Two Directors Create A Series That Becomes The Best Cinematic Example Of The Law Of Diminishing Returns: The Batman Anthology

The Good: The first two films are good, Val Kilmer is decent, Great DVD/Blu-Ray bonus features!
The Bad: Joel Schumacher’s works, Repetitive plots, Series inconsistencies, Even the good films have not agd particularly well
The Basics: With no consisted story or direction, the Batman movies of Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher make for an unfortunately inconsistent series that gets worse with each installment after a point.


With the recent end of the Dark Knight Trilogy (reviewed here!), the cinematic Batman franchise is once again in limbo. That is a state not entirely unfamiliar to Warner Bros., who owns the rights to the franchise and is the studio that produces all of the films based on DC Comics properties. With the abrupt end of the Batman movies of the 1990s, the franchise had to regroup and reboot. Before the powerful, thematically complex and decidedly adult The Dark Knight Trilogy, there were the Batman films of 1989 – 1997, now encapsulated in a boxed set known as Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989 – 1997.

Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989 – 1997 is an incredible example of what happens when a surprise hit becomes a lucrative cash cow for a studio and that cow is milked too frequently and too hard. It is also a prime example of what happens to a franchise when the creative teams behind the camera and the talent in front of the camera are not kept consistent (in The Dark Knight Trilogy only one performer was recast!) and the vision by the later forces working on the series is clearly an attempt to capitalize on the formula as opposed to build upon the story and prior successes. The result is that Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989 – 1997 is a film series that starts intriguing, rises well, and then steadily declines until its abrupt and painful crash.

Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989 – 1997 consists of the films:
Batman
Batman Returns
Batman Forever
and Batman & Robin. The first two are directed by Tim Burton, the latter two by Joel Schumacher and three different actors play Bruce Wayne/Batman over the course of the four films!

In Batman, a young Bruce Wayne witnesses his father and mother being killed by a mysterious assassin. As an adult, Bruce Wayne manages the giant company left to him by his father by day and at night, he takes up armor and a cape to dispense vigilante justice on the streets of Gotham City. As the press pushes the police to admit that the Batman exists, a local gangster is smoked during a robbery of a chemical factory that goes horribly wrong. However, when Batman accidentally lets the gangster fall into a vat of chemicals, the man is not killed, but rather transformed into a psychopathic killer. Waging a battle with chemical weapons, the Joker menaces Gotham City and threatens to undo all the good Batman is working for.

Batman Returns happens around Christmastime a short time later. Gotham City is hit with a crime wave from a gang of thugs who use old circus equipment. While Batman keeps them in check, he is not prepared for the city to have to deal with more threats. Those threats come in the form of a mysterious man, Oswald Cobblepot, who literally rises out of the sewers to save an abducted baby and a catburgler who seems bent on wreaking vengeance at night to make up for her unsatisfying daytime life (and the fact that her boss tried to kill her). While Bruce Wayne fends off a corporate attack from his rival, Max Shreck, he finds romance with Selena Kyle and it slowly begins to dawn on him that she is the same person as the mysterious Catwoman he fights at night. When Shreck uses Cobblepot as a pawn to take the mayor’s office, the fallout creates a villain who wants to kill all the firstborn of Gotham City.

Joel Schumacher took over behind the camera and Val Kilmer took on the role of Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever. In that, a demented former-District Attorney, Harvey Dent, begins a reign of terror and violence (focused on bank robberies) as the villainous Two-Face. Bruce Wayne’s problems are multiplied, though, when one of his employees creates a device that can drain the brains of the citizens of Gotham City and unlock all the secrets the people there have. As Batman squares off against Two-Face and the Riddler, he is aided by a forensic psychologist and a young acrobat who lost his parents and wants to fight crime as well . . . Robin.

George Clooney’s only outing in the cape and cowl comes in Batman & Robin where Batman and Robin are assisted by Alfred’s neice, who takes up the alter ego of Batgirl. The pair could use her help as they are bickering over how to take down the formidable Mr. Freeze and they fall under the love spell-style charms of Poison Ivy and her thug, Bane.

To his credit, Tim Burton’s two outings – in addition to being appropriately weird (as one expects from Tim Burton’s works) – have larger themes. Batman explores crime and the nature of justice vs. the pitfalls of revenge and Batman Returns has a great deal about empowering women and the snares of political corruption. Unfortunately, by the time Batman Forever comes up, the writers and director are working for big action, flamboyant villains, and star power, as opposed to trying to create films of substance. This is not to say that Tim Burton got everything right in his two films. While the miniatures look great, even by today’s standards, Batman is surprisingly slow and the focus on the Joker is far less compelling in-context of Batman’s story than it is as a stand-alone film.

That said, it is almost inarguable that Tim Burton helped effectively usher in the youth culture mindset of the 1990s with Batman and then the even more violent Batman Returns. The two films created a nihilistic sense of the world; crime ran rampant and the victories were more ambiguous than celebratory and the hero uses many of the same methods as the villains, just with nobler purpose.

Val Kilmer was not a bad choice to replace Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne and Batman and he had the physical presence to pull off the dual roles more plausibly than Keaton, who played the part of Bruce Wayne as more goofy than gallant. Kilmer, however, was saddled with a particularly weak script with Batman Forever and a film that was intended to be a Jim Carrey vehicle and ended up disappointing on so many fronts. Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever also prioritized casting (the entire series has pretty impressive guest cast members from the major – Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Uma Thurman and Arnold Schwarzenegger – to the supporting players who flesh out surprisingly minor roles – Kim Bassinger, Robert Wuhl, Christopher Walken, Drew Barrymore, John Glover, Vivica A. Fox) over fidelity to the series thus far. To wit, in Batman, Harvey Dent was played by Billy Dee Williams and in Batman Forever he is recast with Tommy Lee Jones. It takes a lot more than an acid bath from a mobster to make Billy Dee Williams into Tommy Lee Jones!

The epitome of Schumacher’s obsession with star power and spectacle over substance is in Batman & Robin. There, Arnold Schwarzenegger appears as Mr. Freeze, a character written with a thin backstory surrounding his attempts to cure his wife (who is in suspended animation), but is executed as a character constructed almost entirely of catchphrases. To wit, his big monologue from the film’s trailer, where he introduces himself as a threat to Gotham City appears in the film’s middle, after he is incarcerated, when he introduces himself to two people (his jailers) who know exactly who he is! It is this type of stupidity that shook the series and almost gutted this franchise.

Performances in the Batman movies in this set are generally good. Michael Keaton is an intriguing Bruce Wayne and he pulled off the action sequences for Batman better than most might have suspected. Jack Nicholson performed opposite him in Batman with a flamboyancy and menace that worked beautifully to define the character of the Joker. Danny DeVito gives one of his most underrated performances as Oswald Cobblepot (the Penguin) and Michelle Pfeiffer and Keaton had great on-screen chemistry in Batman Returns. While Val Kilmer and Chris O’Donnell did fine as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, George Clooney seemed unusually stiff when he took up the mantle in Batman & Robbin. The less said about Jim Carrey, Uma Thurman, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the better.

On DVD and Blu-Ray, the Batman Anthology is chock full of goodies. There are extensive featurettes on the production of the films, from concept designs through casting and the bonus features provide a wealth of insight into how moviemaking was done, especially at the birth of CG effects. Fans of Batman may want to champion the whole series, but given how most people will only watch bonus featurettes once, the full Batman Anthology is hardly worth investing in. Tim Burton’s works might be worth picking up, but Joel Schumacher’s outings oscillate between the disappointing and the outright insulting.

For other live-action DC superhero works, please check out my reviews of:
Green Lantern
Jonah Hex
Watchmen
Superman Returns
Catwoman
Batman & Robin
Supergirl
Superman
Wonder Woman

3.5/10

For other film reviews, 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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Lost Amid Summer Blockbuster Season, People Like Us Is A Formulaic (Though Not Unenjoyable) Drama Film!

The Good: Interesting characters, Good performances, Interesting plot set-up, Fun commentary tracks.
The Bad: Problematically obvious plot progression, Obvious construction conceits.
The Basics: Fun and interesting, People Like Us nevertheless succumbs to obvious formulaic conceits that rob it of being genuinely original.


As a reviewer, it behooves me to remind readers occasionally that something can be enjoyable without being particularly good. There are a great many things, pop music and popcorn movies especially, that I can admit to enjoying while still acknowledging rationally that they aren’t very good. Summer Blockbuster Season is the epitome of “enjoyable, but not good” in cinema, though there are always a few exceptions that make going to the movies in the summer worthwhile. People Like Us, which snuck somewhat anonymously into Summer Blockbuster Season last year and died a quick box office death amid the big special effects-driven movies, is enjoyable and good, but nothing more. In other words, the film – which seems cast, conceived, and even performed for greatness – is good and worth watching, but it never achieves any sort of even passing greatness. Instead, it settles for the high average territory and never challenges itself for more.

At the heart of the problem with People Like Us is the obvious Hollywood plot structure of the film. Essentially a “separated at birth” type story – though with the more contemporary “dad had a whole other family” variation - People Like Us develops as a troublingly obvious story in terms of plot. One character knows something the other doesn’t, he chooses to withhold that information, they grow close, the information is revealed, she gets pissed off at him for betrayal, then [choose your end] learns to live with it or moves for a happy ending. People Like Us is that formulaic and it is unfortunate in that the film starts with such potential to be something smarter. In fact if the writing team of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (who co-wrote Star Trek, reviewed here!) and Jody Lambert had just opted to have the character with the information reveal it at the beginning and then actually wrestle with the consequences of that, as opposed to going with the obvious and contrived structures viewers have seen ad nauseum before, then People Like Us could have actually been something more than it ended up being.

As it is, it is the story of two lost characters, who in the process of learning about themselves and their family tie, they come to get through some of their lowest points in life. In the wake of Sam making a spectacular blunder at work that he is not able to devote the time to bribe his way out of, Sam’s father dies. His girlfriend, Hannah, pushes him to return to California for the funeral, though Sam works hard to avoid it. Arriving too late for the actual funeral, Sam finds his mother furious with him and the family lawyer, Rafferty, waiting to deliver something to him.

The something is $150,000 in cash for Josh and his mother, Frankie. Frankie, Sam quickly learns when stalking her to her A.A. meeting and hearing about her father, is Sam’s half-sister whose existence he was ignorant of. Frankie has her own problems; struggling to make ends meet, her son Josh accidentally blew up the school pool. Sticking around in Los Angeles, despite Federal investigators looking for him for the work-related incident, Sam gets to know Josh and slowly starts to bond with Frankie while repairing his relationship with his mother.

Until, of course, the inevitable revelation that the viewer sees coming a mile away and, instead of some sort of anticlimactic “I’ve always known” (a la Princess Leia in Return Of The Jedi), director and co-writer Alex Kurtzman goes with the obvious smackfest that viewers are comfortable with otherwise rational women degenerating into.

Rather than beat the dead horse of the formulaic plot, I’ll make a left turn into what I liked. I like that Frankie is a recovering alcoholic who does not, predictably, fall off the wagon when things get tough. In a refreshing change for the cinema, the alcoholic mother is anchored by her responsibilities to her son and she struggles to keep focused on providing a better life for him than she herself had. Frankie becomes more compelling and real the more unrealistic and wasted (on his father’s medicine) Sam gets. Sam is at his most interesting at the film’s beginning and in his interactions with Josh.

The commentary track with Alex Kurtzman, Elizabeth Banks, and Chris Pine is wonderfully entertaining as well. As Banks notes, the chemistry on-screen between her and Pine is surprisingly hot and in virtually any other film, their characters would be going at it like bunnies after (or during) the smoking scene. Kurtzman avoids any incestuous moments, which is nice, and Pine plays Sam entirely without the spark that would insinuate he is looking at Frankie in that way. In fact, arguably the only real reason for Hannah to exist in the movie is to provide a concrete, obvious reminder for viewers that Sam is anchored emotionally elsewhere. Hannah’s presence – in a true bit role for Olivia Wilde – is to fill the role of the negotiator and to make it plausible that when Sam sees Frankie the first time in her virtually nonexistent skirt that he isn’t checking her out (even then).

Banks manages to illustrate Frankie’s growing attraction and reliance on Sam with her body language – mostly her eyes. In a performance somewhat reminiscent of her role in Zack And Miri Make A Porno (reviewed here!), Elizabeth Banks makes Frankie strong and selectively vulnerable, but always deeply emotional and expressive of that in real ways (especially for someone who has lived a life where she must be guarded most of the time, looking after her child).

But for all the enjoyment from the commentary track and the main film, People Like Us is a more average family drama than it is in any way audacious or truly original.

For other works featuring Olivia Wilde, please check out my reviews of:
The Words
In Time
The Change-Up
Cowboys And Aliens
Tron: Legacy
The Next Three Days
Year One
House, M.D. - Season Four

6.5/10

Check out how this movie stacks up against other films by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where films are organized from best to worst!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Cramming Five Years Of Horror Soap Opera Into A Two Hour “Comedy,” Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows Fizzles.

The Good: Decent plot, Moments of character
The Bad: Tries to service too many characters/plotlines, Nothing stellar on the acting front, Promotions spoiled almost all of the humor.
The Basics: Dark Shadows is resurrected by Tim Burton as a very mediocre horror/comedy that satisfies on neither front.


Dark Shadows is, admittedly, a tough franchise to take over. The campy mid-1960s-early 1970s horror soap opera has a cult following earned by being highly original at the time it made its debut. But the show was a soap opera and, as such, went through several incarnations and a whole slew of characters. Any attempt to resurrect Dark Shadows ran the danger of offending the fanbase that would be predisposed to go see such a film and isolating the general public who might be wary of a horror soap opera. So, fundamentally, Tim Burton seems to be doing all he can to balance the conflicting potential audiences with the new film Dark Shadows. What we are forced to acknowledge with Dark Shadows, though, is that not every balancing act is successful.

Dark Shadows is presented by Tim Burton as an inconsistent horror-comedy, much like Arachnophobia attempted to innovate over twenty years ago. Unfortunately, Burton’s stacked deck, utilizing his usual players Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Christopher Lee (for a cameo), and trading on the predictable draw of skinny blondes Eva Green, Bella Heathcote, and Chloe Grace Moretz fumbles its mixed potential. Dark Shadows is crowded and more often sloppy, with so many underdeveloped aspects that it is hard to imagine many of the fans being pleased by the film.

Before getting into more specifics, it is worth acknowledging that Tim Burton did what he could with the tools given to him. Restarting Dark Shadows as a film franchise is a Herculean task in many ways. Indeed, many of the diehard fans that Burton had to please with the film might be reluctant to acknowledge that Barnabas Collins – arguably the prime reason Dark Shadows survived and had a popular following at all – did not arrive for almost a hundred episodes. The original Dark Shadows listed lazily along for months until it found its legs and was headed in a direction that fans were engaged by. So, doing a pure reboot of Dark Shadows was never really an option, especially as a cinematic endeavor.

Even so, there were a lot of avenues a Dark Shadows reboot could have gone in (one of the most imaginative would have been to start it with the Leviathan plotline or a full film with one of the many Collins family backstory arcs) and Burton went with arguably the most obvious. By focusing on Barnabas Collins, Tim Burton banks on the most popular potential avenue of Dark Shadows and when the film focuses on the struggle between Barnabas and Angelique, the movie is viewable, if not in any way enduringly great. The problem that predominates Burton’s Dark Shadows is that he tries to service all of the characters and the film ends up feeling like a second-rate retread of The Addams Family.

In Colonial America, the Collins family arrives to establish their fishing business. Building an entire town, the Collins family prospers and Collinsport thrives due to their influence. But young Barnabas Collins spurns the wrong woman when he rejects the servant girl Angelique in favor of Josette. Angelique, who is a very powerful witch, kills Barnabas’s parents and uses her magic to have Josette walk off a cliff to die on the rocks below Collinwood. When Barnabas leaps to follow her, Angelique curses him, transforming him into a vampire who cannot die. When that does not bring Barnabas to her, Angelique rallies the townspeople and they bury Barnabas.

Almost two hundred years later, in 1972, the Collins family is in decline, with Elizabeth running the nearly abandoned Collinwood and presiding over the remnants of the family. Roger Collins, a widower, is raising his son David (who sees his mother’s ghost) and Elizabeth hired Victoria Winters to act as nanny and tutor. Also occupying Collinwood are Elizabeth’s daughter Carolyn, the psychotherapist Dr. Julia Hoffman, and the groundskeeper, Willie Loomis. When a dig unearths Barnabas, the vampire feeds and returns to Collinwood where he makes himself known to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth allies herself with Barnabas on the hope that his plans to revitalize the family business will work. But almost immediately, Angelique – who has survived and been bleeding the Collins family business dry as their main competitor – learns of Barnabas’s return and she sets out to win him over. Failing to lure him away from his interest in Victoria, who appears to be Josette resurrected, Angelique sets out to destroy the Collins family once and for all.

Right off the bat, it is worth noting that Dark Shadows as a comedy reinvention of the campy soap opera original is almost entirely ruined by the promotional campaign surrounding the movie. Tim Burton did not have a bad idea when he tried to transform something that was arguably hokey into a comedy, but the advertisements spoiled almost all of the humor by revealing most of the film’s jokes! The result is that those who have seen the trailers have seen most of the comedy, are unsurprised by it, and are left with a stiff horror that is more cluttered than ever scary or intriguing in its supernatural elements. The exception to this is in the character of Willie Loomis. Willie’s presence in Dark Shadows is firmly rooted in the comedic and the best unspoiled lines of the film are all delivered by him.

Unfortunately, spoiling the film – or presenting it through advertising as one type of film when it is much more of a blend – ends up as only one problem. Within the movie itself, Dark Shadows tries to take on too much. While it is clear that the writers Seth Grahame-Smith and John August have a clear knowledge of the original Dark Shadows, they try to cram pretty much all they know into one movie. This would be like making an NCIS movie wherein the film tried to incorporate everyone’s favorite moments into one movie. It simply doesn’t work.

As a result, the Josette/Victoria character and plot arc is sacrificed to a somewhat ridiculous ball scene featuring Alice Cooper. Dr. Julia Hoffman, established as a drunkard and a believer in the paranormal, ends up cut ridiculously fast (Hoffman’s attempt to cure Barnabas of his vampirism was a multi-week arc in the original show) and Carolyn’s supernatural revelation is revealed as if it were an afterthought. Saving any of these plotlines for a subsequent movie could have made the conflict between Angelique and Barnabas a more focused and compelling plot. As it is, though, the Victoria Winters aspect of the film seems more like a convenient plot device by which Angelique manipulates Barnabas and adds a slight bump in the character conflict to the climax of the movie.

The acting in Dark Shadows is entirely unsurprising. Johnny Depp plays Barnabas Collins virtually identically to how he has played any number of prior outsider characters (usually in Tim Burton films!). Similarly, Helena Bonham Carter gives us nothing new and Michelle Pfeiffer returns to the Burton fold in a vastly less memorable way than her performance of Selena Kyle in Batman Returns. Eva Green is largely just a pretty face (throughout much of the film, she seemed to simply be channeling Alice Eve) and Bella Heathcote’s bland performance of Victoria was not enough to make me look up any other film she has been in.

The only real surprise from the acting is from Jackie Earle Haley. Haley, who came to my attention as the intense anti-hero Rorschach in Watchmen (reviewed here!) before taking up the mantle of Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare On Elm Street (reviewed here!) pulls off comedy well in Dark Shadows. Willie Loomis is a dimwit and Jackie Earle Haley plays him as a slow, somewhat moronic character exceptionally well. He is the only real reason to sit through Dark Shadows

Alas, it is not enough. Dark Shadows is still on the underside of average movies and it is unsurprising that it is being met with a lukewarm response. Even Tim Burton fans, who might appreciate the color contrast, but lament the otherwise lacking sense of Burton’s surrealism, are likely to be unimpressed by Dark Shadows.

For other works with Chloe Grace Moretz, please check out my reviews of:
Hugo
Kick-Ass
Bolt

4/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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i am sam Is Sean Penn's Magnum Opus!

The Good: ACTING! Character and writing.
The Bad: Obvious Dichotomy set up, Plot gets nailed in.
The Basics: When the mentally retarded Sam gets into a custody battle for his daughter, a high-powered lawyer changes her whole life around the case in I Am Sam.


For a long time, it seemed all Sean Penn was truly associated with was Madonna and smacking around photographers. In recent years, he seems to have gained some respectability within the acting community and earned a name of his own. I Am Sam finally cuts all links to his early 80s history and establishes him undeniably as an actor of the highest caliber.

Sam is a mentally retarded man whose girlfriend leaves him immediately after giving birth to their daughter. Sam raises his daughter Lucy alone until around her seventh birthday, with the help of his neighbor, Annie. Lucy learns quickly that her father is different and her maturity helps keep the family balanced. However, when Sam gets into some minor problems with the law, Child Services steps in and works to have Lucy taken away. Sam hires the high-powered lawyer Rita Harrison to take his case and the fight of his - and Lucy's - life begins.

What sets I Am Sam apart from most films involving the mentally retarded is that the movie does an excellent job of providing a balanced view of the limitations and abilities of the retarded individual. Sam is not glorified as an exceptional parent. Indeed, to make her points on how inept any parent may be, Rita uses some underhanded lawyering against the prosecution's expert on parenting. Sam is portrayed as childlike and limited, but as a person of many moods, never falling into the cheap stereotype that all mentally retarded individuals are happy and simple.

On the other hand, Rita does come across as less faceted. She is very much an archetype of the power-lawyer with an obsession with money and the cold hard facts of the law. Instead of being sympathetic or empathetic, she is simply a force working for the emotional Sam - reluctantly, to begin with.

The real power of I Am Sam is in the acting. Sean Penn delivers magnificently as Sam. Indeed, it is often difficult to remember that Penn is not mentally retarded, so adeptly does he draw the viewer in with his performance. With an incredible range of facial expressions and body language, Penn articulates confusion, bewilderment and pure joy. His voice, similarly, uses the full spectrum of tone to convey the raw emotions Penn clearly emotes.

But the quality acting does not stop there. Michelle Pfeiffer does a magnificent job of creating an instantly unlikable character who the audience sees as an antagonist. Pfeiffer's performance reminds the viewer of their own indifference and forces us to accept that mentally retarded people are part of our society that many deal with simply through avoiding and containment. Pfeiffer's Rita is not afforded the luxury of simply being able to ignore Sam and in a similar way, the viewer is forced to endure the obstacles of Sam with her.

The real acting genius - besides Penn - is in the form of little Dakota Fanning. Fanning portrays Lucy with an acting brilliance that is uncommon in one so young. She emotes so much with her face and eyes that it is astonishing she is as young as she is. Fanning has a great future in acting if she wants it; her command of complex dialog and body language in I Am Sam are evidence of that.

What keeps the film from being perfect is that it often does feel like a glorified after-school special wherein the obvious disadvantages of a mentally retarded parent are hammered home repeatedly. What makes it worse is the somewhat predictable dichotomy between Sam and Rita wherein she teaches him a valuable lesson.

Still, the supporting cast gives great performances, notably Richard Schiff as the antagonistic lawyer Turner and the film comes across as something worthy of repeat viewings. If the worst thing one may say about a film is that it is heavy-handed about tolerance, is that truly a problem?

For other works with Rosalind Chao, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Six Feet Under - Season 5
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: The Next Generation

8.5/10

For other movie 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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Utterly Unpleasant Files: White Oleander Is Wonderful (But I Never Want To See It Again!")

The Good: Great acting, Interesting story, Decent DVD bonus features, Realism
The Bad: Some hammy moments of performance, Unpleasant
The Basics: White Oleander realistically portrays a young woman's three years in the care of Social Services after her mother is incarcerated for murder.


I think my wife is trying to get revenge on me for our first weekend together. Well over a year ago, we met for the first time in person (having corresponded on-line for about two weeks and over the telephone for three days beyond that) and when we did, I shared some of myself with her. One of the things I thought would inform her of just who I was, was sharing one of my favorite films of all time and I brought Magnolia (reviewed here!) with me and watched it with her. Ever since, there come moments when she pulls a DVD off her shelf and she has a little smirk on her face when she says "This is one of my favorite movies, we should watch it together!" The last time that happened, she subjected me to The Pursuit Of Happyness and last night, it was White Oleander.

The reference to The Pursuit Of Happyness is not a gratuitous one: both that film and White Oleander share a common trait: they both portray an oppressive reality that is difficult to watch. It is easy to acknowledge the technical merits of both films and mood certainly is one which works in the favor of "effect" as it makes the viewer feel something. But I've gotten to a point in life where I am eager to move beyond misery and harsh reality in films I watch. Magnolia may only lead to a single smile (it's worth it in my book!) but there is an intricacy to the interplay between characters and some rise even as the others fall, so the mood is not monolithically depressing. White Oleander, on the other hand, starts murky with an undertone of annoying and descends into a harshly realistic exploration of the foster care situation in the United States today through one girl's grueling journey through the system.

Astrid is a teenager whose mother, Ingrid, is a famous artist. Self-absorbed, Ingrid brings her daughter along when she stalks her boyfriend, Barry, and when she destroys the contents of his computer's hard drive. One afternoon, Ingrid drops in on Barry (leaving Astrid in the car) and returns hours later with the arguably inappropriate observation that Barry just had sex with Ingrid, but needed her to leave so he could prepare for a date. Shortly thereafter, the police come to take Ingrid away for murder and Astrid is taken by a social worker to be placed with a foster family.

With Ingrid convicted, Astrid finds herself living with Starr and her boyfriend in the more redneck outskirts of Los Angeles. Starr, a born-again christian, is having an affair with a married man, but still convinced Astrid to get baptized. Increasingly jealous of Astrid and convinced the teenager is having sex with her boyfriend, Starr shoots the girl and Astrid moves on. Her journey is an unpleasant one, broken up by meetings with her mother who despises all Astrid's life is becoming and works to control her daughter from behind bars with barbed words. As Astrid tries to find happiness with a boy at the juvenile home and then with the lonely actress, Claire, Ingrid reaches out and corrupts those things and people Astrid becomes attached to.

White Oleander is exceptionally well-made, but over-the-top annoying. First, every line that Ingrid spouts is melodramatic philosophical claptrap which only reflects her sense of narcissism and desire to control Astrid. Sadly, even when Astrid realizes her mother is manipulating her or the people around her, she does not have the intellectual or emotional tools to combat her. As a result, living situations like Claire's home soon takes a dark turn when Astrid learns that Ingrid has been writing to Claire and Claire and Ingrid are going to meet.

My partner seems to like White Oleander for the realism of how foster care changes a person and how all of the different living situations realistically show how foster children are stuck in the already-moving lives of families they are placed with. The film does that quite well; Astrid is bounced around and the film captures well the uncertainty of finding herself in new situations that are drastically different. To wit, Astrid's arrival at the juvenile home is a quick cut from the car ride to the last moments of a violent altercation in which a fellow resident gives Astrid a bloody lip and threatens her with death.

Even after altercations like that, where Astrid rather suddenly appears to have a knife and delivers an ultimatum to her assailant while the other girl is sleeping, Astrid is remarkably likable. Her story is a compelling, if frequently heartbreaking or heartwrenching one. For all of the usual complications of growing up as a young woman, White Oleander illustrates well how a lack of a solid family unit can make that even more crushing. And the juvie hall love story with Paul, a guy whose been in the system almost his entire life, works very well and offers the film's only cathartic moment of humor (while running away from the juvenile home, Astrid, fearful, asks what will happen if they get caught leaving, and Paul notes that they'll just be sent back).

On screen, Patrick Fugit (Paul) and Alison Lohman (Astrid) have decent on-screen chemistry. Lohman plays most of the film shy and Fugit has an unassuming quality to him that makes him seem very real as a kid who's been knocked around a bit. Their scenes play well and the two have good body language that illustrates both their character's attraction to one another and their awkwardness around each other.

Michelle Pfeiffer is amazing in the best worst performance I've ever seen from her. Pfeiffer is utterly convincing as Ingrid. She stares at the viewer with an intensity in her eyes that is unsettling. She delivers each of her lines convinced of their reality and with an otherworldly quality as if she sees everything in different hues. But almost all of her lines are writer lines. I know them; I'm a writer. We slave for hours to come up with the most precise and poetic thing we can think of and it's great. But what sometimes works on the page does not work as well in reality or on film and this is perfectly encapsulated by the scene in which Ingrid is shown at work, working with her sleeves rolled up. People don't talk like Ingrid does in reality and when they do, when they are truly so pretentious and crazy, the seldom are able to function in settings like the one Ingrid is seen working in. Pfeiffer breathes life into the over-the-top lines and plays the character appropriately over-the-top, but it doesn't stop the character from seeming utterly unreal (even for one with a borderline personality disorder or just outright psychosis!).

On DVD, White Oleander has a commentary track and a handful of featurettes on how the movie was made. A novel originally, the DVD features an interview with the director on how the film was translated from book to screen. There is a commentary track, deleted scenes and the film's far-too-revealing trailers, but after the film it was hard to muster up the interest in watching them, so unsettled was I by the movie.

Ultimately, White Oleander falls squarely into a category of movies which are arguably absolutely wonderful, but so good at what they set out to do in characterizing the unpleasant realities of life that they become unwatchable. I look forward to never watching White Oleander again.

For other works featuring Michelle Pfeiffer, please be sure to check out:
What Lies Beneath
The Story Of Us
Batman Returns

8.5/10 (N)

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

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The Conventions Of Horror Revealed In What Lies Beneath!

The Good: Moments of genuine suspense, Special effects
The Bad: Michelle Pfeiffer's acting, Ford's character, Utter predictability, Length, Pacing
The Basics: Using all of the most common and overused elements of a horror film, What Lies Beneath fails to capture the attention and imagination of the viewer.


[Note: This is a retro review! Originally printed in 2002 when I started writing reviews online, I liked my original opening and when I reread, it reminded me of something I had forgotten. Wow, those crabs died quick! Anyway, I liked the idea of that memory not being lost, so I have retained all of the original review. Enjoy!]

Last night, I did two things of lasting import: I bought a pair of crabs for my aquarium and I got a couple of movies out of the local library. One of those two films was What Lies Beneath. So, I put the fiddler crabs into the fish tank and I popped the movie in. I ought to have stuck with the crabs.

What Lies Beneath tells the tale of Claire Spencer, a housewife in Maine who is married to the overachieving Norman Spencer. Claire is feeling anxiety over her daughter leaving home and neglect from her husband working on an important thesis. She becomes anxious to the point that she believes the new neighbors are having troubles that have resulted in the husband next door killing his wife. The first hour of the film deals with a psychological breakdown that focuses on Claire and hallucinations she is having. She also seems to cut herself on everything possible in her environment. So, Claire has a little episode that ends with the revelation that the neighbor next door is alive and well. But the creepy occurrences that had been plaguing Claire before the truth was revealed continue as Claire researches a missing girl who matches one of her hallucinations. From then, the film becomes an interweaving of the missing girl, Claire's supernatural possession and an affair that Norman had a year ago.

The problem with What Lies Beneath is it's an obvious film. It is utterly obvious, following all of the conventions of a horror/suspense film. The doors open on their own, the windows open, Claire cuts herself. We know when Claire finds the bathtub full of water, she's going to see something in it, something that is designed to scare us. In fact, the only way one might be frightened by this film is if they've never once seen a horror flick. So common are the techniques used in What Lies Beneath that when the person I was watching the movie with began to become afraid, to alleviate the fear, I called the next few moments of the film. I was 97.5% right (I was wrong about a mast near the end of the film). It's all here as you would expect: the disappearing body, the sneak up behind, the person waiting behind the open refrigerator door. Plus, it's a horror film with a guy named Norman, so what do you think?

But more than that, the obviousness sucks away all enjoyment for anyone even remotely awake. That the word "Lies" fades in first and last in the opening title accents what we ought to have reasoned rather quickly: someone is lying. That obviousness continues, though, in all aspects of the film. This overuses the old adage, "If a gun is introduced in the first act, by the final curtain it must go off." In this film, you have keys and neurotoxins appear prominently and without obvious cause early in the film, then are deployed at times that we see coming a million miles away later on. And some of it is just plain idiotic. When the key is finally used is just plain insulting to anyone who has ever gone swimming.

Also problematic is the acting. First, Harrison Ford is given top billing when Michelle Pfeiffer deserves it. Most of the movie is Claire's story and she deserved the first billing on that alone. And it is that alone, because Pfeiffer's acting here is decidedly below par. I've been known to appreciate Michelle Pfeiffer's acting abilities, but here she is completely wasted. Pfeiffer's talents are being used to put Ally McBeal in a horror film. What I mean by that is that Pfeiffer's Claire Spencer is acted as if Spencer was Ally McBeal. It's like people around David E. Kelley can only conceive of one type of crazy woman. Go figure. But it is distracting and it is a serious detraction to taking this film seriously.

Harrison Ford never seems to hit his stride as Norman, either. There are moments (right now I'm thinking of a conversation Norman has with the dog in the final bathtub scene) where Ford seems to be playing Han Solo or Indiana Jones again. There are charming moments where he appears to be playing his character from Sabrina again. In short, he never defines Norman Spencer as a unique, original entity. He seems to be calling on his other (better) roles for this one.

In fact, the only real reason to bother with this flick is the first hour. In that first hour, some of the psychological questions about Claire Spencer's character are actually compelling enough to keep us guessing. But once things begin to get explained, well, it's all over then. This film was supposed to be terrifying, but I was calling shots early on and it had such a lack of an impression on me that I went and took a bath after it, then went to bed untroubled.

Well, not entirely untroubled. I was bothered that I had sat so long through such an obvious, poorly constructed film. That was time I could have been watching my new crabs.

For other films directed by Robert Zemeckis, please check out my reviews of:
A Christmas Carol
Forrest Gump
The Back To The Future Trilogy

3/10

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

© 2011, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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An Hour And A Half Of Bruce And Michelle Yelling Is All The Story Of Us Is.

The Good: Moments of humor, Capable acting, Narrative technique, Moments of writing, Eric Clapton's music
The Bad: Near-constant yelling, Characters, Resolution, Advertising
The Basics: A fair attempt to show how relationships disintegrate over time with children and age, The Story Of Us flops in its loud, angry and ultimately un-entertaining execution.


The Story Of Us is an inconsistent film, perhaps that's the point of it, perhaps that's why opinions on it are so polarized. I think it's appropriate that the overall rating for this film, after 180+ reviews, is three stars. It has a "like it or hate it" feel to it. Right off the bat, it's getting more points from me solely because I laughed at it more than I laughed during Meet the Parents; I couldn't bear giving it the same low rating as that film.

The Story Of Us is about Katie and Ben Jordan, married for fifteen years, two children. In their fifteenth year of marriage, they find themselves fighting more often, sexually and emotionally distant and basically spending the summer while the children are away separated. In the process, they reminisce and progress. While they go on, Ben moves out, the kids remain ignorant of their difficulties, Katie takes a cooking class and life progresses.

In the process, there is much yelling.

There's a LOT of yelling. Ben and Katie yell, scream, holler and roar at one another. They're loud. I swear, they must have shot the final scene first because I can't imagine with all of the screaming, they wouldn't be completely hoarse by the end of the film. The problem is, it's annoying. We GET that the characters are frustrated. We understand that. But it seems the vast majority of the film is the two main characters screaming at each other. While this might appeal to older people going through this sort of thing (or not), it definitely doesn't appeal to younger people, especially those who went through it in their own childhoods. That's why this film won't endure; the younger generation lived listening to their parents openly fight like Ben and Katie do. Why watch a film of it?

The only respite comes in the restaurant. Scenes are interspersed with Ben and Katie at a restaurant with friends. Here, the film's writers try to make broader statements about men and women. For the most part, they are good. They show insight, they're funny. In these scenes, Rob Reiner, Rita Wilson and (the uncredited) Paul Reiser shine. Reiser is a scene stealer in each of his scenes, Reiner is funny and his lines are perfectly executed. It seems Wilson got the job of making all of the broad statements on females. She's good.

I liked the narrative technique; the jumping from past to present and back. Unfortunately, it culminates in an epiphany. It's a fine epiphany, I suppose. The problem I have with it is that it is that very moment that they choose to show in the previews. That is, the preview sells you on a movie filled with the 15 years it took Ben and Katie to grow apart. Instead, you're stuck with the end of it and all of the cool images come in the last five minutes.

Okay, a moment ago, I said the epiphany was "fine," I'd like to take that back now. In any other movie, with probably any other couple, the epiphany would be fine. In The Story Of Us, it isn't. It doesn't fit. The film sets up for ninety minutes how Ben and Katie have fallen out of love. It establishes perfectly why they won't be trying again. Thus, the epiphany and resulting decision seems to be out of place. It doesn't fit. It's as if at the last minute, a happy Hollywood ending was tacked on. The truth is, it doesn't fit the characters and it doesn't fit the film.

The end ruins an already shaky film. The only things that kept me watching were the moments of humor and the music. Strung throughout the film is a wonderful song Eric Clapton is singing that fits the film perfectly.

All in all, The Story Of Us is about two people who have children, who ruin their marriage and cause them to fall out of love and hate each other until the last possible moment when they decide to go out for Chinese food. There are better examples of films about the disintegration of love and relationships and as soon as I see one, I'll be sure to cite it so you watch it instead of this!

For other dramas about families, please check out my reviews of:
Once And Again Season Two
Cyrus
Parenthood Season One

4/10

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

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


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My Favorite Christmas Movie: Batman Returns Because It's Hard To Do Better Than Michelle Pfeiffer In Pleather!

The Good: Plot, Character, Acting, Effects, Costumes, Everything!
The Bad: Some of the dialogue is admittedly campy.
The Basics: In an almost-perfect superhero action movie, Batman must take on the Penguin and Catwoman while Bruce Wayne wrestles with a rival businessman and a romance with Selena Kyle.


So, I was shocked to learn that for years I've had a review in of the Batman Returns soundtrack but that I had somehow never managed to get around to writing a review for the film Batman Returns! "How could this be?" I asked myself. I mean, for years, there was only one movie I'd watch at Christmas and that was Batman Returns! Now, it's this and Love Actually but the truth is, this might be one of the few films I used to return to once a year. Over the years, I have softened from my childhood belief that Batman Returns is a perfect film (probably more having to do with how I first saw the movie than the quality of the film), but I still believe that Batman Returns is an astonishing film that is underrated. On recent viewings, only a few phrases of campy dialogue truly make me cringe.

Following the events of Tim Burton's Batman, (there is a new, recently-elected mayor) Bruce Wayne is finding the Christmas spirit hard to come by as violence begins to escalate on the streets of Gotham City with the appearance of a new gang. Batman wanders the streets at night cleaning up as part of his vigilante action while during the day Bruce Wayne deals with rival businessman Max Shreck. Shreck is interested in building a power plant, which his secretary, er, assistant Selena Kyle learns is actually a giant capacitor, so he has her killed.

Dying doesn't take well to Miss Kyle and she finds herself resurrected by cats and she takes on the persona of Catwoman, a morally-ambiguous superhero running around in the night. Catwoman attracts the attentions of both Batman and Oswald Cobblepot, a slightly deformed outcast who decides to take over Gotham City with Shreck's help by becoming the mayor. When Batman and Cobblepot clash, Oswald's political ambitions take a turn and he becomes what society creates of him, a villain known as the Penguin.

Batman Returns is the much maligned sequel to Tim Burton's darkly reimagined Batman and in Batman Returns, there is more of what was incredible in Batman with less necessary backstory, making the film overall tighter. What works in Batman Returns that is a common element from Batman? Tim Burton's direction is obsessed with scale and the Gotham City he creates is dark, overbearing and foreboding. This is accented by his partnership with composer Danny Elfman who creates an amazing and distinctive score that works with the visuals to overwhelm the viewer with a sense of scale and scope that is impressive (see my review of the soundtrack for more on that). Burton's sensibilities keep the movie dark, gritty, violent and exciting.

Writers Daniel Waters and Sam Hamm wisely up the stakes in Batman Returns by providing more conflict in the life of Bruce Wayne and Batman. On the plot front, the most clever aspect of the story is that Bruce Wayne and Batman each face one enemy; Shreck and The Penguin, respectively. The intriguing aspect on the character front is that Waters, Hamm and Burton mix it up by throwing Selena Kyle/Catwoman in which gives Bruce Wayne a love interest, but an additional adversary for Batman. This is an intriguing twist that is difficult to do in virtually any other medium, but with the dual nature of the characters in Batman Returns, this can be pulled off and the creative staff here does it wonderfully.

Part of what makes Batman Returns work so very well is that the characters (with the possible exception of the nefarious businessman Shreck) are not monolithic. When Oswald Cobblepot first emerges, Bruce Wayne feels sorry for him. Indeed, Wayne feels a sense of kinship and he sadly notes that he hopes Cobblepot is able to find what he is looking for. Cobblepot, for his part, has tragic roots, having been literally tossed out by his parents as a baby. And Selena Kyle is smart and lonely and completely insecure at work. These are universally troubled characters and watching them collide through their world is entertaining and compelling.

And then there is the Batman. Batman is an intriguing character, especially as superheroes go. He is not an alien, he has no super powers. In Batman, he is motivated almost completely by a sense of revenge, with the resolution of that movie, he is ruled now by a sense of doing right and protecting Gotham City from evil in whatever form it takes. In this case, he must use his brains. Batman's strength is in analyzing his enemies and adapting to defeat them and in Batman Returns, we see Batman doing just that as he pieces together the history of Cobblepot and designs the tools to take down the Penguin.

The refreshing thing about Batman Returns is that the villains are just as clever as Batman. Catwoman's strategy for defeating Batman utilizes similar analytical skills to Batman and Penguin's toys rival the Dark Knight's. Batman is on the ropes in Batman Returns and it is fun to watch a superhero struggle. Our heroes are only as good as the villains they confront and in Batman Returns, Batman proves just how good he can be!

Of course, being that this is a movie, a great burden for creating characters falls to the actors. Batman Returns brings back notable actors Michael Gough (Alfred) and Pat Hingle (Commissioner Gordon) and adds in Vincent Schiavelli (the Organ Grinder) and Christopher Walken (Max Shreck). Walken's time on screen is largely used for comic relief and he lives up as a wonderful foil to Michael Keaton's dark and serious Bruce Wayne. He also plays a wonderful straightman to Danny DeVito's Cobblepot.

Keaton is excellent and dark as Batman and Bruce Wayne. Because much of the emphasis in Batman Returns is on thwarting Batman, Keaton's acting challenge is to emote around a heavy bit of costuming and he does it very well. In scenes where he is Wayne, he is immensely human, which balances well with the very physical performance he is forced to give the rest of the film.

Michelle Pfeiffer is wonderful as Selena Kyle. Her slouching body language is essential to creating the mousy Kyle and the genius of her performance is there's no a hint of that when she is playing Catwoman. Indeed, Catwoman is more than just a sexy outfit (which it is as well) and Pfeiffer embodies that with her performance. She even takes on distinctly different voices for the two roles, enhancing the character conflict.

It is Danny DeVito who rules Batman Returns. DeVito could have played Cobblepot or the Penguin as completely over-the-top, but he gives a very disciplined performance, creating the realistic political threat Cobblepot embodies in Gotham City. DeVito has to act around considerable costuming and he is alternatively menacing, funny and sympathetic. DeVito steals the scenes he is in and it's wonderful to see his range as Cobblepot.

Batman Returns may well be the gold standard of what a superhero movie may be. It was certainly the best one I'd found until The Dark Knight!

For other Batman products, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Batman R.I.P. By Grant Morrison
The Dark Knight
Hot Toys 1:6 Scale Harvey Dent/Two-Face doll

9/10

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

© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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