Month: September 2012

Robust characters facing tricky decisions of not only survival, but greater than life-and-death moral choices, provide an edgy crust to Rian Johnson’s highly entertaining action time travel flick, Looper. Johnson (the delightful Brick, the beguiling The Brothers Bloom) instantly enters the Christopher Nolan-realm of directors with just his third film. Totally in control, he bobs and weaves Looper between sheer visceral thrills and more thoughtful notions as he finally even whips up a loftier than might be expected ending devoid of clumsiness.

It’s 2044, see, and time travel has no sooner been invented than it quickly becomes outlawed. Of course, the no-good criminals of the future get a hold of it and dispense with sending their unlucky victims to the past (roughly our present) for a quick hit job, performed by “Loopers.” One such Looper is Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who lives high on the hog but is constantly on the edge. Seems our future mobsters don’t like any loose ends so after their Looper hitmen reach a certain age they themselves become the hunted in an effort to “close the loop.” It’s when a Looper is ordered to take out his own future self that things get complicated. Only problem: if that future self is Bruce Willis, closing the loop isn’t going to be easy. Having a whole lot at stake, he’s not exactly cooperative.

Willis isn’t the only wily veteran actor capable of cutting through whatever nonsense is in front of him. Dropped into the present from the future, Jeff Daniels is outstanding as the enforcer who oversees any irregularities in the ordered assassinations. Tough as nails would be too meek a description of this guy. He doesn’t even need the gray and depressing industrial warehouse prop he calls home to establish his nastiness. It’s only when Willis comes on the screen a little later that we realize the bearded and too-calm -to-be-nice Daniels just may just be only the second meanest dude in this movie.

The two Joes finally meet in a diner. No matter they look about as alike as Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. What follows is a hilarious scene that summarily intends to put to rest any technical difficulties the viewer is having with the film’s arrogant if brilliant conception and ensuing plot plausibility. Given Willis’ force of character, it largely works. Dispensing our concern for a nuts and bolts dissection of the film’s believability is an essential ingredient for getting the most out of Johnson’s gritty fun. Excuse me while I just enjoy the film, thank you. Why analyze time travel when it can be strikingly used a set-up for bigger and better sensations? And what a jaunty ride Levitt and Willis provide. They don’t exactly see eye to eye on a plan of action. My, my how Joe has changed in 30 years! How will these two manifestations of the same guy, as different as oil and water, reconcile things?

Leave it to a very believable single-mom farmer gal with a gun and a young son. Her introduction fails to diffuse the film’s pluck the way a a tacked-on romantic interest could, but actually steps it up a notch. The dramatic dilemma presented by this wood chopping gal played by an excellent Emily Blunt (is it me or has she done at least half-dozen films this year?) rings true as a bell. Seems she may be harboring a future take-over-the-world despot in that very son, who will scare the hell out of you. This refreshingly enriches things, allowing Looper to transcend its very good action movie roots, evolving into a more rarefied plane reserved for films that successfully embrace a certain humanity. Both ticklingly taut and mercifully moving, Looper bridges the gap between the summer’s popcorn movies and the autumn’s more elevated fare. Johnson performs the rare feat of combining the best of both worlds.

4 I-Am-You-and-You-Are-Me-And-We-Are-Both-Bruce-Willis’s (out of 5)

Freddie Quell (an amazing Joaquin Phoenix) gets out of the navy after WWII and he’s all twisted. We meet him humping a doll made out of sand on the beach at Iwa Jima, looking like he’s ready to snap. Discharged, he answers a shrink’s Rorschach blot questions with a string of all-genitalia answers, and makes moonshine-like punches out of liquor plus fun things like dark room chemicals and paint thinner. He not only acts demented but he looks it: stooped over, squinted eyes, a demeanor lifeless and agitated at the same time.

After a job as a department store photographer ends when Freddie attacks a customer (in a scene that captures the moment as only director Paul Thomas Anderson can), he almost kills a co-worker at a farm job with one of his liquid punches and seems doomed. He sneaks onto a docked ship that looks interesting since well-off people are visibly partying. Instead of getting thrown out, he gets introduced to the ship’s “Commander,” one Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman, never better). If the adage that opposites attract were true, you’d look no further than these two guys. Dodd, a Scientology-like cult leader, is just as much a slick salesman as an insightful theoretician. What does he see in Freddie–a tough as nails target for his “processing,” a technique replete with confrontational, face-to-face grilling meant to cleanse the subject of harmful past memories? Or is there a man-to-man bond illuminated by the catalyst of Freddie’s potion, which Dodd devours as enthusiastically as he does devotees of his “The Cause.” One of his enthusiastic followers, played by Laura Dern, gets quickly disenchanted when Dodd changes the target of his therapeutic purging from “memories” to “dreams” (so much for reality-based). He briefly loses his temper with her but nowhere near as seriously as Freddie repeatedly loses his in attempting to “Quell” any naysayers with hotheaded fisticuffs. Sceptics abound since The Cause entails past life regression, grueling techniques that mine psychotherapy and improvisational theater, and little scientific reason.

Hoffman, confident and omniscient in his processing exercises, pulls a fast one now and then as he belts out corny songs in the middle of scenes when you least expect it. It’s like Bjork in Dancer In The Dark, but unlike that film, this one makes perfect sense. In fact, the first half of The Master is as good as any film you will see this year. What we have in the second half is part increasingly subtle dual character study, and part a slowed down, not fully realized hollowness that doesn’t always seem to take hold. Suffice it to say The Master finally provokes a response to take a closer look beneath its surface, to check again, hone out a new angle that might have been missed. The film comes to end in a proverbial whimper after having banged us out of our senses for a stretch. No complaints here. Anderson does Atmosphere like he invented it. Long after the ironic period songs of Jo Stafford, Helen Forrest and Ella Fitzgerald subside, his Freddie and Lancaster are two characters who will long stay etched in the memory– two powder kegs refusing to defuse, ultimately impervious to change.

4 Delusions of Grandeur and Debauchery (out of 5)

Clint Eastwood, ridiculed in real-life performance-art politics, turns in an ironically seasoned and mature performance as an old coot baseball scout in Trouble With The Curve. The possibly very real dotiness the empty chair worshipper recently displayed in Florida, is only make believe here. He faces bigger battles with macular degeneration and a resentful daughter (Amy Adams) who against her better judgment comes to his aid while he’s on an important scouting assignment. Eastwood, 81, takes the scurrilous malcontent character he played in Gran Torino to another level. Often dangerously close to cartoonish, he does a commendable jog of reigning it in. Corniness and cloying script turns rely on a solid chemistry between Eastwood and Adams to close the game. Ultimately a winner, the movie plays better if you leave your common sense in the lobby.

WIsely released a few weeks before, but not during, the Major League Playoffs, Trouble With The Curve (directed by first-time director Robert Lorenz) should harbor no illusions regarding the identity of its director. No one should mistake it for Mystic River or Million Dollar Baby. Yet it’s a bona fide treat to watch the always underrated actor Eastwood. His scenes with Adams, who’s a delight here, resound with authenticity and keep the entertainment quotient high. She plays a lawyer who despite an imminent big case that could very well decide her being made a partner, decides to surprise her dad, while he’s on an equally important mission that could decide his own job fate. Turns out she knows a lot of baseball, which despite her dad keeping his distance as she grew up, seeped into her consciousness. Justin Timberlake plays a cocky scout who’s along to provide a romantic interest. Despite his charisma to burn, the cheesiness of his scenes with Adams serve to highlight the comparative quality of her scenes with Eastwood.

The baseball stuff here tries big stretches of our patience, yet also is not without a certain winsomeness. The reliable John Goodman is Eastwood’s director of scouting and friend and protector. They both fight what seems a losing battle with the technological changes in scouting, represented by a new breed of scout who would rather digest stats online than attend games. Painted in large strokes just short of paint-by-number, the film adds a laugh or a dramatic insight soon enough to cure our indigestion. When cliches sting like gopher balls, good old fashioned charm throws a welcome changeup. If the film just misses the playoffs, it’s not due to its Hollywood ending but its sometimes painful play by play.

3 Wizened Old-Time Ballpark Mafiosos (out of 5)

With his self-effacing wit and nonplussed air of bewilderment, Matt Pandamiglio, an aspiring standup comic, walks and literally sleepwalks us through his odyssey from oblivion to self-discovery. Often narrating from behind the wheel of a car and even more frequently bookending his frightening yet funny episodes with REM sleep disorder with seriocomic asides, Pandamiglio (real-life comedian Mike Birbiglia, who also directs) makes us care even though he assumes an attitude of could-care-less.

His particular sleep disorder, we come to learn, involves the physically acting out of his dreams–often nightmares–as they happen. Strange, uncanny scenes ensue. At first embarrassing and eventually dangerous, the well-rendered, surreal sleepwalking dreams perform a dual purpose of offsetting the comic elements of the story. Added to his commitment phobia with girlfriend Abby (Lauren Ambrose, Six Feet Under) and his battles with an eccentric, Gracie Allen-ish mom (Carol Kane) and an overbearing dad (James Reborn, never better), Sleepwalk With Me etches the multi-faceted evolution of a comic finding his own voice while losing his footing. As he incorporates more of his autobiographical demons into his act, he begins to turn a corner creatively. A spot-on wry and insensitive 70-ish lady agent books him at a high school lip-sync contest, then as low-pay opening act in a zig-sagging tour replete with faceless motel rooms, a broken down car, and more sleepwalking episodes. Unable to tone down his late night food consumption and before-bed internet/phone activity as prescribed by a sleep disorder physician (who appears in Matt’s car with him in a hilarious scene), Matt does what many a touring artist would do: hangs out with and parties with other comics. That’s when this sleepwalking stuff really goes off.

As for Abby, she’s been going with him for years and wants marriage. It’s a subtle yet effective point of the film that even though they head in the direction of her goal, the only time we witness the otherwise loyal and supportive Abby in an audience at one Matt’s gigs is very early on when he’s bartending at a comedy club and doing last-minute fill-ins onstage. She never says anything, yet afterward when asked how they liked the gig, her friends quip, “we’ve seen it before during college.” As Matt riskily starts working his relationship into his act, the big payoff of a horrified Abby in his audience never comes. She’s not at any of his gigs. Is Abby guilty by omission?

Based on Birbiglia’s one-man 2008 theatrical piece, Sleepwalk With Me may be occasionally light and uneven around the edges but, essentially, in upending our preconceptions of films about comedians and ambition, it makes a sizable impression. Birbiglia’s alter ego is more than likeable. He’s simultaneously biting and skittish with an outsized candor. Life may be throwing him curves but he’s got a guiding inner radar, often possibly irrational but never inauthentic.

3.5 Sleepwalking and Commitment Hijinks (out of 5)

When a comedic take on phone sex is content to wrap a chick buddy flick around antiseptic sex jokes and ha-ha wobbly sentiments, the result is more grossly uneven than grossly funny. For a Good Time, Call…suffers not a little from Bridesmaids envy. The smartly done, acerbic Bridesmaids. The two leads here (Lauren Anne Miller and Air Graynor) may have relative savvy, but ludicrous premises and plot contrivances spoil much of the fun. While you could say a straight arrow chick (Miller, who also co-wrote the screenplay) brazenly taking on her roommate’s secret phone sex business falls somewhere in the neighborhood of female empowerment, it’s mostly a moxie undermined by derivative humor and crippling female friendship sitcom-isms. The film professes naughtiness, only to feel much too sanitized.

Not all the jokes are flat. The chemistry between Miller and Graynor, when not overtly hearts-and-flowers cheerful, is often robust. Despite Graynor having dropped pee on (you read that right) Miller ten years back, they’re thrown together as roommates by a gay mutual friend (Justin Long), who’s a comedian. (Nobody has real jobs in this flick yet the shared apartment is palatial and overlooks Gramercy Park.) This after Miller’s breakup with a boyfriend (Mark Webber) who calls her “boring.” Needless to say, he’s a bonafide cad by film’s end. But not before the repressed Miller at first discovers Graynor’s surreptitious phone operator gig, proceeds to help her out in a hands-off business-wise fashion, then eventually, well, you can guess. We also have parents who just show up at the door (what, an apartment this nice doesn’t even have a door buzzer let alone a doorman?), a repeat phone customer who becomes a crush of one of our co-stars, and an unlikely job in publishing to interfere with our storybook heroes’ business partnership. The whole thing feels as dated as a Walkman since first-time director Jamie Travis didn’t even bother to set this thing in a previous decade. Don’t know much about phone sex except that it’s probably gone the way of Duran Duran.

There are a couple of nice cameos (both of course phone customers): one whom you’ll definitely recognize, maybe not the other. Those I won’t spoil. For a good time, see Bridesmaids.

2.5 Dildos Left On The Coffee Table (out of 5)

Compliance, the third recent film to plausibly deal with people-who-couldn’t-possibly-be-THAT-dumb, is neither a documentary (The Imposter) nor a lurid thriller (Killer Joe), though it feels like both. The first impression in this frightening docudrama is that the highly uncomfortable situation depicted is largely the fault of the new all-time champion for main characters with shit-for-brains. Meet Sandra , who runs a fast food joint in Ohio. (Unlike The Imposter and Killer Joe, we can’t even blame a Texas setting). She possesses an unsettling combination of vulnerability and arrogance yet we’ll come to eventually discover that despite her grave shortcomings she’s probably only the second most foolish character in the film.

Sandra (an effectively understated Ann Dowd), an insecure middle-aged woman, fears her district manager’s inevitable discovery that one of her employees left the freezer door open overnight. So pressure surrounds an imminent busy weekend shift made the more miserable by the exclusion of bacon on the menu due to the freezer snafu. Sandra gives staff pep talks one minute, then lets her guard down the next, unsuccessfully trying to ingratiate herself with her much younger employees. One of whom is a perky blonde named Becky (Dreama Walker), who seems like a pretty normal teenager.

Then a phonecall comes in that will change the life of Becky and Sandra and will have you squirming in your seat. I’m sure screenings of Compliance often include multiple audience mutterings and exclamations back at the screen as a phony cop basically talks Sandy into strip-searching Becky, who he accuses of stealing money from a customer. Seems he needs Sandra to help him out with his investigation. Needless to say, he’s as slick as she is clueless and it doesn’t end there. Far from it.

Directed by Craig Zobel, Compliance proceeds to both horrify and taunt its audience. As unctouous as the man on the phone is, Sandra’s gullibility trumps it, allowing the viewer to take on an air of superiority to the proceedings. This could never happen to us. Yet who can begin to rule out complacency to authority figures in one regard or another? In a strictly workplace scenario? In the society at large? It’s fitting that Compliance contains at least two characters who don’t buy into the nonsense. Some critics, not far off the mark, have included civilian complicity in war crimes as within the scope of this film’s metaphoric focus. Luckily, the film is somewhat deceivingly grounded in the pulpy sphere (complete with plenty of cellos in Heather McIntosh’s effective score) which can either offset or ironically heighten the serious underpinnings, depending on how deep you want to go.

Before we give Zobel too much credit let us ask ourselves how can we be sure he’s not pulling a slick trick of his own here? Does he take poetic license and exaggerate? Apparently enough of these kinds of incidents existed “in real life” to warrant our full trust. Yet the devil was never more in the details. Unwilling to hang its hat solely on Sandra’s stunning naivete, Compliance goes the extra mile and presents both an overtly disciplined and studied perpetrator (an excellent Pat Healy), and a victim with just the right amount of initial outrage and eventual resignation (newcomer Walker). Compliance may be pushing the envelope ever so slightly but if this film were an earthquake the difference would be merely a meager fraction on the Richter scale. A disaster is a disaster and like most, it’s hard to divert our eyes.

4 You’ve Got To Be Kidding’s (out of 5)