Michael Keaton’s haunting, intelligent directorial debut coming to DVD November 10.

One of our favorite films of the past year, The Merry Gentleman is a fascinatingly opaque bit of filmmaking that lingers with you long after its credits fade. You will sometimes wish it moved faster and that it would open itself more, and reveal something besides only the tantalizing amount of information that its very shrewd and deliberate script wants to divulge. The ending will haunt you, not in a satisfying sense but rather in a way that compels you to make sense of its painstakingly-wrought ambiguity. And you might actually love the film for all of those reasons.

Directed by Michael Keaton – an intelligent leading man long overdue for a major comeback - from a script by relative unknown Ron Lazzeretti (The Opera Lover), the film often manages literary feats of structure and innovation while remaining grounded in a concrete sense of place and tone, with a premise that’s familiar but no less well-executed. Keaton also stars as Frank Logan, a solitary and antisocial tailor who also (though we’re never told why) moonlights as a contract hit man. Yet he is not the real star of the film. That place is occupied – gracefully, charmingly - by Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald (No Country For Old Men) as Kate Frazier, a woman escaping her abusive policeman husband by escaping to a nondescript (though vaguely Chicago) major city.

Their solitary existences bring them together, of all times, at Christmas. Following a hit on someone in Kate’s office building, Frank attempts to throw himself off a neighboring rooftop, after glimpsing her in a wonderfully constructed moment of grace. But she sees him instead and screams, averting his suicide. Later, the two formally meet as Frank shows her a small kindness, and their friendship slowly begins to percolate. Kate is the type of person you suspect would rather not risk inconveniencing anyone with her company. She’s strong but vulnerable to even the basic ruthlessness that most people take for granted; her attempts at isolation only bring other lonely souls into her path, including an emotionally needy co-worker (Darlene Hunt) and Dave Murcheson, the police detective (Tom Bastounes) investigating the shooting.

But she’s drawn to Frank, probably as much because he asks nothing of her and doesn’t seem ready to offer anything for which he might expect gratitude down the line. “I think we’re good for one another,” Kate tells him. When minutes later she explains, “You’re possibly the sweetest man I’ve ever met” you get a sense of how bad her life must have been to that point. The script moves ahead in time, cleverly, and there’s a sense as spring rolls around that the two are making progress helping one another emerge from their respective shells. Then of course their respective pasts close in on them. Kate’s husband (Bobby Cannavale) tracks her down, spouting born-again Christian rhetoric that, not surprisingly, makes the skittish Kate even more terrified. Meanwhile Murcheson and his partner dog the shooting investigation as well as the apparent suicide of one of Frank’s associates. Frank is unafraid, permanently removing Kate’s husband from her life and continuing his tailoring business.

The pivotal scenes arrive as Murcheson visits Frank’s store. The two men size each other up, instant dislike getting submerged by going-through-the-motions polite conversation. “I tend to see the suit, not the person inside it,” Frank tells the detective, a pretty unsubtle way of explaining that life is often meaningless to him. Murchison ambles off, ready to confront Kate – the object of his affection as well as a potential witness and accomplice alike – of his concerns. His clumsy, well-intentioned effort pushes Kate and Frank into a confrontation that’s minimal on dialogue but no less emotionally resonant. Kate is ready for them to admit the truth about each other but Frank’s not there yet, setting up an ending that leaves more questions than it’s prepared to answer.

Even when playing the comic buffoon (Beetlejuice, Mr. Mom), Keaton the actor has always prioritized reserve, holding something back from the audience that gave his characters nuance and depth. In directing a film his greatest flaw may be following that impulse with too much trust. The film is slow-paced, and there are times when the script begs for elaboration – even a hint or line of dialogue would suffice. And as good as Lazzeretti’s script is at building suspense and giving its characters lines worth saying out loud, it also often explains something (such as in Kate’s dialogue mentioned above) that’s obvious to anyone paying attention. As the film dares its audience to think, the occasional lapse in artistry feels too much like “gimme” questions. The narrative skips ahead at least once, leaving details in its timeline unresolved.

But these complaints are petty grievances. Keaton knows how to direct himself and (with one exception) his actors, mining fascinating complexities out of virtually every role. MacDonald gives Kate layers of anxiety and innocence, letting her be paranoid in one scene and carefree the next. Bastounes is exceptional as the self-sabotaging Murheson, a man at once reaching out for someone’s warmth but retreating into his police authority whenever challenged. He’s the third part of Frank and Kate’s lonely constellation, dimmer by comparison but no less sincere despite his lack of self-awareness. Only Cannavale fails to impress, bringing too much ham to his rambling fire-and-brimstone monologue. We understand that his character is a petty and vile man because Kate has already sold us on the idea. Cannavale’s overacting only sets her own efforts back.

And the ending: vague, inconclusive, maddeningly open to interpretation. There are dozens of pat endings possible, and if you’ve been watching movies for any length of time you can imagine probably half that many without really trying. If the last five minutes are flawed, they’re still not enough to undermine the beauty and intelligence of the 105 minutes preceding them. The Merry Gentleman is in that sense daring right until its wide-open end.

-Michael Kabel

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(Note: Parts of this review originally appeared for the film’s theatrical release.)

Seven films to watch while you’re laid up with the cold, H1N1, or whatever else gets you down.

NOT recommended viewing. For so many reasons.

Welcome to cold and flu season! Each years untold millions of people get the common cold, the flu, the stomach flu, and a variety of other painful and discomforting illnesses.Many sufferers cope by parking themselves on the couch and in front of the DVD player , creating some prime movie-viewing time.

Watching a favorite movie is pretty much the best way to spend a sick day. You don’t have to move around, you don’t have to think that much about the plot (since it’s your favorite, you’ve seen it before already) and you can pause the film for trips to the bathroom, kitchen, or medicine chest. For those of you who don’t have a “favorite” movie to help get you through the long, queasy recuperation hours, consider these classics. We’ve tried to include a variety of stuff, representing several genres.

Office Space - If you’re not going in to work you owe it to yourself to laugh at American office culture. Mike Judge’s (Idiocracy) comedy, in which Ron Livingston gets hypnotized into not giving a damn about anything his boss or company wants, remains the perfect way to laugh at all the healthy worker drones spending the day at their jobs. Bonus sick day activity: Drawl like office middle manager Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole) to everyone you speak with, as in: “Hello, pharmacy? I’m gonna need you to go ahead and refill my prescription. Yeah, that’d be great.”

In The Good Old Summertime – A favorite among Judy Garland’s legions of fans, this romantic comedy/musical puts her at professional odds with fellow music shop salesman Van Johnson, even while the two fall in love as pen pals when off the clock. Proudly warm and nostalgic for its soundstage-perfect Victorian Era setting, the film features Garland as irresistable as ever and Johnson well-cast as a suitor so straight-laced he seems almost quaint by modern standards. And if store owner Mr. Oberkugen seems familiar, you probably also saw S. Z. Sakall play Carl, the maitre d’ at Rick’s Cafe Americain, in Casablanca. Bonus sick day activity: Sing along with Garland, especially during the showstopping “I Don’t Care.”

The Dirty Dozen - The epitome of classic Hollywood cinema that doesn’t ask too much of the brain, director Robert Aldrich’s fast-paced adventure stays enthralling right up until the last, disappointing final scene. Still, it’s a hell of a lot of fun to see while you’re watching it. Bonus sick day activity: Devise your own resolution to the Dozen’s raid on the Nazi castle, one that doesn’t uphold the Establishment status quo but instead lets Posey (Clint Walker) and Jefferson (Jim Brown) survive.

High Noon - Speaking of guy films, this high-water mark of the Western genre has everything a good Western should: an iconic good guy (Gary Cooper), a ferocious antagonist (Ian MacDonald) and a whole town up for grabs. Director Fred Zinnermann (From Here To Eternity) films the story in real-time, ratcheting the suspense up even further. Not for nothing, but it’s also probably got the coolest theme song of any Western ever made. Bonus sick day activity: Count off the townspeople running from outlaw Frank Miller (MacDonald) on their big clay feet; come up with your own argument to give the sheriff’s wife (Grace Kelly) that yes, sometimes violence is the answer.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles – Especially topical this time of year, John Hughes’ masterwork tells the hilarious story of an uptight yuppie (Steve Martin, giving probably his best performance) and an uncouth shower curtain ring salesman (John Candy, definitely giving his) stuck with each other while trying to get home for Thanksgiving. The ending is amazingly touching without falling into hokum, a rare feat in most Hollywood films. Bonus sick day activity: Follow Del Griffith’s (Candy) suggestion and play pickup sticks with your butt cheeks; alternately, wash all your pillowcases.

Stripes - Ivan Reitman’s spoof of basic training and army operations works from such an episodic script you can basically watch the film in ten and fifteen minutes doses. Nevertheless, stars Bill Murray and Harold Ramis put in some sublime comic acting, bolstered by a wide ensemble cast including Candy, Judge Reinhold, Sean Young, Warren Oates and John Larroquette. Fans of the Canadian series SCTV should look for cameos by alumni Dave “Doug McKenzie” Thomas and Joe “Count Floyd” Flaherty. Bonus sick day activity: Teach yourself to march and drill the John Winger (Murray) way, by shouting Manfred Mann songs and making goofy faces.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy – Probably best if you’re going to be laid up all weekend (or for several days, anyway) the monumental LOTR saga has everything you could want from a film series – adventure, intrigue, romance, a metric ton of action – while still remaining approachable and reasonably episodic. The plotlines start to drag a bit at times, and director Peter Jackson’s (King Kong) sense of restraint gets out from under him in the third chapter. Nevertheless, taken as a whole the trilogy delivers hours and hours of riveting viewing, especially the epic Battle of Helm’s Deep. Bonus sick day activity: Take a shot of Vitamin C every time Frodo (Elijah Wood) or Legolas (Orlando Bloom) stare at something in close-up. You’ll be up and moving around in no time.

We’ll be back later this week. Take it easy and we hope you feel better.

- Michael Kabel
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A big, unorganized roundup of news and items we didn’t feel deserved a full blog post.

Well, so much for October. Here comes November right on its heels as always, the month with bitter cold, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and the beginning of the Christmas season. October wasn’t much of a month for film, unless you’re a horror fan, in which case you got yet another part of the seemingly endless Saw franchise. You mabe even participated in the Paranormal Activity phenomenon/marketing blitz.

We spent a good part of the month not trekking through the chilly rain to see whatever else was in the theatres, but instead stayed home and watched film noirs and some classic 70s cinema. What follows below is stuff from the outside world that caught our diminished attention, assembled in no particular order of importance.

1. If you’re one of the thousands of visitors this month who got here looking for our picture of Grace Park, welcome and please enjoy the rest of our articles. We hope you stuck around and didn’t just right click and run, but read our whole piece about casting the long-in-Development-Hell Flash movie. We’ll have a comparable article for the far-more-definite Green Lantern project published right here later in November. You should also check out our mission statement, located on the task before just this entry.

2. A few idle thoughts about how Mad Men might end its third season. Last season Don Draper’s (John Hamm) nemesis Duck Phillips (Mark Moses) left the company in a snit after learning Draper had no contract at Sterling Cooper. This season Phillips has joined an aggressive rival agency apparently eager to expand its work force. With Sterling Cooper up for sale by its British parents, Draper could find himself working for Phillips once again if Phillips’ new agency buys his old one out. The difference is that this time Draper would find himself hemmed in by the contract boss Bert Cooper (Robert Morse) blackmailed him into signing. The walls are closing in on Don from all sides, and we can’t wait to see how this freight train of a season reaches its conclusion.

3. Warner Brothers used to release their Film Noir Classic Collection box sets once a year, giving fans of America’s most hallowed film genre a fresh crop of famous and not-so-famous crime and detective movies to pore over. They stopped that last year, though, with Chapter4 in the series containing relatively obscure gems like Act of Violence and Crime Wave, and the long-awaited cult favorite Decoy. But there are lots of other noir favorites to bring to the DVD format, including works by some of the era’s biggest directors and actors. Who do we beg, nag, or offer to bribe for a fifth volume in the series? And on that subject, is Fox no longer releasing titles under its “Fox Film Noir” imprint?

Watch this show.

4. Are you one of the hundreds of Americans watching NBC this season? The troubled network sees the ratings of its much-trumpeted The Jay Leno Show continue to erode, while once-mighty ratings earners Heroes and Law & Order circle the drain. Actually, the ratings attrition of Heroes has been going on for years, but it seems now the network may be ready to wrap things up with a finale to air next spring. Meanwhile the promising hour-long drama Trauma, which would’ve stood a fair chance in one of the 10 PM berths currently monopolized by the Leno show, won’t get its full season order.

5. While we’re on the subject, the network’s freshman comedy Community continues to get better and better as it finds its comic momentum, turning out one inspired episode after another even while its ratings remain wanting. The pilot was a bit stiff, admittedly hurting its first impressions, but subsequent episodes have focused on what works (the comic chemistry between stars Joel McHale and Chevy Chase; Yvette Nicole Brown’s irresistable charm) and downplayed what doesn’t. It’s TV you can’t wait to quote to your friends the next day, espcially just about anything that comes out of Spanish instructor Senor Chang’s (Ken Jeong) mouth.

6. Why are they only now making sequels to films that Gen X’ers loved in college? Both Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans have releases just around the corner, even though expectations for either one haven’t exactly set the world afire. Actually, director Warner Herzog swears his Bad Lieutenant isn’t a remake or sequel to Abel Ferrara’s notorious 1992 neo-noir, but the comparisons are inevitable and probably at least a little bit deserved. We want to get excited about the new Bad Lieutanant, though we’re skeptical about Nicolas Cage tackling the fine subtleties of New Orleans life and culture. (Remember his last attempt at filmmaking in the Crescent City? Most people don’t.)

7. Also something presumably for Generation X members, the first official cast photo from the upcoming A-Team movie was released earlier this week. That’s Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) as Face, UFC star Rampage Jackson as B.A. Baracus, Sharlto Copley (District 9) as Howling Mad Murdock, and the great Liam Neeson as Hannibal Smith. Jessica Biel and Omari Hardwick (Deep Blue) also star.

We’d be less enthused about this, yet another 80s show getting the movie treatment, if not for Joe Carnahan’s place in the director’s seat. The original series was impossible to take completely seriously, much like Carnahan’s own bullet fest Smokin’ Aces. So much like its inspiration, we can likely enjoy the A-Team movie best if we don’t expect too much from it.

8. Ridley Scott says he says he wants to make a prequel to Alien, setting its story a full thirty years before the events of the classic 1979 original, which he also directed. That’s fine and all, but we can’t help but think it’s going to push back his adaptation of Joe Haldeman’s brilliant science fiction novel The Forever War, which he announced about a year ago.

We’d bet anything that there’s more story potential in Haldeman’s tale of soldiers fighting the same space war over millenia than there is in going to the Alien well a seventh time. The novel is a long time coming to film – Scott himself said he waited 25 years to get the rights – and its many, many admirers deserve to see a director of Scott’s caliber handle the project. So here’s hoping.

9. Finally, the trailer below previews the new comedy Pirate Radio, based on the true story of the outlaw radio station that broadcast off the coast of England in the 1960s. Retitled from its earlier international release name The Boat That Rocked, the film’s had a troubled production history, including many edits to trim it down from an original three-hour runtime. Just the same, we remain optimistic if only for the presence of Bill Nighy, an actor so versatile and charming he could probably sell sand in the desert.

Pirate Radio opens nationwisde November 13.

- Michael Kabel

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Jake Gyllenhaal, Tobey Maguire and Nathalie Portman in a drama about war and those it leaves behind.

When decorated Marine Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) heads off to his fourth deployment in Afghanistan, his wife Grace (Nathalie Portman) and their two daughters go through the motions of readjusting to life without a husband and father. But when Sam disappears after a helicopter crash while on a mission above the Afghan desert, his estranged ex-con brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) assumes the role of caretaker for the family, even romancing the lonely Grace as the two share their grief. In time, all three Cahill girls come to accept, even embrace Tommy as a surrogate for the presumed-dead Sam. The four move on with their lives until Sam returns home, scarred and shaken after his time spent as a POW.

Brothers remakes the 2004 Sundance favorite Brodre, reinterpreting writer-director Susanne Bier’s script to an American perspective and setting. Director Jim Sheridan’s brooding and forceful earlier dramas, including In The Name of the Father, The Boxer, and The Field, dealt as this film does with sweeping political themes on the level at which they affect individual lives, and the aftermath of events which were bigger than the people involved in them. Bier’s original script is adapted by David Benioff, who previously adapted The Kite Runner and his own novel The 25th Hour.  

The film’s biggest obstacle, we imagine, is the wall of indifference American audiences have consistently demonstrated for films regarding America’s presence in either Afghanistan or Iraq. The larger Hollywood studios and smaller independents alike have tried for years to bring any number of true- and fictionalized stories related to either Gulf War to the screen, but all have met with little to no success. In fact, Gyllenhaal himself has starred in two: Sam Mendes’ little-seen adaptation of Anthony Swofford’s memoir Jarhead and Gavin Hood’s 2007 drama Rendition, though neither could be considered a box office hit. Most other war-focused efforts have found a mixed critical reception, with only Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker getting almost unanimous praise as its release crept across the country last summer.

For its part, the cast is qualified and competent, even if all three principals have seemed on the edge of their emergence as adult stars for years now. Maguire, once so promising in The Cider House Rules and The Ice Storm, has spent most of the last decade devoted to the Spider-Man franchise. Likewise Portman, another rising star of the 90s who (as we’ve said before) in recent years seems to only make films that are based on books with their own cardboard display at Barnes & Noble. Gyllenhaal earned his acting credentials with memorable turns in Brokeback Mountain and Zodiac, though controversy overwhelmed the one film as much as public confusion undermined the other, blunting his arrival in either case.

All of this is only important in that, for the film to work for most audiences, all three will have to grow into their roles onscreen, asserting a maturity that audiences would take for granted in older actors. Judging from the trailer below, it’s apparent they’ve managed with Sheridan’s help to do exactly that. Also appearing are the great Sam Shepard as the Cahill boys’ career Marine father and Mare Winningham as their mother.

Brothers opens nationwide December 4.

- Michael Kabel

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Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic thriller finally arrives in theatres this November.

A father and son walk across a blighted America after an unspecified catastrophe has destroyed civilization. The father is dying, and the air itself is toxic, yet the two hope to reach the coast where they can find others who share their now-antiquated values. Along the way they see the best and worst of humanity among their fellow survivors, including acts of staggering evil and deprivation.

Such grim subject matter forms the basis for The Road, the long-awaited, long-delayed film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Viggo Mortensen plays the unnamed father, Australian actor Kodi Smit-McPhee plays the son, while Charlize Theron appears in flashback as their deceased wife and mother. Theron’s role is actually amplified from the novel, establishing a richer backstory and providing context to the journey the father and boy eventually undertake.

The film is directed by John Hillcoat, who was hired largely because of his bleak 2005 Australia-set Western The Proposition. Producers reportedly felt that that earlier work, with its harsh exteriors and sense of man’s isolation among desolate outdoor settings, lent itself naturally to the post-apocalypse of the book’s setting. In keeping with a sense of realism, the film was shot in parts of New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina, along stretches of the Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike, and in deserted areas of Pittsburgh. Hillcoat has said the production shot on location whenever possible in order to minimize the need for CGI alteration.

At the time of its 2006 release the novel was something of a sensation, largely because of the brutality described within the narrative. Cannibalism and other acts of savagery are commonplace in its harsh new world, with cruelty and inhumanity the rule rather than the exception. McCarthy’s books are often fantastically violent – No Country For Old Men, to name just one example - and here the ferocity seems to place it in the tradition of similarly dystopian road movies including Damnation Alley and of course the Mad Max trilogy. Such stories were something of a rage in the Nuclear War-paranoid 1970s and 80s, though in recent years have grown more sporadic, the most visible exception probably being 2005’s Children of Men. In each case, oddly, the violence within each film took on a life of its own, sometimes overshadowing the premises’ less visually arresting potential.

The difference here, we hope and imagine, will lie in translating McCarthy’s masterful characterization and nuance of description to the screen. That’s not an easy task: despite its critical accolades the Coen Brother’s No Country For Old Men adaptation was a mixed success at best, as was Billy Bob Thornton’s version of All The Pretty Horses. McCarthy’s prose, rich in language yet exacting in detail and resonance, is often cited as an example of the dangers inherent in hewing successful films from successful novels, and why the two media are often so incompatible. Still, early word on the film has generally been positive, with several glowing reviews already emerging from its film festival screenings.

The cast is worth discussion all by itself. Mortensen has spent much of the last decade becoming the thinking man’s movie star, and Theron is a too-little-seen screen presence. Finally, Guy Pearce and Robert Duvall also appear in important roles.

The Road opens nationwide November 25. Watch the trailer on YouTube here. (Trailer includes the previous relase date.)

- Michael Kabel

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Cult and classic favorites, new editions, and complete series collections dominate today’s new release schedule.

Christmas is a little over nine weeks away, and already the movie studios and television networks are pumping out special editions of DVD and Blu-Ray sets unmistakable for their gift potential, including new editions and expanded versions of cult and classic favorites. This week shows a pretty broad cross section of the last forty years of film and television, including at least one half-forgotten classic TV series, possibly the best cop show ever, and a half-dozen other, smaller releases with appeal to more selective audiences.

The big release this week, of course, is Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen on DVD and Blu-Ray. Nevertheless, the following is just a sampling of what else is available, including the suggested manufacturer’s list price. Of course, prices may vary according to retailer, and will likely decrease as the holidays bear down on us.

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles – “Those Aren’t Pillows” Edition ($14.98)  Boasting career highs from both writer-director John Hughes and co-star John Candy, this 1987 classic features Steve Martin as Neal Page, an uptight Chicago executive stuck in a series of accidents, near-accidents and strokes of bad luck while trying to fly home for Thanksgiving. Candy plays Del Griffith, the slovenly shower curtain ring salesman who dogs his every errant step and false move. The chemistry between Candy and Martin is almost legendary, with each new calamity building on the last to overwhelm the mismatched travelers. Full of quotes and scenes you’ll re-create with friends through the holidays. “Dell Griffith, please to meet you.”

This new DVD includes Hughes and Candy retrospectives and a deleted scene.

Monsoon Wedding – The Criterion Collection ($39.95) This 2001 dramatic comedy won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and helped reignite foreign film afficianados’ love affair with Bollywood cinema. Directed by Mira Nair (the upcoming Amelia), the story follows the entanglements and complications arising from a traditional Punjabi wedding, showing the ups and downs of both the family members and the servants on whose shoulders the celebration ultimately rests. Maybe some of the characters are a bit broad, and the observations a little precious, but audiences who enjoy family centered works such as this probably won’t care anyway.

The Criterion edition contains all the usual premium-grade extras you’d expect, including three short documentaries about India directed by Nair. Also available on Blu-Ray disc.

Easy Rider ($38.96) - The iconic road movie about 60s rebellion comes – only a little ironically – to Blu-Ray disc with a new featurette and commentary by director and co-star Dennis Hopper. For those few who don’t already know, the 1969 film follows two rebels (Hopper and Peter Fonda) as they drive from California to New Orleans in order to see Mardi Gras. Along the way they pick up a small-town lawyer (Jack Nicholson, in his star-making role) who shares their disillusionment with society and its trappings. For a treatise on freedom, the film’s attention to form, structure, and even geographic accuracy are appropriately loose, with digressions and long talky passages frequently interrupting the travelogue montage sequences. And the infamous ending, though explosive at the time, today feels both pretentious and stiff. Still, the movie overall captures the era’s zeitgeist, even while as a work of cinema it gets creakier by the year.

Vega$: The First Season Volume 1 ($36.98) More than twenty years before the sexy lab rats of CSI:, Las Vegas was kept safe by freewheelin’ private detective Dan Tanna (Robert Urich), cruising the streets in his vintage Thunderbird and solving cases with his bumbling sidekick and single-mom secretary. The show is vintage late 70s cheese, right down to the swanky, horn-driven music and do-your-thing attitude, and with his cool car and hip bachelor pad Tanna is the archetypal private eye of the period. Urich, who might be described not unkindly as the Tim Daly of his generation, holds the show down thanks to his easy charm. The three-disc set includes the first half of the first season, though why CBS video wouldn’t spring for the other half is anybody’s guess.

Homicide: Life On The Street – The Complete Series ($149.95) About as far from Vega$ as humanly possible in tone and approach alike, NBC’s critically-adored, audience-starved 1993-99 procedural consistently struggled to find its audience, and no wonder. The show was simply ahead of its time, as demonstrated by the success of The Wire, Homicide creator David Simon’s later effort and a sequel to this earlier series in all but name. Based on Simon’s book chronicling his year with the Baltimore Police homicide department, Homicide the series ranks among the best television ever produced, and for our money it’s the best cop show ever. Utterly and completely riveting for six of its seven seasons, with the seventh (following the departure of breakout star Andre Braugher) being only very good. The middle seasons depicting the mammoth “Luther Mahoney Saga” are essential viewing for any cop show fan.

The equally mammoth 35-disc collection includes all 122 episodes, three crossover Law & Order episodes, and the 2001 telepic Homicide: Life Everlasting, which served as coda and elegy and for the series.

The Hunger: The Complete Second Season ($39.98) Possibly the closest thing Generation X’ers might ever get to their own Twilight outside of the Whedonverse (True Blood arguably notwithstanding), the second and final season of this British anthology series featured demons, vampires, and smart erotica mixed into a potent swirl and hosted by David Bowie, who at 62 years old still has more erotic cool than the somnambulant hipsters of Twilight likely ever will.

The four disc set includes all 22 episodes, produced by Tony and Ridley Scott and featuring appearances by Anthony Michael Hall, Giovanni Ribisi, Eric Roberts, Brad Dourif, Jennifer Beals, and many others. The first season, hosted by Terrence Stamp, is also available.

- Michael Kabel

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Released near the beginning of film noir’s golden age following the end of World War II, 1946’s Somewhere In The Night includes a lot of the elements that would eventually help to identify, if not exactly define, noir as a genre: the embittered and spiritually lost war veteran protagonist, his torch singer with a heart of gold love interest, the shifty criminals with murky motives and odd personalities, and the sexpot femme fatale with a heart made only of money. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz (A Letter To Three Wives) meticulously directs the film with an eye for the intimate, giving each scene a sense of cloistered self-containment that helps define the protagonist’s senses of isolation. While not exactly essential noir viewing as a result of some serious story flaws, it’s still a mesmerizing viewing experience and a great example of noir’s potential for psychological drama.

The film begins as Army soldier George Taylor (John Hodiak) lies in a medical tent, reeling from a concussion and with his face covered in bandages. With no memory of his life previous to waking up, in time he finds the only clues to his identity are his army discharge papers and an unsigned note written from someone who hates him. Taylor follows the note to Los Angeles, searching for his previous life – effectively searching for himself. An early big break comes in the form of a checked suitcase, containing a gun and a note from a “friend” named Larry Cravat directing him to a bank account containing five thousand dollars.

Taylor goes to the bank but is met with suspicion by its employees. After another dead-end, he finds himself pursued through a swanky basement nightclub and cornered in the dressing room of singer Christy Smith (Nancy Guild). Later, following a kidnapping and beating by thugs employed by the mysterious thief and occultist Anzelmo (Fritz Kortner), a creaky plot contrivance leaves him dazed and injured at Smith’s door. The good-natured singer nurses him back to health, falling in love with him in the process.

Together the two pursue fringe-like clues to Taylor’s identity and the whereabouts of the vanished Cravat, despite the machinations of Anzelmo  and a tawdry con woman (Margo Woode) who may or may not have known Taylor in his previous life. Eager to help the vulnerable Taylor, Smith enlists the help of her boss and potential suitor (Richard Conte), who in turn brings in a homicide lieutenant (Lloyd Nolan) who’s a lot smarter than he lets on. The lieutenant tells Taylor that his “friend” Cravat was in possession of stolen Nazi funds when he disappeared three years previous – the same time Taylor joined the service. Taylor and the lieutenant both begin to suspect him of Cravat’s murder, escalating the desperation in uncovering Taylor’s true identity. (Spoiler: the solution bears a strong resemblance to a similar revelation in Alan Parker’s 1984 horror noir Angel Heart.)

Mankiewicz bends the noir aesthetic towards establishing a vague and mysterious air around even the simplest locations, giving the film a dreamlike quality that eerily conveys Taylor’s growing paranoia and self-loathing. But the complicated and rambling plot is freighted with diversions and vignettes that, while dramatically effective, don’t always serve to move the story forward. One scene in particular, in which Taylor confronts the daughter of a potential witness to Cravat’s crimes, is achingly acted and beautifully shot but nevertheless slows the movie’s momentum to a crawl. And the film is dialogue-heavy to a fault, with characters reeling off whole paragraphs even in the most mundane conversations. Conversely, the script has an annoying habit of never having characters answer a direct question with candor, lengthening the time needed to bring facts to light while working too hard to sustain suspense.

More troubling, at least regarding the script – adapted from Marvin Borowsky’s story by Mankiewicz and several others, including legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg and equally legendary British author/playwright W. Somerset Maugham – are the voids that leave vital information unanswered. Because the film is chiefly Taylor’s journey, the story most often takes pains to establish each step along his way. Yet how he came into possession of the search-igniting claim ticket is left unexplained, while the rapid growth of Smith’s affections is left underdeveloped and somewhat superfluous as a result. Such details feel important in retrospect, and unfortunately a second viewing doesn’t fill in their sizeable blanks.

Despite those failings the cast is hardworking, committed, and effective. Hodiak, wide-eyed and sweating bullets throughout, conveys his character’s mounting panic while still retaining a sense of determination and composure – a perfect example of the relentlessness common to noir protagonists. Making her debut appearance with wardrobe and makeup apparently crafted to make her resemble Lauren Bacall as much as possible, Guild is sweet and convincing despite some corny dialogue of the “Can’t you see I’m nuts for the guy?” variety. (She and Kortner reteamed the following year in another noir, The Brasher Doubloon, an adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The High Window.)

Richard Conte, still several years from headlining Jules Dassin’s masterful Thieves’ Highway, is underused as a foil and friend to Taylor’s respective romance and quest, appearing in only a few scenes. Finally, Woode’s minor radar blip of a career is puzzling given her sweet/predatory smile and crackling screen sexuality. Her character’s affected sophistication, communicated chiefly through sprinkling French expressions into her come-hither game with Taylor, gives the film both edge and a strange sense of resonant sadness. Nobody is who they seem to be somewhere in the night, but nobody is who they want to be, either.

- Michael Kabel

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An overloaded cast can’t work through the issues of a flabby script and scattershot direction.

One of the most frequently heard gripes about American cinema the last couple of years is that adult movies – films made for grown-ups, about grown-up issues or at least matters relevant to audiences over 30 years old – are on the wane. It’s wondered if people who aren’t in college, or better yet high school, haven’t got the time to trek to a movie theatre and sit still for two hours. (Note to Hollywood: these days most of us are working too hard.) Films made for this demographic, the occasional romcom aside, don’t do as well as the superhero and vampire fluff that have become the studios’ meat and potatoes.

Certainly, marriage and parenthood are relevant, if not crucial, topics for “older” audiences, as are such ideas as romance and keeping some sense of youth and spontaneity alive once day-to-day living takes on a limitless routine. Life goes on, like the man said, long after the thrill of living is gone. Hollywood has a long and proud tradition of films addressing such quiet crises: The Big Chill, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Two For The Road, The Ice Storm, and quite a few others all tackled its dangers. Notice that all of those films are dramas, however. Not one saw the lighter side of marital ennui and pre-midlife regret.

Just here to get lei'ed: the cast.

Couples Retreat could have been a smarter movie, a more mature film, and a sharper examination of the same topics if it tried harder than it does. But instead its script (co-written by stars Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau) too often panders to its presumed audience without ever really getting beneath the skin of the problems that lurk, like the lemon sharks of its lone suspense sequence, just beneath its surface. As with far too many major studio releases these days, the film takes pains to make sure the audience isn’t provoked into reflection, or into questioning the issues the characters only passingly mention they have. In lieu of that approach there’s too many lazy jokes, too much easy humor, too many cutesy-cute sitcommish gags about precious kids. It’s a safe film, from top to bottom and every frame between.

Uptight couple Jason and Cynthia (Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell) have hit a rough spot in their marriage, largely from their inability to have a child. Strapped for cash and desperate to make their marriage work, they approach five of their friends – two other couples and a recently-divorced male (Favreau and Kristin Davis, Vaughn and Malin Ackerman, Faizon Love) – with a group-rate package vacation to Eden, a tropical resort that doubles as therapeutic boot camp for troubled marriages. The couples agree, with Love’s hapless Shane bringing along his party-hardy 20-year old girlfriend Trudy (Kali Hawk). Once at the resort the couples’ plans for a vacation are foiled by resort regulations that demand they engage in therapy and communication skill-building sessions.

It’s only a little predictable, maybe, that each couple is in a different phase of disintegration: Favreau and Davis’ Joey and Lucy tolerate each other only until their teen daughter leaves for college; Vaughn and Ackerman’s Dave and Ronnie are just beginning to hit the skids; Shane and Trudy barely know each other. So far, so good, except each character takes their respective problem and amplifies it to ten. Part of the problem is that with so many characters, respective characterization gets lost in the shuffle: how can the audience keep up with everyone, unless they stand out? But it’s annoying nonetheless that each character has to go loud to be heard, and everyone’s behavior inevitably becomes childish and plot-focused. There’s very little sense these people know each other, past some laborious exposition dropped into a belabored first act.

There's more here for the guys to like...

Director Peter Billingsley keeps the plot moving, and again with so many characters there’s a lot to juggle. But individual scenes suffer as a direct result, with episodes trailing off and getting whisked from the viewer’s attention before they’ve reached their dramatic or comedic payoff. The result is an uneven middle and an too-tidy resolution that relies on too much convention, at least one out-of-left-field plot contrivance, and more than a little schlock. A film about adults in marital trouble doesn’t need one gag about a child using a sales floor demo toilet. The story in which two such jokes are necessary doesn’t exist.

... than there is for the ladies.

The cast, by and large, brings exactly what you’ve come to expect from them in other performances. Bateman and Bell are charming in their sunny respectability; Vaughn and Favreau are smart-assed and cranky. Davis is Charlotte York. Ackerman is charming and pretty, and seems vastly more comfortable than she appeared in Watchmen earlier this year. Love isn’t a bad actor, but watching his sad sack performance I couldn’t help but wish, and not for the first time, that Bernie Mac was still with us. Of the other cast members, Jean Reno is amusing as the resort’s spacey therapy guru, while Peter Serafinowicz  does an effective Jonathan Pryce impression as the resort’s maitre ‘d.

Ultimately, it’s hard not to imagine this film as a better choice for a January or February release. It’s quality notwithstanding, all the sun and surf lovingly displayed will no doubt offer a welcome escape when winter is at its heaviest. That’s actually about the time the DVD should hit store shelves, so audiences with anything less than a compelling interest in the film would do well to wait until then.

- Michael Kabel

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John Woo’s massive historical epic comes to America – in condensed form – this November.

The most expensive film in Asian production history but also the highest-grossing among Chinese cinema to date, director John Woo’s Red Cliff relates the momentous Battle of Red Cliffs that marked the end of China’s Han Dynasty and the beginning of its Three Kingdoms period in the Third Century CE. The film also presents something of a comeback for Woo himself, marking his first Chinese film since 1992 and his first full-length feature since the 2003 flop Paycheck.

Though the Asian release saw the four hour-plus epic cut into two parts, American audiences will see an abbrieviated 148-minute version that condenses the complicated and far-reaching story into a single narrative while introducing new footage that helps explain and clarify the depicted events. The film follows Han Chancellor Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) as he leads the Imperial Army on an expedition to crush Southern warlords Sun Quan (Chang Chen) and Liu Bei (You Yung). Desperate for new territory with which to bolster their crumbling empire, the Han army is swift and merciless, overrunning provinces and killing civilians as well as combatants.

Liu Bei and his compatriots lead the defense of the civilians and their own lands, eventually allying with Sun Quan in a last-ditch effort at defense even while Cao Cao’s forces approach the city of Red Cliff, situated along the strategically crucial south bank of the Yangtze River. Quan’s sister, Sun Shangxiang (Zhao Wei), infiltrates Cao Cao’s camp to gather intelligence while leaders on both sides beg, borrow, and steal the supplies and intelligence needed to gain an upper hand. Much of the film’s Asian release detailed the intrigue and human drama leading up to the cataclysmic main engagement, with subterfuge and deceit blooming all around. By the end of the battle the victorious Sun and Liu retain their holdings south of the Yangtze, in time establishing the kingdoms that would come to be known as Shu Han and Eastern Wu.

Woo also co-wrote the screenplay, basing the story not on the landmark historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (celebrated as one of the finest novels in all of Chinese literature) but on the more neutrally-toned historical record Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, which reportedly presents a more even-handed treatment of characters on both sides of the fighting. As perhaps a sign of the film’s importance as a Chinese cultural event, the nation’s government lent the production more than 100,000 soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army to serve as extras for the combined naval and land battle.

For all that scale the story is also one of characters, many of whom are legends in their own right and revered throughout 17 centuries of Chinese history. Though the cast is stocked to overflowing with Chinese actors both veteran and up-and-coming, the film’s earlier announced cast would have offered a meeting of stars seldom seen: screen legend Chow Yun-Fat (The Killer) was slated to star as Zhou Yu, Quan’s military commander, but withdrew over script and contract disputes. Japanese actor Ken Watanabe (Batman Begins) was cast as Cao Cao but was released after the production drew complaints for casting a non-Chinese actor in such an important role. Finally, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (Internal Affairs) was originally cast as strategist Zhuge Liang (played now by Takeshi Kaneshiro) but replaced Chow instead.

Woo himself became a legend in the early 90s, thanks to staggeringly innovative and artistic work on action films such as Hard Boiled (1992) and especially 1989’s The Killer. His American career was less impressive, starting slowly with the Jean Claude Van Damme vehicle Hard Target (1993) and reaching through the John Travolta-led films Broken Arrow (1996) and Face-Off (1997), both somewhat formulaic efforts that often cribbed plot devices or imagery from Woo’s earlier, Asian-produced work. His films in the current decade have been even less noteworthy, including the Nicolas Cage-starring Windtalkers (2001) and the aforementioned Paycheck.

Still, there’s something about such a sweeping and important work that feels a natural fit for Woo, and if the reduced version does well in theatres hopefully a restored DVD edition will find its way to American shelves.

Red Cliff opens in limited release November 20.

- Michael Kabel

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Matt Damon’s bravura performance lifts a muddled script and direction.

Director Steven Soderbergh has spent a good chunk of his career unabashedly paying homage to the films of the 1960s and 70s, whether remaking them outright (Solaris) or channeling their peculiar, very specific rhythms and textures (The Limey, Out of Sight). With The Informant!, he’s supplied with true-life source material that fits approximately alongside such period semi-classics as Serpico and, though it didn’t arrive until 1983, Silkwood. While this latest film is mercifully free of the self-importance and dogging pace that plagues typical whistle-blower dramas, it doesn’t quite come together as well as it should, thanks to an erratic tone and frequent lack of clarity in explaining its myriad details. But it has Matt Damon, taking another step towards succeeding Tom Hanks as the Great American Movie Star by giving his strongest and most surprising performance in years.

Damon stars as Mark Whitacre, a PhD biochemist recruited into the management division of agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland. The company produces all kinds of foods as well as the chemical and natural ingredients that go into making them, including the amino additive lysine. Whitacre, a self-described “technical guy,” has a hard time fitting into the company’s help-yourself management culture, so he’s taken aback upon discovering ADM conspires with its global competitors in an ongoing price-fixing conspiracy. “The average American is a victim of corporate crime by the time he’s finished breakfast,” he complains.

Whitacre contacts the FBI under the pretense of an extortion attempt launched by one of their Japanese collaborators. Awkwardly befriending FBI agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) as he investigates the phony scheme, Whitacre reveals the true skullduggery within the company. Eventually, he wears a wire for more than two years as Shepard and his colleague Bob Herndon (Joel McHale) collect evidence against ADM and the other corporations.

But Whitacre is jumpy under the best of circumstances, prone to weird delusions of grandeur as well as struggles with paranoia. He buys too many cars and obsesses about his frequent flier miles, and plans elaborate or fantastic get-rich-quick schemes. Part of his angst, the script by Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum) explains, comes from the strain of maintaining his duplicity, a toll with which even federal undercover operatives have trouble coping. But , more problems surface as the investigation turns into a sting against ADM and years of details come to light in the slugfest between prosecutors and ADM attorneys. Chief among them: Whitacre spent years embezzling millions from the company, a fact that jeopardizes Shepard and Herndon’s years of hard work. Later, a diagnosis of bipolar disorder meant to bolster Whitacre’s own legal defense spins their relationship into malicious new territory.

Leave it to Soderbergh to make the federal government seem sensitive, even needy. Bakula and McHale play their lawman characters not as crusaders but as middle-management types not far removed from Whitacre’s employees, right down to the off-the-rack suits and low-maintenance hairstyles. The case could make the agents’ careers, and they know it, and that thought infuses every decision they make and sets the tone for every meeting with their superiors. As Whitacre comes unglued in the film’s third act, Shepard emerges as the most visible victim of his machinations and also, strangely, possibly the one with the most to lose.

Understanding exactly what happens following the government’s sting against ADM requires the closest attention possible, as the narrative thread becomes submerged in a long and repetitive series of scenes displaying meetings, conferences, and confrontations between the characters. There’s a sense of consequence, in that the actors are all believable and modern audiences are anyway bitterly aware of what a federal investigation entails. But the many scenes blur together, with little sense of meaning or connection with one another, until the total result feels less than the sum of its parts. Besides jail sentences, you’re not sure what’s at stake.

In a way, complete comprehension of every detail isn’t crucial. Most audiences have seen enough of these kinds of films (not least of which Soderbergh’s own Erin Brokovich) to understand the meetings scenes are just way stations on the trip to the big courtroom resolution finale, followed by the inevitable post-scripts. Still, there ought to be more sense of context, and importance given to the scenes for as much as Soderbergh obviously spends a great amount of time correctly representing their details. Talented performers like Tony Hale, Patton Oswalt and Clancy Brown appear on camera but find no use for their considerable presences except than to fill positions extras could probably handle just as well. Casting 60s-era satirists Tom and Dick Smothers as, respectively, ADM’s patriarch and a federal judge is an interesting, if possibly gratuitous, decision.

Through it all Damon manages to give his character an innate likeability that rests partly on pity: Whitacre simply cannot get out of his own way long enough to give a straight answer, no matter how important the question. Even at the end, as he sits in prison begging on camera for a presidential pardon (for helping to police big business - and from George W. Bush, no less) you can’t help but feel sorry for him despite his many mistakes and egregious arrogance. Had Soderbergh and/or Burns framed the story (based on Kurt Eichenwald’s book) as a character piece, the muddied details might seem less important to understanding. But in attempting to make a film that’s half-character study, half-social picture, both narratives feel slighted.

A coupe of parting gripes: it’s also puzzling that Soderbergh composes the film full of dreary earth tones and heavy fabrics and brass, suggesting the aesthetic of the early 1980s. Yet the film is set firmly in the 1990s and the current decade, when most such designs had long since gone out of style, even in relatively rural places like the film’s Illinois setting. The Sixties-groovy title graphics also serve no purpose either, except to distract.

- Michael Kabel
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