New In Theaters: Dec 11

Wide Releases:
Invictus: The best looking Rugby movie ever, and as a bonus it finally brings Nelson Mandela to the big screen in what should be the feel good inspirational movie of the year.

Expanding into Wide Release:
The Princess and the Frog: After a 10 year drought, Disney finally returns to the formula that netted them a annual hit from 1989 to 1999, and I only wonder what took them so long.

Limited Releases:
The Lovely Bones: The director of the Lord of the Rings brings us a sharp looking thriller told from the unique point of view of a murder victim watching from the visually stunning afterlife.
Rocket Singh-Salesman of the Year: An everyman comedy coming to us from the exotic land of Bollywood, and unfortunately the trailer while charming, gives us nothing to go on.
A Single Man: A good wordless trailer, but one that leaves us wondering whether the final product can deliver in a meaningful way.
The Slammin' Salmon: Broken Lizards uninspired looking followup to the low brow but mildly funny Beerfest.

Pick of the Week: This is a tough one this week between Invictus and The Lovely Bones. If You asked me which film I thought would be better, the answer would be Invictus. It's a film from a proven director telling a familiar yet powerful story. But that's the problem; it plays it too safe. I know exactly what I'm getting myself into and ultimately that's less interesting than something like The Lovely Bones, which earns my pick of the week. This movie seems to be trying to approach the tired thriller genre from a new perspective. It's trying to tackle a depiction of the afterlife on film and all the metaphysical questions that go with it, and from the looks of its beautiful. But a film with this type of ambition has a much greater chance of falling flat on its face, or at least missing the mark on one or more goals creating an uneven experience. But I don't care because there's also a small chance it gets all right and we have something truly unique and special and magical. And that's why we go to the movies in the first place. Of course, The Lovely Bones has an extremely limited release for a while, so among the wide releases I say go ahead and see Invictus and I can just about guarantee a positive experience.

A Single Man

So this is a really neat wordless trailer. The combination of the images and powerful string music evoke some strong emotional responses. Watching the trailer you really get the feeling that Colin Firth is a man who's life is in flux. He's a depressed man going through some really rough stuff emotionally, and Julianne Moore is there to be his anchor. The thing that keeps him grounded, and maybe just maybe there's a hint of romance there. But the trailer also suggests that Firth is gay in this movie, so there's some interesting conflict there. Really it's a strong trailer that combines strong images with strong music and hints at some powerful themes and internal conflicts, but doesn't give away too much. This intrigues me enough to make me want to see the movie, but they nearly ruined it with all those black screen testimonials.

OK I get it. Colin Firth has a good performance in this movie. I believe it too. No need to hit us over the head with it. Colin Firth is a fine actor and playing a gay man dealing with loss and a flirtation with Julianne Moore is just the type of role that can effortlessly create a powerful emotional response with audiences and critics. Oscar voters rarely go with subtlety they go with either big over the top emotions. Bonus points if that character is based on a real person. So my question is are you advertising to the audience or Oscar voters? Because I don't care if the acting is good if the writing is bad. Only people voting on awards would care if the acting is good, independent of the material. And that's the real worrisome thing about this trailer. The marketers have so little confidence in the material that they feel they need to sell the movie with quotes about how good the acting is. Not even quotes about how good the movie is,(except for one)but quotes on the acting.

Now it makes me think that the decision to make it a wordless trailer is more than just a fun stylistic choice. It makes me think that maybe the script wasn't strong enough for the marketers to find dialogue worth highlighting. I contend that you could find 2 minutes of neat images from any movie, put it to good music and create a decently entertaining 2 minute trailer.

That doesn't mean this is a bad trailer. It still has potential to be excellent. There are undeniably some great images in there that hint at great things, but be warned. The things they didn't show you can be just as telling. No dialogue. No plot. My expectations for this one are very modest. It has the tell tale signs of being a trailer that's better than the film its advertising.

Alice In Wonderland

I have a bone to pick with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp and It's name is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The original turned a classic children's book into a wonderful, whimsical, yet darkly funny cinema classic. That film had enchanting visuals, some wonderful music, and a performance by Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka that was in a word brilliant. He was a mean, cold, arrogant man, played with a charming warmth and wit. A classic performance. And then Tim Burton decided he wanted to remake the story and he almost got it right. It was a visual tour de force. Really something else to look at and it had a number of fun musical numbers, but then they had to go ahead and ruin it with their interpretation of Willy Wonka. All of a sudden a beloved character that used to be played with depth and subtlety and charm, is instead an annoying Micheal Jackson parody, played with all the subtlety of a jackhammer. I get it; he has daddy issues. Want to hit us over the head with it? OK thanks. All of his character traits end up being played in the same annoying obvious way and it really sullied an otherwise well made film for me.

Now Burton and Depp are back, tackling yet another remake of a classic film adopted from a classic children's book. And again it looks like the visuals are out of this world. Magical yet quite a bit frightening and off putting. From the look of it, Alice is now in her late teens or early twenties and that is a very exciting decision. Hopefully this means the film will tackle themes and subjects relevant to the life of a young women, which is a fresh approach as these types of stranger in a fantasy world stories are often metaphors for childhood issues. I can see this being a unique and thrilling tale about a young women finding her voice, her place in the world. The potential for a great movie seems to be here, but I'm worried that Burton will overplay his hand. It seems all too possible to me that Burton will go overboard. Overindulge with the acting and the visuals. Overemphasize the themes he wants to highlight. These are all problems shared by Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. Instead I think he'd be better off using a more underhanded, subtle approach. Letting things work together seamlessly, and seemingly effortlessly. But its not what I'm expecting.

My expectations may be modest but I'm willing to give this one the benefit of the doubt just to check out what are sure to be fun and exciting visuals. As one last final note before I sign off I'd like to this opportunity to recommend what may be my favorite entry in the stranger in a fantasy world genre. The excellent Pan's Labyrinth. It's a frightening but very powerful movie with some of the most unique creature designs in all of cinema.

A Christmas Story and Gifts for Film Lovers

Well it's the midst of the Christmas shopping season, so get your wallets ready, put a smile on your face and head to the mall where you try to figure out what to give the people on your list that you only see on Holidays. Stressful, I know, but at least there are crowds to cheer you up. No, you don't like crowds? But hey there's Santa. You're too old to sit on Santa's lap? Too bad. At least when you get home you can dust off your copy of A Christmas Story, and put it in the DVD player to remind you why we give gifts in the first place.

Before I continue let me take a second to say A Christmas Story is my favorite Christmas movie ever, and I'm quite a sucker for Christmas movies. It evokes a flawless a sense of childhood nostalgia, Americana, and Christmas spirit all in one tidy little, and very funny package. But this isn't a post on the brilliance of A Christmas Story, it's a post about gift giving. So where were we...Oh right what A Christmas Story teaches us about why we give gifts.

The Children. Ralphie's sense of anticipation and want is something truly magical. Being a child on Christmas morning is awesome, sprinting down the stairs to discover a pile of present. Things you've been asking for and dreaming about for a month. Stuff you've been good for. But it's also something uniquely for children. Movies like A Christmas Story do a good job of evoking the Christmas spirit through a child's eye, but it doesn't even come close to the wonder of being a kid during the Christmas season. Can you imagine an adult getting as excited about anything as Ralphie gets for his BB gun? It just doesn't happen. So we give gifts to Children and its awesome and magical and special, but why do adults give gifts to each other on Christmas? It's stressful and expensive and certainly not magical. I don't know why, but if it were up to me we'd abolish the practice. There's just too many issues that make it a shallow and stressful gesture.

The first problem is that when an adult wants something, like really wants it, they just go ahead and buy it. Unless they can't afford it, but the tradition of giving equal value gifts means you gift giver wouldn't be able to buy it for you anyways. This means you can't buy people something they really want. But of course you want the person you're buying for to like their gift, so you need to buy something they'd like but not want. This is starting to get tricky but its still doable. OK, but what happens when you don't know the person well enough that you don't have intimate knowledge of their tastes and preferences, their likes and dislikes. I'll admit to having some people amongst my friends and family, people I buy gifts for, that I don't know that well. People I love. People I genuinely look forward to celebrating the holidays with. I just don't know, say, whether they like their sweaters in blue or green. So now we need to buy something that our gift target doesn't want, but would nonetheless enjoy, despite not knowing what they like. This is starting to look impossible, and that's not even factoring in we usually have a fairly modest budget to work with. So what's the solution?

Gift cards seem to solve the problem, but upon closer examination are totally inadequate. If two people exchange gift cards or cash of equal value to spend as they please, wouldn't it be easier if they just didn't exchange gifts. If I give you a twenty dollar bill, and you give me one at the same moment, we might as well have kept our wallets in our pocket. Gift cards are a shallow substitute for cash so the same principle applies. Really the same principle applies for any gift with a stated face value. There's something to be said for its the thought that counts. Even a bad present shows thought even if it was misguided. A gift card shows none. Boy, now I know why they spike the egg nog.

Below is my attempt to help you pick a gift for the film lover in your life. Because this time of year we all need all the help we can get.

A DVD or Blu-Ray movie: This is good, but it can be tricky. First you need to know whether or not the film lover in your life collects DVD's. I, for one, watch most of my movies at home using a rental subscription service, so If someone bought me a DVD, its not a gift that has much value to me. Some film lovers take pride in a large collection of DVD's, so this can be a great gift but you need to know what they already own, which can be quite extensive. You also need to have a pretty good idea of what type of movies they enjoy. You can always use Rotten Tomatoes to pick a well reviewed movie, but its not a foolproof solution. As a bonus the gift scales well to all budgets. You can buy a bargain bin title for under 10 USD, a new release for between 20 and 30 dollars, or a collection for much more.

Blu-Ray Player: Good. Just make sure they don't have one already. Also relatively expensive. 150 USD and up.

TV/Surround Sound System: Needs to be better than what they already own. Prohibitively expensive.

Movie Tickets: Has the face value/gift card problem, but can work in a pinch, if you can't do any better. But you should try.

Stovetop Popper/Air Popper: I think this is a great gift. Stovetop popcorn is infinitely superior to the microwave BS, and who doesn't like popcorn with their movies. You'd be surprised to find out how few people own one, especially young people, who have grown up on the microwave BS. Package it with some nice gourmet popcorn and you've got a real nice and affordable gift. 20-30 USD. Get an oil-free air popper if you're buying for someone a little more health conscious.

Movie Memorabilia: This can be awesome. A lot of film lovers will get a kick out of a lot of movie related collectibles. Things like one-sheets or props. This is hard stuff to shop for and can be expensive. It will involve doing some light research especially if you don't want to get ripped off on Ebay. I would recommend staying away from action figures or anything too toy-like unless you know they're already a collector. It's also going to suck when you buy the big film buff in your life an awesome expensive framed authentic movie poster, and they never put it up because maybe their spouse decorates and finds that tacky. Tread carefully; you're going to want to be certain they'll want to display your gift, otherwise its a big fail. Make sure there is a spot in their house where your gift will be appropriate and you could hit this out of the park, but there's a lot of risk.

Hope I helped and happy shopping!

Invictus

I admit it. I'm a sucker for Hollywood's inspirational sports story. I don't care that it may be one of the most overused Hollywood story archetypes of all time. I don't care that Invictus will be released a mere 21 days after another inspirational sports story The Blind Side. And I'm not the only one either. Hollywood honored Rocky over the masterful Taxi Driver at the 1977 Oscars. The key to the genres success is the strong emotional resonance of the underdog. I don't think there's a person alive who hasn't at some point in their life felt like an underdog. There's a great emotional payoff to watching the underdog overcome his obstacles and not only succeed, but excel. It makes us feel like we can can overcome any puny obstacles in our life. It's like watching a version of ourselves succeed on screen. That's enough to get me to watch a film and enjoy it, but it's not enough to make the film truly worth recommending. Something needs to set it apart. It needs to raise the stakes.

Invictus tells the story of Nelson Mandella putting the unity of his country on the outcome of the World Cup. Uniting his country, black and white, behind rooting for this team. And the only way for that happen is for the team to win. That means every hit, pass, and scrum has the weight of a country's race relations behind it. Those are quite some stakes, and has the potential to create some truly exciting and powerful on and off field action. It truly matters; they're playing for more than just a trophy. It's more than just an underdog story; it's an underdog story that matters. This might just be the feel good movie of the awards season. That in combination with Eastwood at the helm should make it a contender for an Oscar. Expect an emotionally powerful crowd pleaser.

One more interesting note on the trailer. Where was Clint Eastwood's name? Doesn't his work over the past decade earn him the right to be featured in the film's marketing right alongside Damon and Freeman? His films have been perennial Oscar contenders since 2003, and the only mention of his name is at the end of the trailer during the credits screen. Does Hollywood think Eastwood has been too much of an art house director in recent years to sell a mainstream inspirational sports story? When this one opens to a smaller audience than the very similar The Blind Side, despite having 2 stars instead of one, and weaker competition, and a more interesting premise, I'll be the one saying I told you so.

New In Theaters: Dec 4

Welcome to the first edition of my weekly feature, New In Theaters. The goal is to let readers know what's coming out in any given week, as well as let you know what I think is worth seeing based on the trailers. Each film gets a one sentence trailer review, and all titles link to either their trailer on an external site, or the appropriate blog entry.

Wide Releases:
Armored: Typical Hollywood thriller/heist gone wrong movie, with nothing to distinguish this one from the pack.
Brothers: This looks to be an overly dramatic bid to earn its three main actors, Oscar nominations.
Everybody's Fine: Just because you put a lot of famous people in a movie doesn't mean it'll be any good; you need more than that to impress me and this trailer doesn't have it.
Transylmania: Eurotrip with vampires.

Limited Releases:
Serious Moonlight: Looks to be a moderately amusing but entirely forgettable movie you take a date to.
Up In Air: Reitman's excellent looking followup to Juno.

Pick of the Week: Up In Air. It looks to be a stylish comedy with a heart and a brain. Plus it's got the super talented, charismatic Mr. Clooney as the star. I can't see this one being bad. Roger Ebert says this one is a favorite to take win Best Picture. Too bad it's in a super limited release and most of us will have until Christmas to check it out. Among wide releases my top pick is Brothers. Sure this one looks to be a pretty shallow attempt to earn its leads acting nominations. Sure it looks like every emotional note in the film will be cranked up to 11, with no variance or subtlety, but at least it looks like it's trying to be good, which is more than I can say for the other wide releases this week. The rest look like shallow commerical fare, which is even less interesting than shallow Oscar bait.

Zodiac

Zodiac is a film that came out a couple of year ago that I missed while it was in theaters. I regret that. It is an excellent film in my opinion, but I'm having trouble convincing my friends of that. Normally I would just attribute that to poor taste, and move on, but when I asked my one friend why he disliked the movie, he gave me two reasons. The first is that he thought the film was boring, and not much happens. I think this stems from its two and half hour running length and significant lack of murders for a serial killer movie. Of course its not really a serial killer movie, its a true crime movie, and a gripping fascinating one at that. The second reason he gave was the films unsatisfying ending. Before I continue to discuss the ending, I need to go divulge a small spoiler, that's not really a spoiler so feel free to keep reading. They never catch the Zodiac Killer. The case remains unsolved. Now seeing as how this is a very famous case that quite literally played out in the newspapers, David Fincher expects you to know this coming in. Except if you weren't around in the late 60's there's a good chance you might not know this, and this could sully your experience with the film. And ultimately that's why I think this excellent movie bombed with audiences. People were coming in with misinformed expectations and when the movie didn't deliver the experience they paid for, they felt unsatisfied. For this we can blame the trailer.

The trailer sells this movie as Hollywood thriller. It's not. Fear is one of the many emotions and themes this film addresses but it doesn't do it in the typical Hollywood fashion, by putting our hero in overtly dangerous situations. It's more subtle than that, and in the end more effective. Expect this movie to stay with you. Isn't a serial Killer that doesn't get caught a lot scarier than that does? Don't confuse subtle with boring.

Now about the ending. The typical Hollywood ending has the good guy catch the bad guy. It comes with very visceral, satisfying feeling. Hollywood knows this. That's why at the end of Dirty Harry, which is also loosely based on the Zodiac Killer, Harry kills Scorpio, the stand in for Zodiac. That's all great, and makes for a fun movie, but its Hollywood escapism. The hero gets the girl, and good triumphs over evil. It's just not what Zodiac is. It's a film that tries to be more honest, and it tackles complex and sometimes unpleasant emotions. It provides you with a puzzle that still missing a few pieces. We have most of the picture, but not all of it. That's incredibly frustrating, not only for us but for the main character. And since the frustration of obsession is a major theme in this movie, the ending seemed appropriate to me, and very effective. And honest. Sometimes we sink a lot of hours into something we feel is important, only for it to never really pan out. That's a tough and risky theme to try to capture in a movie, but I think Zodiac pulls it off.

And imagine how the filmmakers must feel after sinking countless man hours into this production, using an incredible amount of attention to detail in recreating the look and feel of Zodiac era Northern California, only to have the film bomb at the box office, because the movie was marketed poorly. Must suck.

Up In Air

So, This is the movie I'm most looking forward to this awards season. Juno was probably my favorite film of 2007, and Thank You For Smoking is one of my favorite satires of all time. Add in George Clooney, who's an actor with an inhuman amount of charisma. Even in bad movies Clooney is very watchable, and we have no hints that this will be a bad movie. This film appears to be a character study/comedy hybrid which is something we don't see very often. Usually character studies in Hollywood are part of an overly self important, super serious drama. Reitman's sharp comedic timing, and expert pacing should allow what could be a tiresome story about a loner learning the value of having relationships in his life. Of course I expect the script to have more depth than that, and I expect Clooney's character to be satisfyingly complex, but even if it was that tiresome Hollywood story, I expect I'd be entertained.

I can't think of a film in recent memory whose soundtrack so brilliantly helped to set the tone of a movie than Juno's. In any other movie, the Kimya Dawson soundtrack would most certainly "too indie" but in Juno it helped complement Diablo Cody's offbeat dialogue to create a truly unique world. Up in Air looks to continue this tradition with 3 truly great songs throughout the trailer that all just feel right. It's hard to explain why they feel so perfect, but they do. The last song in particular, with its upbeat tempo, but decidedly melancholy feel is just spot on.

When Juno came out, there was a lot of discussion about how awesome the acting was, how much depth the script had, and how good the directing was I think people forgot how funny it was. It seems Juno was a better all around movie, then it was a straight comedy, and Up In Air looks to be following in the same mold. A great movie that just happens to be funny, but damn does it have potential to be incredibly funny. Zach Galifianakis freaking out was very humorous, and the exchange about old people and Asians in the airport displayed some very clever writing and made me laugh out loud. Now, there's a good chance I'm setting myself up for disappointment but even its only half the movie Juno was, this could end up being one of the best of the year.

Toy Story 3

I love Pixar. Up, Wall-E, Ratatouille, and the Incredibles are some of my favorite movies ever. With that said, I am a little disappointed to see that next summer's movie is a sequel as oppose to another original title. Now with that said, the trailer looks excellent. If recent Pixar efforts are anything to go by, we should be able to expect several things. The first is for the movie to tell a great story with strong emotional resonance. The story as outlined in the trailer is set up to deal with a number of issues. The most interesting one here involves the struggle to make new friends and relationships after your friends/children move away or go to college. That sense of abandonment or loneliness when someone close moves on with their lives and you're left behind. This is a pretty mature subject for a family movie to handle well, but recent Pixar has a proven track record in handling mature themes well.

The second thing I look for in a Pixar release is great humor. Buzz Lightyear telling the other toys not to be hysterical and the exchange that follows is very funny, ending with the piggy banks great line about checking their prices on Ebay. Spanish Buzz Lightyear is an inspired concept, and the toddlers physically abusing the toys was great. I have no worries that this film won't be funny.

Lastly we can expect Pixar films to look and sound great. Here I'm a little disappointed. Yeah, the trailer looks and sounds great, but its the same look as the prequels. There's nothing new about the films style except that its in 3D which isn't even new seeing as how Toy Story 1&2 were recently re-released in 3D. And amongst recent Pixar Toy Story 3 just doesn't match up. It's nothing compared to Wall-E's beautiful outer space, and strangely beautiful trashed Earth. Or Up's already iconic image of the house and balloons.

It's a sequel, but as long as Pixar can find new and exciting stories to explore with these supremely entertaining characters I'll keep watching. Most sequels grow tiring because they retread the same ideas and themes. For the most part Toy Story 2 avoided that and Toy Story 3 is looking to explore new territory as well. Truly excellent stuff.

Avatar

Avatar is a 400 million dollar picture, and I'm not quite sure that money is being put to good use. From this trailer I'm not at all convinced that you couldn't use actors in makeup shooting on location to create an equal if not superior effect. Is the green screen and motion capture necessary to service the story? I doubt it. In fact with all my previous experiences with motion capture (think Robert Zemeckis), the motion capture technology is strictly inferior to real human faces emoting. Maybe that changes with this movie. Maybe those computer generated faces will be just as good as a real face(and while they certainly look good in the trailer, they don't try to do much emoting) but that brings us back to the question of, why? If a computer generated, motion captured face can only hope to be as good as a real face and never surpass it, why not just use a real face in makeup.

The other part of this huge budget is that the entire alien planet is rendered in a computer. None of it is real. Now it seems to me that for story purposes the important element is that it is an alien world. Shouldn't the film makers be able to create an alien world using locations and sets on earth. Especially a world that is mostly jungle, something we have plenty of on our beautiful planet. Well so what if the movie doesn't use special effects to service the story, the trailer certainly proves they use it well for the spectacle of it all, isn't that good enough. It is, well except to maybe 20th Century Fox whose accountants probably weep over the cost of this thing. But Camerons last blockbuster grossed over 600 million domestically so potential is there. The risk creatively is that too much spectacle will distract from the meat of the story.

Lets talk about the story for a second before we continue discussing the look of the film. The trailer features a lot of relatively interesting plot, but little in the way of interesting characters which worries me. From what I can tell, the plot of this movie is roughly: Mankind wants to loot alien planet for resources, but those pesky natives get in the way. Mankind sends in a marine in the body of one the aliens to find a diplomatic solution. That man falls in love with a pretty alien girl and has second thoughts about his mission. Mankind invades anyways. The marine fights for the aliens. There are some interesting parallels here to current and past events the film can explore as well as some interesting themes about culture, war, and race that could also be explored. The problem is that the film seems to to side with aliens almost exclusively, casting the invading humans as the bad guys. There's no ambiguity, and that is just less interesting to me than a movie that makes you think about things from both sides. The other issue here is that there if the parallels to recent US invasions is too obvious and the film is too one sided, then it could end up feeling preachy, which is something I hate in my blockbuster Sci-Fi pictures.

Now the main character as displayed in the trailer seems alarmingly bland. Zero personality. One of the other characters basically makes a crack about it, "Just relax and let your mind go blank, shouldn't be hard for you." Movies with dull main characters always struggle to entertain over the course of two hours and the supporting cast seems to do little better, albeit we see little of them in the course of the trailer. This makes me nervous but 3 and half minutes isn't a long time to develop a character so...

But boy does the film look pretty. Pandora is gorgeous. The action looks exciting, and the score is appropriately epic. The sense of scale is fantastic; this truly feels like a big movie. My only complaint about the look of the film is that Cameron's aliens look like blue monkey people. A goofy looking design in a movie that does not at all seem goofy. I'll get over it and get used to them over the course of the two hour movie, (I don't know if that's the actual running time; I just assume all movies are two hours until I learn otherwise.) but for a movie that looks so great elsewhere the character design is a weak point.

I know I've been awfully critical of the trailer, but don't think I won't be sitting in the audience with my goofy 3D classes because I still haven't talked about the most effective part of the trailer. The part where it tells me its from James Cameron the director of Terminator, Aliens, T2, True Lies, and Titanic. That's quite a resume. I'm willing to give this one my $7.50

On a final note about 3D: This will surely be the way I see the film because its the way the director intends I see it, but there is nothing about the format that impresses me. 3D can be just as pretty as 2D but never prettier, just like Color isn't necessarily better than B&W. Just different, and probably a waste of money, but hey what else are you going to spend 400 million dollars on 20th Century Fox.