First Hugo, and now The Artist—films about films, for people who love films, huzzah!  Not that either of these movies is…inaccessible to a “regular” audience, but a little bit of knowledge allows one to appreciate the in-jokes, homages, references, what-have-you (of course, the factual inaccuracies also stand out more sharply as well, but that’s a burden we’ll have to bear). 

Perhaps the best word to describe The Artist is “charming”—it’s not especially complex dramatically nor hilariously funny, although it’s both touching and amusing at times—but the film is a true pleasure to watch, the characters are worthy of empathy, the formal aspects (no dialogue or sound effects, black & white cinematography) are intriguing, and “getting” the sub-texts enhances the viewing experience for us film nerds.  Director Michael Hazanavicius often treads a fine line between subtlety and blatant symbolism (or to be more precise, he alternates between these two extremes) but this is really a well-crafted work with no serious weak spots in concept or execution.

The Artist depicts a few years in the life of George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a Douglas Fairbanksian star whose films focus on his boundless energy and brilliant smile.  Valentin lives the good life (although his marriage doesn’t appear to be happy) in a grand Hollywood mansion, and the future looks bright.  A chance encounter with would-be actress Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo, the director’s real-life wife) produces a few emotional sparks, but they go their separate ways (George does give her an inspiring and apparently sincere pep-talk): he continues to perform on the Olympian level, while she begins her own climb to the heights.

However, George doesn’t view the advent of sound with favour, and parts ways with the Kinograph Motion Picture Company.  His attempt at independent production with a silent feature entitled “Tears of Love” fails, and the stock market crash does the rest: his wife leaves him, he has to sell off his mansion and its contents, and is reduced to near-poverty.  Peppy, in the meantime, has become a major star in sound pictures.  However, she’s never forgotten George…

The Artist isn’t a documentary, so it should be permitted a certain freedom in its depiction of silent Hollywood and its transition to sound.  Still, dramatic license occasionally pokes one in the eye: sound didn’t suddenly explode on the motion picture industry in 1929 as the film suggests, but gradually moved from the experimental stage to become a novelty (in the early 1920s) and then appeared in feature films as early as 1926 (Don Juan had a synchronised music score), and The Jazz Singer was a massive hit in 1927 (when The Artist begins).  There was some trepidation about the capital investment required to convert to the new and unproven technology, and some people felt sound and film artistry were inherently inimicable, but the writing was on the wall fairly early on.  

Similarly, the scene in which mega-star George Valentin is brushed aside in favour of “fresh meat” for film audiences is hardly credible.  Established stars were generally given the opportunity to make the transition to sound, unless there were specific reasons why they were clearly unsuitable for the new medium.  Naturally, some performers became casualties of sound, but very few were denied even the chance to try.  The Artist initially depicts George scoffing at a “sound test,” but we don’t see him refuse to make a sound film in 1929: instead he is blatantly informed by studio head Al Zimmer (John Goodman) that his services are no longer needed. 

Why doesn’t George give sound films a try?  His public statements about sound ruining films as an art form appear to be attempts to sell his silent movie to the public rather than a seriously-held aesthetic judgement.  He has a nightmare in which all manner of noise figures prominently, yet he himself cannot make a sound.  Only in the final moments of The Artist do we get a hint of what may have been on George’s mind all along: his only dialogue in the movie is in response to Zimmer’s enthusiastic request for a repeat of the climactic dance routine, to which George replies “Wizz plesair!”  Yes, “All-American” screen hero George Valentin has a French accent thicker than Maurice Chevalier and Charles Boyer’s combined (of course, those two Gallic performers did quite well in Hollywood, but their screen personas were tailored to fit).  Whether this is the “secret” of The Artist is debatable: perhaps Hazanavicius had no such idea, and he really did intend for us to believe George had ideological objections to sound films (or that he was just insecure and didn’t want to risk his career to new technology).

The Artist, to its credit, doesn’t cheat formally: it truly is a silent film (with an accompanying music score) until the very end (aside from the aforementioned dream sequence and a musical montage set to the song “Pennies from Heaven”).  There are a few inter-titles, but the audience is expected to mentally fill in much of the dialogue themselves, or infer from the action what is happening.  Other silent-film conventions are used effectively, such as images which convey sound (for example, a shot of Peppy whistling to get George’s attention), “wipes” to transition from scene to scene, and so forth.  

Hazanavicius, as noted above, alternates between subtle and blatant visuals.  For example, in the opening sequence, we glimpse a sign in a cinema reading “Please Be Silent Behind the Screen,” a nice touch, as are the “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil” monkey figurines George owns, signifying the actor’s refusal to listen to the advice of his wife, Al Zimmer, etc., and his refusal to speak.  On the heavy-handed side are a film marquee reading “Lonely Star” as a sad George walks away, and Peppy appearing in a movie rather over-significantly entitled “Guardian Angel.”  There are also a number of film references, overt and covert (a few possibly just imagined by me).  For instance: Citizen Kane is evoked in a “breakfast scene” montage between George and his wife (Peppy’s room full of George’s sheet-covered possessions is also reminiscent of Charles Foster Kane’s warehouse “collection”); A Star is Born (and the early prototype for this story, What Price Hollywood?) seems to have been an inspiration; George himself is a pseudo-Douglas Fairbanks (footage from a Fairbanks film is even included); George’s unsuccessful jungle adventure-romance “Tears of Love” might be a reference to the aborted Erich Von Stroheim-Gloria Swanson collaboration Queen Kelly (the two films share a jungle setting and both were notorious “late silent” failures).  

In one sequence, Peppy, promoting her first sound film, makes a disparaging remark about the melodramatic acting style in silents.  As with George’s negative comments about sound, Peppy’s denigration of silent film acting feels more like publicity for her new talkie, as opposed to a sincere condemnation of George and his ilk (and after all, her career began in the silent era as well).  Actors in silent films were perhaps not as naturalistic and understated in their craft as actors today, but this is not necessarily solely attributable to the silent/sound difference, but also owes a great deal to the evolution of acting styles over the years.  The performances in The Artist are not artificial or “old-fashioned” or flamboyant in the manner frequently (but mistakenly) associated with silent films.  

Dujardin carries the dramatic load effectively, showing both sides of George Valentin, the public figure and the private man.  Though Dujardin is bereft of one of the actor’s main tools—his voice—in this case it’s not only appropriate within the context of the film but it also allows Dujardin to pull a George Valentin: that is, he’s not typecast due to his accent, so we can more easily accept him as a presumably (until the end of the movie) American movie star.  Similarly, Bérénice Bejo can be flapper Peppy Miller, and not Renee Adoree or Jetta Goudal or even Greta Garbo, i.e., defined by her “foreign” voice.  This is a instance where reality and film coincide in a curious manner.  That is, the absence of dialogue allows Dujardin and Bejo to be much more believable in their roles.  

So, voiceless, how do they do?  Pretty darn well, using their faces and bodies to convey meaning and emotion with real depth and nuance.  The other performers are adequate but have relatively small roles, and make no real impression (John Goodman is an interesting case, because our prior familiarity with his persona and voice allow us to supply those missing aspects and thus make his role seem to have more depth than it actually does; the same applies to a certain extent to James Cromwell).  On the positive side, Hazanavicius (and his casting director) have done an excellent job in finding people with “1920s faces.”  Too often, period films populate their casts with actors and extras who seem too modern, but The Artist doesn’t have this anachronistic feel at all.  

The production values are excellent, with splendid sets and costumes.  The cinematography is also top-notch (and while audiences probably won’t notice, the film is shot in the “old” aspect ratio of roughly 4:3, rather than 1:85 to 1 or wider), and the music score is superb (I didn’t like the version of “Pennies from Heaven” that plays here, but that’s a minor quibble).

As with Hugo, I recognise that my affection for film history may colour my attitude toward The Artist.  However, I believe I can say with a certain degree of objectivity that this really is a fine film, intelligently designed and directed.  The form and content are inextricably intertwined, and conventional wisdom is that “regular audiences” wouldn’t enjoy a “silent,” black and white movie.  I don’t think this is necessarily a film only for film buffs, intellectuals, or arty hipsters—but it might be difficult to convince people otherwise.

But if so, then it’s their loss— I liked The Artist and enjoyed it immensely.

I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy the new version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and not necessarily because the film itself wouldn’t be entertaining. Having seen and thoroughly enjoyed the three original films (and read all three novels), I wondered if I’d constantly be making conscious and/or subconscious comparisons as I watched David Fincher’s take on the same source material.

As it developed, enough time had passed since I’d watched the Swedish trilogy that the specific details of those films had gone fuzzy in my mind (like many other things! *rimshot*).  I can still say I prefer the original film(s) and there are some areas where comparisons are apt, but as I was viewing the “new” The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, I was caught up in the story and characters and that’s a good thing.  Despite its length  (over 2.5 hours), TGWTDT 2011 (conserve energy, use abbreviations!) moves along effectively and I was actually shocked that the time had passed so quickly.  It’s also interesting to note that the film’s length doesn’t mean it’s full of detail and character development: it’s actually rather lean and missing a fair amount of nuance that was present in the first version.  Perhaps I’m mentally conflating all three of the Swedish films into a single, massive work (which they—and the novels—really are), but even so, my judgement about the “coolness” of Fincher’s film stands.  

The plot is the same, of course.  In a way, watching a remake or a new adaptation of a work puts a bit of a strain on the audience, since we already know what’s going to happen (assuming the second version is faithful to the first and doesn’t change the plot drastically), but how the new film gets there is what counts. TGWTDT 2011 makes one rather major change in the denouement, but it’s not a deal-breaker, the essence of the original novel was retained.  

Journalist Mikael Blomkvist loses a lawsuit and resigns from “Millenium” magazine to avoid tainting its reputation.  He’s hired by elderly industrial magnate Henrik Vanger, ostensibly to write the older man’s memoirs, but really to investigate the disappearance of Henrik’s niece Harriet in the mid-1960s.  Mikael brings in free-lance researcher Lisbeth Salander, an asocial computer hacker, and together they uncover a series of murders which date back to the 1940s and which appear to be connected with the Vanger family. 

Addressing one point—the conclusion—that’s been the focus of controversy in a number of commentaries on this film, I have to weigh in and say I have no problem with either the “Wennerstrom scam” sub-plot (which is roughly what happens in the books) or the “sad Lisbeth” coda.  The character of Lisbeth Salander is superficially similar in the Hollywood film, the Swedish films, and the novels, although only in the books does one get much “privileged” insight into her personality (as opposed to deducing her feelings from her actions).  The relationship between Lisbeth and Mikael is different in each “version” (for the sake of argument, let’s call the Swedish film trilogy, the novels, and the English-language film three separate “versions”): sometimes Mikael cares more, sometimes Lisbeth cares more, sometimes the attraction is mutual.  In TGWTDT 2011, Lisbeth is the one who comes forward—she seems to be attracted to Mikael after doing the background check, and while it is he who hires her to be his research assistant, it is she who initiates their sexual relationship, and it is she who becomes emotionally attached to him.  

Should one care to indulge in pop psychology, Lisbeth’s feelings for Mikael (who is old enough to be her father) go against what appears to be her (justified) antipathy towards men (she is brutally raped by her legal guardian, an excruciatingly unpleasant scene)—although she does demonstrate affection towards her former guardian (now recovering from a stroke).  The novels make her feelings somewhat more explicit, and also go into more detail regarding how horrifically she’s been treated by men in her life, but TGWTDT 2011 mostly portrays her as independent, uncommunicative, isolated, rather than severely emotionally scarred. Why she trusted Mikael and developed an emotional attachment to him is unclear, but hey, love is like that.

Mikael, on the other hand, appears to like and respect Lisbeth, but in this version there is literally no indication he is attracted to her romantically (he’s already having an affair with Erika, the publisher of “Millenium,” who’s married). In the novels, Mikael is presented as very attractive to women (and has relationships with other women in addition to Erika): this isn’t carried over to the Swedish films, but in both the novels and the original movie trilogy, Mikael is extremely fond of Lisbeth in a friendly, protective, almost fatherly way, and she is the one who—after her one “slip”—repeatedly pushes him away.  This is one area in which TGWTDT 2011 is flawed: Mikael’s attitude towards Lisbeth is less personal, he doesn’t seem to think of her much at all, except as a co-worker (and they don’t actually work together that much, unlike the first film version, in which they do some mutual investigating and traveling) and occasional bed partner.  Of course, this makes Lisbeth’s feelings all the more tragic, since they aren’t reciprocated.  The scene in which she tells her ex-guardian “I’ve made a friend” is really pitiful to watch, since we know Lisbeth is setting herself up for heartbreak, and that this “failure” or “weakness” will only push her further back into herself.

Perhaps the critical backlash (mild as it was) against the “unbelievable” conclusion of TGWTDT 2011 is a result of the newer version’s lack of characterisation and the excessively “cool” personalities of the two protagonists.  Lisbeth’s actions with relation to Mikael are not logical and seem to go against her nature, and we’re not given a chance to know her well enough to understand her feelings or their origin.  Similarly, Mikael is basically a just dogged reporter who really, really wants to solve the mystery of Harriet’s disappearance (and, later, the other murders), but his character has little depth otherwise.

This isn’t to say Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara aren’t satisfactory in their roles, because they are.  I shan’t compare either of them to their Swedish counterparts, but there are considerable differences in both the characters as written and as performed.  I will raise my hand to complain about Rooney Mara’s lack of eyebrows, because this “look” creeps me out.  Sure, she’s got a punk haircut, tattoos, piercings, etc., but the absence of eyebrows gives her an alien appearance and seriously affected my ability to empathise with her.  Call me shallow, but there you have it, her bald brow was a little too effective if it was supposed to signify her desire to reject societal norms.

The rest of the cast is also fine, although most of the supporting players are unfamiliar Euro-faces (the film was mostly shot in Sweden), with the exception of Christopher Plummer, Robin Wright, and Joely Richardson.  This is the third film I’ve seen featuring Stellan Skarsgård in less than a year (after Thor and Melancholia), what’s up with that?  The production values are also satisfactory.  I was one of the few people, it seems, who didn’t feel the original film trilogy was very “Swedish” in tone or content (as compared to the novels, which naturally contain more “local colour”), and there’s not much in TGWTDT 2011 which couldn’t have been just as effective if the film had been set in some other European country, or Canada, or even the USA (with a few tweaks of the script to eliminate or explain the Vanger family’s Nazi past—which has very little significance in this film anyway).  The much-vaunted credits sequence (set to Led Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song”) didn’t do much for me: I’m not averse to quirky credits animation, but this actually felt overdone and stylistically at odds with the “cool” tenor of the rest of the film.

One minor aspect of TGWTDT 2011 which interested me was the film’s depiction of Mikael and Lisbeth’s research.  Being a researcher, writer, and librarian (among other things) in real life, I appreciated how the process of research was shown—in addition to the usual computer searches that have been de rigeur in cinema for over a decade now, the movie also shows people actually going through physical objects, such as newspaper clippings, photographs, paper reports *shock horror*  Yes, believe it or not, children, not every bit of knowledge has been digitised.  And sometimes, when doing research, you just want to put photos and charts and papers up on the wall, to see connections and relationships, and some people prefer this tangible display rather than being limited to what can be displayed on a laptop screen.  The original film version also showed this, and while obviously Mikael and (especially) Lisbeth are never without their trusty laptops, both of them have to go places, talk to people, and consult original sources and documents.  Amazing.

I’m sure my opinion of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011) would have been different if I’d never seen the original films or read the novels.  Although I indicated at the outset of this review that I didn’t go into the screening with the intent of making a comparison between films or an evaluation of this version’s adaptation of the novel, my prior knowledge of these certainly affected me, as objective as I wished to be.  And maybe I’m always prejudiced (just a tad) in favour of “original versions.”  David Fincher’s film is quite slick, engrossing, well-produced, and well-paced.  However, I did not feel it had the same dramatic depth as the Swedish version (although admittedly this is a statement I am making without the benefit of a re-viewing of the original film): there is too much emotional distance, too little feeling.  I was never sure if my reaction to Lisbeth (especially) and Mikael and the rest was due to the script, direction, and performances, or if I was projecting feelings and motivations on them from the other films and the novels.

Nonetheless, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011) is certainly a decent film with a good deal to offer, and viewers without my “baggage” should find it a slick, captivating thriller with a clever plot and compelling performances. 

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows can be “read” in various ways, but overall it’s an entertaining action film, if occasionally annoying due to a directorial style which verges on the self-indulgent and incoherent.

As is my wont, I missed the first Guy Ritchie-Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes adaptation, so this particular incarnation of the famed detective is new to me.  Raised as I was on the Basil Rathbone films and the original stories with their Sidney Paget illustrations, Downey’s manic, baby-faced Sherlock comes as a bit of a shock.  While the character of Dr. Watson has evolved in popular culture over the years from the avuncular Nigel Bruce to the current, handsome-young-fellow played by Jude Law, the image of Sherlock Holmes himself has remained reasonably consistent, at least in the major versions: a bit reserved, superior, introspective, confident.  Downey’s Holmes bears little resemblance to Conan Doyle’s creation or any of the subsequent versions on film.  If I were a purist I might have been offended, but it’s easier to simply mentally re-name the character as one is watching the movie, and thus forget about any liberties taken with the original Sherlock Holmes.

This Sherlock Holmes does have amazing powers of ratiocination and observation and deduction, but—thanks to that directorial “style” mentioned earlier—he appears to be psychic rather than highly intelligent.  The “predictive” flash-forwards become increasingly incoherent and pointless, a sort of gibberish film-language which is neither used consistently nor logically.  The hyper-stylisation of the action sequences is at least less confusing—we can figure out what’s going on—though the stop-start, slow-fast stuff has long since worn out its welcome.  On rare occasions the images at least have an intrinsic value of their own, such as the fascinating shots of artillery shells shattering some trees in a German forest, but this doesn’t make them any less artificial and disruptive to the narrative flow of the film.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows has the usual Holmesian supporting cast—Dr. Watson, Mrs. Hudson, Inspector Lestrade (very minor role), Irene Adler, Mycroft Holmes, Professor Moriarity—and the film concludes with the famous plunge into the Reichenbach Falls, but the characterisations, situations and the breakneck pace are more reminiscent of a steampunk Mission Impossible than classic Conan Doyle.  That’s not necessarily bad—Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is two hours long but seems shorter, has a fair amount of humour (and even some wit), is lavishly produced and moderately well-written, with decent internal logic (not to say the clues to the overall plot are obvious, but at least when revealed they don’t provoke incredulous anger on the part of the audience).

    A chain of mysterious murders and explosions draws Sherlock Holmes and the reluctant Dr. Watson (reluctant, because he was supposed to be on his honeymoon) into Professor Moriarity’s web of international political intrigue.  Holmes and Watson are joined by gypsy Madame Sim, whose missing brother is somehow connected to the plot.  The intrepid trio leaps from England to France to Germany to Switzerland, always a step behind the cultured but cruel criminal mastermind, until the final confrontation…

Although Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is paced quite well, moving from location to location (and action set-piece to action set-piece) with alacrity, there are a few more sedate moments and, to be fair, some padding.  Still, it’s enjoyable enough, given the posh production design (visually, this a splendid piece of work), the genial performances, and at least some of the action sequences (the ones where the audience can actually see and understand what’s going on).  Robert Downey Jr. is spritely in the hero’s role, albeit slightly buffoonish at times (his disguises are deliberately transparent this time around, although his “urban camouflage” suits are good for a smile).  His Sherlock Holmes is a far cry from the standard model, but it’s also miles away from his turn as Tony Stark/Iron Man, so Downey’s acting prowess is not to be doubted: he purposely plays Holmes the way he does, not because he’s incapable of doing it “traditionally.”  Jude Law is very good as Watson, while Jared Harris is appropriately suave and sinister as Moriarity.  Noomi Rapace’s international profile was raised by her appearances as Lisbeth Salander in original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels, so it’s interesting to see her here.  Her spoken English is adequate and she is capable in the role of gypsy Sim—although the script has her stuffing her face with food in half of her footage, it seems—but she’s not particularly distinctive.

In sum—despite the overly-mannered direction—a good script, lavish production values, and competent performances make Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows fast and furious and funny enough to make two hours pass pleasantly.  

Since tomorrow will be one of the few Internet-free days in my year, I’ll take this opportunity to wish all my “followers” a Happy Holiday.  Some of you are real, some…not so real…but whatever plane of existence you’re on, thanks for at least allowing me to imagine somebody reads what I write.  I’ll be back soon with more film reviews and (if my best-laid plans don’t gang agley) add a supplemental image blog for 2012.  Plus there’ll be Twitter, YouTube, The Mexican Film Bulletin, various message boards, and the many other ways I strive for immortality.

            Once again, I’ve arrived late to a film series.  Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is the only one of the four MI  movies I’ve seen, and while it’s a satisfactory action film—albeit technologically over-inflated to provide the spectacle that current audiences seem to demand—I don’t believe I missed any narrative nuances by not having watched the first three pictures, nor do I have any intention or desire to go back and see what I missed.

            Why didn’t I watch the other Mission Impossible films when they were released?  Partly because they simply didn’t appeal to me—I assumed they were slick and anodyne Hollywood action films and I like ‘em “edgy”—and partly because I tend to conflate Tom Cruise’s onscreen roles with his annoying (to me) real-life personality, and that made his movies difficult for me to enjoy.  I generally don’t confuse other performers’ screen characters with their less-than-savoury real lives (cf, Mel Gibson), so I suppose I was being rather shallow in this case.  Truth be told, Cruise is fine in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (it’s not a “Tom Cruise vehicle,” but has a rather decent ensemble cast) and I hereby apologise for my narrow-mindedness.

            MI:GP is constructed around a fistful of set-pieces: chases, fights, explosions, or “capers” (which often result in chases and/or fights and/or explosions).  That’s fine, this isn’t intended to be an especially cerebral or even dramatic film: the script exists to place the protagonists in the aforementioned situations, not to provoke the audience into thinking or anything (heaven forefend).  Some psycho wants to bamboozle the super-powers into starting a nuclear war with each other, to cleanse the Earth of the bad stuff (i.e., everything).  He needs launch codes so he can trick a Soviet sub into firing the first missile, then he needs a satellite uplink to contact the sub, then he needs to prevent the IMF (no, not the International Monetary Fund, the Impossible Mission Force) from pressing the “destruct” button and stopping his flying nuke before it reaches its destination.  The IMF fails miserably in their first two innings (to be fair, they’re operating under the—dun dun DUN—“Ghost Protocol,” which means they’re on their own, no help from above), but get the job done when it counts.  Well, two out of three isn’t bad for a madman bent on global destruction, I guess.  He did his best, and that’s all we can ask for.

            The film leaps from Moscow (prison riot, sneaking into Kremlin, big explosion, car chase) to Dubai (climbing world’s tallest building, fooling two groups of terrorists, sandstorm car chase) to Mumbai (sneaking into facility, car chase, sneaking into another facility, fighting in automated car park). Interestingly enough, while one of the staples of the franchise (and the action film genre as a whole, especially in the 21st century) is technology, MI-GP goes out of its way to depict the fallibility of technology.  Nearly every gadget utilised by our quartet of protagonists fails at some crucial point, a clever gambit by the screenwriters.

            The script also contains wry, understated humour.  Some of this is character-generated, some is verbal quips, and some is primarily visual.  One of my favourite examples of the latter occurs as Ethan is climbing the outside of the Burj Khalifa (world’s tallest building, hello) using a pair of magnetic (or something) gloves.  One of them malfunctions (of course, see previous paragraph) and Ethan tosses it away, only to later see it clinging to the side of the building…and then fizzle out and drop off into the void.  No big deal, but clever enough to elicit an appreciative smile from me.

            The characterisations of Ethan, sexy woman agent (Paula Patton), outsider guy (Jeremy Renner), and comic relief ginger (Simon Pegg), as well as main crazy-guy villain, secondary bearded villain, villainous woman assassin, Russian sort-of-villain, and so on, are thin but serviceable (as are the performances).  Hardly anyone has a minute to take a breath, let alone start soliloquising about their lives, hopes, and dreams (although Renner’s character gets one “drama” moment where he talks about a failed mission).  I realise I’ve criticised other films for giving us perfunctory scripts and paper-thin characters, but Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol fills in the gaps with its breakneck pace and technical dazzle.

            MI-GP was directed by Brad Bird, an alumnus of “The Simpsons” who makes his live-action directorial debut here.  I’ve never been entirely clear on the duties of an animation director, but I don’t think this position is especially similar to directing actual people.  In an animated film, the animators draw what they’re told to draw, the writers write, the voice artists speak.  Presumably the director oversees this process in a creative way, but the control over the project seems immeasurably greater than on an actual film (and MI-GP isn’t even one of those CGI-heavy projects which are practically cartoons themselves).  Maybe I’m wrong, and Bird is hardly the first person to make the transition (Frank Tashlin did it in the 1950s, and Wes Anderson went the other direction with The Fantastic Mr. Fox).  MI-GP is slick and exciting and to give Bird credit, the action scenes (especially the fights) are largely devoid of the fragmented editing, shaky-cam nonsense which has become all too prevalent in contemporary cinema.  We actually get to see people running and punching and falling and shooting and ducking and so on, instead of the almost subliminal, what-was-that, short-attention-span-generation style that spoils a lot of action sequences elsewhere.

            In the interest of full disclosure, I did not see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol in an IMAX cinema.  I can imagine it’s probably rather impressive in this format, although it was fine in the version I saw.  Although I shan’t go into my usual spiel about film’s unceasing quest to reproduce the illusion of actual experience via technology, until virtual reality devices are perfected, we’ll be exposed to more and more of this ultra-tech wizardry.  IMAX theatres were initially used to showcase documentaries, and now that the process (and other technology such as 3D) is being employed for fictional films, there is always the danger of the visuals overwhelming the story (I’ve already groused a tad about excessive pictorialism in The Adventures of Tin Tin). 

            But however thin its plot and however overwhelming its action sequences, MI-GP succeeds in imparting a sense of empathy, suspense, and tension as well as pure kinetic excitement to the audience, suggesting that the filmmakers were careful to remember that, after all, a film needs a spark of humanity.  Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is a slick, professional, superficial but extremely satisfying action movie.

I don’t want to mock those who’d appreciate Carnage, Roman Polanski’s latest film, because I can be counted among that number. *loosens collar, Rodney Dangerfield-style*  But the sort of people who will enjoy Carnage are the sort of people who are characters in Carnage.  Middle- and upper-middle-class, educated, glib, politically-correct, self-satisfied, pretentious, egocentric, snobbish  people… in a good way, of course.  

I’ll confess that after the first 15 minutes, even I was nearly ready to pack it in. The characters were just so…annoying…and the premise seemed so artificial and forced.  However, I soldiered on, and soon found myself caught up in the fun, being moderately charmed and entertained by the arch dialogue and the sharp performances.  This is a minor work but it’s intelligently witty and provides a diverting 75 minutes or so.  But if I, a member of my imagined target demographic audience for the film (as defined in the opening paragraph), nearly walked out, what hope could there be for wider audience acceptance of Polanski’s movie?  Not much, I fear.  This is one of those “East Coast intellectual” pictures, aimed at the same audience that goes to see Woody Allen films. 

Carnage is a filmed adaptation of a stage play, with only four characters, that unfolds in “real time” in a Manhattan apartment, with all of the formal and intellectual baggage that comes with those strictures.  Polanski makes no attempt to “open up” the play, but converts it to a slick, seamless, “zero-degree” film that allows the actors and the dialogue to take center stage.  Sure, it’s “talky” but the talk is interesting.  Yes, you want to punch the characters in their smug faces much of the time, but then they say or do something that makes you stay your hand and give them another chance to redeem themselves.  You might not like them, but by the end of the movie you understand them (a little) and perhaps even empathise with them (a bit).

Maybe I didn’t delve deep enough, but I don’t think Carnage is especially profound.  It says a little about middle-aged ennui, about the stresses of work and family, about the desire of people to find something beyond their daily drudgery, to discover a talent or an interest that makes them unique and validates their existence…but Death of a Salesman this is not.  It’s a scathing comedy which picks on sitting ducks in an amusing way, but we don’t really learn anything and we don’t come away from the film feeling enlightened or improved.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that: being entertained is a good enough result. Carnage isn’t pretentious, it’s about pretension…and pretense.

One fall afternoon, lawyer Alan Cowan and his investment banker wife Nancy visit the apartment of hardware salesman Michael Longstreet and his wife Penelope (whom Mike introduces as a “writer,” although she modestly demurs—she also works in a bookstore) to discuss an after-school incident in which the Cowan’s young son struck the Longstreet’s son, knocking out two teeth.  Everyone is ultra-civilised, sharing coffee and Penelope’s pear & apple cobbler, dispensing politically-correct platitudes and psycho-babble about the need to help their offspring learn life lessons about their disagreement.  The Cowans are somewhat above the Longstreets in the socio-economic spectrum, a fact emphasized by their clothing, their jobs, and their slightly condescending attitude, although they are on the defensive at first, since their son was the aggressor.  Alan repeatedly interrupts the couples’ conversation to take phone calls about a pending crisis with a client, a motif that—like Penelope’s cobbler—will have repercussions later in the film.  The coldly polite Nancy appears to be controlled, even repressed, until she gets some 18-year-old Scotch in her.  Mike seems like a jolly, salt-of-the-earth fellow but has his foibles, and Penelope is outwardly almost a caricature of a politically-correct, socially-aware, intellectually-pretentious, insecure individual.  These, however, are just first impressions.  As the afternoon wears on, we will get to know these couples in much more detail.

Carnage cleverly introduces the characters, sets up its initial premise, then spends the next 75 minutes veering off into peripherally-related topics.  Each character is revealed a bit more, the original dialectic—Cowans versus Longstreets—shifts several times (including, as one might expect, a “men vs. women” phase), and there are a few outbursts which, as mild as they really are, seem all the more shocking because we can’t imagine “such people” losing their temper (or vomiting) in front of strangers. [Note to filmmakers of the world: I do not like movies in which people vomit.  Please keep this in mind when making your next film.  Thank you.]  

As noted above, Roman Polanski doesn’t draw attention to his directorial “style” in Carnage: the camera angles, editing, and so forth are slick but unobstrusive.  This is an actors’ film, not a director’s film.  The performances are top-notch: John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster, Christoph “In Every Movie Now” Waltz, and Kate Winslet are excellent, all of them.  No complaints on that score from me, though I’m not sure anyone here deserves the Oscar buzz.  These are just good, professional actors doing their job, there’s nothing…transcendent about the performances.

Allow me to clarify my opening statement a bit.  I don’t mean to imply that only snarky urban yuppies would appreciate Carnage.  Rather, I fear that the snarky urban yuppies (well, forty-ish yuppies) in Carnage may drive away potential viewers who aren’t snarky, urban, or yuppies (does anyone even say “yuppie” any more?).  Not because the audience can’t “identify” with them—if that were true, there’d be no films about coal miners, or “foreigners,” or vampires—but because, at first glance, these are just the sort of people you would not want to spend 75 minutes with.  

That’s a shame, because if you stay the course, you’ll be rewarded with a clever, not at all boring, and really quite enjoyable little film.  

             Hugo is a film about films, though that’s not all it is.  Martin Scorsese is one of a generation (or two) of film directors whose fondness for the medium is reflected in their work and life (among other notable examples: Peter Bogdanovich, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers).  Scorsese not only makes his own movies, he helps keep alive the memory of older films through his support of conservation and restoration efforts, and he makes no secret of the films and directors who influenced him.

            The book ”The Invention of Hugo Cabret” was thus a splendid project for Scorsese to adapt to the screen, since one of the central characters is Georges Mèlies, a pioneer of cinema (indeed, one of the first filmmakers to utilise the film medium to depict images which did not exist “live”).  Scorsese doesn’t focus solely on Mèlies, however: he pays homage to the Lumiere Brothers, Thomas Edison, Edwin S. Porter, the May-Irwin kiss, Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Max Linder, Douglas Fairbanks, Louise Brooks, William S. Hart, Charlie Chaplin, Louis Feuillade, the Maltese cross, Silver Streak (maybe), and many more, sometimes obviously and sometimes quite subtly.  For the most part Scorsese is scrupulously accurate about details (even when 99.9999% of his audience wouldn’t notice), although there a few minor liberties have been taken (and, after all, Hugo isn’t a documentary or even a docu-drama, although it does have some factual basis).

Having just concluded another semester of “History of World Cinema I,” these names and images are fresh in my mind and will be easily recognisable to film buffs as well, but ideally some of the less-geeky viewers of Hugo will be motivated to seek out the unfamiliar and learn something of the history of cinema as a result.  Without being too heavy-handed, Scorsese, scripter John Logan, and original author Brian Selznick remind us that books are good but motion pictures are the literal embodiment of dreams, and as such are a unique art form.  Ironically, Hugo itself isn’t especially “dream-like” (although there are several dream sequences) in form or content, telling a rather conventional story in conventional narrative form.

            Hugo Cabret, an orphan, secretly lives in the Paris train station and maintains the many clocks there.  He spends his spare time attempting to repair an “automaton,” a clockwork man whose origins and purpose are unknown: this was a project Hugo and his father had begun before the latter’s tragic death, and the boy is determined to succeed in his quest to revitalise the silver figure.  However, every day he must avoid apprehension by the station inspector, who delights in trapping orphans and turning them over to the authorities.  Hugo is also caught pilfering small gears and such by the elderly Georges, who runs a toy shop kiosk in the train station.  Hugo and Isabelle, George’s goddaughter, become friends and eventually attempt to solve the dual (but linked) mysteries of the automaton and Papa Georges.

            Even if it had no other virtues, Hugo would be a stunning achievement due to its mise-en-scene.  The Paris train station, the rest of the city, the inhabitants: this is the kind of sumptuous production “look” which—without calling undue attention to itself—has a profoundly positive effect on the viewing experience.  This is a lovely, lovely film to look at, although without the feel of excessive pictorialism that comes with some visually-impressive movies.

            The film’s narrative unfolds, as noted above, in mostly conventional fashion, although the initial focus on Hugo gradually shifts to include Papa Georges and Isabelle.  One gets the impression that almost every character has a story to be told.  Hints are dropped, glances are exchanged, acquaintances are made, but Hugo retains its focus, using these other stories to colour in the background and make the film much richer and more nuanced.  Similarly, other than one or two deliberately didactic instances, Scorsese chooses to convey his message about the power of the movies in a restrained manner, even extrapolating his “theme” to a larger one: there are no “spare parts” in the world, everyone on Earth has a special purpose.  Mèlies made films, Isabelle will become a writer, the war-disabled inspector became a “policeman” at the railway station, M. Labisse sells books, and so on.  As for Hugo?  Will he become an inventor, magician, filmmaker?  His future, at least, is left open.       

            Hugo has an impressively layered cast of characters, ranging from the protagonists (Georges, Isabelle, Hugo), to major support (the inspector, Mama Jeanne), minor support (the more differentiated habitués of the train station, Hugo’s father, René Tabard), and bits (including guitarist Django Reinhardt, artist Salvador Dali, and author James Joyce, who are identified in the credits but have little to do in the film itself, so that their identities are mostly moot).

            The performances are generally quite satisfactory, with a few minor exceptions that could be the result of the script rather than the actor’s intepretation.  For example, Sacha Baron Cohen can’t quite seem to decide if he’s Inspector Clouseau or an actual villain (and we won’t even question why most of the major characters in a movie set in 1930s Paris have British accents), and Asa Butterfield as Hugo has too many scenes in which he’s indecisive or recalcitrant (this could be justified by his precarious status in life, although at other times he’s depicted as admirably self-sufficient and capable).  Ben Kingsley is excellent and Chloe Grace Moretz (accent aside) is also very good.

            Hugo has done moderately well at the box-office (it’s virtually tied with Arthur Christmas, which looks alright but is hardly in the same class, artistically) but with a reported budget of $170 million dollars, it may be a long time before it turns a profit.  I’d wager that’s important to Martin Scorsese—you can’t go on making movies if your movies don’t make money, Georges Mèlies could tell you that!—but he’s got a right to be proud of what he has achieved with Hugo: a two-hour love letter to the motion picture medium, a stunning cinematic recreation of a particular time/place, and a clever, touching, and effective drama.  All in all, good work, Marty.

            One of the truly unique characters in British cinema, Old Mother Riley was the creation of actor Arthur Lucan, who spent five decades on the stage and in films, dressed in women’s clothing.  Although some consider Lucan/Old Mother Riley part of the “pantomime dame” tradition of female impersonation, there is never any overt hint of “camp” in the Riley films with regards to the character’s sex—indeed, I’ve always been convinced that an uninformed spectator would never suspect Old Mother Riley was being played by a male actor, the illusion was simply that good. 

            Still, Old Mother Riley is an acquired taste, largely limited to a certain demographic—although extremely popular in the UK in the 1940s and 1950s, the only Riley film known internationally is the last, Old Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (1952), and that because of the presence of Bela Lugosi.  The previous 16 films (although two of these were not, strictly speaking “Old Mother Riley” vehicles) might as well not exist for anyone outside of the British Isles and anyone under 50 (or 60?) years of age. 

            Old Mother Riley in Society is in many ways an atypical Mother Riley film (I’ve seen all the Riley films but two, Old Mother Riley and Old Mother Riley in Business, which seem to be currently unavailable).  Based on a story by Kitty McShane, Arthur Lucan’s real-life wife and on-screen daughter, the picture is chiefly a mother-daughter melodrama akin to Madame X and Imitation of Life, with Mother Riley sacrificing her happiness so her daughter can successfully “pass” in high society.  Although this makes the film a rather inaccurate introduction to the Old Mother Riley oeuvre, it bears closer examination and has a number of fascinating aspects. 

            However, first, a brief synopsis.  Mother Riley does hand laundry for the dancers working in a panto version of “Aladdin,” where her daughter Kitty (for some reason named “Kitty Collins” rather than “Kitty Riley”) is herself a member of the chorus. Trying to sneak a peek at the show after delivering the laundry, Mother Riley accidentally pops up through a trap door and arrives on stage.  Accosted by the irate star, Mother Riley’s belligerent responses have the audience laughing uproariously.  This doesn’t please the leading actress, who walks out, leaving Kitty to substitute, with great success.  After the show, Kitty is congratulated by wealthy Tony Morgan, and they eventually fall in love.  Mother Riley, although upset at first, realises the couple is in love; to spare her daughter any embarassment, she professes to be Kitty’s “dresser.” 

            Tony and Kitty marry and move into his family’s mansion, employing Mother Riley as Kitty’s personal maid.  However, during a fancy party to introduce Tony’s new wife to his upper-class friends, rumours of Kitty’s former stage career begin to circulate.  Kitty prepares to confess her past, but Mother Riley—fearing this will adversely affect her daughter’s social standing—causes a disruption, then leaves a farewell note and vanishes.  Kitty tells her husband the truth, and a detective is engaged to find Mother Riley, without success (it is at this point we learn—from a newspaper advert placed by the detective—that Mother Riley was born in Liverpool).  Mother Riley holds (and loses) a variety of jobs after separating from Kitty, and is finally reduced to living in a shabby hostel and picking up casual work in the Hotel Metropole as a dishwasher.  A chance encounter with old friend Tug Mulligan results in her reunion with Kitty; Tony’s family explains they’re not “high society” after all, merely nouveau riche, and now Mother Riley can share in the largesse.

            While there are a few sequences of familiar Mother Riley comic wordplay and physical humour, most of Old Mother Riley in Society is mawkishly sentimental melodrama. It’s sincere enough, but not exactly what one expects from an Old Mother Riley picture.

            In exchange, we’re presented with a fascinating socio-economic document.  The upper class lives a life of conspicuous consumption, eating in fancy restaurants, vacationing in Monte Carlo, throwing fabulous parties (complete with orchestra and chorus line), living in mansions, employing a regiment of servants.  The working class stay in shabby flats or hostels, get drunk in pubs and brawl in the street, are stuck in dead-end jobs (when they can get work at all), and often go hungry (one effective, even touching bit early in the film has Mother Riley purchasing “four penny’s worth of chips” for Kitty to eat “all by herself” as a treat).  The latter third of the film is nightmarish, as an unemployed and desperate Mother Riley winds up in a shabby doss house with a group of other women who’ve hit the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder (to be fair, they’re poor but not down-hearted, and there is a palpable sense of community among the group). 

            A familiar trope in comedy films has the protagonist working different jobs and losing them all for “funny” reasons (think of the Three Stooges or even Chaplin in Modern Times), but Old Mother Riley in Society fails to elicit much humour from this hoary plot device.  She is fired from a laundry for taking clothes from rich clients and putting them in the bundles of the working poor; this dismissal prevents her from breaking her own record of holding a job longer than three weeks! Hired as a housekeeper under false pretenses (the woman didn’t indicate there were numerous children to care for), an exhausted Mother Riley (who says “it was such a long walk from the station”) accepts the position since she has no other choice. Later, she surreptitiously wraps up a piece of chicken left on a plate at the Hotel Metropole, taking it home for her own supper: this scene simultaneously criticises those who can afford to waste expensive food, and serves to indicate the depths of poverty to which Mother Riley has sunk.  Towards the end of the film, a physically weakened Mother Riley is shown to be increasingly depressed at her inability to find and keep a job, and literally collapses in the arms of old friend Tug. 

            Curiously, despite the portrayal of obvious inequities between rich and poor, the film doesn’t show the rich in an especially unflattering light.  Mother Riley is rightly fired for “stealing” laundry (the fact that she was giving it to the less fortunate doesn’t change the illegality of her actions) and her supervisor, while stern, is not depicted as unjust.  Sir John and his wife (Tony’s parents) are friendly enough and—as is revealed at the conclusion—earned their fortune “in sausages,” so they’re just plain folk after all.  Even Tony’s upper-class friends welcome Kitty into their midst, with the possible exception of one young woman whose motive appears to be jealousy. 

            What emerges then is a peculiar portrait of a severely stratified society with the very rich and the working poor at opposite ends of the economic spectrum (and only a few individuals sprinkled in between), but no oppressors or oppressed.  The only “oppressors” we see are the “Aladdin” star, whose dresser bemoans her demanding ways, and pompous butler Nugent, who runs the staff at the Morgan mansion with an iron hand.  Ironically, neither character is upper-class, and both are portrayed as unpleasant individuals, so their treatment of subordinates is a function of their personality rather than their class (similarly, one of the chorus girls makes a disparaging remark about Kitty being the daughter of a laundress, but only after Mother Riley alludes to her mother being a charwoman).  Furthermore, at least one sequence features a rather surprising, upbeat depiction of work: the aptly-named “Sunshine Laundry” plays peppy music to enliven the drudgery of its employees’ labours, the facility is clean and well-lit, and the workers appear content with their lot.

            Despite the divergent images of rich and poor in Old Mother Riley in Society, the film contains little overt social commentary—Mother Riley distrusts Tony Morgan not because he’s upper-class, but because she fears he’s a “Stage Door Johnny” (which he is, although his intentions turn out to be honourable after all).  The sequence in the “Sunshine Laundry” veers a little close to socialism, as Mother Riley does her bit towards redistribution of wealth (or, at least, clothing) by taking from the rich and giving to the poor.  Late in the film, at her lowest point, Mother Riley reads the help-wanted ads in a newspaper and mumbles to herself, complaining that employers only want to hire young people—this could be construed as decrying the unfairness of the capitalist system, which discards workers when they are too old to be productive, but in fact it seems more like a rant against age-ism. 

            The title of the film is rather misleading, since at no time is Mother Riley actually “in society” (the title suggests a scenario where she inherits a title or wins a fortune in the lottery, thus elevating her socio-economic status, which is not the case at all).  Kitty is the one who “marries up”—Mother Riley, even when living in the Morgan mansion, is still a member of the working class, posing as her daughter’s maid, living in the servants’ quarters, taking orders (with ill grace) from the butler, and so on.  There’s no “Beverly Hillbillies” culture clash here, at least not on a grand scale: in one amusing scene, she’s ordered to serve tea to Lady Morgan, and mistakenly believe she’s been invited to have tea.  “There’s only one teacup,” Mother Riley observes.  “When are you going to have [your] tea?”  “Right now,” Lady Morgan replies, and Mother Riley finally gets it—she’s a servant now, and she’s doesn’t get to have tea with the mistress of the house (though she winds up drinking most of it anyway).

            In addition to the film’s implicit discussion of class and economic differences in the UK, circa 1940, there are several other points of interest in Old Mother Riley in Society.  Some of these, such as allusions to World War Two, are conspicuous by their absence.

            The almost total lack of topical references is unusual in a British film of this era.  The picture’s release date was July 1940, suggesting it was produced during the “Phoney War” period between the initial Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the subsequent attacks on Belgium and the Netherlands in May 1940.  The two previous Mother Riley movies—Old Mother Riley M.P. and Old Mother Riley Joins Up—both contained references to the world crisis and a number of subsequent Mother Riley films would also have war-related content.  Old Mother Riley in Society not only omits almost any references to contemporary events, it goes out of its way to depict conspicuous consumption (Kitty and her husband spend their honeymoon in Monte Carlo, for example) and “life as usual” in England, for both the upper class and the working class.  There aren’t even any visual hints that Britain was at war: no uniformed characters are visible in crowd scenes, no one carries a gas mask case (and both of these would have been very prevalent in 1940 England in real life), and so on.

            There are two brief dialogue hints that the UK was at war—early in the film, Mother Riley makes a “blackout” joke; she later says her son-in-law weighed more than Kitty did at birth because “he was pre-war; don’t forget, we were rationed after that.”  There is also what seems to be an oblique reference to the evacuation of children from England’s cities to the countryside (some were even sent overseas): Mother Riley gets a job as a housekeeper for a woman who says a some children are “merely staying with us temporarily” (Riley is shocked to discover at least half a dozen youngsters will be in her care).  Finally, in an early scene Mother Riley tells the theatre’s stage manager—who has admonished her for being late with the laundry—“now don’t start, we’ve got enough people making trouble in the world without you,” which could be construed as a topical reference.

            Old Mother Riley in Society also features that staple of wartime British cinema, abundant cheesecake.  This may seem counter-intuitive, particularly in a rather mawkish melodrama, but in fact a large number of films from this era (in all genres) contain somewhat incongruous cheesecake sequences (often musical numbers).  OMR in Society features scantily-clad women in a theatrical dressing room and backstage, as well as various voluptuous women in the onstage panto version of “Aladdin” (including the “principal boy”—played, as usual, by an attractive young woman in an abbreviated costume).  Later, a bevy of dancers do a mass striptease as part of a musical interlude at a lavish society party. 

            Despite the frequent (and generally accurate) characterisation of the Old Mother Riley series as “B films,” the production values of Old Mother Riley in Society are not bad at all.  There are some spacious sets, large numbers of extras in several scenes, and two musical sequences with relatively lavish production values.  Lucan’s performance is more sentimental and less manic than usual as Mother Riley, while “dotter Kitty” McShane is…adequate…delivering her lines with her standard lack of inflection, a petulant look on her face.  The rest of the cast is satisfactory, with a few familiar faces sprinkled throughout: although the Mother Riley films weren’t havens for guest stars, people like Martita Hunt, John Longden, Sebastian Cabot, Peggy Cummins, John Laurie, etc., appeared in the odd entry or two. 

             Old Mother Riley in Society is available on YouTube; the video quality is rather poor, but it’s watchable and since this is a fairly rare film, any version will have to suffice.  As noted at the outset of this article, I can’t recommend the film as representative of the Mother Riley films as a whole, but it has its own attractions.

            [A temporary dearth of new releases prompted me to upload this commentary.  We should be back to reviews of “new stuff” soon.  I’m looking forward to Hugo, among other films.]

            I missed this film’s “limited” theatrical release in the USA this summer, but now it’s out on DVD (internationally—the American disc arrives in January) so I was able to rectify that oversight.  The Guard is very slightly oversold as a “buddy comedy” pairing Brendan Gleeson as a burly Irish garda and Don Cheadle as a buttoned-up FBI agent: it’s Gleeson’s film all the way, although Cheadle is fine in support (but clearly, in support). 

            Director John Michael McDonagh “inherited” Brendan Gleeson from his brother Martin McDonagh; though there aren’t any concrete similarities between The Guard and In Bruges, the films share a certain…attitude or sensibility. Both aren’t exactly what one would call outright comedies (The Guard comes much closer), but there is a lot of humour and humanity in each, along with crime-genre elements common to both.

            Sgt. Gerry Boyle is a middle-aged garda (policeman) in Connemara, Ireland.  A stranger is found murdered in the village, Boyle discovers he has a newly-arrived assistant, he also learns his ill mother has only a short time to live, and then he’s summoned to a briefing supervised by FBI agent Wendell Everett, who believes a shipload of drugs is due to arrive there soon.  Boyle’s sarcastic remarks and independent manner don’t endear him to Wendell or his own superiors, but when he identifies the murder victim as one of the suspected drug runners, the garda and the American are forced to cooperate in the  investigation…although not on Boyle’s day off (since he’s scheduled a romp with two call girls from the city, though he doesn’t share than information with Wendell).  However, Boyle’s flippant attitude doesn’t mean he’s derelict in his duty, particularly when the drug smugglers murder his assistant and attempt to kill him.

            The script for The Guard is just short of superb, with frequently hilarious dialogue, and sharply-realised characters.  Its main weakness is the somewhat negligible plot and an over-reliance on coincidences.  Essentially, the “story” is just there to provide a skeletal structure upon which the characters, dialogue, and situations can be hung—in a lesser film this might prove fatal, but the individual components of The Guard are so entertaining that its sketchy foundation is hardly noticeable.

            Early in their acquaintance, agent Wendell tells Boyle, “I can’t tell if you’re really [bleep]ing dumb or really [bleep]ing smart.”  Sgt. Boyle is indeed the puzzling centre of the film.  A dim-witted, clumsy, bigoted small-town cop or a crafty, competent, pragmatic law enforcer?  Vulgar, profane, burly, known to take a drink, unmarried, kind to his mother and gallant to other women (even whores), a former Olympic swimmer (so he says), connossieur of jazz and an aficionado of arcade “shooter” games, the dumb-like-a-fox garda reveals a different facet of his personality in almost every scene, yet remains recognisably human and (mostly) likeable, even when he makes a racial slur then excuses it by saying “I’m Irish: racism is part of my culture.”  Gleeson’s performance is excellent, shaded and multi-dimensional so that he never becomes a caricature, but then again, he is—as noted above—working with a script that gives literally every actor in the film something to chew on, some bit of distinctive dialogue or “business” that makes them stand out. 

            Cheadle’s FBI agent isn’t as subtly shaded as Gleeson’s Sgt. Boyle, but he’s fine as the natty, stone-faced Wendell, who plays the generic, strait-laced G-man (everyone he meets seems disappointed he isn’t a member of the “Behavioural Analysis Unit,” of TV and film fame) to Boyle’s boisterious local yokel (seemingly). The sequence in which Wendell attempts to canvass the small Irish village without Boyle’s help (the garda refusing to give up his scheduled day off) is splendidly funny.

            The Guard also gives us Eugene, a wise little kid who’s never without his pink girl’s bicycle and a woolly dog on a leash; three hilariously erudite drug smugglers (the pragmatic Irish boss, an acerbic Brit, and a wild-eyed sociopath); an IRA envoy in a cowboy hat (who admits the IRA had to admit a few gay lads to membership, since “it was the only way we could infiltrate MI-5”); a Croatian mail-order bride;, two jolly hookers; Boyle’s sardonic mum; and a freelance crime-scene photographer, among others.  It’s difficult to describe—without going into excessive detail and quoting too much dialogue—the smart, profanity-laden, witty nature of The Guard.  It’s intelligently funny.  The best parts are excellent, and the weaker sections aren’t bad at all (they just don’t sparkle as brightly). Not to give away the conclusion, but the final sequence almost breaks the fourth wall, as various characters debate a variety of alternative, mostly unrealistic, endings to the movie. 

            Some comedy films toss in mawkish bits of sentimentality, as if to balance out the humour or to justify the raucous nature of the rest of the picture.  The Guard doesn’t do that: the serious stuff is integral to the overall scheme of things.  The scenes between Boyle and his dying mother reveal their emotional attachment to one another in a trying period of their lives, but are still scathingly funny.  We can see where Boyle got his sense of humour and rapier-sharp tongue, and neither he nor his mum succumbs to self-pity at her approaching demise.  Boyle’s already a lone wolf (who visited Disneyworld by himself and had his photo taken with Goofy), and the passing of his mother leaves him even more alone, which perhaps contributes to his ultimate actions in the film.  So he’s not merely a cartoony Irish version of the stereotypical small-town cop, he’s a complexly-constructed character, a human being who faces life with an outwardly-plodding, even ingenuous manner that conceals his true nature.

            Perfect?  Of course not.  But The Guard is legitimately one of those films that could stand a second viewing, to savour the good stuff once again.  And there is plenty of good stuff.

Sometimes it’s good to be first, and sometimes it’s better to be second, learning from the errors of the pioneers.  The Adventures of Tin Tin isn’t the first (or even the second) feature film made that utilises motion-capture technology throughout (as opposed to employing it for certain sequences or to give life to a particular character), but it’s technically and aesthetically (and overall) a considerable improvement over its predecessors such as The Polar Express.  Yes, these are still all essentially animated films, even computer-animated films like Toy Story 3.  It’s merely a matter of degree and technology, but everything we see is artificially created, whether it was drawn by hand, ginned up in a computer, the result of manipulating little clay models, or was concocted by attaching little sensors to actors’ bodies and downloading their movements digitally.  ”Motion capture” itself is not so much more than a sophisticated form of rotoscoping, a process first used in the 1910s.

However, each method of animation has its own peculiar aesthetic strengths and weaknesses, though what these are and which technology is best-suited for a particular type of story are beyond the scope of this brief review.  But briefly, motion-capture arguably provides a greater illusion of reality—The Adventures of Tintin is essentially a classic action-adventure movie and its stunts, locations, and sets are more or less “realistic”—while at the same time allowing for action, scope, settings and effects which would be impossible (or at least prohibitively expensive) to accomplish in live-action.  

But there’s another reason The Adventures of Tintin is well-suited for animation and that is its roots in the comic strip medium.  Previous film and television versions of the long-running series were made, both live-action and animated, but Spielberg’s film has the best of both worlds: the budgetary and technical limitations of live-action have been overcome, and yet the “dimensionally” realistic visuals elevate it to the level of a “real movie” that can appeal to all ages, rather than a flat “cartoon” which might be classed as purely juvenile entertainment (this is not definitive—The Illusionist is drawn-animation and yet it is “realistic” and quite emotionally affecting—but in general terms, drawn animation is a more artificial medium). This is ironic, because the original Tintin by Hergé was drawn in a semi-cartoony manner, halfway between the “bigfoot” humour style and realistic comic art.  The Adventures of Tintin does retain the familiar character designs though, which should please purists, another advantage of animation over live-action.

But what of The Adventures of Tintin as a film?  The result is aesthetically pleasing but perhaps not as special and memorable as one might hope, for several reasons.  First, there are far too many sequences which appear to be striving to awe rather than entertain the audience.  I’ve said it before, there’s apparently a strict rule in the world of film that all 3-D movies must contain at least one flying sequence to showcase the illusion of depth, and Tintin meets the requirement, in spades.  Fine, these are exciting enough but not really thrilling in an emotional way.  Far too much swooping and diving and soaring—this is a film, not a flight simulator.  Other sequences are guilty of excessive pictorialism, i.e., the self-indulgent presentation of images largely (if not solely) for the sake of their visual impact.  Not a problem, unless there are too many of them (and there are) and they last too long (and some do).  Finally, The Adventures of Tintin has a thin plot which serves chiefly as a vehicle for the aforementioned action sequences and gorgeous images. This makes it less a fully-realised film than a cinematic version of a theme-park ride.  If you don’t see this in 3-D (and I didn’t—the film doesn’t open theatrically in the USA until the third week in December, although it’s already in European cinemas), the threadbare nature of the script will be especially noticeable.

Perhaps that’s a little harsh.  The Adventures of Tintin isn’t dull (far from it) and it’s not silly, and it doesn’t pander or condescend to the audience (no songs, thank goodness, except one that’s integral to the plot). There are amusing aspects and the “performances” are often engaging.  I suppose we are going to have to create a new lexicon and methodology for the evaluation of “acting” in such films, ranging from strictly vocal performances (in CGI movies such as Toy Story 3) to motion-capture of bodily movement plus the voice (the nuances of facial expression may or may not be “capturable,” but in The Adventures of Tintin this is almost a moot point, given the semi-realistic characters—with the exception of Sakharine, whose visage is much more life-like than Tintin, Captain Haddock, Thompson and Thomson, etc.).   There’s not much stunt-casting here: although the cast includes semi-“names” such as Daniel Craig, Andy “King of Mo-Cap” Sirkis, and Simon Pegg, they all play distinct characters rather than thinly-veiled versions of themselves. Captain Haddock is the most complex character—Tintin is spunky but bland, Sakharine is unremittingly villainous, Thompson and Thomson are befuddled comic relief—but everyone acquits themselves admirably, suggesting motion-capture “acting” is somewhat more than simply turning a human being into a rubbery caricature.  [Mention should also be made of Tintin’s dog Snowy, who treads a middle ground between realism and anthropomorphism (and presumably wasn’t “acted” by a real dog for motion capture…or was he?).]  These characters (the major ones) become as “real” to us as live-action characters can be…except that the script doesn’t spend any significant time on character development or growth (again, with the exception of Captain Haddock), and that hurts the film.

The plot, as noted above, is skimpy.  Youthful journalist Tintin purchases a model ship on a whim, moments before the supercilious Sakharine arrives to make an offer.  The model is one of three, each containing a clue to the location of the pirate treasure of Sir Francis Haddock.  Sakharine and his henchmen want to obtain all three clues, but Tintan, Snowy, and Captain Haddock—boozy descendant of Sir Francis—are also on the trail of the treasure.  Set in a non-specific time in the past (the 1950s?), The Adventures of Tintin is an old-school adventure film that races from one location to the next, plunging its protagonists into one perilous situation after another.  It’s pleasant enough, with lashings of humour (some effective, some clumsy and overblown), lots of action but relatively little bloodshed, exotic locations, John Williams music…all very “Indiana Jones”-ish.  Of course, the visceral impact of this is diluted by the unreal nature of animation: we might still care about the characters and the action is still exciting, but we empathise more with live-action, because we’re watching real people.  

I can’t predict if The Adventures of Tintin will become a beloved classic or even a blockbuster hit in the USA—the “Tintin” comic is all but unknown here, so that particular well of nostalgia can’t be tapped, although as with the Indiana Jones films, there’s a definite “classic Hollywood” atmosphere, and given the Spielberg rep, it’ll certainly take in plenty of money (in real-world terms, though the overall profitability will probably rest on the picture’s international gross)—but it’s generally entertaining as a film and will probably be even better as a big-screen 3-D “experience” in cinemas.  

With Hunter S. Thompson, Johnny Depp, and the director of the cult film Withnail & I all involved, how could The Rum Diary be so…conventional?  But, sadly, it is.  This isn’t a boring or badly made film, but there’s nothing special about it.  It’s a generic, “ugly Americans in the tropics” tale, with a wispy plot and thin characterisations.

Let’s begin with Depp’s role, Paul Kemp, a heavy-drinking would-be novelist who gets a job on the “San Juan Star” in 1960 by falsifying his resumé.  But that’s alright, the newspaper itself is mired in a labour dispute, circulation is down, and the other members of the staff are hardly Pulitzer contenders themselves, including photographer Sala, editor Lotterman, and bizarre derelict-reporter Moburg.  Kemp is assigned to write the daily horoscope column as well as puff pieces about the Puerto Rican tourist paradise.  Each time he rebels in print, Lotterman smacks him down.  Except Kemp doesn’t rebel that much, nor does he drink that much, nor does he do that much.  Depp plays Kemp straight, as a bland leading man type, and the result is a colourless, passionless, generally uninterested (and uninteresting) observer of events rather than a fiery or cynical or boozy or dedicated protagonist.  Kemp might say he’s upset by the corruption, racism, and exploitation he sees around him, but he shows hardly any emotion and takes very little action.

Kemp’s bête noire is Sanderson, a wealthy businessman whose syndicate plans to erect a massive tourist complex on a nearby island.  He hires Kemp to write public relations material to impress investors, meanwhile flaunting his fancy cars and fancier girlfriend, Chenault. The final “clash” between Kemp and Sanderson is more like a damp squib, as is Kemp’s wishful and unconsummated romance with Chenault.  This, unfortunately, is indicative of the watered-down nature of the film overall.  It just meanders along, not unpleasantly but with little sense of excitement or true feeling.  The tone is inconsistent: sometimes it’s serious, sometimes wry, sometimes it even goes for wacky (an out-of-place drug hallucination scene, a “funny” car chase).  In Withnail & I, the eccentricity of the characters and the manic-depressive nature of the plot produced a constantly-skating-on-the-edge-of-disaster sensibility that was fascinating and amusing, but The Rum Diary is far too staid, linear, and predictable to approach that level of narrative delirium.  It’s not exciting enough to be a political thriller, it isn’t deep enough to be a drama, it’s not bizarre enough to be a comedy.

This isn’t to suggest there is no value in watching The Rum Diary.  Depp and Michael Rispoli as Sala have decent buddy-film chemistry which provides considerable entertainment as we watch their characters get in and out of trouble.  There is a fairly strong sense of time and place, at least in general terms.  That is, the film happens to be set in Puerto Rico in 1960, but it could just as easily have been Havana in 1957 or some fictional tropical location in roughly the same era.  Sala’s apartment, the newspaper offices, Sanderson’s luxurious house are all spot-on evocations of a bygone period and a vanished world of the haves and have-nots. Amber Heard is beautiful, Aaron Eckhardt is supercilious, and Giovanni Ribisi is grimy and weird.

There is also a strong political sub-text, some of it obvious (Nixon on television) and some of it obscure (Moburg playing recordings of Hitler’s speeches).  The Ugly American is strongly in evidence from first to last.  Even Kemp and Sala display traces of arrogance towards the local population, although the biggest culprits are Sanderson and his cabal, with the newspaper and the tourists not far behind.  It’s not enough for Sanderson to plot to exploit a relatively unspoiled island (unspoiled, that is, except for the fact it’s been used as a U.S. Navy artillery firing range for years!), he must also be shown berating some Puerto Ricans who dare to tread on his private beach.  Kemp interviews two American tourists who extol the virtues of Puerto Rico’s bowling alleys, casinos, and shopping opportunities but admit they don’t leave their hotel to see the rest of the island and its people because “it’s not safe.”  

However, while The Rum Diary castigates America’s superior attitude and economic domination of Puerto Rico, it doesn’t depict the Puerto Ricans in an especially favourable light either.  Perhaps with good reason, virtually every Puerto Rican that Kemp encounters is hostile and even physically dangerous, from the denizens of a roadside café, to the police, to a very angry judge.  Late in the film, there is a strong implication that Chenault is used (possibly abused) sexually by a group of men in a bar after she dances there in a sensual manner (apparently the original novel makes this more explicit).  While The Rum Diary isn’t especially friendly to the Puerto Rican people, their hostility is understandable, even somewhat justified by the way their island has been essentially taken away from them by the Americans.  

Sadly, while this is a major theme of the film, it’s not developed as effectively as it could have been.  Kemp is too passive and while he does gradually develop a conscience and at the film’s end attempts to strike back at Sanderson by exposing his plot, he’s never convincing in the role of crusader.  

The Rum Diary is moderately entertaining in a low-key way.  It’s well-produced, features a decent cast, and contains some worthwhile ideas.  However, it lacks something…a spark of life, that special frisson which distinguishes a routine film from a truly interesting one.  Without that, it’s simply a standard Hollywood movie about a slightly-jaded expatriate in an exotic land who—after some mild adventures—“finds himself.”  And that’s been done before, and better.

             Paranormal Activity 3 is the latest example of Mencken’s aphorism, “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”  How else can one explain the record-breaking box-office performance of this minimalist pre-prequel in which almost literally nothing happens—if you thought the first two PA films were light on scary action, trust me, they’re like The Exorcist, Halloween, and Jaws rolled into one compared to Paranormal Activity 3 (I jumped out of my seat once—and that was a “fake” scare—and there were two other scenes I felt were mildly creepy, for about 10 seconds).

            Where to begin?  Rather than attempting to craft a coherent, organised, and reasoned critique of the movie (which is more than it deserves), perhaps I’ll just throw out a few random snarks, complaints, and even a compliment or two…

            The Paranormal Activity series is being produced in reverse chronological order, so each film is a prequel to its immediate predecessor.  It would be interesting to know if this story arc was planned in advance, or if they’re just faking it.  But PA is no Harry Potter series, and it’s not really necessary to have seen the earlier movies to understand the current one—the plot thread connecting them is wispy and tenuous at best.  PA3 makes a stab at going retro (it’s set in 1988), claiming the footage was shot on VHS tapes, but the video quality on-screen doesn’t reflect that.  At this rate, Paranormal Activity 10 will probably consist of cave paintings depicting demonic possession of a luxurious multi-level California mud hut in the Paleolithic Era.

            Which brings up the whole “found footage” format.  Someday perhaps someone will make a good, spooky film about the process of finding and assembling old footage of ghosts and such.  Suffice it to say, Paranormal Activity 3 isn’t that film.  In a more-or-less contemporary prologue, a box of VHS tapes mysteriously disappears.  So what happened to them?  Is this sequence suggesting the producers of this movie stole the tapes and made their movie from them?  No?  This is particularly problematical given the climactic scene of PA3, which raises the same question as The Last Exorcism: if evil wins at the end, who took the “final tape” out of the camera and allowed us to see it?  The bad guys?  Wouldn’t they want to suppress the evidence?  The good guys?  Um, without providing too many spoilers…let’s just say there aren’t too many good guys left alive at the movie’s end.  [As a side note, the last scene in Paranormal Activity 3 reminds me of the end of [Rec].  If that was a deliberate homage, two points for PA3 for acknowledging a far superior “found footage” horror movie.]

            As an alternative to the “found footage” format, a “live broadcast” setting eliminates a fair number of the logical glitches about “who found this, who edited it,” and so forth.  One of the quintessential examples of this—aside from the radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” in 1938—is the famous (or notorious) BBC broadcast on Halloween night in 1992, Ghostwatch.  While the “live” aspect is most suited for electronic media (although even watching the taped version of Ghostwatch is still an eerie experience), one occasionally effective derivative of the “found footage” film is the faux-documentary: this format provides a framing story for the “real” footage and thus adds some logic and structure, but runs the risk of lessening suspense and audience involvement with the “story, ” since the implied “real-time” aspect of the footage has been eliminated.

            Another annoyingly illogical aspect of Paranormal Activity 3 is the wholly unbelievable ability of the protagonist to hang on to the camera and continue filming even when any sane human being would have stopped.  [Rec]2 and some other films got around this with helmet-mounted cameras, and the two prior Paranormal Activity movies were presented as surveillance camera (i.e., automatically recorded) footage.  PA3 has a lot of this, but there are numerous scenes in which someone grabs the camera and runs around with it.  Loud noises in another room?  Child is sick?  Loved ones in danger?  You’re in mortal danger?  Don’t forget to carry that camera with you!  Heaven forbid you put it down for a second.  Jerk. 

            To give PA3 faint praise: this time, they’ve flipped the familiar haunted-house trope from “the mother believes in the supernatural, but the father is stubbornly skeptical in spite of all the evidence.”  This time, it’s the husband who tries to convince his wife that “weird things are happening, bitch just look at the videos,” and she’s all, “oh no you kids stop believing in invisible friends who smack you around and move furniture it’s all in your mind.”  It’s refreshing to see this role reversal, although it doesn’t make the husband seem less of a creepy jerk, what with his obsessive, constant videotaping of his wife and step-daughters in their bedrooms.

            The aforementioned tiny adjustment doesn’t mean the “script” (10 bucks says it was scrawled on 2 or 3 paper napkins from Denny’s) is fresh, innovative, or even competent.  Did I mention: no character development, no plot, and … nothing happens?  And once again, a Paranormal Activity film looks a lot like a “Sunday Showcase of Homes” infomercial.  How does this family afford this house?  The husband “shoots wedding videos” for a living (not that we see him even doing that) and his mother-in-law makes a snide remark about him using his wife’s credit card to buy blank video tapes (so is the wife supposed to be independently wealthy or what?). 

            But I think my biggest problem with Paranormal Activity 3 is that this seems to be such a lazy film.  One gets the impression everyone involved said “meh, good enough” and went home.  A genuinely scary experience could have been crafted from an identical script, cast, setting, and technique—one which built suspense and unease, delivered a series of small shocks and false alarms followed by greater and greater scenes that would truly frighten audiences, leaving them drained and limp by the finale.  Maybe they wouldn’t feel the sort of existential fear that follows one home and keeps you awake, but at least they’d have the “jump out of your seat and scream, then anxiously await the next scary bit” type of filmgoing experience. 

            Paranormal Activity 3 doesn’t provide that sort of emotional rollercoaster ride—this is a dull, dull movie—and given the mountains of cash it’s been raking it, I don’t suppose the filmmakers of the next one will have any incentive to improve their craft.  It’s a shame, really. 

             I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Real Steel, given its “family friendly” imprimatur (since I’m such a tough, macho guy, grrr).  A film about a boy and his estranged dad bonding?  Meh.  On the other hand, robot fights!  Real Steel turned out to be a slick, superficial, predictable but mildly pleasant time-waster, albeit one riddled with logical and dramatic and narrative flaws.  But it finished in the top spot at the box-office in its first week of release, so I suppose it delivers what some people want, and I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it myself.

            Charlie (Hugh Jackman, generally likeable in the role) makes a precarious living managing robot fighters, who by the year 2020 have replaced human boxers (Charlie’s previous occupation).  He learns his one-time girlfriend has died, and he’s now the legal guardian of their son Max.  Neither Max nor Charlie is especially intererested in forming a family together—Max’s wealthy aunt and uncle want to adopt him—but Charlie makes a deal with the uncle to take Max off their hands for the summer.  Charlie’s professional and personal incompetence result in the destruction of his last robot fighter; as father and son scavenge through a junkyard in search of parts (to steal—first we’ve got an illegitimate kid, now outright thievery, both of which are glossed over), Max finds a discarded robot named “Atom.”  Out-moded but rugged and imbued with the ability to mimic actions it observes, Atom becomes Max and Charlie’s unlikely ticket to the top of the robot-boxing world.

            Charlie explains that robots replaced human fighters because audiences wanted more “extreme” action in the ring.  However, Real Steel demonstrates, perhaps inadvertently, that this substitution results in a loss of one of the very things that makes boxing (or wrestling or any type of competition) compelling—the humanity of the contestants.  The movie’s robot fighters have no feelings and no particular “personality” aside from their visual differences and technical abilities.  They’re clearly controlled at all times by human beings—they aren’t even “programmed” and sent into the ring to fight independently, as one might imagine—and as a result are nothing more than puppets. 

            On the one hand, I applaud Real Steel for resisting the temptation to make the robots sentient (there is one brief bit where Max suggests Atom has the capacity to think, but this is never explored again), and for being faithful to its basic premise of robot fighting.  However, this means we don’t especially care about the robots themselves: they aren’t feeling pain in the ring, they aren’t being brave or cowardly or stupid or crafty, they aren’t morally good or bad (except as extensions of their owner-controller).  So we don’t have any sort of emotional connection to them.  Even movies about horse racing or dog fighting feature competition between living creatures with whom we can empathise as living creatures.  In Real Steel, we only want Atom to win because he’s owned and operated by Max and Charlie, we don’t give a damn about the punishment he takes in the ring because…he’s a machine.  When we watch a demolition derby or a NASCAR race, do we say “oh, that poor Chevrolet just got crushed?”  Heck no. 

            The film could have made something of this disconnect, some point about how video games—and, extrapolating the concept, impersonal weapons of war such as cruise missiles and killer drones—have desensitised us to violence, but Real Steel chooses not to address such issues.  Of course, it skimps on a lot of other things as well.  This is hardly a dramatic examination of emotional estrangement and reconciliation: although the scenes between Charlie and Max are handled effectively, everything is just too damn predictable and familiar and quick.  It’s nice to see Charlie finally allow himself to reciprocate the romantic feelings of cute gym operator Bailey, after (alternately) treating her as a pal (to be exploited) or another attractive woman with whom to flirt (Charlie’s womanising nature is only lightly touched upon, but the clues are there), but this movie isn’t (by any stretch) about Charlie and Bailey.  As I’ve said before, it’s not exactly fair to criticise a film for not being a different film—the filmmakers made their choices and if I don’t agree with them, that’s tough for me—and if Real Steel takes a lot of short-cuts, dramatically and narratively, it makes up for them in other ways.

            It is legitimate, however, to complain about a few things.  The aforementioned “shadow function” is initially utilised in the film to allow Atom to mimic Max’s dance moves.  This isn’t as obnoxious as it sounds—a hip hop robot, oh brother—simply because it is first presented as Max having fun and then exploited by Charlie as an attention-grabbing gimmick.  Both of these seem entirely natural and aren’t shoe-horned into the movie as a lame excuse for a dumb musical number.  Later, when Charlie teaches Atom various boxing moves by demonstrating them himself, this is again logically acceptable. 

            But then, in the final rounds of the championship fight, after Atom’s voice-recognition software is disabled by the beating he’s taking, Charlie uses the shadow function—boxing by himself outside the ring, so that Atom can mimic his movements against his opponent. This is both dramatically and logically flawed.  In the first place, Charlie’s reluctance to discuss his boxing career and his initial, panicked refusal to control Atom via shadow-boxing suggests he stopped boxing due to some traumatic event, and he’s physically and/or mentally incapable of  going through the motions.  But this apparently isn’t true at all, so he just seems neurotic and weak. 

            The other problem with this aspect of Real Steel is rather nerdy and nit-picking on my part, but hey, it’s my review: if Atom is in “shadow mode,” he must look at Charlie in order to imitate him—it’s clear Charlie’s not wearing a motion-capture suit or is “jacked in” to Atom in any way, the shadow function requires visual input. But…Charlie is outside the ring.   Don’t you think that constantly looking outside the ring at Charlie would put Atom at a slight disadvantage against his giant robot opponent who’s in the ring and trying to knock his block off?  I’m just sayin’… 

            Still Real Steel is blandly palatable overall.  Jackman is fine, Evangeline Lilly is spunky and attractive as Bailey, Dakota Goyo (in real life, he has brothers named “Dallas” and “Devon,” because of course he does) is believable as Max.  I’m not sure if the villains are stiff caricatures because they’re written that way (redneck bully, icy Russian babe, taciturn Japanese guy), or the performances are wooden, or a combination of the two.  The production values are adequate, and the CGI work on the robots is quite satisfactory (machines aren’t alive so they aren’t expected to move or act like living creatures and thus we aren’t constantly—if subconsciously—comparing CGI with reality; furthermore, some care has been taken to give the impression of weight and mass).

            Real Steel helped a couple of hours pass pleasantly.  However, I didn’t get the same sort of emotional charge one might experience when watching Rocky or The Fighter or Million Dollar Baby or any other “real” boxing movie: there was no pulse-pounding, adrenaline-charged excitement, I didn’t cheer or boo, I wasn’t on the edge of my seat during the final bout.  And I didn’t choke up when Charlie and Max reconciled, or when Charlie hugged Bailey, or…any other time.  I just didn’t feel it.  

            Forget about any “heart-warming” stuff.  Like the robot fighters themselves, Real Steel has no heart (except maybe an artificial one that pumps oil or something).  That’s not a criticism, it’s just a statement.  See this if you will for the robot fighting.  I mean, they’re robots who fight!  How cool is that?

To paraphrase Tolstoy, “each unhappy person is unhappy in their own way,” and Lars von Trier might well have used this as the opening epigraph for Melancholia, a visually sweeping and yet dramatically intimate tale of two sad sisters and the end of the world.  I was almost afraid to watch von Trier’s latest effort after going through the grueling, visceral experience of Antichrist and then having read brief advance descriptions of Melancholia’s seemingly depressing premise,  but…surprise!  It’s a really good film (and it doesn’t make you want to rip your eyes out or overdose on anti-depressants).  Yes, the subject matter may be gloomy but Melancholia itself isn’t, as contradictory as that statement may seem to be.

The film’s prologue is a series of surreal scenes set to Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde.”  Puzzling and fascinating, this section of Melancholia combines beautifully intriguing imagery with Wagner’s lovely and evocative masterpiece of classical music: it’s wonderful in an aesthetically formal manner, though it seems to have no specific narrative function. Or does it? One eventually realises (in retrospect) how the apparently inexplicable and plot-less prologue foreshadows the film to come, in some instances quite obliquely and sometimes not at all, except perhaps symbolically.

Melancholia proper is split into two parts, “Justine” and “Claire,” although the narrative thread is continuous throughout.  In “Justine,” we watch the gradual unraveling of the titular character’s psyche on her wedding day.  Justine (Kirsten Dunst) is young, attractive, apparently successful in her job in an advertising firm, and has just married the handsome, caring Michael (Alexander Skarsgård).  So why does she go from a laughing, cheerful bride to a withdrawn, sullen, nervous wreck over the period of a few hours?  Perhaps it’s her bitter mother (Charlotte Rampling), who delivers an anti-marriage diatribe at the wedding reception?  Or her frivolous, distracted father (John Hurt) who plays silly jokes on the help and has two “dates” for the occasion (both named Betty), and then vanishes when Justine expresses an urgent need to talk.  Maybe it’s her jovial but passive-aggressive boss (Stellan Skarsgård), who makes a speech praising Justine and promoting her in the firm, but then assigns a new employee to dog her steps in hopes of eliciting a clever tagline for their newest campaign.  Might it be Justine’s sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who’s afraid the elaborate reception she’s planned—being held at the palatial estate she shares with her husband John (Keifer Sutherland)—will crash and burn due to Justine’s unpredictability? 

The familial drama at the wedding reception is rather Michael Haneke-esque, but von Trier adds touches of sentiment and humour (the wedding planner says Justine’s erratic behaviour has “ruined his wedding” and refuses to look at her for the rest of the night, holding up his hand to block her from his view). The look of the “Justine” section is lavish and the pacing is fluid: Justine glides inexorably towards the almost simultaneous breakdowns of her marriage, her job, and her mental state.

For Justine is not merely temporarily stressed and upset by the events of her wedding day: her depression is apparently chronic and long-term, and no secret.  The entire film takes place on Claire and John’s estate, so we only see Justine in this isolated environment during a limited time period, but the way in which Justine’s family and associates relate to her—treating her gingerly, coaxing her along—and their offhand comments (rather than obvious expository dialogue, thank goodness) provide the audience with some hint of the extent and history of her problem.  

In one of the film’s most painful and touching moments, Michael presents his new bride with a photograph of an orchard on some land he’s purchased, and says “if you still have days when you’re feeling a little sad,” she can sit under the trees “and I think that will make you happy again.”  Justine thanks him politely and hands the photo back; he says he wants her to have it and she says “I’ll always keep it with me,” but a few moments later she’s wandered off and Michael spots the discarded picture Justine has thoughtlessly left behind.  He’s so painfully eager to please her, and yet she’s literally incapable of fully accepting or reciprocating his affection (she later refuses to sleep with him on their wedding night, then violently seduces the ad agency’s “minder” on the lawn).

The second half of Melancholia is entitled “Claire”: the focus shifts to Justine’s sister, who has issues of her own.  Justine, having suffered a complete breakdown, is brought back to their country estate, now only barely functioning, sleeping most of the time, refusing to bathe or eat, breaking into tears for no apparent reason.  Claire tries to help Justine, although John has little patience for his sister-in-law in her current state.

Claire has other things on her mind as well.  There’s no clear indication how much time has elapsed between the events of “Justine” and “Claire,” but a few cryptic astronomical references in the first section have blossomed into a full-scale crisis in the second: a planet named “Melancholia” has appeared from behind the sun and is either (a) going to pass very close to the Earth or (b) collide with the Earth in a few days.  John believes the scientists who support the first theory, while Claire—fueled by online speculation—is terrified of the latter possibility.  Curiously, as Melancholia draws nearer, looming ever larger in the sky, Justine emerges from her depression and calmly confronts the possible end of the world, while Claire grows more and more frantic.   After all, for Justine, life on Earth is a hellish existence due to her emotional problems—death represents a release.  Claire, on the other hand, with a husband, a young son, a wonderful home, and other material and spiritual advantages, has much more to lose.

The conclusion of Melancholia is extremely impressive, dramatically and emotionally.  Von Trier builds up to the finale expertly: he drops hints, throws in a few clues, plays with the audience’s expectations, adds a twist or two, and in the end the film concludes on a very satisfying note (that I won’t reveal here).  

Technically, Melancholia is excellently put together.  The location shooting and overall cinematography are splendid: countless lovely shots of small figures on grand landscapes visually reinforce one of the thematic motifs of the film, the insignificance of human beings when compared with the vastness of the universe.  After Melancholia’s prologue, von Trier largely eschews overt surrealism (no talking foxes this time), choosing a more subtle, naturalistic style of filming and performance.  

Kirsten Dunst has had a rather long career already, but wasn’t considered a “name” until her role in the popular Spider-Man series (none of which I’ve seen, btw).  She’s quite good in Melancholia, conveying her character’s emotional state effectively despite not having any of the usual wordy “confessional” scenes to “explain” her behaviour: instead, she uses her sparse dialogue, facial expressions, and body language to create an unforgettable image of the clinically depressed Justine.  

Charlotte Gainsbourg is kept mostly in the background of the “Justine” sequence but—as would be expected—comes to the forefront in “Claire.” Perhaps it’s unfair to compare her performance here to her role in Antichrist (since that happens to be the only other film in which I’ve seen her and may not be representative of her acting career or ability), but she’s once again neurotic and distracted and frantic.  Whereas at the outset of “Claire” she’s the care-giver for her almost catatonic sister, in the film’s final moments it is Justine who has calmly taken control and helps Claire face the end. The rest of the cast is fine, with the major players each getting a juicy bit of business or dialogue, especially in the bustling wedding reception scenes of the “Justine” section.  

Melancholia is both epic and intimate.  As noted above, despite the unhappy basic premise—a portrait of the tortured souls of two sisters as they confront the possible end of the world—Melancholia is by no means a chore to sit through, unlike the stark and disturbing Antichrist.  Melancholia is a masterful work of filmmaking that may or may not qualify as an enduring classic of world cinema, but it is nonetheless moving, engrossing, deeply satisfying, and yes…entertaining.  

Killer Elite served as a cinematic-palate cleanser—fast, refreshing, adrenaline-inducing—between Drive and Melancholia, two more “serious” films on my viewing agenda.  An intricately-twisted plot, performers for whom the descriptors “macho” and “hard-bitten” seem to have been coined, and heaping dollops of violent action have been blended into a satisfying, manly stew of a movie.

Danny and Hunter are mercenaries and hired killers (but the good kind of killers, of course, only assassinating bad people); after a botched job in Mexico, in which he nearly kills the young daughter of their target, Danny retires.  He goes to Australia to rebuild a farmhouse with his bare hands (because he can), and romancing a sexy lady rancher in his spare moments (well, of course).  However, Danny’s new life is interrupted when he learns Hunter is being held hostage by a terminally-ill Arab sheik who wants the killers of his eldest sons tracked down and executed, pronto.  

The three killers in question are former members of Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS), an elite military force.  Danny and his best mates, a rough lot of hard lads to be sure, don’t have a lot of trouble carrying out the initial hits—even though they’re also required by their employer to obtain video-taped confessions from the victims and make the murders appear to be accidents—but they’ve soon stirred up a hornet’s nest.  It seems there is a secret society of ex-SAS men who don’t take kindly to the gradual eradication of the group’s alumni; their best man Spike is put on Danny’s trail. 

First appearances are deceiving, and the contract isn’t as simple as it seemed—not from any side of the equation, apparently everyone has an ulterior motive in this netherworld of international intrigue—and if the twists of the story become rather difficult to follow…well, welcome to the club. Killer Elite isn’t primarily a brain-teasing picture, but the script does make an effort to avoid being too simplistic or a mere framework for a series of violent confrontations, and deserves some credit for the attempt at complexity.  Still, the secret society concept is slightly silly and self-conscious, to be honest: they call themselves “The Feathermen” (their secret business cards even have feathers on them) and their introductory scene is so basically expository—“let’s describe who we are and what we do, even though we’re talking among ourselves, so we already know that”— that it becomes almost parodic. The audience appreciates the information but it could have been conveyed more subtly, couldn’t it?

This minor blemish aside, Killer Elite is otherwise quite efficient in getting from point “a” to point “b” and providing the requisite punching, kicking, shooting, stabbing, furniture-smashing, exploding, car-chasing action along the way.  The film largely eschews elaborate and unrealistic special effects-based action sequences a la Fast & Furious, Transformers, etc., opting instead for more “personal” stunts and hand-to-hand combat—this may not be strictly “realistic,” but at least there aren’t people leaping out of cars that flew off speeding trains, plunging over 200-foot cliffs and landing in a river in the middle of the desert.  Things like that are cool, I know, but it’s a nice change of pace to have guys just punching and shooting each other.

Another difference between Killer Elite and (for example) Fast Five and/or The Expendables (both films I enjoyed) is the former film’s…tone, for lack of a better word.  The characters have some depth: even though there aren’t that many introspective scenes, these people aren’t cardboard cut-outs or exaggerated caricatures.  Jason Statham and Clive Owen are brawny enough, but their performances (and the script) suggest something lies beneath their rough-hewn exterior.  I once considered Robert DeNiro one of the finest actors of his generation and while his role in Killer Elite won’t exactly earn him another Oscar, it’s at least a respectable, substantial, and dignified “grizzled sidekick” role which in some measure makes up for Meet the Fockers, et al.  (I’m not begrudging DeNiro some easy paydays, and I understand he’s now in the “character actor” category, I’m simply lamenting a few of his career choices over the past decade or so…I could say the same about Al Pacino and a number of others, to be sure).  The production values, direction, photography, editing, and all of the other invisible but important aspects of the film are also satisfactory: this is a slick, speedy, professional job from start to finish.

There isn’t a lot to write about in regards to Killer Elite, it’s not intellectually challenging, socially or politically relevant (alright, with something of a stretch, you might find a political thought or two), or even emotionally affecting.  It’s just a satisfyingly effective “entertainment” for action-film enthusiasts.  And there’s nothing wrong with that, nothing at all.