Review: Running With Scissors (2006)

Running With Scissors
2006
116 minutes
Rated R

by Scott Mendelson

Harrison Ford often tells a story about his earliest days in showbiz. Meeting with a producer after a small role, he was told that he didn't have what it took to be a star. The producer told him that when he looked at (I think…) Paul Newman playing a grocery bagger, he would say, "that guy, when I look at him, he looks like a star!" Ford dryly responded, "I thought you should be saying 'gee, that looks like a grocery bagger'?"

It is unfortunate in this day and age that what passes for great acting is often showy and over-the-top while subtle character immersion is often dismissed if not outright criticized. In our film world, over-the-top showboats like Roberto Benigni and Angelina Jolie win Oscars while actors who refuse to be larger than their characters (such as Ford, Keanu Reeves, and Kevin Costner) are constantly attacked as being wooden or un-charismatic.

The reason I bring this up is because most of the press involved with Running With Scissors is focused on Annette Bening's allegedly Oscar-worthy leading role as a mentally ill, fame-seeking, delusional, hysterical mother to the lead character Augusten Burroughs (it is his memoirs upon which this movie is based). Bening is fine (she's rarely been less than fine) in what's actually a supporting role, but most of her many 'big scenes' have the whiff of 'acting' to them, as if the words 'for your consideration' should be burned into the film as a running ticker. Ironically, she is the lone weak point in an otherwise stunningly acted film, with terrific performances compensating for a muddled, disjointed narrative.

The plot… Augustus Burroughs (Joseph Cross, who is in nearly every frame of this film and finally crosses into leading man territory) is born into a most dysfunctional household. His mother is mentally ill and obsessed with being famous to the point of emotional child abuse. Augustus's father (Alec Baldwin, nearly stealing the film with about fifteen subtle, heartbreaking minutes of screen time) has had enough, spending his days teaching then coming home to a wife who inexplicably resents him and a son who takes her side. "I really don't see anything of myself in you," he states to his ten-year-old son, and it rings true not as an insult but as a self-lacerating acknowledgment of his own futility and failure as a father.

As he reaches adolescence, Augustus is puzzlingly sent to live at the home of his mother's equally insane psychologist (Brian Cox, slightly over the top but entertaining as always). In this large, completely unkempt home lives Dr. Finch, his two daughters (the rebellious and emotionally wounded Evan Rachel Wood and the religious and obedient Gwyneth Paltrow), his schizophrenic thirty-four year-old son who lives in the barn (Joseph Fiennes), and the doctor's emotionally shattered wife (Jill Clayburgh).

That's really all the plot one needs, as the film then becomes a character study as all the various freaks and bystanders try to come to grips with their psychoses in an occasionally sitcomish fashion. It is Jill Clayburgh who truly owns the movie with her devastatingly sad portrayal of a normal woman who has resigned herself to an unhappy life as a den mother of uncaring freaks. Bening may win the Oscar (if Helen Mirren doesn't deservedly win for The Queen), but it's Clayburgh who will make you shed tears.

As for the non-acting components, the film is a bit of a mess. While these damaged souls are treated sympathetically, our sympathy is far more tied to the bystanders (Cross, Wood, Baldwin, and Clayburgh), whose chances for a normal and happy life have been sabotaged. The biggest problem is that the film really has no reason for being, nothing to teach or explore beyond the train-wreck factor, along with the relief that your family wasn't this freakish and hurtful. We watch as these insane people do insane and damaging things to each other, merely passive observers to the chaos. There is no clear focus as to whether this is supposed to be comedy or tragedy and there really is no overriding theme to the whole adventure. Also problematic is the entire third act, which has no less than four false endings.

The film is an acting treat, with a quality cast of character actor veterans doing their thing with meaty character parts. Cross is fantastic, as are Clayburgh and Baldwin. Bening, Cox, and the rest all do what they must. They take a muddled and overly pointless movie and make a film that is, in the end, worth seeing.

Grade: B-

Review: The Bridge (2006)

The Bridge
documentary
2006
93 minutes
Rated R

by Scott Mendelson

One of the great tragedies of losing your life in a major and famous event, be it natural or man made, is that your life instantly pales in legacy; overshadowed for all time by the manner in which you died. When someone dies of old age, publicly or privately, it is easier to think of that person in regards to their quality of life and quality of personality. However, for those unlucky enough to die publicly, the stigma is forever. They will always be known in history primarily as 'died in Columbine' or 'perished on Pan Am flight 103' or 'jumped to their death off of the Golden Gate Bridge'. At least those in the last example chose their end.

The Bridge is a relatively hopeless film, both in tone and content, as well as construction and quality. It is, allegedly, a probing documentary about the Golden Gate Bridge and its penchant for being used as a suicide device. Apparently, it is the world's most popular destination for suicide. The film states that in 2005, twenty-four people leaped off the bridge to their demise. Of all the millions of people worldwide who choose to end their own lives, the fact that twenty-four souls chose the same spot is not exactly a revelation.

This film is not about the bridge and its history as a choice of suicide. It does not feature statistics, experts, historians, or anyone with any amount of exceptional knowledge. It is simply an observation of several suicides and those that did or did not try to help them, and the scars that the survivors now keep. The effect eventually becomes one of monotony and annoyance, especially due to the constant ignorance, in regards to depression on display.

Pretty much every person profiled was a sufferer of mental illness, from garden-variety depression to paranoid schizophrenia. What aggravates is that many of the stories basically involve surrender. Surrender to illnesses for which there is quality treatment available, surrender to misconceptions about various kinds of mental illness, and surrender to doing less than what could be done and then decrying the results. One story involves parents who basically allow their young son to commit suicide because they don't think they can stop him and want him to choose his own path. We never even discover whether that child was mentally ill and what steps were taken to help him in the first place. One of the main threads involved a young musician who waited till his mother died of cancer before ending his life. We learn much about his friends, who tried their best to be his family. But the film offers up ridiculous excuses (he was upset because he couldn't find love) and absurd what-ifs (the day he died, he was about to be approved for a job that he wanted), as if these simple events were catalysts or preventions in waiting.

To be fair, it is not the disagreeable attitudes and actions of the characters that makes this film so awkward, but rather that the film really has no focus. The film is not about the bridge, it's not about suicide per se, and it's certainly not about mental illness in any real or accurate way. It is, basically, ninety minutes of survivors discussing their grief over their loved-ones' untimely ends. Yet the overreaching theme seems to be that many of them really did not do much to prevent said tragedies, yet now are upset that their friends dared to end their own lives. Many of my friends suffer from varying degrees of depression and there is plenty of quality treatment available to render their conditions almost invisible. Yet, time after time we see someone bemoaning how his or her friend couldn't just shake it off or get over it. Yes, it is the responsibility of the actual suicides in relation to their actions, but the 'it's all in their heads' attitude about mental illness that most of the interview subjects seem to share says a lot both about them and, perhaps, about the filmmakers.

In the end, The Bridge is a portrait of grief, but without any real reason to hear these stories. Their lives were not defined by the bridge that they lept from, nor even from their final actions. It would seem that their lives were defined by the ignorance of those around them, in regards to the mental illnesses that eventually killed them. In many ways, the film is just as ignorant.

Grade: C-

Review: Deliver Us From Evil (2006)

Deliver Us From Evil
documentary
2006
100 minutes
Rated R

by Scott Mendelson

Back in my high school days, I fell into reading the non-fiction works of John Douglas and Robert Ressler. Both were pioneering profilers for the FBI back in the 70s and 80s and both had extensive careers tracking and analyzing serial killers, rapists, spree killers, and the like. Although Ressler was the elder statesman of the two (he actually coined the term 'serial killer'), Douglas's work was always far more entertaining. The difference was that of tone. While Ressler often went into rants about how evil, depraved and horrible his subjects were, and how despicable their crimes were, Douglas had none of that. Douglas trusted the readers to realize the levels of sadism often on display and felt no need to point out the obvious.

Deliver Us From Evil is a documentary that, for most of its running time, dares to be clinical and almost objective. There is no narration and while the interviews are obviously edited together, there is a feeling of free-flowing conversation throughout. The subject matter is obviously inflammatory, but director Amy Berg does not sensationalize the events in question, but rather allows victims and victimizers alike to explain their actions in cold, meticulous detail.

The story in question concerns one Father Oliver O'Grady. From 1976 until 1993, he was sent to several different parishes in California, where he would befriend local families and use that trust to rape or molest the children in the household. Some were girls and some were boys, but a true victim count has never been tallied. Throughout this time, he was aided and abetted by the Catholic Church in general, and specifically Cardinal Roger Mahoney, who desperately wanted to become Arch-Bishop. Under Mahoney, more than 550 priests abused children without consequence. This movie centers merely on O'Grady, allegedly the most prolific of the offenders, and several of his victims.

If you followed the headlines in the summer of 2002, the general outline of this is not news. The concept of pedophile priests is not a new one, but the explosive allegations of that summer merely cemented what many always believed: that high ranking church officials (including the current Pope) protected the offending priests from criminal and civil punishment and also sent them from one parish to another.

While the film provides few factual revelations, it is a sobering and powerful character study of victims and their families, as well as the victimizer and his accomplices. Colorfully morbid details are tossed about and the various philosophies of the church are discussed in relation to the scandals that are present. Theories on why there are so many pedophiles in the church are offered and various stereotypes are tackled (there are just as many female victims as male, and most pedophiles are heterosexual in nature). Various histories of church dogma are also discussed in relation to the crimes in question. The film falters in its last act, as it shifts from a personal study to a grand overview of the pedophile priest issue; with the victims traveling to the Vatican to deliver a letter to the Pope. The film is at its best when it acknowledges the mass problem but centers on the few victims that are interviewed. But, at its core, the film is simply a study of a relatively objective serial rapist and the victims he left behind.

Deliver Us From Evil is not sensationalistic and refuses to attempt to shock the audience. So clinical and low-key are its descriptions of child sex crimes, that there is genuine shock when tempers do flare and profanities are actually uttered (subject matter aside, the film is a few 'f-words' away from a PG in terms of actual onscreen content). It is a dark and sobering look at a mass tragedy and shameful legacy, seen through the eyes of a few brave souls who felt it was worth talking about, as well as the main figure in the sorrow. As for why he was so willing to open up, one can only guess. Perhaps he merely wanted to have his say, no matter how damning it is. For now, it is a time capsule for when he leaves this world and, possibly, receives his punishment.

Grade: A-

Review: Hollywoodland (2006)

Hollywoodland
2006
120 minutes
Rated R

By Scott Mendelson

There are few things more annoying than a movie that keeps taking us from the story that we care about. We have a fascinating, fictionalized character study of one of the more interesting Hollywood fables, but the film keeps dragging us back into a route, run-of-the-mill film noir mystery. We have a story filled with tragedy, pathos, and potency, but the film seems far more concerned with who-dun-it, even when the culprit is pretty obvious from the get-go.

In 1959, George Reeves, best known for playing Superman on the 1950s television show, apparently shot himself in the head. For a generation of children who knew him only as Superman, this was a traumatic moment. Rumors have long since run rampant, suggesting murder most foul, rather than suicide most tragic. Hollywoodland takes that real life 'mystery' and spins a woefully conventional detective story that spans every bad Spillane cliché. But that murder most boring occasionally takes a backseat to flashbacks to the last several years of Mr. Reeves' life, and those segments provided a moving portrait of a promising actor who came of age at just the wrong time in the film industry.

George Reeves' (Ben Afflick in his best performance since Changing Lanes) career started promisingly with a supporting role in Gone With The Wind. Alas, upon returning home from the war, he found it hard to bounce back. He eventually took a job in a pilot TV show based on the comic book adventures of Superman. The show became a phenomenon and 'serious actor' Reeves was stuck with the fame, but not the fortune,of being beloved hero to children across America.

His eventual demise comes to the attention of a rather low-level private eye, Louis Simo (Adrien Brody, doing what he can to humanize a stock character). Simo's family and career is in shambles, and even his own son is traumatized by the death of the Man Of Steel (his son is devastated that Reeves used a Luger, a Nazi weapon). He hires himself into the services of Reeves' mother, who swears that murder was the cause. From here on in, it's a completely uninvolving investigation route as lovers (Diane Lane, Robin Tunney), friends (Jeffrey DeMunn, pitch perfect as his agent/manager), and duplicitous rich people (Bob Hoskins, boring perhaps for the first time ever as the head of MGM) are suspected in the crime in question. None of this is very compelling, since we all know what probably happened in real life and there is no real flair that separates this from the Reeves segment found on Unsolved Mysteries.

The snippets of the life of George Reeves are fascinating, however. Afflick perfectly captures the tragedy of a career destroyed by the very role that made him a star. One of the earliest victims of television typecasting; Reeves always found it hard to shake off the aura of Superman, a childrens' television role that he may not even have cared for all that much. To an entire generation of television viewers, children and adults alike, there was no line between Superman the character and Reeves the actor (this is demonstrated absolutely in the film's most chilling scene, an event that actually occurred).

Surely Afflick could relate to an actor whose career and credibility was undermined by the public's refusal to separate character from actor, or actor from gossip. Had he been around years earlier, Reeves could have found refuge in the studio system that would have put him in movies at a steady rate. Had he found fame later, he would have found audiences more willing to see their hero in different, more challenging roles. Caught between the two Hollywoods of the 20th century, Reeves never had a chance at breaking out of his world-famous tomb. The final scenes, which go from a sad meeting with manager Arthur Weismann (DeMunn) to the viewing of a key piece of film, are heartbreaking in their subtlety and underscored pathos.

Alas, by presuming that we care about a fictionalized murder mystery over a character study of one of the most famous actors of the last fifty years, Hollywoodland undermines that which makes it unique in the first place. We are stuck with a boring 'mystery' for which the solution is obvious, and thus the conflicts contained unlikely. First time director Allen Coulter should have left the conspiracy theories to the late Robert Stack. Especially when he had a far more fascinating and involving story at his fingertips, waiting to be fully explored.

Grade: C+

Review: Everyone's Hero (2006)

Everyone's Hero
2006
80 minutes
Rated G

by Scott Mendelson

When I was a kid, back in the 1980s, feature-length cartoons were the epitome of 'uncool'. Aside from the occasional quality Universal cartoon (An American Tail, Land Before Time) pretty much the only studio making them was Disney, and they were nearing the end of their 20-year rut (dating basically from The Jungle Book until The Great Mouse Detective and The Little Mermaid). In general, feature length cartoons were immature, badly animated, poorly written, and condescending to the nth degree. In other words, cartoons were purely for 'babies'.

Everyone's Hero is, alas, a cartoon 'for babies'. It's a cartoon in the worst sense of the term. While, occasional clunkers aside, animated features have vastly improved in the last fifteen years, Everyone's Hero is an unfortunate reminder of the bad old days. The dialogue is overwritten, on the nose, and full of the most obvious clichés. The acting is over-the-top, obnoxiously full volume, and cloying. The plot is full of holes and horribly paced, and the attempt at portraying a very specific time in history backfires by vilifying certain people over others purely for the sake of the story. The film is easily the worst animated feature that I've seen since Shark Tale, and the only reason that it's getting distribution is because it was directed in part by Christopher Reeve.

The plot, in brief… Yankee Irving (Jake T. Austin) is a young boy who loves baseball but is quite terrible at it. More than anything, he admires his dad (a security guard at Yankee stadium) and Babe Ruth, who is currently leading the Yankees to World Series victory against the evil Chicago Cubs (I'm not kidding… the Cubbies are portrayed as downright evil in this film). Alas, the diabolical owner of the Cubs devises a scheme to steal Babe Ruth's bat, a plan that involves the evil pitcher Lefty (William H. Macy, proving to young children that south paws are fiendish bat-stealing, child attacking villains) and results in Yankee's dad (Mandy Patinkin) losing his job. Thus, Yankee sets out to find the bat and take it to Chicago before the series deciding game. Alleged adventure and morals about never giving up ensue. After about 40 minutes of this silliness, which includes a screeching and fatally obnoxious Rob Reiner as a talking baseball and a screeching and annoying Whoopi Goldberg as a talking bat, I gave up.

Just as one can never know how Stanley Kubrick would have improved Eyes Wide Shut had he not died mid-production, one cannot know how much of the blame to foist upon the late Reeve. His 1997 directorial debut, In The Gloaming, was a devastatingly good HBO drama about a young AIDS-stricken son returning home to die. His post-accident acting roles were hit and miss, from a silly, misguided remake of Rear Window, to a delightful guest turn on The Practice (where he obviously had fun playing a paraplegic who is still capable of murder).

We can't say whether he would have approved of Reiner's unforgivable overacting, which demanded that he talk at a constant pace and scream every line at top volume (a common trait of the bad 1980s toons). We can't say whether he would have approved a boring storyline that demonizes the Chicago Cubs and all of their fans, and ignores every single Yankee save for Babe Ruth. Ironically, for a movie about perseverance and personal courage, the film absolutely ignores the one Yankee of that period that symbolized those traits, Lou Gehrig.

We hope that he would have approved of the one solid piece of the film, a small scene that gives the spotlight to the much forgotten Negro League, a part of history that most of the target audience has probably never heard of. The film further spins off the rails by having its young hero ignore the obvious logical option for saving the day, which serves only to prolong the story at several key junctures (the late Chicago native Gene Siskel of course referred to this phenomenon as the Idiot Plot). And the climax blows all credibility by allowing the young hero to achieve the sort of opportunity that no actual child in his situation would ever hope to accomplish, thus undermining what could have been a fable about what a young go-getter could actually do under adversity.

Everyone's Hero is a boring, trite, obnoxious would-be fable about never giving up, yet the filmmakers obviously gave up before finessing this work to the level of adequate entertainment. To quote the would-be catchphrase, the filmmakers and cast surely should have kept on swinging.

Grade: D

Review: Snakes On A Plane (2006)

Snakes On A Plane
2006
97 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

Snakes On A Plane may be the first strike in a somewhat troubling new concept. For the last six months, there has been a homegrown Internet campaign of excitement based around this film, primarily due to the delightfully blunt title and the idea of Samuel L. Jackson doing his bad-ass shtick in a B-movie popcorn film. This is all fine and good, as its always nice when a film catches heat purely through word of mouth and ground-level excitement. However, this is the first case I can recall of filmmakers doing reshoots and adding in extra material based on the wanting of online fans and geeks who haven't even seen the film. Alas, it is those very additions that undermine an otherwise sleek and worthwhile B-horror thriller. Be careful what you wish for.

Agent Flynn (Samuel L. Jackson, playing it completely straight save for fan-requested bits) is entrusted with a witness (Nathan Phillips) against ruthless mob boss Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson). Onboard a flight to the trial, Jackson, his witness, and a whole variety of updated disaster movie clichés (the Paris Hilton-wannabee, the gangsta rapper and his posse, the twins flying alone for the first time, the young mother, the snotty foreigner, the flight attendant who turned down early retirement) discover that they are in the most unusual of disaster scenarios. Kim has smuggled a whole planeload of very poisonous snakes on board, in the hopes of creating enough carnage to crash the plane.

The next two acts become a race to destroy the snakes and land the plane before those who have been bitten succumb. It's almost a remake of Zero Hour, the disaster movie that inspired Airplane!. Many scenes feel like subtle homage to Airplane!. On its face, its a fun, exciting, and relatively entertaining ride. Scenes on the ground, with a levelheaded and amusingly droll snake expert working with the FBI to try to solve the situation, are great fun and the alleged science is convincing enough to be enjoyed. The snakes attack with fury, picking off quite a few passengers (at one point someone claims that 50 people have already died, but that seems a bit high based on what we've seen). As with most disaster movies, some passengers and crew unfairly die and others unfairly live. With a couple exceptions (blame the geeks), the violence is not played for laughs. The acting is as good as it needs to be, and Nathan Phillips provides a worthwhile portrayal of a decent guy trying to do the right thing. His guilt and helplessness at the situation he indirectly caused is surprisingly poignant.

I have just described the movie as it was originally intended. However, thanks to the drumbeats of armchair filmmakers, the film was altered to give it a higher 'cool quotient'. Now, in a relatively serious thriller, we have comic scenes of gratuitous nudity, comic scenes of 'funny' violence (the first two snake attacks were reshot to make the teen boys scream 'cool!'), and lots of gratuitous profanity. The worst example of this is the most famous. At the request of these geeks, we have a scene towards the finale where Sam Jackson, completely out of character, blatantly on a different set, and not looking at anyone, screams that hes "tired of these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!" Aside from the fact that this moment is completely out of character and forced, the obviousness of the insert (think Raymond Burr in Godzilla) completely takes you out of the film. The 'amped-up' film is still not terribly gory or bloody; so don't expect a gore fest (The Descent will provide that, and it will scare the crap out of you too).

What we have is a relatively good thriller, which is harmed by the studio caving in to their worst instincts to appease the lowest denominator of geek. Hopefully this is a one-time deal and not the start of a disturbing trend. Movies should be made by filmmakers and digested by moviegoers. If fans don't like George Lucas changing his own movies in any way he pleases, then they have the right not to buy Star Wars merchandise. This absurd and scary concept of fan ownership can only result in more crass, dumber, sillier film making. Prophets of doom aside, most of Snakes On A Plane is a worthwhile B-movie thriller with fun characters, decent production values, and a worthwhile plot to support its initial concept. It's worth seeing in its present form, but, if given the eventual choice, I'll buy the original PG-13 version.

Grade: B-

Review: Akeelah And The Bee (2006)

Akeelah And The Bee
2006
112 minutes
Rated PG

by Scott Mendelson

About this time every year, the critics and film journalists crow about just how awful the year has thus far been. As they talk up the fall's Oscar contenders, they bemoan the alleged lack of quality summer fare and winter wonders. Alas, for once, I agree with them this year. The film calendar of 2006 has been a vast desert wasteland of near misses (Mission: Impossible 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, Hollywoodland), brain-dead popcorn filler (Da Vinci Code, Everyone's Hero, World Trade Center), and truly heartbreaking screw-ups (Superman Returns and Lady In The Water). Never in my life can I remember a whole year with so few winners, a paucity to the point where good, high-quality, professional entertainments are heralded as masterpieces (The Illusionist, V For Vendetta, Little Miss Sunshine). But there is one honest to goodness masterpiece that was released this year. In all likelihood you didn't see it. It comes out on DVD on September 5^th. Don't make the same mistake twice.

The plot: Akeelah Anderson (Keke Palmer, already showing range with a completely different character from this year's Madea's Family Reunion) is a middle-schooler in a poor, predominantly African-American neighborhood. Living by her mother (Angela Bassett, terrific per norm) following the murder of her father a few years ago, she tries to deal with the various struggles of growing up poor in a school system that can't provide as well as peers who scorn those who dare to use their brain. Through happenstance, she ends up winning her school spelling bee and is encouraged by her principal (Curtis Armstrong, playing it straight) to partake in further levels of competition. Although she has a knack for spelling, she finds she needs tutelage. Enter Dr. Larabee (Laurence Fishburne, back in low-key mentor mode), a former UCLA professor and spelling bee champion who reluctantly agrees to coach her.

That's all you get. The plot alternates between tried and true convention and shocking surprise. Knowing full well the expectations of the genre he is in, writer/director Doug Atchison grounds the film in a mild gritty realism, while being unafraid of high emotions and subtle character shadings. While the film earns its PG, there are undertones of the poor, often unsafe streets that Akeelah lives on. Refreshingly, there isn't the obligatory homicide that often ends the second act in such films, having a random friend/relative get killed to show the down and out hero what he/she is fighting for (Step Up, Coach Carter, Poetic Justice, Gridiron Gang, etc). Despite the snippet of the mean streets, there are no real villains. Even the film's representative for gang culture (Eddie Staples, from My Name Is Earl) gets a charming, redemptive scene of humanity and warmth.

Yes, there are a few clichés here and there, but clichés become such because, when done correctly, or subverted slightly, they work. Yes, Dr. Larabee has his own demons to face down, Akeelah's mother is reluctant to support her at first, and Akeelah's best friend feels left out, but these worn-devices are resolved in unexpected ways (and at different points in the story than you'd expect). Even the climactic spelling bee match has several potent surprises, concluding with easily the most original and classiest ending to a sports film since Tin Cup. On a slightly related note, why is it that allegedly Oscar-worthy underdog stories like Cinderella Man that target 'mature adults' often paint their opposing athletes as simplistic, inhuman monsters, while alleged 'kiddie fare' allows the hero's opponents to be fully fleshed out characters and worthy adversaries?

In the end, Akeelah And The Bee works. The characters are sympathetic and fully dimensional. The story, while slightly familiar, is full of rich plot twists and character development. And the acting is top-notch across the board (perhaps, with this, What's Love Got To Do With It, and the play Fences, Bassett and Fishburne should be required to work together once every few years). In a year of disappointments, Akeelah And The Bee dares to be far better than it has any right to be. It is simply a terrific movie and all-ages entertainment of the best variety. Unfortunately, due to the early theatrical release date and lackluster box-office, its Oscar chances are all but non-existent. Nonetheless, as of this late date in 2006, Akeelah And The Bee is easily the best film of the year.

Grade: A+

Review: World Trade Center (2006)

World Trade Center
2006
126 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

World Trade Center is a relatively uninvolving story about two policemen who enter a burning building and are trapped in rubble when said building collapses. On it's face, the film isn't terribly moving, the performances are barely adequate, and several key characters are rendered in such broad strokes as to be unsettling or unsympathetic. It's simply a badly made film, but will that matter to audiences distracted by a 'nationalistic obligation' to embrace it?

World Trade Center concerns two policemen who were trapped in one of the World Trade buildings in NYC when those buildings were hit by passenger jets and collapsed on 9-11-01. Officers John McLouglin (Nicolas Cage, doing what he can with very little character depth) and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena, shining in the proverbial lead role) make their way to the police station on that fateful Tuesday morning. After receiving word that a plane has hit the World Trade Center, they make their way to the building to assist with rescue efforts. They enter the tower right as it falls and traps them in the rubble.

The first 25 minutes are simply spellbinding and riveting, as we see pieces of the attack from the eyes of unknowing victims (this is the only part that feels like an Oliver Stone film). The sense of futility is stunning. It's obvious that the city was completely unprepared in equipment and technology for this event (the stinging acknowledgment of this is the only thing that comes close to making any political statements, in an otherwise apolitical film). Unfortunately, once John and Will fall into the ground, the film becomes awash in melodramatic clichés.

The film then alternates between scenes of John and Will trying to keep each other awake, scenes of their would-be rescuers, and scenes of their families suffering. The scenes of our two attempted heroes are worthwhile and entertaining. There is a tangible sense of dread, as they both know that random fragments of the building or a random spark could kill them at any moment. Unfortunately, the family grieving scenes frankly reek of Lifetime clichés. Actually, the 90s Lifetime movie about a woman trapped in rubble after the Oklahoma City bombing (Oklahoma City: A Survivor's Story) is actually better than this film.

The wives are underdeveloped and their children alternate between cloy and vile. John's son spends his scenes yelling at his mother for not 'doing something'; behavior that is so naive and cruel that his heartlessness hurts that whole portion of the movie. Meanwhile, Will's pregnant wife (Maggie Gyllenhaal) has a slow nervous breakdown, but her scenes of strife are nothing we haven't seen before in other, better movies. Weirdly enough, Will's wife's (Caucasian) family is presented as energetic, spirited, and can-do Americans, while Will's (non-Caucasian) family is represented mainly by his mother kneeling on the floor and helplessly weeping. Intentional or not, the symbolism is disturbing.

Speaking of disturbing, the third thread concerns Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon), a former marine who spearheaded the rescue effort. Presented as a zealot who drove thousands of miles to help, he is played (unintentionally?) as a genuinely scary figure, whose good deeds don't mask the fact that he's quite frightening in his zealotry (he has cold, dead eyes, believes that he is on a holy quest, and speaks like he'll kill you if you disagree with him). Apparently, several humanizing details were cut out of the film; so all were left with is a Christian fanatic (as opposed to a merely devout Christian) who finds his way onto Ground Zero in the dead of night.

Oddly, the film strives so hard to be uplifting and inspiring that it almost forgets to present that day as a monumental tragedy as well (a late, brief scene involving Viola Davis as a grieving mother feels tacked on). Alas, the recent flawed remake of Poseidon presented a more potent look at the tragedy of mass death (the mass drowning of the ballroom passengers, with Andre Braugher hugging Stacy Ferguson as they await doom, is heartbreaking).

So, in the end, we have a mediocre disaster film with undeveloped or unsympathetic characters. We have cliched dialogue and situations along with a boring second act. The film fails the key rule of based on truth film making. If this story were complete fiction, would it still be worth seeing or half as effective? The filmmakers hope that moviegoers will be swept up in the 'oh, but it's about 9/11' glow and ignore the fact that this is really a mediocre motion picture. This is not the great 9/11 epic of our time, and you don't have a patriotic duty to embrace it.

Grade: C-

Review: Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Little Miss Sunshine

2006
100 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson

When debating the greater meaning of a given motion picture, often the subject that comes up is who exactly is being represented in a movie? Sometimes it's various minorities complaining about a certain portrayal (for example, veteran role-model Denzel Washington playing a homicidal cop in Training Day) and the ensuing debate on whether that portrayal represents that entire minority as opposed to just that character. Sometimes it's a certain group being annoyed at the inexplicable choice to portray their alleged pain (see Gynneth Paltrow being the stand-in for obese women in Shallow Hal or anyone and everyone from Memoirs Of A Geisha). Then there is the opposite situation, when a filmmaker claims to portray a more general overview of a given situation like race-relations (Crash) or male-female romance war (Closer), which then undermines the films quality as we laugh at how very specific characters are being used to define the broad overview of the issue at hand.

In general, movies that do not strive to encapsulate a whole issue or group of people within their specific narrative are far more successful. Brokeback Mountain was not about every gay man in America, just Jake and Ennis. And Training Day was not representing every corrupt African-American cop in America, just Alonzo. This brings us to Little Miss Sunshine, which is frankly the best family drama/comedy since Thumbsucker. It involves at it's core a very dysfunctional family and their struggles with failure and disillusionment. It does not represent your family. It does not represent my family. It is very specifically about the Hoover clan and only about them.

In brief: The Hoover clan is going through some very tough times. Richard (Greg Kinnear, proving again that he is now and may always be the best actor ever to first be a talk show host) is a failed motivational speaker who is banking on an offhand promise of a book publication deal. Sheryl (Toni Collette, great per usual and on a role after In Her Shoes) is the frustrated and bitter matriarch. Grandpa (Alan Arkin) has recently moved in after being kicked out of his nursing home. Their elder son, Dwayne (Paul Dano) has taken a vow of silence until he joins the Air Force Academy (a goal which is obviously less about flying and more about escaping his clan). Sheryls brother, Frank (Steve Carell, wonderfully low-key and completely at the service of the film) will soon be moving in, as he recently tried to kill himself for reasons best left unexplained here.

Finally, we have Olive (Abigail Breslin), the seven-year old daughter whom the movie eventually revolves around. The main plot involves an accidental qualification into the finals of the California Little Miss Sunshine pageant, which is a beauty pageant for very young children. At the behest of their youngest member, the entire clan hops into their van and takes a road trip that will vaguely remind viewers of the original National Lampoons Vacation. As is always the case with road movies, the destination is always beside the point and the true journey becomes one of internal examination. Of course, what matters is not what the movie is about but how it is about it, and Little Miss Sunshine is a minor triumph as a character study and an acting treat. Everyone here is at the top of his or her game and the story does take a few genuinely unexpected turns.

Aside from the usual themes of family togetherness, enjoying life to the fullest, and appreciating what you have, the film comes into a very specific theme. Each of the most damaged characters finds partial redemption through being admired by someone else. Everyone feeds off of Olive, because she is too young not to worship her parents and those around her. Grandpa in particular finds comfort in his granddaughter, as he knows that she is the only one who still respects him. And even suicidal and despondent Frank finds a friend of sorts in Dwayne, as Dwayne eventually appreciates this one person who views the world in much the same intellectual and cynical terms as he.

Despite it's façade as a bleak and dark artsy-comedy, Little Miss Sunshine is actually an uncommonly optimistic film. It understands, at it's core, that no matter how down and out we are in a given moment, we all look for people who admire us and believe that we are better than we are, if only for the validation and the hope that they might be correct.

Grade: A-

Review: The Break-Up (2006)

The Break-Up
2006
105 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

From a critical point of view, one is divided over a movie like The Break-Up. On one hand, it does attempt to be different from the usual cookie-cutter romantic comedies. And, there are a few scenes here and there that do have an element of honest human truth to them. However, as a whole, the film collapses under key narrative and character errors and eventually becomes a combination of boring and cringe inducing. While The Break-Up may be a noble failure, it still fails.

The plot, to wit Gary and Brooke (Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston, respectively) meet at a Cubs game and take an immediate liking to each other. Over an opening-credits montage, we see two-years of their relationship as it progresses from courtship to living together in a rather nice Chicago condo. Alas, all is not well, and a nasty after-dinner fight ends with their decision to split up. Alas, they both love their condo and neither want to give it up, so they decide to play Solomon and split it in half, with Gary taking parts and Brooke getting parts. Alleged comedy ensues.

The key problem with this enterprise is that it stars two very unlikable characters. Gary is immediately presented as a selfish jerk, as his opening scene literally has been forcing his way into a date with Brooke even as she's on a date with someone else at the time. He eventually reveals himself as almost psychopathically lacking in basic empathy and a generally lousy human being. Why anyone, be it Brooke, or his family, or his friends would put up with him is never explained, as he isn't even presented as being particularly funny or charming.

As for Brooke, she is presented as a rather mal-adjusted needy individual who seemingly tries to win Gary back despite his complete lack of respect for her. Like many romantic comedies (like The Wedding Crashers or The Wedding Singer), the film makes the tactical error of having the female lead pining for or being engaged to someone who is such a disrespecting, abusive creep, that we lose respect for her and don't particularly care about her happy ending.

Ironically, while Vaughn and Aniston are miserable together, utterly lacking in chemistry, the cast around them shines and provides what entertainment there is to offer. Vaughn has fun sparring with Jon Favreau as his best friend, obviously playing on Swingers-nostalgia. In about fifteen minutes of screen time, Vincent D'Onofrio nearly steals the heart of the picture as Gary's put-upon oldest brother. It's his dealings with Gary's selfishness that gains our sympathy as Gary costs him more than just having to do dishes after a dinner function. By the end, we couldn't care less if Gary and Brooke get back together, but we sincerely hope for Gary to make amends to his own family. Between this, Thumbsucker, and the always-terrific Law And Order: Criminal Intent (aside from everything else he's done in the last 20 years), D'Onofrio is quickly becoming one of my favorite character actors (unlike the other braniac TV detectives, Goren is the only one who is shown learning all the stuff he will spout out later).

On Brooke's side, Joey Lauren Adams fills the best friend role but does nothing of interest with it. More amusing is Judy Davis as the insightful diva-ish boss at the art museum where Brooke works (an almost unrecognizable Justin Long hams it up as the flamboyant receptionist). Also amusing, albeit with limited screen time, is Jason Bateman as their mutual friend and their realtor. It's his big scene that sets the third act into gear.

Of course, all the great character actors in the world don't help all that much when the leads are unlikable and boring. Despite attempting to make an honest and unflinching look at a couple falling apart, the movie in the end is 102 minutes of unlikable, unsympathetic people playing hurtful head games with each other while we allegedly root for them to reconcile. Also hurting is the indecisive ending, which is a known compromise between what the filmmakers wanted and what the foolish test audiences demanded. Besides, in the end, a part of us does want them back together, if only so everyone else in the dating scene will be spared.

Grade: C-