Monday, February 16, 2009

In Bruges (2008)

Written & Directed by Martin McDonagh

Colin Farrell ... Ray
Brendan Gleeson ... Ken
Ralph Fiennes ... Harry Waters
Clémence Poésy ... Chloë
Jérémie Renier ... Eirik
Thekla Reuten ... Marie

Rated R
Runtime: 1 hr. 47 mins.


Thank you In Bruges for startling me out of my 2008 movie funk. Now I have an inkling of the joy audiences must have felt when Pulp Fiction assaulted their numbed senses that year at Cannes that changed movies.

I mean, really, it's been a pretty boring year. I haven't compiled a Top 10 list yet. People may think I'm procrastinating, as I have in past years, but the God's honest truth is, I just don't feel compelled. I write a Top 10 to give weight to some great films, some you may have been reluctant to see. But, well, you are probably familiar with most of the movies that are considered good this year, and I haven't really seen any others that I'm dying to get people to see, so...meh.

Then along comes In Bruges. Suddenly I'm excited about movies again. Suddenly there's a film that I want you to see. I told everyone about it yesterday. One person responded, "Isn't that the movie that looks like every other movie?" Yeah, probably. But the amazing thing is it's not like any other movie.

I can tell you the story and you can roll your eyes: Two hitmen are sent to hide out in Bruges, Belgium after a job. The one loves the quaintness of the place and the other just feels stifled. You know, the odd couple with castles. They mess things up and the boss has to come in and fix things with guns.

That's the bare bones plot, but it's not the movie this is. This is the advantage of having a playwright, Martin McDonagh, writing scripts. Humanity comes through. People actually reveal themselves in what they're saying. Their words mean something. The relationships are vibrant and alive and complex. But please don't think of this as a play. Martin McDonagh has adopted the language of film. This isn't some piece that feels like it's been opened up. Well, perhaps. If you think of the entirety of Bruges as a stage.

Will it scare you away if I say that the movie's success is predominantly based on Colin Farrell's performance? I haven't seen a comedic performance this funny in a while. I've never thought of Farrell as a comedic actor. He's hilarious here. His character, Ray, is always one step behind what's actually going on, but not for lack of trying. The performance plays on what our perception of Colin Farrell has been all along: a lost little boy. And I haven't seen all of the Oscar-nominated performances, but considering I'd be rooting for him and Mickey Rourke equally if Farrell had been nominated, I'm willing to bet there's another performance I'd like swapped out.

Contrasted is the presence of Brendan Gleeson as Ken, best known as Mad-Eye Moody from the Potter films. Ken's been at this game a lot longer than Ray and feels a strange fatherly bond to him. There's a great scene where Ray's getting ready for a date, checking himself in the mirror: to button or unbutton the top button? Ken watches with amusement and finally just tells him he looks good. At that point, we're not sure how that's going to be taken, but Ray accepts it. And there's their relationship.

And then there's Ralph Fiennes, ever the reliable crumbling, uppercrust gentleman, here he's Harry, a vile, violent man who runs hitmen. Something about him gave the indication of decay from the inside out. I love a good entrance by a character and he's got a great one.

I haven't told you much, and I apologize. There are plenty of others reviews if you need more. But I want you to discover the movie as I did. To experience the wildly careening shifts from hilarity to pathos to violence. I want you to laugh as the movie surprises you with what the characters do and say and the situations they get themselves into. Here's a sit-com in the highest sense of the word. And I want you to be surprised by just how deep the movie goes.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Let the Right One In

Directed by Tomas Alfredson

Written by John Ajvide Lindqvist based on his novel

Kåre Hedebrant ... Oskar
Lina Leandersson ... Eli

Rated R
Runtime: 1 hr. 54 min.

An apartment building courtyard covered in snow. A boy stabs at a tree with a knife, imagining it's the bullies at school who torment him. The camera tracks around him to reveal a girl standing atop a jungle gym.

It's a simple shot, a horror film convention. The monster revealed, standing in an unusual place, watching a character, oblivious to their presence. At the same time that we react to this shot as we've been programmed to, it stays just long enough for us to consider it and realize that the threat we often feel is, if not absent, subdued. She looks at the boy not with hunger, but with curiosity.

It's these paradoxes that rule the movie. Horror scenes happen between schoolmates and love scenes are played in the midst of blood. Horror film conventions are employed, but never as short cuts. They are used as they were originally employed: to underline the story being told.

That story involves Oskar, the boy stabbing the tree, and Eli, the girl standing atop the jungle gym, a vampire. Oskar lives in the apartment complex and is looking out his window, again imagining a stabbing, when Eli and her father arrive in a taxi.

The heart of the movie is Oskar and Eli's courtship. It is tentative and sweet. Innocent on his end. Guarded on hers. He asks how old she is. "Twelve more or less." How could it be more or less, he wonders and then when asked his age answers with years months and days.

In the realm of the movie, her vampirism is metaphor within their relationship and reality outside of it. One of my favorite scenes is their conversation after he's discovered she's a vampire (itself a remarkable scene; terrifying, but not as you may suspect). She knocks on his apartment door. We've learned before that he must invite her in, but are not told why. Feeling betrayed in learning her secret, he refuses to invite her in. She enters anyway to horrifying results. It's a startling portrayal of that moment in relationships when the warm feelings are in danger of evaporating and we're forced to consider this person before us.

The success of the movie is dependent on its two young actors. Kåre Hedebrant as Oskar is very good but Lina Leandersson as Eli is amazing. Makeup has helped a great deal (has a 12-year-old ever looked so tired?), but she does convey an aged quality. Even her voice sounds as if it has been used for perhaps centuries.

Earlier in my review, I've taken to task films that use shots as cheats. That's not to say shots can't be used to create atmosphere and mood. But that can't be in place of an actual movie. Director Tomas Alfredson and his technical team have created an amazing atmosphere that creates another level to an already fascinating story. So often, snow in films conveys isolation, and while it does so here as well, it also is very comforting. Like a pillow has covered the ground. It even makes the courtyard, a location I wouldn't normally think to spend time, somehow comforting.

While I want to encourage people who may not usually see a vampire movie to see Let the Right One In, I don't want to lead you into the theater thinking there won't be gruesome moments. There are horror elements outside of conventional horror camera shots. Eli must feed. It's this need and its encroachment on their relationship that eventually forces the characters and the movie to reconcile the metaphor and reality. Again, much as in real relationships when they must be defined in terms of real life.

Friday, February 06, 2009

Paul Blart: Mall Cop

Directed by Steve Carr
Written by Kevin James & Nick Bakay

Kevin James ... Paul Blart
Keir O'Donnell ... Veck Sims
Jayma Mays ... Amy
Raini Rodriguez ... Maya Blart
Shirley Knight ... Mom

Rated PG
Runtime 1 hr. 31 mins.


"Are the funniest parts of the movie in the preview?"

"No."

And there you have it, my shortest review ever.

OK. I suppose that that hinges on whether you've seen the preview for Paul Blart: Mall Cop. If you have and you've found it entertaining, go see the movie. If the preview looks painful to you, don't go.

The rest of this review is for those who haven't seen the preview. Or who just want more information.

Do I have to? Oh all right, you greedy people.

So who is this Paul Blart fellow? Well, he's a mall cop. Oh, that's right, you want more. Well, he doesn't want to be a mall cop. Problem is, he's hypoglycemic, causing him to fall asleep at inopportune time. Say the just before the finish line to the obstacle course to qualify for the New Jersey State Troopers.

So he's a mall cop, taking his job far too seriously for both his supervisors and the new guy who's shadowing him. He flirts with Amy who works at a kiosk selling those hair clips that fool people into thinking you have enough hair to make a bun. And when the mall is taken over by bad men with guns and sketeboards and bicycles and the ability to leap really well, he-

Whoa. Getting ahead of myself. The mall is taken over. They take hostages including (gasp) Amy. So our hero, Blart, decides to stay and protect the mall because of the oath he swore. He also wrote it.

Paul Blart is a testment to creativity over money. Outside of Kevin James, there's hardly a recognizable actor here (though I was happy when Peter Gerety, an alum of The Wire, got a laugh from the entire audience). Star power's not needed in a movie like this. Only talent. So I was gald to see some lesser-known actors given a chance. And instead of hiring a bunch of actors to play what are essentially single-line roles as the crooks, they hire extreme sports athletes creating some really neat stunt work.

So why is this movie funny? Well, Kevin James for one. He's just got a loveable, funny presence. The movie also understands the importance of context in comedy. So often, we're simply shown something that we are to think of as "funny." Very few things are funny simply on sight. Context often makes things funny. For instance, when you see Paul Blart sneaking through one of those line corrals you see at the DMV, the ones comprised of those interlocking elastic bands, that's amusing. To know what the stakes are makes it funny.

The movie also consists of the best extended set-up joke since the biker dude attending the pageant at the end of Little Miss Sunshine. Through a contrived set of circumstance, Blart acquires the phone of a young lady whose Indian boyfriend is intent on winning her back with incessant calls. All this, and more, for a 2-second shot that's not only funny in and of itself but also makes a statement about minorities in big budget movies.

Oh course, if this is a little too much analysis, Kevin James bounces off a glass door.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Larry Fitzgerald is a Beast

You've probably seen him play by now. But I keep on flashing back to what one of my favorite sports writers, Jason Whitlock, wrote about Larry Fitzgerald earlier in the year. About mid-season, Fitzgerald had something like a 5 reception, 75-yard game. That following Monday, Whitlock wrote that few people had seen the game, but that it was an amazing performance and that Fitzgerald was going to revolutionize the position.

I believe that now. Yes, he goes up and outleaps multiple defenders. But that's not what is so impressiveto me. All that the Kurt Warner needs to do is get the ball within his reach. If you can get it there, if you can get it within his reach, his hands seem to generate a gravitational force. It's amazing to watch. He's become one of my favorite players to watch.

Also, I'm going to pick the Cardinals to win. I just think that they have more to prove and that the Steelers are taking too much for granted. You can't talk about the Steeler's defense. The Cardinal's defense has stepped up in the post season. If they had played this way all year, how would they have been ranked?

That's my prediction.