In theaters.

No one slums with so much style as director Steven Soderbergh. The Ocean’s movies, for example, are far more aesthetically polished than any star-studded trifle really needs to be, but that, of course, is part of what makes them so charming. In fact, I secretly prefer frivolous Soderbergh to serious Soderbergh. His sleek manner can come across as cold when he’s dealing with some substance, but it’s just cool everywhere else.

Haywire, his latest, isn’t comedic like Ocean’s or sexy like Out of Sight (my personal favorite)—and it’s not on their level—but it’s fun all the same and just as impeccably put together as the man’s films always are. Plus, the conceit is great: Soderbergh and screenwriter Lem Dobbs set out to make a vehicle for mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano by catering to her strengths (looking tough, kicking the snot out of people) and underplaying her weaknesses (emoting, delivering extensive dialogue, maybe acting in general). Transcendent it’s not, but as tight, hard-boiled B-movies go, it’s terrific.

Continue reading →

In theaters.

The most intractable disagreements are those in which each party believes himself to be the true victim, the one most deserving of an apology. A Separation dramatizes that essential truth as well as any film I’ve ever seen, and it does so by playing fair. The four adults at odds in Asghar Farhadi’s moving domestic drama all have legitimate grievances, even as they also have all contributed to the destructive mire in which they find themselves.

It’s a lose-lose mess, but although A Separation is poignant and sad, it’s not depressing. Farhadi’s careful unspooling of his tale keeps the movie from wallowing. In fact, the movie is outright suspenseful, perfectly paced, both tense and thoughtful, and the actors are so talented and quietly expressive that watching them is a joy, even in an unhappy context.

Continue reading →

In theaters.

For decades, director Martin Scorsese has been a dedicated film preservationist and an enthusiastic cheerleader for early cinema, but Hugo may be the first time he has aimed his pro–silent movie message squarely at children. It’s an odd moral for kids (as opposed to film students or cinephiles), and it makes for an odd film: broad in its style and messaging and self-indulgent in its pacing, yet also magnificently cinematic in Scorsese’s inimitable way and charmingly earnest about its subject matter. The idiosyncratic result sometimes plods, but more often it takes flight, particularly after it begins its exploration of the extraordinary films of Georges Méliès. I’m not sure whether I would have enjoyed Hugo as a child, but as an adult, I eventually fell under its spell.

Continue reading →

In theaters.

Back in college, a friend of Sean’s used a particular phrase to describe mushy emotional subplots that interrupted otherwise comedic or suspenseful movies: “feelings and woman crap.” It’s completely asinine, but the term nonetheless has become something of a running gag for Sean and me—partly because it’s such a parody of stupid offensiveness that it becomes kind of funny and partly because, loath as I am to blame such nonsense on women, the poor storytelling Sean’s friend was describing is so widespread that it’s useful to have a shorthand way to identify it.

In any case, when Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol (that punctuation—kill me now!) came off its awesome action high with ten endless minutes of tell-don’t-show melodrama, I left the theater muttering “feelings and woman crap” under my breath despite myself, and Sean grinned knowingly. For the most part, Protocol is a expertly constructed thrill ride, but even virtuoso director Brad Bird can’t do anything about the leaden display of feeeeeeeeelings, especially when Tom Cruise’s self-satisfied rictus of a smile comes into play.

Continue reading →

On DVD.

Does The Ghost Writer qualify as a roman à clef? The premise—a former British prime minister has become a loathed public figure for his support of controversial American efforts in the Middle East and the “War Against Terror”—is obviously meant to evoke Tony Blair, and the movie features obvious stand-ins for Cherie Blair, Condoleezza Rice, and Halliburton, among others. But it progresses in such a loopy, paranoid way that even I—not exactly a huge fan of the CIA or Cheney-linked defense contractors—could only shake my head in a daze.

In lesser hands, the whole thing might not have ranked much higher than a dopey “ripped from the headlines” episode of Law & Order. But it’s not in lesser hands; it’s in the hands of Roman Polanski, who, despite being a repugnant human being, is a brilliant director. Consequently, The Ghost Writer is a far better movie than it has any right to be: tense and pointed, with finely layered performances and a haunting air of exile. (I try not to think too hard about that last bit.)

Continue reading →

In theaters.

Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive is a meticulously composed, sleekly stylized film. The problem for me is that its style isn’t really to my taste. Knocking a movie is easy when it sports obvious flaws, when it feels awkward or haphazard or just plain stupid, but Drive is none of those things. Every line, every shot, every sound cue and beat feels extraordinarily purposeful. I understand the thinking behind some of the aesthetic choices even when that aesthetic doesn’t appeal to me, which makes assessing it remarkably difficult. Do I respect Drive? Yes, absolutely. Did I enjoy Drive? Well, sometimes. It’s a fascinating, frustrating, bewitching, disquieting work. I’m glad I saw it, and I never want to see it again.

Continue reading →

In theaters.

Imagining how another director might have handled Contagion is a fun thought experiment. The subject matter—a highly communicable and deadly flu virus sweeping the globe—is the stuff of shrieking headlines and showy thrillers. Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men) might have given the movie a gritty, grimy look with a panicky moving camera and a grim air. J.J. Abrams (Star Trek) might have created a glossy sheen with a few bravura action sequences and an underlying streak of sentimentality. Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum) might have made it unbearably tense and hyper-realistic and fast-moving. Michael Bay (Transformers: Dark of the Moon) might have, I don’t know, lustily panned up the legs of a Victoria’s Secret model and blown a lot of shit up.

But Steven Soderbergh directs Contagion, and he brings his typical coolly imperturbable style to a story from which one expects perturbance, so to speak. The tone of the movie often feels oddly detached from the terror and death onscreen, as if we’re looking over the shoulder of a disinterested (but not uninterested) alien. That keeps Contagion from being thrilling, but it also keeps the movie from being sensationalistic, and without a frantic buzz, the movie is able to explore quieter moments behind the scenes and offstage entirely. Paradoxically, its very detachment makes it humane.

Continue reading →

In theaters.

The title makes it clear that this is a zero-sum game. We have only one planet, and if the apes are taking over, it stands to reason to humanity is rapidly losing ground. In short, Rise of the Planet of the Apes depicts an apocalyptic event. It should be depressing (think every post-nuclear movie ever), yet it isn’t because human beings aren’t the true protagonists here. Rise is ultimately about the apes, and as such, it’s darkly triumphant, a feel-good twist on a familiar post-apocalyptic story. Rise might not be a great movie, but it’s a hell of a lot more fun than I expected.

Continue reading →

In theaters.

Countless action movies feature villains more interesting and compelling than their heroes, and frankly, that’s what I expected from Captain America: The First Avenger. I assumed Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, would be a humorless, goody-goody straight-arrow fighting a nefarious but amusingly snarky bad guy of some sort. I was wrong. Yes, Steve is an upstanding square, but he’s got more charm than I expected, and even if he’s not the jokey type, he seems to appreciate jokes, which keeps him from becoming annoyingly starchy and prim. In this movie, the annoying starchiness is left to the villain: Johann Schmidt, a.k.a. Red Skull, who is almost completely lacking in character motivation besides the basic fact that he is Evil with a capital E.

The truly vibrant color, though, belongs not to Steve or Red Skull but to the supporting players: the affable, insightful mad-scientist-to-the-good-guys Dr. Erskine; the gruff, blunt military man Col. Phillips; and the brilliant, smooth-talking industrialist Howard Stark. Those are the fun characters and—together with the not-as-dull-as-he-could-have-been Steve and Joe Johnston’s surprisingly brisk, forward-pushing direction—they make Captain America a passably entertaining summer blockbuster.

Continue reading →

In theaters.

I suppose I’ve come around to David Yates. Director Alfonso Cuarón’s adaptation of Prisoner of Azkaban probably will always be remembered as the most artful Harry Potter movie (and I wouldn’t dispute that), but Yates’s work on the final four films of the series is far from second-rate. Yes, Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows, Part 1 and 2 are somewhat uneven, occasionally lurching forward when they should pause and dragging when they should race ahead; they also can set a mood, build a riveting action sequence, and create a perfect, evocative image. They are, in short, cinematic, not just perfunctory dramatizations of the books—which, frankly, is probably all they needed to be to make untold billions of dollars. Yet Yates clearly aspired to more than that, and it shows, even in the weaker moments. I don’t love the movies, but since Yates took over, they’ve consistently been much better than I expect.

Continue reading →