Konsum: Turkey Parade
November 27th, 2007
The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford
Dullsville and then some. Artfully shot, for sure, but ripping off Malick isn’t as easy as it looks. The voice-over narration, always describing what we already saw, doesn’t create openings but locks the movie down even more than the airless, repetitive scenes between paranoid outlaws. Sam Shepard disappears much too early, and soon thereafter, the drama completely stalls. After thirty minutes, I was begging for Casey Affleck to shoot Brad Pitt in the head already, but there were two more hours to go. Andrew Dominik, 2007. *
3:10 to Yuma
Now, this is how you do a western: engaging, exciting, and steeped in sepia tones. Russell Crowe plays a bandit who has to be brought to justice; Christian Bale is the one-legged stand-up guy to do it. Together with his performances in Rescue Dawn and I’m Not There, Bale is one of my favorite actors this year. James Mangold, 2007. ***
The Bucket List
The trailer for this movie is so hideous, we just had to check it out. Also, we might have been drunk. If Jack Nicholson throwing up in a hospital gown or jumping out of airplanes is your idea of fun, go right ahead. Sanctimonious Morgan Freeman is starting to get on my nerves. Rob Reiner, 2007. *
In Between Days
We had high hopes for this unassuming coming-of-age story about a Korean immigrant. I’m perfectly willing to stomach a slight story, mannered direction, or uncommunicative main characters — but if you heap them on top of each other, I’m probably already asleep. 83% on Rotten Tomatoes. So Yong Kim, 2007. *
The Brave One
Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard have what they call “good chemistry” in this surprisingly gripping tale of New York City revenge. Neil Jordan, 2007. ***
In the Valley of Elah
Worlds better than Crash, but that’s not saying much of anything. Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron try to solve the murder of his son, an AWOL soldier on leave from Iraq. In the process, they discover all sorts of truths about important issues. See Redacted instead. Paul Haggis, 2007. **
Once
Every bit as lovely the second time around. I finally discovered the title in the film, and I have a new favorite line: “Can I bring my mother?” Marcy’s review. John Carney, 2007. ****
No Country for Old Men
Wildly overpraised. Yes, I can see the expert filmmaking here, but all the sumptuous cinematography and vivid attention to detail is lavished on a story full of walking cliches and a lousy third act. On second viewing, the glaring problems with both plot and character — what Marcy called “lack of soul” — are impossible to ignore. Llewelyn’s too foolish to care for, the Coens avert their gaze at the crucial moment, and Bell’s defeatist retread of Marge Gunderson leaves us with a dire moral: “you can’t stop what’s coming.” Oh well then. No Country wastes a lot of hard-boiled effort on a tale that ends with an Old Testament shrug. Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007. **
Casino Royale
March 19th, 2007
This movie stayed with me, in the way a kielbasa can be said to “stay with you” when you toss it after a night of binging on Jever at the Bohemian Beer Garden. I wrote one grouchy reviewlet for About.com, mainly about Eva Green, and to this day, the hate mail keeps coming. The funny thing is, if I trash an obscure French movie, nobody cares, but James Bond? Uh oh: attacks left and right– and that’s just the public insults. With a blizzard hitting New York, I gave Casino Royale another chance. And guess what? It doesn’t look nearly as good at home as it did at the Ziegfeld, and it’s still a disappointment.
It didn’t have to be that way. Bond 21 starts out great and shows the potential to become the best in decades. Craig’s a sexy brute, he’s got chemistry and snappy dialogue with Eva Green, stunts and plot are down-to-earth, the villain (After the Wedding’s Mads Mikkelsen) is creepy but believable. With the most human touch since On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Casino Royale reinvents the iconic character and almost manages to transcend the franchise’s formulas.
Almost. In the final third, somewhere around the time an Aston Martin flips on a country road and the main villain gets whacked by someone who is not our hero, the movie flies out of control and wrecks, too. Maybe it’s the poker-table poisoning, which doesn’t move the story along one bit, or perhaps it’s the dull respite on Lake Como– but if you expected a grand finale, you’re in for a letdown: there’s lots of gambling left after Bond defilibrates himself, but the only remaining action scene is a rummy fistfight in a collapsing building.
And what about Vesper? A real Bond woman, finally, but she’s killed off in a way that makes no sense. She betrayed Bond but also saved his life, so he can be sad and angry at the same time? I suspect that Paul Haggis, listed as third screenwriter, is responsible for botching this. After all, Crash is full of stuff that doesn’t add up. If somebody could explain to me why exactly Vesper has to die, I would be most grateful.
Until then, sad and angry is how I feel about the last half hour of the Casino Royale. A lot of critics and irate critics-of-critics seem to react to what this movie could have been rather than the wasted opportunity it turned out to be. Casino Royale is and always will be a two star movie.
Casino Royale. Martin Campbell, 2006. **
