Living Up To The Hype: Cloud Atlas Is Smart And Complex!

The Good: Wonderful acting, Great make-up and effects, Creative concept, Decent plots
The Bad: Misses some important events/deliberately obscure at points.
The Basics: Told in six distinct time periods, Cloud Atlas follows the reincarnated variations of several characters who interact to change and save the world or humanity through their actions, beliefs, or art.


When I miss a movie in theaters these days, there are remarkably few I pine for and make an immediate effort to see when they are released on DVD; it’s the nature of being a reviewer, there is always something new to see, review, and promote. So, when I missed Cloud Atlas theatrically, it says something about my level of interest that I managed to get it in to watch so soon after its DVD release. The truth is, it was a film I wanted very much to see and given how many preview trailers I saw of it, I was pleasantly surprised how much of the film there still was to be seen (it’s a long movie). In fact, my only gripe with the promotions for the film was that the key voiceovers that explain much of the thematic points and narrative structure were included in the trailers.

Cloud Atlas is based upon a novel that I have not read and thus this is a very pure review of the film alone. With Cloud Atlas, the Wachowskis have now redeemed themselves for Speed Racer (reviewed here!) and they once again prove they have the magic touch for making films that are visually incredible and tell stories about humans overcoming amazing odds and all forms of oppression. The film, however, is long and gory with a climax that sees the demise of so many of the characters that when I, in a moment of wonder at the movie, exclaimed, “How the hell did this movie ever lose money?!” my wife glared at me pretty heavily.

Cloud Atlas is a rare film that is not easy to discuss without giving away major spoilers. However, in defying my usual format, I won’t spoil virtually anything in the film by foregoing the usual plot summary. Cloud Atlas has an interwoven narrative structure that leaps very abruptly between six different time periods. As a result, there is little point trying to discuss any single narrative at length because one of the fundamental points of Cloud Atlas is that many of the main characters are related and interact as different incarnations of themselves in each of the different generations.

Told from the perspective of a man in the distant future, Cloud Atlas flashes back to and meanders through the intertwined stories of a lawyer who is part of a slaving mission and is being poisoned by the ship’s doctor on his way back home, a young composer studying at the feet of an aged composer who is not nearly as talented as he is, an investigative reporter digging into a story on a nuclear reactor in 1973 and all the corporate forces working to stop her from exposing the dangers of the facility, a publisher who is on the run from murderous hooligans when his previously unsuccessful author gains overnight success after killing a book critic, a cloned worked in the future who is given the chance to becomes something much more than she is when her “programming” fails, and a primitive man living on an island after what is essentially the apocalypse who must help a civilized woman reach the nearby ruins of the long-lost civilization, while avoiding cannibals and his own inner demons. Laced between the threads is a musical work that many of the characters create/remember/dream of or otherwise share and the themes of humans in oppressive situations fighting to overcome the political and social conditions that keep themselves and others enslaved.

Cloud Atlas is a film that demands to be watched as it is packed with details (like the idea that the clone in the future story is the deity worshipped in the most distant future timeline!) and the directors bounce between time periods assuming the viewers are keeping up. I liked how each time period had its own dialect and while that frustrated my wife, I found it engaging to sit and mentally translate the concepts both past and future. Cloud Atlas does not slow down to explain itself, but almost all of the keys one needs to understand the film are present on screen. In fact, the only glaring omission for me was that the disaster in the future that led to the technological reversion in the most distant time period was not shown.

What makes Cloud Atlas worth watching is simple; while it plays to the same old themes the Wachowskis (who co-wrote – or adapted – and directed Cloud Atlas with Tom Tykwer) are known for, they make the struggle for freedom and dignity feel fresh again. Visually, the film is a marvel with seamless CG animals, amazing sound effects and make-up that should have won many, many more awards than it did (never have so many great actors worked so hard to be utterly unrecognizable and not trade at all on their celebrity!). Cloud Atlas lives up to the heights one expects from the Wachowskis when it comes to the quality of making big, bold, films.

The real story of why to watch Cloud Atlas is in the way the directors get amazing performances out of the entire cast. While greatness is expected of Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent and Hugo Weaving, younger cast members like Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, James D’Arcy and Ben Whishaw hold their own with an apparently effortless ability. The cast is incredible and well-utilized (though poor Hugo Weaving needs to appear in a Wachowski film as something other than a villain!) and they are so engrossing in their performances that even for the recognizable actors, it is very easy to get drawn into their characters and forget anything outside the world of Cloud Atlas.

Ultimately, Cloud Atlas is engaging, clever and utilizes the film medium exceptionally well, making it well worth watching . . . more than once!

For other films with Jim Broadbent, be sure to check out my takes on:
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
Inkheart
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe
Nicholas Nickleby
Gangs Of New York
Bridget Jones’s Diary
Smilla’s Sense Of Snow
Blackadder’s Christmas Carol
Brazil

8/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Seduction Of The Obvious: Sirens

The Good: Wonderful acting, Great direction, Decent character development, Engaging themes
The Bad: Sometimes thematically heavy-handed, Frequently very awkward
The Basics: Sirens explores well the conflict between art and religion when a young minister tries to convince an eccentric artist not to exhibit his most controversial work.


Tonight, I took the opportunity to return to some things I have not for many, many years. In the last place my wife and I lived, we had very limited kitchen access. So, for almost the first four years of our marriage, I did not cook her my extraordinary lasagna. Tonight, I did just that. While I was doing prep and after we ate, I put in a film that I have not seen since I was in high school: Sirens. Despite my wife looking at me with more than a little bit of shock that I saw this film – which had quite a bit of nudity in it – while in high school, I am pleased to say that Sirens is as good as I remember it being.

Actually, there were some additional elements that were enjoyable for me now that I did not catch as a younger person. While I have always enjoyed Sirens’s direct approach to exploring the conflict between art and religion, I had not seen Portia de Rossi in anything before this (there was nothing as it turns out) and it would be years after before I saw her in anything and I never made the correlation before tonight! Sirens is an explicit and potent exploration of the conflict between art and religion, with one woman ending up as the focal point of the attraction of several women, a man, and an artist’s eye. The film has a very slow build, but Sirens is ultimately very satisfying and it remains very relevant, even now.

Minister Anthony Campion and his repressed wife Estella arrive in Australia at the residence of the artist Norman Lindsay. Lindsay is a painter whose nudes and religiously-themed works have stirred up a great deal of controversy. Campion wants to convince the artist not to show his controversial piece depicting the crucifixion of a woman in an upcoming show. The Campions are shocked by how openly flirtatious Lindsay’s models, Sheela, Giddy, and Pru are. Lindsay tries to create a magical atmosphere for the children on the estate by having the models pretend to be fairies out in the garden.

In getting to know the three women and the help around the facility, Devlin, Estella slowly begins to shed her inhibitions and become a more well-rounded sexual being. In addition to becoming seduced by the modeler’s lifestyle, she has vivid fantasies about the other women, Devlin, and art and free-thought in general.

Sirens is not only thematically liberal and very straightforward with its presentation of how art is not inherently bad or good (that the viewers must judge and find what they believe to be art and what is offensive), it is occasionally heavy-handed. Sirens is wonderful in promoting the relationship between art and religion and it challenges viewers to not find its content – which has a lot of nudity and married people opening themselves up to fantasies and seductions by other people – offensive. But, amid the sophisticated argument in favor of artistic freedom, director John Duigan goes visually over-the-top with frequent uses of snakes in the imagery. We get it: Estella is being seduced by the potential of “evil.” Duigan has created an ideal, Eden-like setting, so the presence of snakes is just obvious, painfully so.

The characters of Anthony, Estella, and Norman Lindsay are memorable ones. Anthony Campion is a painfully awkward and somewhat ridiculous young minister and he is portrayed with surprising humor by Hugh Grant. This is one of Grant’s more subtle roles, one where he is not simply banking on his good looks or his smile in order to sell the character. In fact, I cannot think of a role where Hugh Grant has a more stiff body language to his character than in Sirens. Norman Lindsay is well-portrayed by Sam Neill, but his character is a somewhat generic mouthpiece for a lot of exposition and art theory.

Much of Sirens is really about Estella and she and Giddy (Portia de Rossi) play characters on converging arcs. Giddy is attracted to Anthony and yet wants to be more than just a model or an object of attraction. Estella has lived a very sheltered life and by actually talking with Giddy, she begins to open up to possibilities bigger than her prior experiences. The arc for the character is very realistic and takes an organic amount of time as Estella and Anthony find themselves continually unable to leave the Lindsay estate. Estella is played by Tara Fitzgerald and I was surprised by how this film, which allows her to play a decent range and a realistic amount of character growth, did not open a ton of doors for her.

Sirens may not be subtle, but it is a wonderful, memorable film and it makes philosophical arguments entirely enjoyable!

For other films about artists, please visit my reviews of:
Frida
Cradle Will Rock
The Girl With The Pearl Earring

7/10

For other films, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Hugh Grant Is DEFINITELY Off The "Hate" List Now With Music And Lyrics!

The Good: Good acting, Fun story, Excellent execution of plot, Fun characters
The Bad: Predictable and simple
The Basics: In a fun, if standard, romantic comedy, a washed-up pop star is given the chance to make music again and finds himself paired with a reclusive and reluctant poet.


For quite some time, I could not stand Hugh Grant. I wasn't too keen on Drew Barrymore either. Barrymore got off my list of actors I wouldn't watch fairly quickly, but I held onto the whole "Hugh Grant What's My Appeal?" joke from Family Guy. Then Grant was good in About A Boy (reviewed here!) and I cheered for him in Love Actually (reviewed here!). With Music And Lyrics, Grant is officially off my "tired of" list and into the category where I see his appeal.

'80's pop star Alex Fletcher, of the group Pop!, has volunteered to participate in a reality show for has-beens and finds himself regretting it. Enter Sophie, a young woman who enters Fletcher's life to water his plants. When Alex's agent, Chris, gets Alex a potential gig writing for one of the hottest pop stars in the world, Alex finds himself with a problem; when he was in Pop!, he wrote the music, while his partner, Colin, wrote the lyrics.

As it turns out, Sophie is quite the gifted lyricist and they soon begin to write music and songs together in a wholly predictable turn of events. So far from his previous limelight, Alex soon illustrates a complete willingness to sell out and fold, which Sophie immediately resents. And what looked like a promising relationship begins to crumble. Fast.

From the opening moments of Music And Lyrics, the film is fun and fairly obvious. Opening with the music video for Pop!'s biggest hit, "Pop Goes My Heart," writer-director Marc Lawrence recreates the schmaltz and utter cheesiness of '80's pop culture perfectly. Not just the hair and wardrobe, but the story style music video combined with the color scheme and the whole way everyone moves makes the viewer instantly believe in the nature and caliber of the group and Alex as an artist. And for those who did not live through the '80's, this sets the mood perfectly. (In the DVD bonus features, there is the unbroken music video and wonderful commentary featuring the behind-the-scenes production of the music video.)

So, from the beginning, Alex is a pretty obvious character, followed around by his agent. As far as the story goes, this puts a significant burden on the character of Sophie. Instead of being starstruck by Alex (one of the two obvious permutations for her character) - a role instead embodied by Sophie's sister Rhonda - Sophie enters the narrative as a young woman with significant damage in her past. Left by a prominent professor who used her story as a career-launching novel, Sophie is hesitant to write anything. Much of the early half of the film involves Alex simply drawing Sophie out of her isolation and reticence and that works nicely as one of the few things that sets Music And Lyrics apart from virtually every other romantic comedy.

And the film is funny, but it does not try so hard to be obviously funny, leaning more toward a dry wit throughout the film and highlighting the romantic aspects of the romantic comedy instead of the comedic ones. As a result, much of the film is produced with a real sense of being tongue-in-cheek, like the pokes at teen pop divas as embodied by Cora. Marc Lawrence wrote the script with a brilliant sense of character in keeping Alex entirely aware of his status as a fallen idol and thus keeping his willingness to sell out at the drop of a dime front and center.

Hugh Grant rises to the occasion beautifully to sell the role. Like his performance in American Dreamz, he plays a disgruntled member of the entertainment community who is displeased by his place in it. Grant is wonderful here in that niche, but he adds more heart to the role, making it distinctly different from the more smarmy performance in American Dreamz. Grant leads the cast with his performance in a way that makes his character breathe but never seem to overpower anyone else who is on screen with him.

Most often, he shares the screen with Drew Barrymore. Barrymore again reaches her potential by playing a somewhat eccentric, insular young woman and those types of roles seem to suit her well. The problem for Barrymore in Music And Lyrics is that we've seen that style performance from her before. She's good at it; it made her performance in Ever After (reviewed here!) something different from what she had done before and her performance in 50 First Dates (reviewed here!) plausible (the the very least). In this film, she simply stays in the niche she pioneered for herself several films ago. In other words, she does not so much give the audience anything new as she does provide them with more of the same to enjoy.

And because Music And Lyrics is not terribly serious or sophisticated fare anyway, it works out just fine. Marc Lawrence, though, gives better than drivel - which is more than most romantic comedy writers do. In Sophie he provides a chance to explore the difficulties of trusting people which is a topic seldom tackled seriously in romantic comedies. Lawrence does it well and his insistence on a slow evolution for Sophie raises the script and what is shown on screen up above the average film, even if barely.

But most of all, Music And Lyrics is just a fun film. On DVD it comes with some commentary, trailers, the music video and a decent commentary track that is almost as enjoyable as the regular film. Anyone who likes a decent romantic comedy and anyone who has a secret passion for the 1980's will find something to enjoy in this film.

For other works by Marc Lawrence, check out my reviews of:
Did You Hear About The Morgans?
Miss Congeniality
The Out-Of-Towners
Forces Of Nature

7/10

To check out how this film stacks up against the others I have reviewed, check out my Movie Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from Best To Worst!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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A Crooked Woody Experience: Small Time Crooks

The Good: Amusing, Good acting, Good dialog with fast deliveries.
The Bad: Predictable plot, Under-use of actors
The Basics: Fun to watch, not overly serious, Small Time Crooks is an adult fable with the theme "Be yourself and enjoy life" delivers with quick dialog and good acting.


First off, Small Time Crooks was my first experience with Woody Allen. I'll begin my review by saying, I'm sure it won't be my last. Since originally watching this movie, though, I've found it left almost no impression.

This somewhat average film begins with Ray and Frenchy Winkler (played by Woody Allen and Tracy Ulman, respectively), an aging couple who have been together for some time, though the reasons for their union are unclear. Ray comically threatens Frenchy with violence he never seems capable of dishing out, much like the old "Honeymooners," but with someone of Woody Allen's build doing the threatening. The film opens with Ray teaming up with some old friends from prison with a cagey scheme to rob a nearby bank. Soon to join their efforts is Benny, played by Jon Lovitz.

The plot is amusing: Four men plan a bank robbery by renting a restaurant and the front (a cookie store) turns out to be where the real money is. Frenchy finds herself overwhelmed running the cookie store and when Ray's attempt to rob the bank fails, the thieves turn legitimate.

And rich.

What follows then is the conflict between joining upper class society and simply being oneself, played out as Frenchy (who goes back to using her full name of Francis) takes lessons to become classy and Ray goes on an eternal search for a simple cheeseburger. That entire aspect of the plot, while predictable, is funny.

When the conflict becomes the central story, the plot becomes predictable. That is to say, when the story becomes about Frenchy's quest to join society essentially forces her to abandon Ray, the character arcs follow the most predictable, Hollywood, directions possible. There come no surprises in terms of the way the movie progresses from that point on and it ends in exactly the way one suspects it might for a rags to riches type story.

What isn't predictable is the quality of the characters and the caliber of the acting. The characters continue to be interesting and while the plot is predictable (that is, we have a pretty good idea of what the characters will do), the dialog remains sharp, witty, and fast paced. The characters remain fluid and interesting. So, for example, while we know Francis is probably going to end back up with Ray, her attempts at being a "person of society" are laughable and fit her character quite well.

Ray's quest for a simple cheeseburger is amusing and the idea that a character could be motivated by something so very simple is a clever concept and director Woody Allen executes it well.

The actors, who by the middle of the film include Hugh Grant as David, the society-driven art dealer who is giving Francis lessons in being classy, continue to deliver well as good actors. But none of the roles truly challenge any of the actors. Grant is an excellent example of this: We've seen him play slick and societal in such movies as Love Actually (reviewed here!) and he's much better there because the role has some real significance. This movie seems to be a better feat of casting (i.e. putting actors in roles that perfectly fit their known talents) than acting (pushing the borders of performances we have seen from a specific actor).

Where the film fails is in its use of the actors. Tracy Ulman gives a great performance and is used well, the rest of the cast, not so much. The usually charming Hugh Grant is underused, but even more so is the comically brilliant Jon Lovitz. 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft has almost as much airtime as Lovitz. Woody Allen appears far too much in comparison to the rest of the cast. While such a statement seems obvious given Allen wrote and directed the film, it is more problematic than that; Allen creates interesting peripheral characters and fleshes them out with exceptional actors. And then . . . neglects them. It's unfortunate to the viewer.

Overall, the film is interesting, fun as a diversion, but not of such substance as to be analyzed beyond what it is, a simple adult fable. That's not bad, it's just not as great as it could be.

For other works with Brian Markinson, check out my reviews of:
Charlie Wilson’s War
Chasing Freedom
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - “In The Cards”
Star Trek: Voyager - “Faces”
Star Trek: Voyager - “Cathexis”

4.5/10

For other films, check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Surprisingly Decent Hugh Grant (Who Would Have Guessed?). It’s About A Boy!

The Good: Funny, Good acting, Interesting characters
The Bad: Predictable plot and message
The Basics: In a clever film that puts Hugh Grant in a rather unlikable role, Will must help Marcus deal with his crazy mother.


I am not, traditionally, a fan of Hugh Grant. In fact, in the past, I have found his supposed boyish good looks to be a cheap excuse for his lack of genuine acting talent. He seems to be cast in a great number of things based on his sparkling blue eyes and casual demeanor. About A Boy changes that. Finally, Hugh Grant has been cast in a way that denies all of the preconceptions of who the actor is.

Will is a bachelor and a pretty self-centered one at that. He has little to worry about, living off the royalties from a song his father wrote. When Will stumbles on a plan to get easy, low-maintenance dates, he discovers single moms. Convinced he will seem like less of a jerk than men who leave them with their kids, Will joins a single parent's group. It is through that group that he meets Marcus, the twelve year old son of a crazy hippy. Will realizes early that Marcus needs help and can use a decent, reliable human being in his life. He decides to be that person.

What works terribly well is Hugh Grant's acting. From a distinctly different posture to the utter lack of a sparkle in the eye, Hugh Grant proves that he can act in About A Boy. Grant plays Will as utterly charmless and he does it surprisingly well. While most actors or actresses who hinge on natural charm will at some point allow their persona to slip and they reveal themselves, Grant does not do that at any point in this film. Indeed, one of the very last scenes where Will joins Marcus on stage, it seems like there would be an opportunity for him to be more Hugh Grant, but instead, the actor manages to disguise himself. He works out perfectly in this role.

And Will is an unlikable character. He is self-centered, crabby, and honest in all of the wrong ways about all of the worst things. He grows throughout the film, but not at a pace that makes us fail to believe that he has been in an egotistical rut the past thirty years of his life. Indeed, if there is any real fault in About A Boy, it is that it betrays its origins of a miserable character for a fairly easy answer with Will's progression into normal human being.

On the other end of the spectrum is Marcus. Marcus is almost equally self-absorbed. Still, he is able to recognize in Will all of the faults of the older man and he's not afraid to call him on his b.s. Marcus is a kid with an agenda and he sees the ability in Will to have a back-up plan should his wacky mother Fiona actually go off the deep end. And there is evidence that Fiona is headed in that direction; the first day Marcus and Will meet, Fiona has an unsuccessful suicide attempt.

I'm not so big on child actors. Frankly, most of them could not act their way out of a paper bag. This is simply the nature of the beast; children have not experienced a huge array of emotions yet, so they cannot be expected to portray them on camera. But Nicholas Hoult, who plays Marcus, is genuinely good. Hoult is in command of his body language and tone. He does an excellent job of portraying a child who is both cunning and naive. Hoult makes us believe in a character who can be both clever and hurt, wanting desperately to be healed and having only the most basic ideas of how to get it.

The cast is rounded out by Toni Collette, who plays the hippy Fiona. Collette manages the difficult job of playing someone who we may believe is a parent and yet is a complete flake. She sells us quite convincingly on the idea of being both self-absorbed and oblivious to Marcus' needs while still managing to get out several difficult and long sets of lines where she has to emote in character. She does it amazingly with a strong balance of miserable facial expressions and a huge array of emotive tones.

About A Boy, was a film I had heard decent things about, but nothing prepared me for how good it was. It was actually funny. In the end, I laughed at this film more than any piece in recent memory. It was well-acted and had good characters and in the end, it was funny.

Sometimes, that's the best we can ask for, even if it does have a somewhat predictable plot arc.

For other works with Nicholas Hoult, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
X-Men: First Class
Clash Of The Titans

8/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2012, 2003 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Phenomenal Satire Exploding With Relevance: American Dreamz Delivers!

The Good: Excellent acting, FUNNY, Good characters, Universal jibes
The Bad: Pacing near the end, Slightly dated
The Basics: In a terrifically funny parody of our times, American Dreamz takes shots at the United States of America's president, obsession with reality television and overall attitude.


[Note: This review was originally written during the Bush Administration and I decided to keep the original opening because, like the film, captured a very clear sense of time and place. Enjoy! - W.L. Swarts]

American Dreamz, a comedy about politics and reality television written by Paul Weitz and my reaction afterwards was simple, "Why hadn't I heard more about this movie when it was out?!"

American Dreamz follows two parallel storylines as the President of the United States, a Bush-like buffoon named Stanton wins re-election, reads a newspaper and is shocked to discover the world is much bigger than the United States while at the same time, Martin Tweed, executive producer and judge of the wildly popular American Idol-type show American Dreamz hunts for talent to make the new season of the show even more popular than its previous ones. He finds his talent in the form of Sally Kendoo, a young woman who thirsts for stardom and has real talent. Also on the show is Omer Obeidi, an Arab who pretty much flunked out of terrorist school and who is activated for martyrdom only when he becomes a contestant on American Dreamz and the President is announced as a guest judge for the final episode.

What's worst about this movie is so closely tied to what is best about it that it's almost impossible to start my review with the low-point and make it clear I am discussing the film's weakness. American Dreamz is the satire of our time, right now, 2004-2006. This is it. Paul Weitz brilliantly pokes fun at every institution and popular culture/political individual of this time and place in the world. And he does it universally, so it's not just a poke at the American president, the American Idol contestants, the soldiers, the suicide bombers, the television executives, it's ALL of them. And it's brilliant and funny. And it will be forgotten as one of the best movies of the decade or such because in two years, it will be so dated as to be obsolete. Dust-covered copies of this DVD will be pulled off the shelf in sixty years and shown to grandchildren who will shake their heads and wonder why people would think it was funny to have an idiot for a president and that television would be ruled by tweens who rely on the American public for gratification and reinforcement.

In short, there is nothing so universal about American Dreamz and that is its weakness; it is destined to be forgotten as the United States works to regain its respectable status in the world and eliminate the black stains of warmongering and bullying of the past six years.

But right now, this is hilarious and it's what we need as American citizens who cannot stand the things being carried out in our name. This is the chance to laugh about the follies of our times. And it is all about our time. President Stanton is a clear George Bush parody, embodied by the stubborn refusal to read the news, to listen to others and to face reality. His Chief of Staff is a Cheney/Rove parody that plays like the MadTV Frankenstein-esque Cheney for the hour and a half of the movie - and I see that as a good thing. Sally Kendoo is a clear parody of Kelly Clarkson and the choice to parody Clarkson is actually a decent one; Clarkson is clearly the most talented individual to come out of the American Idol scene and as such parodying her is not simply picking on the novelty contestants, which are represented in the movie by Omer and an Israeli contestant.

American Dreamz works because all of the characters are types. Sally Kendoo is the archetypal will poke her eyes out for success, win at all costs, American youth who has talent and is ready to exploit herself and her talent to succeed. Martin Tweed is the embodiment of every negative stereotype of a Simon Cowell who has achieved success in a way that does not stimulate him and who must remain at the top of his game, lest he lose everything he has built. And even the minor characters work because they are simply "types" and parodies. Indeed, the name of Marcia Gay Harden's character is simply "First Lady Stanton."

And Harden's portrayal of First Lady Stanton is enviable and one of the few chinks in the otherwise tight armor of American Dreamz. First Lady Stanton is articulate, even if somewhat cowed, and her interactions with President Stanton make the viewer long for the days of strong First Ladies who would be an asset to the nation. Other than her, all the "types" fit our current circumstances and they work.

They work because the actors playing them are devoted to selling the jokes and the portrayals of our times. Sam Golzari is hilarious dancing to show tunes in a tent at the terrorist training camp. Hugh Grant, looking somewhat older than when previous seen, is morose and charming, flashy and deeply sarcastic and he makes us forget he is Hugh Grant. After the first few minutes on screen, Grant IS Martin Tweed.

Mandy Moore deserves a lot of credit for her role as Sally Kendoo. Moore is smart and turns her emotions on a dime to make a joke for the movie. Some of the best comic timing comes between her, Jennifer Coolidge (her character's mother) and the agent they've hired in figuring out Kendoo's story for the show. Moore whips out some of the funniest lines in succession with a deadpan delivery that is amazing.

Dennis Quaid, who I never would have guessed could do it, does the most amazing parody of George W. Bush throughout the film. He adopts a swaggering, frat-boy type attitude and has moments where he is able to disengage from all reality with a clueless look on his face that masterfully create a character who is a clear interpretation of the person he seeks to embody. Quaid is given some challenging lines to deliver without breaking that mold, most notably during the President's appearance on American Dreamz and he does it admirably. One suspects those lines that Quaid delivers are pure wish fulfillment on the part of writer/director Weitz, who no doubt desperately wishes to hear them spoken by Bush.

The person who steals the show is Willem Dafoe. Dafoe is brilliant as the sinister, manipulative, evil genius puppetmaster Chief of Staff. Dafoe does an extraordinary job creating a Rovian Cheney character who manipulates the President, down to telling him exactly what to say via a transmitter in the President's ear. And throughout, Dafoe laces the performance with subtle strokes from Weitz that are scathing, wherein the Chief of Staff shrinks away from all forms of acknowledgment or responsibility, even literally slinking out of a spotlight. Dafoe is instantly recognizable for the character he is meant to represent and he is utterly hilarious in the role. I would never have guess him for it, but he sells it flawlessly.

Writer and director Paul Weitz deserves a lot of credit for American Dreamz. It's a smart movie and it works on a number of levels. From the parody of the names, it's no coincidence that the lead contestant is named "Kendoo" (i.e. "can do") and the President's name is meant to sound so close to "Stalin," to the most subtle joke near the climax of the movie which I think is one of the funniest (when Liberty is thrown in his car and taken from American Dreamz, the window in front of where he is being protected is rolled down), Weitz creates a movie that is smart and funny and working on multiple levels. He deserves credit for that.

Ultimately, though, the movie ends and we wake up to a new, higher body count and politicians who continue to abrogate responsibility and our laughter turns to discomfort and we envy Weitz's created world, where things change in the significant things and the only things that stay the same are the ways people are exploited on reality television for their own perceived gain.

For other films featuring Hugh Grant, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Did You Hear About The Morgans?
Love Actually
Bridget Jones's Diary

8/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2006 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The First DVD I Saw Was Bridget Jones's Diary!

The Good: Funny, Well-acted, Good pace, Good use of music, Deleted scenes are wonderful!
The Bad: Predictable and weaker on character than expected.
The Basics: An entertaining film, despite being classic Romantic in its plot structure, Bridget Jones's Diary is funny and well acted, a great date flick or the cure to a lonely evening.


When I first changed over from VHS to DVD, I was surprised by the quality of the medium. I suspect now that it colored my viewing of Bridget Jones's Diary, but the truth is, I enjoyed the feel of being overwhelmed by the medium, so I am not going back to reevaluate the film.

First off, if anyone of any importance in making these decisions is reading this, let me say that all DVDs that include deleted scenes ought to have a function that allows the deleted scenes to be flawlessly inserted in the film where they would have been. On the DVD, there are deleted scenes from Bridget Jones's Diary and they are hilarious. I swear, I laughed more in the five to ten minutes of deleted scenes than I did in the rest of the movie. Finally someone found a worthwhile place for Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby!"

Bridget Jones's Diary is the story of, predictably enough, Bridget Jones. She is working as a publicist at a publishing house, anxious about various aspects in her life which include smoking, drinking, weight control and the lack of a male in her life. Well, the latter is the first thing to go as she and her boss, Daniel Cleaver, begin a relationship. Interspersed in her relationship with Cleaver are encounters with an apparently bland, stable, disagreeable Mark Darcy.

Okay, the film takes place in England and you have a character named Darcy. Can you tell there's a Jane Austen thing going on here? This film takes the classical English paradigm for a romance story. Knowing that, you know who Bridget ends up with and why.

My beefs with this film are few and far between. Having just checked my facts on the IMDB, I add my beef with the casting department; Collin Firth played Mr. Darcy in a miniseries of Pride And Prejudice. Casting him here as Mr. Darcy is just cruel.

But, Colin Firth is good. I was very pleased with his performance. Actually, Renee Zellweger did well, too. She's not as squinty in her films as she is when she appears on talkshows, so that was a pleasant surprise. And while the scene stealer is supposed to be Hugh Grant, Colin Firth fills that; the scenes he's in, he dominates.

My only real disappointment (other than realizing the Austenian nature of the film the moment a Mr. Darcy made an entrance) was with character. I expected Bridget to be better defined. Sure, the film gives updates as to her weight, blood alcohol level and number of cigarettes, but character is something more. While I think her desire not to be lonely is clear, I think this film will find itself dated in fifty or seventy years. As it is, I didn't find much compulsion in the film for Bridget to want to be with someone. She's a strong enough individual without anyone else. And yet, she seems determined to change that about herself. As society becomes more comfortable with strong women who are self-actualized, I think this film, which on its surface may appear to be strongly feminist with its good female protagonist, Bridget Jones's desperate desire for love as opposed to companionship, real companionship, will make less sense.

As it is, we're not fifty years from now yet, so it's pretty wonderful to watch now.

More than anything else, this is entertaining. I found myself laughing! (Which, if you read my other reviews of late, you'll know it's something I've been waiting on desperately!). I enjoyed the music and thought it was well inserted throughout the film and more than anything, I found myself engaged. How good it that? There's little more one may ask from a film.

For other movies featuring Colin Firth, please check out my reviews of:
The King's Speech
A Christmas Carol
Love Actually
Shakespeare In Love
The English Patient

7/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Actually Better Than The Average Romantic Comedy: Love Actually Is A Great, Enduring Christmas Movie!

The Good: Excellent casting, Charming, Funny, Great theme, Interesting characters, Not entirely predictable
The Bad: What isn't unpredictable, is terribly predictable
The Basics: With its massive ensemble cast, Love Actually illustrates that love is all around by taking multiple storylines and weaving them together beautifully.


I am a bit of a fan of complex movies. If a film is done right, it can have several threads going simultaneously and I'll love it. Magnolia is a perfect example of a film that takes several different storylines and expertly weaves them together. It is with a similar appreciation - but on the love, not despair, end of the spectrum - that I watched and rewatched Love Actually. There is no film I reviewed originally that I have looked forward to going back and re-rating like Love Actually; time has certainly smoothed out the edges on this one and it is a near-perfect film in my pantheon! With Batman Returns, it is an annual Christmas tradition in my home, as far as movies go!

You might have seen previews for Love Actually and resisted it because you are not a Hugh Grant or Winona Ryder fan. For the former, Grant is not in much of the movie and where he is, he is actually interesting, charming, and genuinely funny. For the latter, Ryder is not in the movie at all; the lookalike in the previews is actually Keira Knightley, who is made up to look pretty much identical to Winona Ryder. Go figure.

Regardless, Love Actually is a surprisingly good film, especially for a romantic comedy, which is usually such an overdone, obvious genre. Instead, Love Actually begins with a simple premise; love is all around us. And it then seeks to prove it.

This is achieved through the telling of various tales of love, love lost, or near-love that loosely intersect in England in the weeks before Christmas. The stories include: David, the new Prime Minister, taking a fancy to his intern, Daniel, a widower, counseling his son on how to win the girl of his dreams, Colin going on an insane quest to the United States to find women, Sarah trying desperately to express her love to her coworker, while being plagued by a love for a mentally ill brother, and Harry and Karen's marriage coming to a crossroads when Harry finds himself more and more open to the advances of Mia. There is something for everyone here, including a reclusive writer with a broken heart finding love with the woman who is simply the nearest person to him.

These are cool stories set against a backdrop of an aging musical artist's attempt to get the number one song in the Christmas season even though he knows it is terrible. What makes it work is the writing and the characters. Whenever any one plot seems to be going on too long or going nowhere, the focus of the movie changes entirely. And when it returns to the story one might have though dull, it feels new again. The movie works out quite well in that regard, because as the film progresses, we come to wonder what is happening to other characters that we may not have seen in some time.

In short, though, the characters are interesting and it is quite cool to see how the different characters resolve their problems. David, for example, uses his feelings of love for Natalie to restore national pride to England by standing up to a bullying U.S. President (I cheered when that happened). Jamie - the writer - uses love to overcome love lost by realizing that sometimes, the most simple act of love is simply communicating with the person one loves. Daniel, the widower, experiences a profound sense of love for his son and his aid to his son allows him to overcome his own grief. And the relationship that is growing between Mia and Harry keeps the viewer guessing. Mia is the perfect example of a character that works quite extraordinarily in the movie; her character is presented as perceptive and playful, which creates a character that is quite different from the homewrecker or outright slut one might wish to brand her as.

The characters are challenging as well. There is no firm resolution between Harry and Karen when Karen realizes she is losing Harry and that makes the conflicts and ideas they share much more interesting. The Peter, Juliet, and Mark relationship is in some ways more infuriating because of the implications of the last scene where the three of them are together. And the movie works because it is not all happy. It is, in fact, agonizing to watch Sarah as she and Karl get closer and then love - her love for her brother - tears them apart. Love is complicated and Love Actually does an excellent job of not trivializing that, but actually accepting and exploring it. Love comes with different priorities for different people and Love Actually does an excellent job of illustrating that as well.

The other thing that aids the movie spectacularly is the acting. The actors are perfectly cast to represent a decent cross-section of the population, resulting in a very diverse look and feel to the movie. The actors and actresses, furthermore, are playing at some of their best.

Alan Rickman is wonderful as Harry, playing someone both cranky and open to love in a way very different from his character in, say, Galaxy Quest. Opposite Rickman is Heike Makatsch, who is a refreshing sight without being Hollywood beautiful, and a strong Emma Thompson. Thompson carries an amazing ability to go from strong and funny to crying and vulnerable with remarkable fluidity. Hugh Grant is surprisingly good as the Prime Minister and his boyishness is accented by the dignity portrayed in the body language of Martine McCutcheon, who plays Natalie.

The couple to watch, though, has to be Collin Firth as Jamie and Lucia Moniz as Aurelia. Moniz is amazing and has an incredible ability to transform from her initially homely appearance with poor posture and a demure attitude to a strong, proud woman that is quite beautiful. She is funny and charismatic, no mean feat to pull off when the character is speaking a different language throughout the movie! Firth is great opposite her, taking his usual bland British demeanor and opening up into someone who is actually quite charming as Jamie.

At the end of the day, though, it is a romantic comedy. That means there are few surprises awaiting us in how the film resolves itself, but the truth is, it works in this context. Why? Because love truly is all around us and it is something that may fill us and be quite wonderful, no matter its context.

And writer and director Richard Curtis does a smashing job of taking what is all around us and making it genuinely entertaining.

For other Christmas movies, please check out my reviews of:
Dr. Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas
The Muppet Christmas Carol
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

9.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Absolute Worst Bet For Any Weekend: Did You Hear About The Morgans? Is Just BAD!

The Good: It DOES end!
The Bad: Not funny, Very predictable character arcs, Terrible acting, Lame plot
The Basics: Dreadfully unfunny, Did You Hear About The Morgans? is a stiff comedy without any humorous moments, which fails to do anything new.


Every now and then, I encounter something that is very pure. I have an experience that is so great or so bad that it leaves me with little to write objectively about. If it is a good experience, I can simply gush about the experience, but I end up feeling stupid and repetitive. On the converse, when something is so bad, I sometimes get to feeling I am kicking it when it is down when I begin to critically analyze it. Did You Hear About The Morgans? falls into that second category. The film is homogeneously bad, which actually leaves me with very little to write about it. And rather than be creative, I want to write one sentence and let that be the ultimate review of this film. That line is:

I did not laugh a single time during Did You Hear About The Morgans? That is all.

Paul and Meryl Morgan have lost the passion in their marriage. While they are very successful in their respective careers, they have no real love for one another and they do not communicate with each other. So, as they move toward their inevitable divorce, they begin to drift and make plans apart. But the demise of their marriage takes an odd turn: one night while out they become witnesses to a mob murder and they suddenly find themselves the targets of a trained assassin! The FBI, needing their witnesses to survive, relocates the Morgans to Wyoming.

Once in Wyoming, Meryl and Paul discover they can do nothing but wait for the FBI to apprehend the contract killer and for the murderer to go to trial. This means they must give up their New York City technologies and lifestyles and learn the slower pace of the Midwest. And under those conditions, their marriage suddenly gets new life.

What to say about Did You Hear About The Morgans? The film is not funny, not clever, not original, nor is it a showcase of the talents of any of the people involved. Hugh Grant is particularly stiff as Paul Morgan and he lacks any sense of his comic timing which made him famous or worth watching in other productions. Similarly, Sarah Jessica Parker can hardly be said to be acting as she is once again playing an uptight New Yorker who is busy beyond belief and entirely superficial. Hers is evidence of good casting more than anything like good acting.

As for the character development, I struggle not to say "there is none." There is character development: the protagonists are not in the same place at the end of the film that they are in the beginning. But the arcs are disgustingly predictable from the overwhelming sense of conflict at the beginning to the forced shared menace/conflict to the mutual frustration in Wyoming which helps bring Paul and Meryl together. The only thing more canned than the regular characters is the appearance of the generic sidekicks in Wyoming in the form of Clay and Emma Wheeler. They serve as guides to deliver the unfunny punchlines ("x doesn't work out here, neither does y") which the viewer sees coming miles away.

And the whole team of FBI agents and U.S. Marshals is comprised of people who could not possibly have made it to where they are supposed to be. And while middle America might be thrilled that there's a movie where their good ole ways are the cure for the Eastern Liberal quandaries of Paul and Meryl, the truth is no one is made more fun of than those same middle Americans in Did You Hear About The Morgans?

I went into this film having seen only a single preview, which didn't impress me and the full film completely lived down to the expectations from the trailer. Hasn't the whole "fleeing from the trained killer fish-out-of-water" comedy been done before? It has and the fundamental problem with Did You Hear About The Morgans? is that it is done again without anything new, original or even a decent sense of humor to it. Instead, this is a particularly droll comedy and the punchline is only on the viewer and the joke is that the studio got your eight bucks if you watch this.

On DVD, Did You Hear About The Morgans? includes the usual bonus features: deleted scenes, a commentary track, and trailers. I could not force myself to watch any of them, I cared so little about this movie.

For other comedies, please check out my reviews of:
Couples Retreat
Excess Baggage
Valentine's Day

0/10

For other movie reviews, please consult my index page!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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