its pace is so leisurely and story so spare that it feels as if writer-­director Francisco Vargas wasn’t quite ready to abandon the short films on which he honed his craft before advancing to his first feature. Indeed, the film was originally a short. But the full-length movie has become Mexico’s most-decorated film in history, its unhurriedness touched with small moments of tenderness and a nearly documentary tone before unleashing an emotional wallop.

Shot in lovely black and white, The Violin captures the day-to-day lives of three generations of peasant musicians. Don Plutarco (Ángel Tavira) and his grown son, Genaro (Gerardo Taracena), play the violin and guitar on rural Mexican streets while Genaro’s boy, Lucio (Mario Garibaldi), collects money. They perform and wander until they have enough money to eat, spending the rest of the day relaxing on roadsides or in cantinas. When Genaro exchanges looks with a menacing stranger in a watering hole one night, you might expect a fight to break out. Instead, he’s taken into a back room and allowed his choice of munitions. Genaro and Plutarco may be simple farmers, but they’re also part of a rebel movement. And when their oppressive government’s militias invade the revolutionaries’ compound, father and son must figure out a way to retrieve the arms they’ve buried in their land.

The most compelling chapter of The Violin is its last, which focuses on Plutarco and his strategy for surviving this blow to the revolt. He uses his age and his musical skills to his advantage, trying to persuade suspicious soldiers that he’s merely an old man who wants to check his crops. (When they ask his name, he responds, “Plutarco, at your service.”) They inspect his violin case and command him to play, a test he passes so easily and beautifully that the sentimental captain orders him to return daily. Plutarco’s patience in his attempt to win the soldiers’ trust is more effective than Genaro’s guns could ever be.

Tavira is, stunningly, a novice actor. His face deeply lined, with eyes that are thoughtful and vulnerable, Tavira is aching as Plutarco, expertly relaying an elderly man’s simultaneous capacity for wisdom, cunning, feebleness, and melancholy. The character is quiet when Genaro acts like father doesn’t know best—in fact, he tells him “the less you know, the better”—while teaching Lucio about their awful circumstances with gentle but honest parables. You may not remember how exactly this trio passed the time during most of the film’s 98 minutes, but Plutarco is a character you likely won’t forget.

George Lucas Attempts to Redeem Himself, Take 4

Being only a quasi-nerd, it took me a minute to process the news announcing the theatrical release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Aug. 15, 2008. Wha? Why are they re-releasing a prequel that 1) just came out and 2) sucked?

Oh. That was Attack of the Clones.

Anyway, at this point the details are so yesterday, but if you're slow like me, the deal is that this is a full-length, animated feature that's a big push for the same-titled TV series that will bow on Cartoon Network shortly thereafter.

"I felt there were a lot more Star Wars stories left to tell," Lucas said. "And I'd like to hire a full-time police force to protect my unicorns on Skywalker Ranch. The fire department is nice, but let's face it, it's not enough."

OK, I made the last part up. But let's just hope Clone Wars doesn't end up being another Randall Curtis production.

Here are some stills to salivate over:

© Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

And you can check out a series of documentaries chronicling the development of the film/show at  http://www.starwars.com.

In Bruges

Farrell earns his treat

         

Martin McDonagh has hijacked the Tarantino-goes-to-Europe genre from Guy Ritchie, and not a moment too soon. In Bruges, the Irish playwright's feature debut, is everything Ritchie's latest film, Revolver, wanted to be: cool, yes, but also a good story with bits of humor, existential ruminations, and innovative action involving a couple of guns-for-hire who hide in plain sight. The chill location, a gorgeous town in Belgium full of canals and medieval architecture, is just one reason the film doesn't feel like a rip-off.

Colin Farrell is another. The Irishman who's lately better known for carousing and poor career choices shows a never-before-seen range here as Ray, a rookie hit man whose boss exiles him and his experienced partner, Ken (Brendan Gleeson), to Bruges when a job goes bad. They're supposed to do nothing but wait for a phone call and, presumably, think about what they did. But soon Ray starts getting antsy—"like a 5-year-old who's dropped all his sweets," as Ken puts it—and he hesitantly suggests that they could just grab a quick pint at the pub. Ken glares. Ray thinks, then points out how nice the historic buildings might look under the Belgian stars. Ken relents.

The pair's differences are immediately apparent as Ken admires the scenery and starts talking dates. "I used to hate history, didn't you?" Ray yammers before, doglike, getting distracted. "What are they doing over there?" he says excitedly. "They're filming something—they're filming midgets!" It's a movie set, all right, and not only does Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), a little person, ignite Ray's interest, he's also captivated by Chloë (Clémence Poésy, refreshingly lovely in her non-Hollywood imperfections), whom he assumes is also an actor and asks out on a date. His chat-up includes a ramble about how "midgets" often kill themselves—when Chloë says Jimmy prefers the term "dwarf," Ray responds, "This is exactly my point! People call you a midget when you want to be called a dwarf, of course you're going to blow yer head off!" But she gives him her card anyway. Meanwhile, Ken and Ray's boss, Harry, did indeed call their hotel room, leaving them a curse-laden message neatly typed out by the hotel's owner.

Harry sounds quite like the GEICO gecko, but we later see that he's actually Ralph Fiennes, another terrifically unexpected casting choice (and one that makes the film a bit of a Harry Potter reunion, as Gleeson and Poésy have appeared in the series). Fiennes, his hair closely butchered, is great fun as a cold-blooded cockney, and Gleeson gives the proper sarcastic solemnity to an assassin who reevaluates his life when Harry's next order is something he's not sure he can do.

But Farrell is the revelation. At first, his eyebrows forever arching and his expression often set to confused, he seems to be merely performing a dumb-monkey act. (Though it's admittedly an amusing one.) It's when the audience discovers what went wrong in that first job—in a startling, violent flashback—that Farrell's Ray begins to show depth. The drinker, fighter, and skirt-chaser is so remorseful he's suicidal and becomes less and less capable of covering it up with humor. (In an unsettling first-date scene, Chloë takes Ray's confession to being a killer as a joke, which he's barely able to play along with.) Farrell's subtlety in portraying a walking wounded is note-perfect, naturally pulling off McDonagh's balance of comedy and drama without letting the character or the movie devolve into a tonal mess.

McDonagh, who won an Oscar for his 2004 short film, Six Shooter (also starring Gleeson), successfully translates his theatrical strengths to the screen with dialogue that snaps without coming off as too clever, a simple but compelling narrative, and memorable scenes that are odd but believable at the same time (booze and coke can make for strange nights, after all). As the story deepens, the script offers thoughts about honor, forgiveness, friendship, discrimination, and, more humorous, tourism. In Bruges may, at its core, be just another shoot-'em-up with jokes, but it's been a long time since someone's gotten one right.

Taxi to the Dark Side

At this point in the War on Terror, sitting through a feature-length documentary that regurgitates details about torture in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay may very well violate the Geneva Conventions. News outlets and water-cooler talk long ago exhausted the topic of Abu Ghraib and its sister catastrophes. Many of us understand that this presidency and its worldwide conflicts has been a disaster. Does anyone really want to watch another nearly two-hour analysis of it?

Regardless of whether it finds an audience, Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side gets points (in addition to its Academy Award nomination) for the thoroughness and intelligence it offers along with its good intentions. The film is very reminiscent of last year's Iraq doc No End in Sight—another Oscar nominee that Gibney produced—in terms of overall quality and ability to induce teeth-gnashing, using one unfortunate cab driver's wrong place, wrong time, wrongful death story to launch into a breakdown of how the American military's interrogation system has, well, broken down.

Gibney, who also directed the excellent 2005 documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, uses a similar approach here: airtight facts and stats (and lots of 'em), archival footage, interviews with not just talking heads but people who were involved in the incidents, whether as decision-makers (such as John Yoo, the Department of Justice legal counsel who helped write what became known as the "Torture Memos") or order-takers (several now-remorseful soldiers talk about their experiences with prisoners). The film is divided into chapters, but it flows like one continuous reiteration of a simple (but no less appalling) story: Around the world, America's prisoners were/are being treated unfairly, from random capture without habeas corpus to unconscionable interrogations that included sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, and "stress positions" such as standing with outstretched arms for hours straight to, often, death. 

The  government assured any critics that such incidents were a matter of overenthusiastic, unbalanced troops taking matters into their own hands. Then we see Donald Rumsfeld's initialed approval of a memo outlining slightly less severe versions of these tactics, along with a scribbled note, "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why only 4 for detainees?" In a press conference, Rummy dismisses the comment as a joke.

Not surprisingly, it's all rather sickening. Gibney wallpapers his film with images of prisoners naked, bruised, and bloodied, frightened out of their minds with dogs barking in their faces, piled on top of one another like trash. Some, perhaps, were "the worst of the worst" as Rumsfeld stated. Still, all it takes is a few wise words from former FBI special agent Jack Cloonan to understand that, whether the detainees are guilty or not, you're much more likely to get useful information out of them by building a rapport instead of, you know, beating them to within an inch of their lives. Gibney's father, a now-deceased World War II vet, puts it more eloquently in a clip at the end of the film: "Behind the façade of wartime hatred, there was a central rule of law, and we believed in it. It was what made America different."

Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show

Don’t judge Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show by its title—the documentary isn’t 100 minutes of Fred Claus running his mouth. Instead of putting himself center stage for the eponymous event, the loud, tall acquired taste picked four genial comedians from Los Angeles’ Comedy Store and organized a 30-day, 30-city tour.

The 2005 shows featured stand-up comedy, obviously, but also a little bit of music (Dwight Yoakam makes an appearance) and sketches with guest actors (Peter Billingsley, aka A Christmas Story’s Ralphie, re-creates scenes from a steroid-themed 1990 after-school special he and Vaughn taped). The performers ­themselves—Bret Ernst, John Caparulo, Ahmed Ahmed, and Sebastian ­Maniscalco—are given as much time offstage as on, lending the doc a compelling Comedian feel as they talk about venues, bios, and bits or just give one another the kind of shit to be expected when a bunch of dudes hole up together for a long while.

Vaughn says his aim in putting together the project was “to bring a top-quality comedy show to people’s backyards,” reasoning that the best bills tend to be restricted to Los Angeles or New York. The tour was a hit with the live audiences it reached, and the multilayered film that stems from it is a gem that clearly has the ability to take Vaughn’s goal further. These are good-natured, likable guys as well as solid comedians who can even spin tired did-ya-ever-notice gags about the differences between the sexes into gold. (It’s shocking to hear, late in the movie, that Maniscalco had actually still been waiting tables when he was plucked for the show.) Seeing how the comics mold the not-so-funny stuff they’ve gone through—poverty, racism, and death—into their act is fascinating, as is the fact that the timing of the road schedule brought them face-to-face with another tragedy, Katrina.

As nice as these men seem, there’s a notable perspective shift from the time they crankily pile into a minivan, not thrilled that they’ve unexpectedly been tasked with handing out free tickets to a campground of hurricane victims, to the time they leave, after they help put genuine smiles on the faces of people who have nothing. There’s nothing condescending about these scenes; along with the comics’ constant riffage and the doc’s terrific, vintage-country soundtrack (Buck Owens, Johnny Cash), the film’s full of joyful moments that pretty much guarantee you’ll feel better walking out than you did going in. As Caparulo notes, “It’s really cool to have a job that’s cathartic.”

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days

In 4 Months, one of those days -- and then some

In 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, a young woman is pregnant, but she can’t go searching for a solution in the Penny Saver. There are no supportive parents, cute singalongs, or OMG! banter between her and her best friend. In other words, Romanian writer-director Cristian Mungiu’s second feature is the anti-Juno, a bleak portrait of a world in which women don’t legally have the right to choose but often feel forced to anyway.

Set in 1987 Communist Romania, the story focuses not on expectant college student Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) but on her roommate, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca). The pair are getting ready for a short trip; while Gabita stays in their room, packing and worrying about whether she should bring her notes, Otilia makes businesslike rounds throughout the dorm and into town, trying to secure black-market cigarettes, some cash, Gabita’s lent-out hairdryer, and a hotel room. The last proves particularly difficult, as their hotel of choice claims not to have their reservation and a convention has the area’s rooms booked. But Gabita’s appointment with Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov) is today, so in desperation Otilia reserves a much more expensive room in the kind of place where, she’ll unnervingly discover, the staff keeps a vigilant eye on who’s coming and going.

Mungiu follows Otilia with long tracking shots—in fact, much of the film consists of a single shot per scene—letting the audience feel the exhaustion of her errand-running and the trivial but constant battles of a bad day: For instance, she can’t find anybody who has her brand of smokes. Her boyfriend, Adi (Alex Potocean), lends her money but expects her at his mother’s birthday party that night, not accepting her excuse that she has something important to do. The clerk at the first hotel is rude and condescending, questioning why Gabita made her reservation over the phone and implying that the conversation never happened. Getting a room at the other place offers only brief relief, as Otilia still has to meet up with Bebe, an occasion that unveils a whole new set of problems. And, of course, there’s the abortion itself.

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2007, and it’s tonally reminiscent of another film that premiered at the festival last year, No Country for Old Men. The anguish in both movies is unrelenting and packaged in quietude: There’s no music in 4 Months, only the ambient noise of Otilia shuffling through busy urban streets during the day (or, more disconcerting, deserted ones later that night) and the silences that occur when talk is unscripted or situations are grim. Of course, this dialogue is scripted, however, and it’s a testament to the brilliance of Mungiu’s writing and the actors’ performances that the conversations feel more natural than anything captured on a reality show. The characters’ frankness ratchets up the tension—Otilia is a martyr to her friend and boyfriend in her actions but blunt whenever she’s unhappy about their behavior; Gabita tells Bebe a host of lies. (The biggest whopper is that she’s only two months along; the film’s title gives the accurate duration of her pregnancy.) She comes clean about her falsehoods one by one, and Bebe himself, far from being a soothing Vera Drake, is explicit about the process, the pain, the blood, and what to do with the fetus once Gabita “gets rid of it.”

Rarely does anyone yell, even though nearly everything that could go wrong does. Two scenes are unforgettably intense: In the first, Bebe, Gabita, and Otilia negotiate in the hotel room, with Bebe getting increasingly exasperated as he discovers how many of his original terms the childlike Gabita ignored, addressing her as “young lady” and eventually, skin-crawlingly, indicating that they’d need to offer him more than money for him to risk the jail sentence he could face for performing the deed.

The second is a bravura dinner sequence that puts Mungiu on par with Spielberg for wrenching emotion out of a meal, as Otilia suffers the offhand grilling and general prattling of the guests at Adi’s mother’s celebration while worrying about having left Gabita alone. The director, aided by cinematographer Oleg Mutu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu), isn’t shy about fixing his camera wherever it’s most uncomfortable—and that includes a graphic shot of the fetus. It’s not quick.

We don’t know much about these women outside of Mungiu’s intimate day-in-the-life snapshot, including why Gabita chose to abort or who the father is. But their characters are strong regardless, with their friendship belying very different personalities in the face of crisis. Vasiliu’s Gabita is nearly unbearably soft-spoken, meek, and somewhat naive, but the actress shows moments of strength, too—keeping quiet can be an act of courage as well as one of fear—and her performance prevents you from losing respect for the girl or wondering why on earth Otilia goes to the lengths she does to help her friend. Marinca, though, recently seen in a bit part in Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth, is the film’s obvious star. Her Otilia is terrifically complex, a realistic mix of stereotypically masculine and feminine traits—aggressive but compassionate, no-nonsense but not immune to getting emotional during times of stress. Marinca carries 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, appearing in nearly every scene, the narrative’s intensity reflected in her expressions. The performance is as raw and honest as the film itself.

How She Move

How She Move? Predictably.

Pity the troubled teenager who can’t shake her thang. Because if films such as How She Move are any indication, it doesn’t matter if you’re smart or hardworking or as clean as the marbled floors of that school you can’t afford—the surest way to overcome adversity is to dance your ass off.


Of course, if your specific need is to achieve a dream (You Got Served) and not, say, work through emotional issues (Save the Last Dance), it helps if there’s a big contest with a cash prize. So How She Move’s Raya (compelling newcomer Rutina Wesley, the sole bright spot) got lucky that way. Raya had amassed an education fund, going to a private high school with the goal of becoming a doctor. But her sister was a druggie, and treatment not only ate up the money set aside for Raya, she ended up OD’ing anyway. Raya’s forced to go back to her old school, where classmates such as Michelle (Tré Armstrong) now think she’s a snob. When Michelle gets in her face, a battle of wits ensues—“wits,” of course, really meaning how well each can step.


The dance-off ends in a scuffle, and that leads to a resolution that writer Annmarie Morais might have borrowed from Saved by the Bell: Because Raya is so smart and Michelle is so flunking out, Raya now has to tutor her enemy. The girls’ eyes roll along with yours, but when they start talking about Raya’s problems and Michelle suggests she join a step team and compete, well, maybe the two are destined to be friends after all.


How She Move, directed by Ian Iqbal Rashid, writer-director of the godawful 2004 gay-themed comedy Touch of Pink, is as lazy about its good intentions as most of the other recent dance dramas that may vaguely come to mind. Along with the obvious message about believing in yourself, the movie is anti-drug and pro-work (“You know I’m too pretty for minimum wage!” Raya’s love interest, played by the admittedly pretty Dwain Murphy, tells a friend), wedging in lessons about family and not rushing to judgment.


But the story never finds its groove, with underdeveloped characters and relationships and an arc that doesn’t exactly surprise. Worse, the dancing, though athletic, isn’t always that impressive, nearly ensuring that a better title would have been How She Tank.

Persepolis - Cloverfield

It talks about politics, growing up, religion, and even makes fun of ABBA

"Crowd pleaser” isn’t exactly the phrase that comes to mind when one hears a description of Persepolis: It’s a black-and-white animated film, largely in French, about an Iranian girl forced to live in exile when things in her native country get too tumultuous. Her leftist parents force her to live abroad not so much because the climate is ­dangerous—though it is—but because Marjane seems to lack a censor button when it comes to voicing her opinions and generally doing as she wishes. Little Marjane is too spunky for her own good.

An art-house cartoon about war and revolution as seen through the eyes of a potential Blossom, though, is more than just unique—it’s rich, eye-catching, educational, and, yes, crowd-pleasing, both in its engaging narrative and charming, ultimately relatable heroine. Marjane (voiced by Gabrielle Lopes as a child and Chiara Mastroianni as a teen and adult) represents Marjane Satrapi, who wrote the graphic novels on which Persepolis is based, and who co-wrote and directed the film with Vincent Paronnaud. Satrapi was struggling as a children’s-book author when she decided to commit her life story to paper. The first volume of ­Persepolis—the title refers to an ancient capital of the Persian Empire, now in ruins—was published in 2000.

The film is bursting with politics, but at heart it’s a coming-of-age tale. It starts at the end: Marjane is sitting at a French airport, smoking a cigarette and hesitant to begin her second exile from Iran. A voice-over in which Marjane tells us that she remembers her early years as “peaceful and uneventful” takes us back to 1978 and a little girl with a bit of a God complex. She not only talks to the Big Guy—Satrapi animates the Almighty as a sort of friendly, anthropomorphic cloud—she tells everyone that she’s going to be a prophet. She idolizes Bruce Lee (“The dragon’s revenge is a dish best served cold!” she rather adorably growls to guests at a cocktail party) and, for a brief period, the shah, because her teachers told her that he’d been chosen by God. Her parents (Catherine Deneuve and Simon Abkarian) are initially horrified, but Dad gently changes her mind by telling her the truth about their government’s history in uncomplicated yet unsanitized terms. The scene is exquisite: “Shhhh,” he says, his tone as soft as an old blanket while the background goes to ink and the shah’s origins play out in puppet-theater form.

While Persepolis is simply drawn—a few strokes define each character’s face and dress—several sequences are stunning, such as a battle in which combatants are silhouetted and surrounded by fog, their blood flowing black. Most of the time, though, you forget about the animation; Marjane’s story is the centerpiece. The script follows her through her adolescence, spent mostly in Vienna, where she meets punk-loving nihilists (“Life is a void,” one says as he rolls a joint), suffers embarrassing growth spurts (one of the funniest sequences shows parts of Marjane’s body supersizing randomly), and learns about love (her first sexual experience couldn’t have gone more wrong).

Persepolis’ strength is its universality. Few of us will ever know what it’s like to live without freedom, witness violence on a daily basis, or be forced to leave home, but most viewers will have gone through identity crises, separation anxiety, the see-sawing exhilaration and dread of reaching your 20s and realizing you don’t know which way to turn. At the same time, though, Satrapi manages not to sugarcoat or forget Iran’s upheaval; it’s as integral to who Marjane is as the bootlegged Iron Maiden tapes that kept her sane as a teen. The author’s brilliance is in humanizing the story’s politics, allowing its reality to sidle up to you instead of taking the frying-pan-to-the-head approach that’s wearying to current news consumers.

 

Don't worry, you'll just lose your lunch.

 

The J.J. Abrams–produced Cloverfield has finally revealed its secrets, the most important of which is that it’s a pretty good monster movie—albeit one that just may make you vomit. Under ideal circumstances, that “albeit” would be an “and,” were the gore relentless or the tension too much to bear. But there’s a more mundane reason for the queasiness: Director Matt Reeves uses a hand-held camera the entire time, a gimmick that’s integral to the story about a group of Manhattan friends whose party is interrupted when, to paraphrase the movie’s tag line, something found them. A big something. Big enough to knock the Statue of Liberty’s block off.

It’s at once a clever conceit and a nearly fatal flaw. After a message from the Department of Defense that tells us that the source of the footage we’re about to see is a camcorder found in “the area formerly known as Central Park,” it’s 80-plus minutes of home video documenting two days in the life of Rob (Michael Stahl-David), a 20-something who’s about to move to Japan for a dream job. At first we see glimpses of a day in April, when Rob, crashing in someone’s swanky penthouse and pronouncing it “already a good day” at only 7 a.m., wakes up the gorgeous Beth (Odette Yustman) and decides he’s going to take her to Coney Island for the first time. After a few scenes with the happy couple, the story jumps forward to May. Rob’s brother, Jason (Mike Vogel), is now behind the camera, filming his girlfriend, Lily (Jessica Lucas), as she makes last-­minute preparations for Rob’s going-away bash. Lily insists Jason take responsibility for getting video testimonials from party guests, a duty he immediately reassigns to their kinda-dopey friend Hud (T.J. Miller).

The already-shaky camera only gets worse as Hud, apparently unaware of the pause function, sloppily tapes goodbyes and simultaneously hits on Marlena (Lizzy Caplan), a not-too-friendly cutie. Some Rob-and-Beth drama hits, and in the middle of drunken gossip and relationship advice, the real drama unfolds: explosions, roars, collapsed buildings, Lady Liberty’s head coasting down the street. Hud keeps filming, but, well, you can imagine how unwatchable the already-shaky view gets from there.

Viewers prone to motion sickness should bring Dramamine or take through-the-­fingers viewing breaks. Otherwise, Cloverfield is a blast. Admittedly, it’s derivative, from its Blair Witch framing to details borrowed from the War of the Worlds remake (much 9/11 imagery, with dust, frantic stairwell exits, and exoduses out of Manhattan) to I Am Legend (less-than-successful helicopter evacuations), to myriad monster flicks as Godzilla, The Host, and even The Mist. Abrams, the mystery-obsessed creator of the TV shows Lost and Alias, kept the monster itself a secret, and though it’s not jaw-droppingly original, it’s still best witnessed first-hand. Reeves keeps things moving briskly as the characters are whittled down to a few desperately trying to outrun their doom; with anguish and moments of intense creepiness elegantly ramping the terror instead of gore. And while the cast is a bunch of no-names (the closest sense of star power coming from Zooey Deschanel look-alike Caplan), their anonymity and workmanlike capability is an asset—the story still allows you to care about the characters, but there are no famous faces to distract you from the good stuff. Being able to focus in the first place, however, is another matter.

Mad Money - 27 Dresses

And then his publicist said he wanted to marry me!

Maybe, just maybe, there are a few of you who’ve glimpsed the trailer for Callie Khouri’s latest film and thought, Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, and Katie Holmes, together at last! For everyone else, Mad Money is marked, bearing all the signs of a typical—read: terrible—January release. It’s a buddy comedy, only the odd couple is now a trio. It’s a heist flick with implicit wackiness. It’s got Keaton, who’s yet to rid herself of the stench of her contribution to last year’s winter dreck, Because I Said So. And she plays…a janitor. Someone fire the casting director, please.

But though the sight of Annie Hall in custodian’s clothes never quite feels right—her hair is too flippy, her glasses too fashionable—Mad Money’s setup is slightly more believable. Bridget (Keaton) is living a comfortable upper-middle-class life when her husband, Don (Ted Danson), is downsized from the corporate job that’s kept her not only well-accessorized but occupationally sheltered. They’re about to lose their house when Bridget, who apparently never even had to work at the DQ while studying for her English degree, takes a job cleaning toilets at the Federal Reserve. Her boss (Stephen Root) makes sure Bridget understands that each employee, constantly surrounded by cash, is watched every minute of the day, and that there’s never been a robbery in the branch’s history because it’s impossible.

Not for Bridget! During a fateful trip to Home Depot, she realizes that the megastore sells the same lock the feds use to secure the carts of worn-out bills they destroy daily. (Yeah, it’s a standard keyed padlock, bustable by any 4-year-old having a Tonka tantrum.) After a few months studying the system and weeding out potential accomplices (i.e.: not the dude who wants to turn in a found $20), Bridget approaches Nina (Latifah), the devoted single mom who shreds the cash, and Jackie (Holmes), the spacey free spirit who transports the money, and persuades them to help her pull off the perfect crime. “It’s like recycling!” Bridget reasons.

It’s surprising that Mad Money, adapted by Glenn Gers from a British TV movie, isn’t quite the disastrous bumbling-broads caper it promises to become. Granted, Khouri (whose previous project for theatrical release was writing and directing 2002’s Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood) and Gers ask you to swallow a lot besides the idea that thousands of dollars is secured with a dollar-store lock. The women, for instance, have a fondness for the bank’s handicapped stalls, gathering there to giggle loudly with fistfuls of cash or regroup when there’s a hitch in their plans. Everyone who becomes privy to their crime, including Don and a security guard (Roger Cross), puts up way-too-mild resistance before happily going along with it. Most irritating, though, is Holmes’ character, who with her headphones and continuous grooving is supposed to seem an anything-goes type but instead is simply a brow-furrowing, eye-widening dipshit who responds to suggestions that they don’t do anything stupid with, “Oh, man, I hate being smart!”

Keaton and Latifah, however, lend enough intelligence, wit, and charm to Bridget and Nina that Mad Money more often feels like an ovarian Ocean’s Eleven. The execution of a well-crafted heist is always fun to watch, and the filmmakers wisely keep pratfalls and one-liners to a minimum. There’s even an attempt at a message beyond thou-shalt-not-steal, with barbs aimed at advertising and our consumer culture. Or are they justifications? Admittedly, between the film’s ending and scenes such as Nina’s earnest explanation, accompanied by tinkly music, that “what happened is we found a way to get what we wanted,” Mad Money isn’t as concerned with ethics as it is with having a good time. And anything the boys can do—well, the girls haven’t exactly done it better, but they’ve at least risen above expectations.

27 Dresses; 27,000 movies exactly like it

Sometimes you watch a movie and feel as if you completely understand a character. Take 27 Dresses’ Kevin (James Marsden), a down-with-love journalist at a New York City newspaper who’s stuck in wedding-reporter hell. “If I have to write about baby’s breath one more time,” he says, “I’m going to shoot myself.” He’s got his eyes on his first lifestyle feature: a poor soul named Jane (Katherine Heigl) who’s always the bridesmaid, etc. Kevin flirts with Jane, hoping she’ll be willing to tell him about the 27 times she’s been bridesided, but as he gets to know her, a juicier story comes along involving Jane’s little sister (Malin Akerman) and the man of Jane’s dreams.

Duplicities and hate-you-love-you shenanigans ensue—and if I have to write about insipid romantic comedies one more time, well, I know how Kevin feels. 27 Dresses is being presented as date-movie gold (albeit in January), starring two budding Cameron Diazes, Knocked Up’s freshly queened Heigl and The Heartbreak Kid’s less-proven but still blonde ’n’ klutzy Akerman, along with Marsden, who had a stellar 2007 with genuinely funny turns in Hairspray and Enchanted. It was written by Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada) , for cryin’ out loud. But the result is a closet full of tired, bursting with characters, dynamics, and perspectives that went out of fashion many films ago.

Jane, for starters, is perfect but single, always doing unto others whether it’s to accompany her friends down the aisle or fetch a breakfast burrito for her boss, George (Edward Burns). (You can tell she’s a saint, because Heigl’s hair is dyed a mousy auburn.) The following words apply to Jane: selfless, pushover, romantic. After receiving flowers from an anonymous admirer, she steels herself to put the moves on George when her sister, Tess (Akerman), meeting Jane at a company party, gets to him first. The following words apply to Tess: shallow, deceitful, bratty. George and Tess fall in love, with her proclaiming that she’s as much a nature lover as he is. (“I like yachts…and tanning,” she tells a tsk-tsking Jane.) They’re going to get married. Will Jane plan the wedding?

Of course, such a torch-carrying story requires that Mr. Perfect be right under the main character’s nose, and that’s where Kevin comes in. He and Jane fight and fight and fight until they don’t. Then they fight a little more—when it’s discovered the journalist has been acting less than ­ethically—but really, it’s all as dull as Heigl’s locks. So is Judy Greer, who’s thanklessly relegated to the slutty-best-friend role. Heigl at least manages a few nice comic moments here—and, to be fair, a couple of McKenna’s lines may elicit a chuckle. But there’s no overcoming the movie’s broad strokes—particularly its central idea that being single (while your little sister gets hitched, gasp!) is some sort of handicap. Worse, Jane’s grand comeuppance is not the triumphant stand it should be but an act as ugly and ridiculous as all the taffeta in her wardrobe.