DVD Review: Due Date

Robert Downey, Jr. and Zack Galifianakis in a road comedy that never gets up to speed.

Mismatched-buddy comedies are a long and vaunted tradition in Hollywood, dating at least as far back as the Abbott & Costello/Laurel & Hardy films of the 1940s and continuing most notably, at least to Gen-X audiences, with John Hughes’ 1987 Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Director Todd Phillips’ follow-up to The Hangover borrows the structure of that beloved Steve Martin – John Candy effort, teaming an uptight professional with an easygoing, misunderstood slob on a cross-country trek with a clearly defined deadline involving the straight man’s family.

Comparisons between the two films are unavoidable, and that’s bad news for Due Date, which relies too much on co-star Zach Galifianakis’ weirdo schtick without building enough jokes around it to lend the story any comic vitality. Robert Downey, Jr., continuing his streak of always playing the smartest guy in any given room, lends his acerbic poise perhaps too much, inadvertently weighing the already-dark script with too much straightman snark. That’s not to say there aren’t occasional funny moments, but like highway rest stops they always seem too far apart when you need them and perpetually available when you don’t.

Architect Peter Highman (Downey, Jr.) is desperate to return to Los Angeles from a business trip to Atlanta before his wife Sarah (Michelle Monaghan) gives birth to their first child. But a preflight mixup with wannabe actor Ethan Tremblay (Galifianakis) gets them both kicked off the flight and placed on a no-fly list. Highman somewhat incredibly leaves his wallet on the plane; while attempting to steal a rental car from the airport lot he’s reunited with Tremblay, who offers to drive him to Los Angeles by way of apology.

A whirl of fuzz in layers of 1990s-era fashions and a delicate hair perm, Tremblay is a gentle if self-sabotaging soul, the owner of a Two and a Half Men fansite who admits to once running himself over with a car and pronounces Shakespeare as “Shakesbeard.” But he’s also grieving for a recently diseased father whose ashes he carries in a can of coffee grounds, seeking closure but putting off several opportunities to get it. Conversely, Highman is all white-collar privilege and suburban entitlement. You can imagine him readily enjoying the same amenities as George Clooney’s similar road warrior from Up In The Air while sneering at the slobs flying business class.

The two are severely underqualified to attempt a 3000 mile drive separately, let alone together, and the interpersonal friction as they reach strange locations ought to propel the comic give-and-take. Yet the script from former King of the Hill writers Alan R. Cohen and Adam Freedland (with additional work by Adam Sztykiel from Phillip’s story) doesn’t have the duo go very many places, with the ensuing result that the story… doesn’t really go any place. Instead, the stops they make are long, protracted, and disjointed: a trip to a vendor of “medical” marijuana in Alabama; a Western Union branch in Louisiana; incredibly again, the Mexican border and the Grand Canyon. Despite the time-table crucial to the plot, there’s seldom any sense of urgency, despite Highman’s frequent, panicked calls home.

One of Planes, Trains and Automobiles‘ most endearing – and enduring – virtues rested in the commonality of its situations: Martin’s yuppie snob and Candy’s blue-collar lummox negotiated the impersonal, indifferent hurdles of cross-country travel over a grueling three-day odyssey, facing soulless hotel rooms, numbingly incompetent customer service, and many, many other small setbacks that seemed incomprehensible in their banality. But where that film mined the everyday, the shock value of Phillps et al.’s script explores only the less ordinary, and frequently for shock value: Highman is busted for drugs at the Mexican border; Tremblay forgets his own name as the two try to receive a wire transfer; Tremblay’s dog masturbates alongside his owner.

Stalling things even further is a wasted, unnecessary subplot involving Highman’s college friend (Jamie Foxx) and the possibility that he’s actually the father of Sarah’s child. It’s an unexplored, inert distraction from the rest of the story, and the payoff at film’s end is mostly flat as a result. An earlier gag involving a crippled war veteran (Danny McBride) beating Highman with a club for his arrogance is almost painful to watch; meant to be outre, it’s just mean-spirited to both characters. Finally, a late revelation from Tremblay will seem to anyone who’s seen The Hangover as too derivative by half of another plot twist also involving Galifianakis’ character in that film.

Ultimately, Due Date is an unfunny comedy that’s possibly more rewarding on home video than in the theatre, and maybe then only for devoted fans of its several stars. But in one sense it doesn’t matter: the director and performers will make better films, many of which will likely look just as good within their previews, too. (Due Date is the epitome of a film whose best moments appear in its ads.) By the time these things happen we’ll have forgotten all about this misfire. Honestly, we’ve already started.

- Michael Kabel

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Miscellaneous Debris: July 2010 Edition

Our end-of-the-month wrapup of reviews, news, and observations that didn’t get a full post.

Here come the dog days of summer, but it’s not a complete loss. For as blah as the summer has been so far - and it’s been a giant yawn, by and large – the coming weeks show plenty of promise. In the meantime, last weekend’s San Diego Comic-Con and the upcoming fall television season has given probably half the Internet several weeks worth of blogging and complaining fuel.

Some of our own complaints and blogging fuel are listed below. All opinions are our own, and as always they’re presented in no particular order of importance.

1. Actually, first things first: Mad Men‘s fourth season premiere was a virtuoso bit of television, as good if not better than the series’ vaunted pilot and a jump ahead in quality from the season three debut. With its characters entering the post-JFK era – some leaping, some getting pulled along by the undertow of changing times – the show seems at once re-energized and recommitted. Jon Hamm continued to bring new range and depth to Don Draper, as Matthew Weiner’s script stood the character on his handsome head, while Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) and Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) finally emerged as the confident grown-ups fans have waited for them to become.

Weiner made some comments last spring that the show would only run six seasons, and it’s not hard to see this ep as the halfway point in the story’s evolution. This coming week’s episode reveals – just in time for summer – the first-ever Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Christmas party.

2. It’s fun to get what we want. After complaining last year that we wished some former A-list leading men deserved and were due for comebacks, two of our picks have movies opening this week and next. Kevin Kline’s indie comedy The Extra Man, co-starring Paul Dano and John C. Reilly, opens in limited release this weekend. Next week’s The Other Guys, starring Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell, co-stars Michael Keaton; we’ll mention again that The Merry Gentleman, Keaton’s directing debut, remains one of our favorite films released since this blog began a couple of years ago.

In the meantime, here’s the trailer for The Extra Man:

3. Nothing came out of the San Diego Comic-Con that really amazed us, but a few things surfaced that sort of disappointed. We’ve made the case before that Joss Whedon isn’t the best choice to write or direct the upcoming Avengers movie, but now that he’s confirmed to do both we’ll give him an even chance. Mark Ruffalo (Zodiac) is a trade-up in replacing Edward Norton as the Hulk, and it’s good to see Jeremy Renner finally confirmed as Hawkeye. All the same, it’s still a bummer to hear that Avengers founding member and mainstay Hank Pym will not appear in the film. The full cast list was revealed at the convention’s panel.

For no good reason, here’s an episode of The Avengers: United They Stand cartoon from the late 90s. Actually, it’s so painfully 90′s it might as well be sporting a pair of Doc Marten’s and a Friends haircut.

4. Better late than never: we’re happy to report that The Unusuals, the exceptional police comedy-drama that Renner headlined last year, has been available on DVD for a while now. Co-starring Terry Kinney, Amber Tamblyn, Adam Goldberg and Harold Perrineau, the show mixed black humor with sometimes surreal drama and plot twists, creating something unlike anything else on network television. Naturally, it lasted just ten episodes before ABC pulled the plug. Renner immediately went on to acclaim in The Hurt Locker, so hopefully the network regrets its cancellation. Nine episodes are available for streaming on Netflix.

5. October sees the release of The Social Network, which except for its pedigree might seem cause for suspicion; still, an Aaron Sorkin script directed by David Fincher is too good to pass up, and anyway a film that’s intelligently made about current events is seldom a bad thing, if ever.

Based on Ben Mezrich’s book The Accidental Billionaires and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake, the film chronicles the rise of Facebook. By the way, please join our Facebook group.

The film opens nationwide October 1.

6. In previous installments of Miscellaneous Debris we chastised both Rescue Me and Leverage for their egregious product placement, devoting too much time to mentioning or in some cases outright singing the praises of their commercial sponsors. Happily, both shows have toned that down quite a bit in their current runs. After a hit-or-miss second season, Leverage seems to have found its legs, with each episode by and large more entertaining than the last. Meanwhile Rescue Me, though too quick once again to fall back on the Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary)-as-human-trainwreck plotlines, has returned to ideas from earlier seasons that worked well before getting abandoned. In particular, the ace comic chemistry between firefighters Sean Garrity (Steven Pasquale) and Mike Silletti (Mike Lombardi) and the reappearance of slain firefighter Jimmy Keefe (James McCaffrey) improve every episode in which they’re used.

7. Ten years ago, Ang Lee’s martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon caused something of a quiet sensation, re-defining how audiences (particularly sci-fi and fantasy audiences) thought about the limits and potential of the action film genre. The  film’s luxurious cinematography and eye-googling special effects, combined with a simple but moving story of revenge and deferred love, made larger Western franchises including the then-popular Matrix and Star Wars prequel trilogy seem instantly cumbersome and outdated. Subsequent imitators and similar wuxia efforts trickled through Western multiplexes for years afterward.

A Blu-Ray edition was released this month (a previous edition was available in a three-film wuxia box set), and though we haven’t seen it yet we can only imagine how Lee’s incredible vision appears in high-definition. If you haven’t seen the film, you should. If you have, it might be time to revisit it.

8.  Criterion has officially announced the Blu-Ray and two-disc DVD release of Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line. Set to debut September 28, Criterion’s edition includes a new digital transfer supervised by Malick, thirteen minutes of outtakes, interviews with cast members, newsreels of the actual fighting on Guadalcanal and the Solomon Islands, and audio tracks of the Melanesian chants heard throughout the film.

To reiterate what we said a couple of months ago: Upon its 1998 release the film was unfairly ignored by a public that preferred the more simplistic jingoism of Saving Private Ryan (released earlier that year) or felt leery of its sorrowful, meditative tone. Nevertheless, Malick’s eye for arresting imagery didn’t dull one bit after an almost twenty year hiatus from filmmaking; the trailer alone is more picturesque than the entirety of most films, and also more moving. 

Our annual summer hiatus runs through next week. We’ll return Tuesday, August 10 with more of what you come here for. Thanks for reading.

- Michael Kabel

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DVD and Blu-Ray Releases April 13 2010

Three different kinds of classics, including possibly “the greatest movie of all time”

How the library of Blu-Ray titles continues to chug along, every now and then adding films of substance or historical interest among the piles of middling fare or outright crap already on shelves. This week’s releases prove the elasticity of the term “classic,” including a horror film from the 80s, a big-budget spectacle from a director and actor at the top of their games in the 90s, and – but certainly not least – the third release of the likely popular favorite for Greatest Movie of All Time.

Listed below are the features and extra features of the big three releases this week, along with a couple of other DVD offerings that caught our eye.

A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) - If you didn’t see this first installment of the long-running franchise in the 80s, you probably saw one of its legion of inferior sequels, none of which neared the innovation of this spirited original. (Maybe the upcoming remake will recapture its wicked appeal.) Wes Craven’s (Scream) tale of  Freddy Kreuger, the ghostly killer who preys on teenagers in their dreams, is stay-up-all-night creepy but also gleefully innovative, too, with plenty of trickery and ghoulish fun. The low budget production gets a hefty Blu-Ray uprgrade, with the usual technical improvements and behind the scenes featurettes but also alternate takes, three alternate endings, and commentary tracks from Craven, stars Robert Englund and Heather Langenkamp, and several others. Watch for Johnny Depp in his debut role, playing the boyfriend to Langenkamp’s straight arrow honor student.

Apollo 13 Fifteenth Anniversary Edition (1995) – For better or worse, it’s somewhat difficult to think of mainstream American cinema of the 1990′s and not think of Tom Hanks. Though his best and most well-remembered work was created through collaborations with other directors – most notably Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, Cast Away) and Jonathan Demme (Philadelphia), his teaming with perennial golden boy Ron Howard might offer the purest iteration of his Above Average Everyman screen persona. Playing the true-life commander of a disastrous 1970 NASA lunar mission, he’s at his all-American best, even while the plot goes through some motions that feel routine to disaster-flight suspensers. Hanks gets workmanlike assists by a murderer’s row of period character actors, including Ed Harris, Gary Sinise, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon, but it’s unmistakably a Tom Hanks movie all the way. The disc’s extra features includes behind the scenes featurettes and a Dateline special about the events that inspired the film.

Gone With the Wind (The Scarlett Edition) (1939) – Still the highest-grossing film of all time (when adjusting for inflation), producer David O. Selznick’s mammoth epic towers over American film, both for the size and scope of its production but also for the lushness of its production values, which honestly have to be seen to be believed. The film itself, unfortunately, is problematic, with a second half that succumbs to its soap opera elements while never achieving the historical or dramatic momentum of the first. In case you’ve just arrived from Mars: the film is the hyper-emotional saga of Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), a Georgia debutante whose way of life is destroyed by the Civil War and later by her desire for the rogue (Clark Gable) she can’t truly allow herself to love. Casablanca’s Bogart and Bergman notwithstanding, Leigh and Gable are the screen couple against which all else are measured, and will likely remain so as long as Warner Brothers keeps releasing the film on home video.

This three-disc, third Blu-Ray release contains all the many extra features of last year’s 70th Anniversary Edition, minus the bonus soundtrack CD or collector’s memorabilia.

Also seeing release this week on DVD:

Tenure (2009) - Luke Wilson, on one of his last stops before sinking into those embarrassing cel phone ads, plays a college writing professor competing for the almost impregnable job security of the film’s title in this under-the-radar indie comedy. Gretchen Mol plays his Yale-educated rival, the ubiquitous David Koechner his wacky friend, while the cast also includes Sasha Alexander, Michael Cudlitz, and Rosemary Dewitt in various roles. We know dozens of people who can relate to the film’s subject matter, and Wilson and Mol both have their underrated screen charms, so we’re looking forward to checking it out.

Defendor (2009) - Likely an adult alternative to the upcoming – and far more cynically created and marketed – Kick Ass, this indie stars Woody Harrelson as a slow-witted but idealistic man who dons something resembling a superhero costume to fight urban crime and defeat a local drug kingpin named Captain Industry and a dirty cop (Elias Koteas.) Kat Dennings plays the teen prostitute who, a la Taxi Driver, gets pulled into his bumbling quest, while Sandra Oh is his court-appointed therapist. Though we’re glad to see Harrelson continuing to build his comeback, the film reportedly travels much of the same “what makes a hero” ground that even the major comic book publishers have pretty well exhausted already, right down to the parental issues and unfocused rage.

We’ll be back later this week. Thanks for reading.

- Michael Kabel

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DVD and Blu-Ray Releases This Week

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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DVD Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Dreary, disappointing prequel arrives on DVD and Blu-Ray this week.

Since his introduction as an adversary for the Incredible Hulk thirty-five years ago, the Marvel Comics character Wolverine has come to symbolize a particular type of comics storytelling. Far from the gifted aliens, self-improving millionaires or brilliant scientists who traditionally make up the bulk of comics’ protagonists, the mutant known simply as “Logan” had powers thrust upon him not once but twice. Born a mutant and later subjected to military experiments that enhanced his natural abilities even further, his adventures are violent, uncomplicated, and thick on the spy/military tropes found in drugstore paperbacks and B-movie combat actioners.

Wolverine as a superhero is not a genius, not a strategist and not even much of a thinker, really. He’s a brute force of nature with no end of machismo, a lowbrow hero for our ever-increasingly lowbrow culture. So if X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not an especially well-thought movie, if it places its expensive emphasis on action over clarity of plot and characterization, then in a shabby sense it’s true to its subject. Does that make it a good movie? No, though its range of flaws makes it a bad one.

Directed by Gavin Hood (Rendition), the film opens with a visually and narratively murky prologue that shows Logan (Hugh Jackman) as a young boy escaping the murder of a man who may be his father. He’s abetted by his playmate Victor (Liev Shreiber), who also may or may not be his brother. Possessed of special healing powers that make them both more or less immortal, the two go on to serve in every major conflict of the next 130 years, depicted as a thrilling opening credits montage that has the pair laying waste to enemy soldiers from several armies (They always pick the right side to join.) In time they’re recruited into a special military unit composed of mutant soldiers whose leader, Colonel Stryker (Danny Huston), encourages their growing bloodlust. Logan quits the group when their – and Victor’s especially – savagery pushes him to his ethical threshold.

Jump ahead six years – David Benioff and Skip Woods’ script lets its chronology all over the place - and Logan has found solitidue in a new life working in Canada’s logging industry while romancing a local school teacher (Lynn Collins). But her apparent murder at Victor’s hands drives Logan back into Stryker’s influence. Offered the chance to have all memory of his dead love erased, he volunteers for an experiment to coat his bones with a special alien metal called “adamantium” that will make him virtually indestructible. Once so empowred, the rest of the film finds Logan getting revenge against Victor and Stryker, and liberating Stryker’s gulag of mutant prisoners on Three Mile Island.

Perhaps part of the problem is the murky structure of their source material. As their most popular character, Marvel has revised and re-imagined their hero’s origin story multiple times over the years, the better with which to entice audiences into buying “now it can be told…”  comic “events.” Possibly as a consequence, Benioff (Troy) and Woods (Swordfish) have a lot of complicated and tangled back story to address while keeping the action moving. But like the recent Watchmen, their screenplay puts spectcle above narrative, so that fight scenes (or, more frequently, Victor’s cruel execution of his targets) are constant and prolonged. That’s at least true enough to the genre: the basics of the superhero story has always boiled down to “come for the action, stay for the pathos.” Comic books are by design a visual medium, and character depth is actually a fairly recent development in their history.

Still, for an action movie the special effects should be better – really, they have to be for the film to be worth the audience’s time and money. And for a film both prefacing and expanding on the already profitable X-Men movie franchise (composed so far of two good movies by Bryan Singer and one terrible one by Brett Ratner), they should be better still. Instead, the fight sequences – and there are many - are redundant and blurred, with CGI that’s convincing only about half the time. It’s hard not to think that with such an expansive cast, many of whom also have super powers, the money was spread too thin. A scene in which Logan toys with his new metal claws while at a bathroom counter is especially unconvincing. Most unconvincing, given the carnage, is the lack of blood onscreen, obviously removed for the sake of that crucial PG-13 rating.

Jazz hands, with claws: Jackman

Making his fourth screen appearance as the hirsute Logan, Jackman is serviceable as always, but he’s seldom given anything to do except respond to events surrounding him. For an action hero he’s curiously passive until circumstances demand his attention. He’s also never entirely sympathetic as a character, as there’s no explanation for why he fought in so many wars or why he feels repulsed by his “brother’s” violence in the first place. After 150 or so years together, you’d think he’d know his constant companion better. Jackman is also given to striking dubious poses before running at his enemies, throwing his arms and legs into weird Tai Chi-like contortions that often look mannered.

Shreiber, playing the borderline feral Victor as a method exercise in animal snarl and pent-up menace, nevertheless shows again why he’s among the most underrated American actors working right now. Ryan Reynold’s (Definitely, Maybe) charm is underused as the wisecracking ninja Wade, while the normally wooden Kevin Durand (3:10 To Yuma) is effective buried beneath layers of fat suit padding as The Blob. Collins (True Blood) as Logan’s doomed love Kayla Silverfox does the best she can with a stock role that begs for further development. Despite an intermittent gumbo drawl, Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights) overachieves as the fan favorite mutant Gambit, a character whose appearance in a Bourbon Street nightclub is one of the film’s few truly suspenseful moments.

It’s no coincidence the film appears on home video so quickly. Debuting at the top of the box office with a strong $87 million opening weekend, it nevertheless sank quickly thereafter as comics fans gave only lukewarm response. And no wonder.  Wolverine is not a good film, but more significantly it is not a good film even for the kind of movie it is. Logan may not be a genius, but his long-awaited solo feature shouldn’t be so dumb.

-Michael Kabel

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(Note: A previous version of this review appeared for the film’s theatrical release.)

DVD Review: Valkyrie

The underwhelming adaptation of a thrilling true story arrives on DVD and Blu-Ray tomorrow.

Valkyrie is a movie that tempts you to think more of it than it deserves. Handsomely shot in precise but non-obtrusive period detail, deliberately and intelligently structured with fine performances all around, the entire production seems worthy of its compelling subject matter. So why isn’t it better than just good?

Upon its theatrical release last December Critics commented that Tom Cruise’s outsized screen persona dominates the film, so that the character of Nazi Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg disappears inside the audience’s expectations of what happens in a typical Tom Cruise movie. To a point, that’s a fair gripe: following the Cruise film formula (explained in greater detail in our Valkyrie preview), Stauffenberg is a star in his chosen profession (in this case killing Allied soldiers) until something happens that sends his life spiraling out of his control. Valkyrie breaks ranks from the Cruise routine in that Von Stauffenberg’s change of heart is only the beginning of his character arc.

At first on campaign in North Africa, Stauffenberg is sent to Berlin to convalesce after a Royal Air Force attack on his tank patrol leaves him wounded and maimed. Once in the Reich capital, he’s recruited into a cabal of Nazi military officers determined to assassinate German prime minister Adolf Hitler. The group, codenamed Operation: Valkyrie, hopes to save lives and ameliorate German shame in the eyes of the world. One of the more surprising twists in the film is the reality of the group’s ambition: killing Hitler in 1944 and suing the Allies for peace seems, in the cast’s capable hands, completely within reach. But, and in staying true to the real-life story, small indecisions and mundane twists of fate, combined with poorly short-sighted decisions, combine to undermine their efforts.

The SBR complaint department always welcomes your feedback.

Director Bryan Singer wisely stages the ill-fated assassination attempt as a set piece that centers the whole film. Stauffenberg manages to place a bomb beneath a table where Hitler meets with his staff to discuss the collapsing Eastern Front. Though the bomb detonates, the Fuhrer escapes the blast with only minor injuries. The cabal’s plan goes on as planned, however, using a civil defense program to briefly overthrow the Nazi regime and corral the SS secret police. Perhaps unwiesely, most of the film’s final third or so details the insurrection’s demise and fall, paced in a way that invites sympathy for the conspirators but whose mounting tension feels oddly winded. Despite the lived-in performances of the ace supporting cast – Kenneth Branagh, Terence Stamp, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Eddie Izzard, among others – there is seldom a sense that the events are bearing down upon the characters. Given that they’ve tried to kill freaking Hitler, you’d expect more feeling that doom is imminent.

This lag comes largely from a problem with staging: the scenes in which the coup unravels should be the stuff of nailbiting suspense, but Singer chooses to almost only show Cruise talking on the phone a lot or a somewhat anonymous looking group of Nazi militiamen standing around in a square. Surely, there was more to a Nazi Berlin swallowed by an insurrectionist crisis than what’s displayed here. There are glimmers of promise, as when a militia soldier arrives to arrest Dr. Joseph Goebbels. The mad doctor already has the cyanide capsule in his mouth as the militia officer is told to stand down via a telephone call from no less than Hitler himself. In that case alone, the film stops and lets the situation speak for itself. More such moments would have immensely helped move the film along and draw the audience into its developments.

The Reichstag chapter of the Hair Club for Men show off their membership cards.

Cruise brings exactly the same level of intensity to playing the doomed, honorable Stauffenberg that he’s brought to every one of his films since Jerry Maguire. Like popcorn or Junior Mints from the snack bar, he’s a rigidly dependable theatrical commodity. It’s become somewhat fashionable to lambaste the man, and quite a bit of that ridicule is righteous backlash. But his performance should almost only be ancillary to seeing the accomplished supporting players take on such weighty subject matter. If only that were the case. This being a Tom Cruise Movie, they’re never given free room to work: Branagh especially is noticeably absent for much of the film’s narrative. To be fair, Cruise’s involvement is likely the difference in budget and production scale between the film as it is and a critically-acclaimed and little-watched HBO original movie.

Which perhaps it should have been in the first place, in that its shortcomings of plot and tension would be more readily excused or its dragging pace easier to overlook. Disappointing for its faults and maddening for its potential, Valkyrie emerges at last as neither a great film nor a terrible one. If it disappoints, to see such a fascinating story presented capably at all almost provides compensation enough for its eventual collapse. And of course, there’s Cruise. Come for the movie star, stay for the history.

- Michael Kabel

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

Miscellaneous Debris: March Edition

Our version of the old Movietone newsreels, but in blog form.

The green tint is the pollen.

Spring is just around the corner, and for those of living in the South that means soupy thick fogs of oak pollen and warmer temperatures occasionally punctuated by slick, sweaty rain. Lucky for us more movies start debuting, and that the theatres showing them are climate controlled. Seriously, if we lived somewhere with better weather we’d probably be doing something else (probably something outdoors.)

March means the downhill homestretch towards the summer movie season, with some distant beeps already popping on the radar for April and especially May. There’s a new Star Trek trailer airing before Watchmen, for example, and a fresh trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine is beginning to circle around online. Besides the geek culture stuff, April sees the release of Adventureland for the undergrad crowd and Gigantic for their hipster dorm mates. Grown-ups get State of Play with Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck as well as the long-delayed The Soloist with Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx.

The following items are just a roundup of some topics of interest, movies and news that either don’t merit a full blog post or will bear further previewing and reviewing as more information becomes available. But they’re all things worth talking about right now.

Who watches The Horsemen?

1. Our senses of pity and fair play alike compel us to mention that the movies The Horsemen, 12, Phoebe In Wonderland, and Tokyo! also open this weekend. Probably the coming-of-age Sundance favorite Phoebe In Wonderland and 12, a Russian version of 12 Angry Men, offer the most divergent counter-programming for those not looking for super-heroics. All four movies open “in limited release,” here meaning the arthouses of the larger cities even more so than that phrase usually does.

2. If and when you get tired of hearing about the genius of the original Watchmen graphic novel, Comic Book Resources.com offers an excellent critique and evaluation of the 1986 comics series by veteran comics writer Steven Grant. It’s a note of clarity and scholarship that’s both fair and balanced, to use the cliche. Definitely worth reading.

Man out of time: O'Mara

3. America’s long war of attrition against quality network television scored another victory this week with ABC’s cancellation of Life On Mars. An upstart show that realized its considerable potential by leaps and bounds with each passing episode, the atmospheric time travel mystery-drama never developed an audience despite repeated chances from the network. The show’s creators will be able to wrap up is outstanding plotlines, however, presumably revealing just exactly why main character Sam Tyler (Jason O’Mara) finds himself trapped in an often-hellish vision of New York City circa 1973.

4. While we’re on the subject of good television, AMC’s weird, addictive original Breaking Bad debuts its second season this Sunday night. Overshadowed by the elegant glare of AMC’s  Mad Men juggernaut, this grimly sharp drama about a dying high school chemistry teacher (Emmy winner Bryan Cranston) manufacturing and dealing drugs to support his family consistently went in unexpected directions its entire first season. Small wonder, considering it was created by Vince Gilligan, the mad intellect who helped create some of The X-Files’ most memorable episodes.

He's the main character, folks.

5. Is it better to burn out than fade away? Besides Life On Mars, several other shows including Life, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Pushing Daisies are all either cancelled or hearing bells toll for their renewal chances. Watching the slow deaths of other longer-running episodics, such as the ones we’ve come to call Name That Cylon and The Adventures of Ben Linus, Super Genius almost make us feel relieved these good shows will wrap before their creative half-lifes expire.

6. Pixar’s summer-debuting Up has a premise that’s ingenious in its simple whimsy and a trailer promising the same wonder-inspiring visuals as so many of the animation maestros’ other productions. Still, it seems at least initially doomed to become a footnote after last year’s masterpiece Wall*E, an approximate Barry Lyndon to that film’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Though such a dismissal is probably unfair, after Wall*E anyone would deserve a victory lap. And given Up‘s septuagenarian protagonist – a dead ringer for Andy Rooney, to boot – it’s now fairly obvious that the animators aren’t even keeping up the pretense of making children’s films anymore.

Up opens nationwide May 29th.

Flavor Flav does not appear in this movie.

7. Looking farther into the summer, July 1st sees the release of Public Enemies, probably the biggest event of the year for crime movie junkies as well as anyone enamored of white-hot leading men Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. Based on the true-life pursuit of gangster John Dillinger (Depp) by FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Bale), the film’s also directed by crime auteur Michael Mann, meaning lots of structure and veracity in detailing Dillinger’s mythic crime career. Depp looks dashing as all Hell in the production photos that have leaked so far, but Bale has a talent for stealing films from his more celebrated co-stars (Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Colin Farrell), and a supporting cast that includes Marion Cotillard, Billy Crudup and Giovanni Ribisi only sweetens the potential. Consider us stoked.

8. We’ve fired some stiff shots at The Office in blog posts past, but the show’s creative staff really needs to stop making such gripes so plentiful. In particular this season’s saturation with Dwight – a character that in the most versatile of performer’s hands would still only merit small doses - is slowly draining the show of the ensemble charm that was beginning to draw comparisons to classic TV like WKRP In Cincinnati and Cheers. Someone suggested that the creators are building Dwight up for a catastrophic fall. We hope that’s the case, because we miss the warmth and slice-of-life sweetness of earlier seasons. And we miss Amy Ryan a lot, too.

9. Sometimes the library of Blu-Ray titles reminds us of a HBO programming schedule circa 1984. Recent releases on the still-not-quite-America’s-format-of-choice medium include Escape From New York, The French Connection, Amadeus, and Gandhi. But overall Blu-Ray seems at times spasmodically self-sabotaging. Amid the marketing of tons of modern cinema drivel, there’s still no word on such all time classics like Citizen Kane or Lawrence of Arabia, or even modern favorites like Schindler’s List and The Return of the King getting the big blue upgrade. The release timeline will likely (and we hope) follow the same paradoxical model as traditional DVD over the last decade: as the format becomes more mainstream, films of less general appeal will see their release. In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt studios to release some high-profile classics in Blu-Ray now, at a loss, as a sign of good faith to more serious movie collectors.

We’ll return Monday with our review of – what else – Watchmen. Have a good time this weekend at the movies or anywhere else you find yourself.

- Michael Kabel
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DVD Review: Lakeview Terrace

Neil LaBute’s smart thriller debuts on DVD and Blu-Ray tomorrow.

Race divides most Americans, whether in their attitudes to different ethnic groups, the amount of mistrust between those groups, or opinions about how much groups can – or should – celebrate and mimic one another. There’s an old saying that racism begins at home, and the idea that our homes are not only not safe but also the proving ground for many of our failings permeates Lakeview Terrace. It’s a bold and for the most part successful film, even if some thriller movie cliches occasionally allow it to veer into overly familiar territory that weakens its smart intensity.

Samuel L. Jackson, probably America’s most prolific film star, plays veteran LAPD officer Abel Turner, a weary freight train of a man both on the streets and when raising his two teen-aged children in their comfortable suburban home. In previous decades – he explains he bought the house twenty years ago, after grueling years of overtime and extra jobs – such a home probably represented the pinnacle of working class ambition. But unseen and paranoia-fueling troubles (drug dealing, domestic violence, juvenile delinquency) are creeping into the neighborhood, threatening his sense of stability.

When mixed race couple Chris and Lisa Mattson buy the place next door as a “starter house,” Abel is less than pleased. He has his own burning and deep-seated reasons for mistrusting blended couples, fused to a simmering racism that Jackson expresses through controlled, tight body movements. “You don’t see straight,” a white informant tells him early in the film, and the series of hazings he puts the new couple through proves that observation time and again. Abel has a short fuse but tall principles, while the Mattsons are what used to be called Yuppies – impressed with themselves, glib, affluent, confident. They wouldn’t like one another under the best of circumstances. Pressed together, their conflict seems believably unavoidable.

The Mattsons don’t go out of their way to make a good impression, either. They have sex in their pool despite its visibility from neighboring houses. Chris (Patrick Wilson, Hard Candy) flicks cigarette butts into Abel’s yard and leaves his car parked in the street – venial sins in most neighborhoods but not to Abel, whose siege mentality is only reinforced by what he sees on the job. His retaliations are swift but elusive; as a cop, he knows the difference between breaking laws and bending them. The Mattsons, comfortable in their white-collar social bubble, unwisely attempt to communicate with him in the same way they would a peer, not someone from a different walk of life. And the tension escalates even further, growing increasingly violent and acrimonious.

Screenwriters David Loughery and Howard Korder shrewdly stack the script with signs that Chris and Lisa are what’s sometimes euphemistically called “tourists” – people selfishly fascinated with other ethnic groups. Director Neil LaBute (In The Company of Men, The Shape of Things) fleshes out such self-congratulatory “enlightenment” in subtle ways. The Mattsons host a cocktail party for other mixed-race couples, one of whom congratulates Chris for “scoring a black chick.” Lisa designs urban designer clothes for children of all races but cautions her husband that Abel is “a brother.” The young couple doesn’t see anything wrong with their lifestyle – “Society” says it’s okay, and they’re not hurting anyone else. In that respect, they have a valid if only normative point. Abel’s constant and escalating haranguing often seems excessive, but the story and Jackson’s superlative performance always counterbalance that audience reaction with something that makes his behavior understandable if not sympathetic. Good fences make good neighbors, but misunderstandings and wasted opportunities make grudges accumulate.

White light, white heat: Wilson

But all of this has to lead somewhere, and unfortunately the final confrontation between Chris and Abel is nothing that hasn’t been done before – in fact, it’s cliche in any number of ways. The plot twist that establishes the climax is also creaky enough to be heard from your theatre’s lobby. But as with the recent Traitor, the film says something different despite following a well-worn path. LaBute has a long resume of making thought-provoking films that don’t quite have their own ideas sorted out, but here the Gordian Knot of American race relations gives him enough material to provoke without having to comment. A somewhat clumsier exception is the subplot of the wildfires approaching the neighborhood. While an opportunity to provide some breathtaking CGI imagery, the encroaching blaze is pure high school English symbolism, and its use in the climax doesn’t really earn its keep.

Wilson gives a fine performance as Chris, all confused expressions and jangling nerves. With his moist blue eyes and face straight from Greek statuary, he’s the picture of homogeneous Caucasian beauty. Kerry Washington (The Last King of Scotland) makes the most of an underwritten role and comparatively sparse screentime. Ron Glass (Barney Miller, Firefly) is pitch perfect as Lisa’s father, a successful Oakland businessman who’s less than thrilled about his daughter’s provocative marriage. As their benefactor in the house purchase, he’s both resigned but wary: call it Guess Who’s Paying For Dinner? Ultimately, the film’s secret star may be Mychael and Jeff Danna’s haunting, echo-laden score. Sounding both isolated and claustrophobic at the same time, it’s the perfect backdrop for people with virtually nothing in common failing to make peace with one another or even just get along.

- Michael Kabel
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(Note: this review originally appeared for the film’s theatrical release.)

Miscellaneous Debris, September 2008 Edition

Random ideas and observations that maybe aren’t enough to support a full post.

This is probably our favorite picture.

There’s a lot going on in film and TV news right now, what with the fall season heating up and the big prestige Oscar-bait rollouts like Baz Luhrman’s Australia and Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon just around the corner. In fact it’s too much to keep track of all at once, unless you really stick to the Intertubes’ news sites and of course the millions of bloggity blogs on the blogosphere. (What did we do before the advent of the blog? Discuss our opinions with friends?)

So here’s some stuff that’s been piling up in our inbox, things that maybe don’t have enough information or – more importantly – enough of our interest to merit a full posting. There’s no order of importance; we’re just offering opinions here, like all good bloggers.

Casting Depp-arture?: The Riddler

1. A bunch of rumors circulated last month that Johnny Depp was getting courted to play The Riddler if and when Warner Brothers stages a sequel to this summer’s made-more-money-than-Jesus The Dark Knight. As an alternative to Depp (who may have gotten ahead of his talent in that last Pirates sequel) we’d like to suggest someone else who can play both menacing and wacky flavors of crazy. He’s an underrated, underused veteran actor who’d bring a sense of coming full circle to two decades of Batman films. We nominate this guy as the perfect Riddler.

2. The Office season premiere was great last night (Is Holly the new Pam?), but what caught our eye in the commercial breaks was the ad for Zack and Miri Make A Porno, which almost doesn’t advertise that the film is written and directed by Kevin Smith. It’s got Seth Rogen’s and Elizabeth Banks’ faces in almost every frame, but no mention of Smith anywhere except the credits at spot’s end. Would MGM rather the public see Rogen and Banks and assume it’s a Judd Apatow production?

First lady, porn star: Banks

3. Speaking of Banks, she debuts a Texas accent as Laura Bush in the new, funnier trailer for Oliver Stone’s Dubya satire W.  On which, we should mention, it looks like the director did a heckuva job. Josh Brolin has Shrub’s mannerisms bolted down, and the film’s apparent bleak wit couldn’t reach theatres at a better time. The powerhouse cast includes James Cromwell, Ellen Burstyn, Jeffrey Wright, Toby Jones, Thandie Newtwon, Ioan Gruffudd, Scott Glenn, and Noah Wylie.

4. Why aren’t more film scholars and devotees excited about Blu-Ray? Both The Godfather and L.A. Confidential were released on the new format this week. So was Madagascar. Two steps forward, one step back.

5. October wouldn’t be the same without some low-budget horror, and Quarantine looks to be equal parts Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project. Still, the preview’s image of the guy getting sniper-shot for trying to exit the infected building was a new twist that made us jump in our seats. (Yes, putting this item next to the Madagascar animals was intentional.)

6. Continuing his unstoppable rise to guru of the Hot Topic crowd, writer-director Guillermo Del Toro (Hellboy 2: The Golden Army) will release a trilogy of vampire novels written with crime novelist Chuck Hogan. The first chapter will arrive in stores next summer, no doubt accompanied by some kind of premium collector’s edition.

7. The reports saying the ratings for this past Monday’s season premiere of Heroes were down 23 percent over last year’s season opener are kind of missing the bigger picture. Shows like Heroes – and Lost, and Battlestar Galactica – can last forever with a reasonably-sized core audience that’s kept satisfied.

They... they wish they could swim, like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim: the cast of Heroes

Right now it’s the fomerly devoted fans that have to be wooed back, not the casually curious that were tuning in as was likely the case a year ago. With positive reviews steadily sweeping message boards and blogs, the show has a solid fresh start. Not for nothing, but we thought the first two episodes were pretty much exactly what they needed to be.

8. Is anyone else bothered by the new high-resolution imagery used in some current promotional images? Daniel Craig looks vaguely waxen in the new Quantum of Solace poster, and Blake Lively’s tempestuous mane comes across as brittle wire in the Gossip Girl image. For a show about rich teenagers jumping in and out of bed with one another, “lifeless” night not be the ideal connotation.

9. Finally, we’ll probably do a separate piece about the upcoming The Day The Earth Stood Still remake later on, but in the meantime we want to share the trailer now. Keanu Reeves notwithstanding, the ace cast includes Jennifer Connelly, Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm, Kathy Bates, John Cleese, and Battlestar Galactica’s Aaron Douglas. As fans of the original 1951 sci-fi masterpiece, we think Keanu would’ve made a wonderful Gort the Robot; unfortunately, he’s center stage as alien herald Klaatu.

We’ll be back Monday with a review of Eagle Eye. Or, if we wake up feeling hip tomorrow, a review of Choke. Have a better weekend than you normally do.

- Michael Kabel  

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