Old Dogs

Seen at: Cinema Save 6, Fort Collins, on Jan. 19.

Finally got around to seeing this one. It was finally leaving the three-buck cinema, so it was the last week. Time to act.

This is probably the worst Hollywood movie of 2009. I can't think of anything worse (certainly Transformers 2 is more offensive, but goes down in flames in grandiose style that made me enraged for days).

Old Dogs is just pathetic. The script is terrible, trite, and cliche-ridden. It is full of saccharine Postmodern messages about sex roles of men and women that feed the "man-boy" phenomenon.

John Travolta looks like he is wincing through the entire thing. Every scene has some ridiculous slapstick.

There's something charming that a movie this terrible and unwatchable could be made these days.

Here's the kicker: it was Disney. Disney! Has the Mouse gone mad?

No awards. Not best at anything. Lots of head shaking on the way out.

It's Complicated

Seen at: Cinemark 16 in Ft. Collins, on January 18.

This is the second movie in a month to come out of the Awful Truth subgenre of romantic comedies about divorced or divorcing couples, after Did You Hear About the Morgans? The title of this movie seems to answer the question posed by the first movie.

You'd think I could find a suitable winner for Best Divorce Comedy out these two movies, but I'm gonna pass on that award for now. Maybe I won't give it out this year. I'll have to review the list.

Not that this movie is that bad. It's actually very pleasurable to watch Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin work opposite each other. They should consider doing it again. It was a very good formula.

The story mostly works too, except at the very end, which is very weak on resoluton. I think it is because of a fear of making the statement that divorced people, especially a father and mother of grown children, might actually get back together somehow. In the Classical era, this would have been the very essence of the story at the end (e.g. The Philadelphia Story and its remake High Society), but in the Postmodern era we are not sure what we want to say about this, at least in Movie Message Land. So instead we get a very vague ending that seems to suggest that the entire romatnic plot of movie was mostly for naught.

In particular we get no clue at all about the emotional resolution of Baldwin's character. Where is he even going at the end of the movie?

But now I'm the one asking questions.

Do I have an award for this movie. Like I said, I can't give it the Awful Truth award, but I can give it this:

Best stoner comedy: It's Complicated

Marijuana nearly takes over the movie for about fifteen minutes in Act Two. This is the kind of movie Hollywood can now make about pot in a year in which California is likely to fully legalize it.

Up in the Air

Seen at: Cinemark 16, Fort Collins, on January 15.

What a bleak film this is. I had previously pre-awarded it Best romantic comedy, thinking that if it were the movie people said it was, it was surely the best in that category this year.

But this is not a romantic comedy. This is a soul-killing tale of the impossibility of love in the world of 2009.

There are some really good things in this movie. I really really enjoyed the sequence at the beginning that documents the actual experience that Clooney's character has, in going through airport security (on the eve of the underwear bomber that will now supposedly add full naked body scans). It is important that this be artistically shown while it is still going on, so people in the future know just how screwed up we became.

You shouldn't be surprised that I read the bleakness of this movie as reflective of the denial that we live under, as a society about 9/11, and what really happened. The hero here (Clooney) literally declares the airplanes to be his home.

Without the truth about what happened that day, we are no longer America. We no longer have the spirit to live and love as we once did. Because we are living a great big lie, a malignant one that must be exposed.

Until then it's all just so bleak. It's so bleak that it makes 23 year old girls break down and sob about it.

Here in fact is the glory of the movie, not in Clooney's performance, but in Anna Kendrick as Natalie.

I can't tell if Kendrick is going to be a great actress, but here she has the role of a lifetime, in a supporting capacity, and really makes the movie.

Best romantic comedy September 11 commentary: Up in the Air

Did You Hear About the Morgans?

Seen at: Cinemark 16, Fort Collins, on January 14.

Yes, I did hear about the Morgans---and the movie sucks.

Actually for the first twenty minutes it almost had me. The set-up---Hugh Grant as the frantic downtrodden power executive husband who is trying to win back his wife (Sarah Jessica Parker) about an episode of infedility---really works.

Then at the twenty minute it all goes kablooey, and degerates into the one of the most hilarious parades of ridiculous comic-suspense satire I've seen in a long, long time. For a good ten-minute stretch of the movie, there was nothing but slapstick cliches, using some shots going back fifty years or more, including the old Harold Lloyd shot hanging off the edge of a skyscraper. W...T...F...

There is something really charming in the stereotypes of Wyomingites in this movie, as if made my Californians who know better, but who are trying to exploit what they think are the stereotypes that New Yorkers have about the west, but which are really just stupid cliches going back to Vaudeville.

If I'm trying to say that this movie lacked originality, then yes, it did.

Grant and Parker look like they hated being in this movie. "Oh my god this is dreadful," Grant seems to say with every facial expression, every gesture.

I feel for you, Hugh.

That might normally be the end of it, but wouldn't you know that despite all that I just said, this movie won an award?

It was not an award from me, mind you, but from the Bovine Actors Guild, which has already awarded this movie the F.W. Murnau "Sunrise" Award---the coverted "cowie." Specifically it went to Lenny the Bull for his performance in the climax scene.

My own theory is called the Magic Cow of Happiness. One of the dictates of the this theory is that the cow should serve as a means by which the romantic couple are brought together. There are many, many examples on film.

Here, the hero and heroine, having reconsidered their divorce but not fully reconciled, are literally gored back together by a charging bull.

That, my friends, is perhaps the most extreme intervention I have yet seen from a Magic Cow in the movies---at least for a single bovine acting alone.

But that's where we are at, as a culture.

Nine

Seen at: AMC Flatirons, Broomfield, Colorado 2:00 p.m. on Jan. 14

Holy cow! What is wrong with people?

All I've been hearing about is how bad this movie sucks. It seemed to get no good reviews at all. I guess this is one of those times when I am going to be an opinion of one, because I really liked Nine.

It was a fun outing today to see it. Because it got chased out of Fort Collins after only a few weeks, one of the first out of the holiday movie pool, I found myself driving all the way down past Boulder on the Foothills Parkway to the Flatirons lifestyle center.

It was my first trip there, and I have to say that it impressed me, as a new outdoor shopping center, especially the part that feels like a ski village in winter, which is where the theater is. The AMC itself there is a really a crown jewel of the AMC system, on par with anything I've seen on the east coast as far as the both the lobby and the auditoriums. It should be good---the matinee tickets were eight bucks.

So like I said, I expected Nine to really be a dog, but I decided to give it all the benefit of the doubt, and I'm glad I did. To me it was definitely in the top quarter of the movies that came out this year, easily, and maybe higher.

Certainly it is not a perfect movie. I didn't see the Broadway musical upon which this is based, but there is no mistaking that one is seeing a close adaptation, in the same way that director Robert Marshall did Chicago.

The musical numbers often feel like you've heard them before in other shows, but I'm willing to go with all that.

The film is at its worst in a few places where the Broadway-i-ness really sticks out, as did does it certain scenes with Daniel Day Lewis in solos that seem straight out of the vampire puppet show in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

But I get deal with that, and I did. What I saw was an earnest and pleasurable attempt to make spectacle on screen and deliver interesting historical commentary on Italian film in the 1960s.

I knew I was going to like this movie when I began noticing that there were far less crotch-thrusts from the female dancers at the beginning than in, say, Chicago. The dancers were wearing more clothes. I very much like that, and then--bang--this turns out to be something that actually becomes part of the movie itself. At that moment, it rises to being not only spectacle, but spectacle about art.

But by far the best part of this movie was the dancing. There were almost no good dance movies this year, with the exception of the remake of Fame. In an otherwise empty year, Nine really stands out.

I would give it best musical, but for the fact that it's an adapted Brodway show, and I'll stick with a genuine movie musical in that category.

But I will give some awards:

Best performance in a dance number: Kate Hudson in Nine, for "Cinema Italiano"

Deal with it!

Also for reasons previously mentioned, Nine receives the first of the special awards given out this year. It gets the Berkeley, and anyone who knows me knows that this is one of my favorite to give out.

The 2009 Busby Berkeley Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Use of Dance in Film goes to: Nine

Berkeley wouldn't have understood the dialogue in Me and Orson Welles, let alone been able to comprehend any of the dancing he say. But he could walk right and sit down and watch this movie and know that his legacy lives on, at least in one movie.

Me and Orson Welles

Seen at: Lyric Cinema Cafe, 4:45 p.m. on Jan. 13.

This has to be one of the most shockingly bad movies of the past year.

I spent much of the first hour of this film writhing uncomfortably in my scene. Watching this was like listening to a metal saw cutting through aluminum.

There are 1930s movies---and then are Postmodern 1930s movies. This had all the worst of the latter category. The screenplay seemed to have been written by people who have seen clips of the Thirties in film class perhaps but never bothered to become a fan of the cinema from that era, in any deep fashion. If they had, they never would have been able to write the kind of execrable dialogue, and create the kind of vastly unsympathetic characters, that were on screen in this movie.

The movie wasn't all bad, actually. There were a few scenes, and half-scenes, that almost worked here and there, but then it would sink back down to the barely watchable again.

The casting was so surreally of that I began to suspect Linklater of doing the whole thing as a gag. But I don't think it was intended that way.

Still it feels like to him, and to everyone else involved in this, with a few exceptions, the 1930s were not a real time in history, lived by real people who did real things and spoke real words. Instead the 1930s is a just a virtual genre created by Hollywood, one that exists outside of any factual reality, and thus can be manipulated and reinterpreted in any arbitrary fashion.

That's pretty much my verdict on Postmodernity as a whole, by the way---why it ultimately fails, as does this film.

But I hung in there. I gave this movie plenty of chances. Too be fair, amazingly the story (but not the screenplay) works very well. With a few tweaks, it could have almost made it.

And amazingly in the last half hour, it seems to pull out a miracle, and go from being unwatchable to being almost intriguing. This is the part when the actual play-within-a-movie is being performed. During this time, the characters were unable to say the inane things they were saying in the other two hours.

But above all it is the supporting role of Christian McCay as Welles himself that give the greatest but alas fleeting pleasures of this movie. It can't be easy to be Welles, and McCay hits a few false notes here and there, but considering he's having to play against Zach Efron and the horribly, horribly miscast Claire Danes.

Given that it's awards season, it's hard not to find something in my bag, even for a film like this that had me seriously thinking of walking out on at least four occassions.

I know what the award is.

Best Shakespeare adaptation: Me and Orson Welles (adaptation of Julius Caesar).

I think there is enough of the original in the movie itself, and the surrounding story informs the original to a sufficient degree, to qualify this as an adaptation. I don't think it has any competition in this story, as far as I can remember of the past year, but even if it did, it might still be worthy of this.

Best of 2009 (updated 4)

Best period drama Sixties movie: A Serious Man
Best Eighties movie: The Informant!
Best costumes: Bright Star

Best coming of age story (female): An Education Fish Tank

almost forgot about that little movie I saw in Galway.

The Young Victoria

Seen at: Lyric Cinema Cafe at 6:45 p.m. on Jan. 8

Does a movie about Queen Victoria work so well now because women of today feel a kinship to the problems of a British Monarch in 1838?

Is Victoria the prototype of the Postmodern woman?

Are middle class American and British girls today raised pretty much as princesses were, in the early Nineteenth Century?

This film defines the tension better than it solves it. That is, we understand the heroine must navigate the Crown on her own, ultimately. But at the time time she must reach out for help, and be vulnerable. That's the dilemma. But what to say about it?

How did Victoria solve it in such as way that can be recognizable to the woman of 2010 as she struggles in her own life?

Is a powerful woman who reaches out for help still a full woman?

Is a man still a man if the woman has to propose marriage to him?

How strange these questions seem to the classical ear, yet they are perfectly normal to us today.

Times change.

Best period piece: The Young Victoria
Best performance as a queen: Emily Blunt

Best of 2009 (updated 3)

Best teen movie: Adventureland I Love You, Beth Cooper
Best coming of age story (male): Adventureland
Best coming of age story (female): An Education

I have to give the Best teen movie award to a the traditional kind of full-of-life comedy, out of the spirit of what teen movies are supposed to be like.

Best supporting actor: Adam Rodriguez in I Can Do Bad All By Myself Timothy Spall in The Damned United

Disney's A Christmas Carol

Seen at: Metrolux 14 in Loveleand, at 2:00 p.m. on Jan. 7.

It was such a beautiful sunny day today on the front range---only contrails and no chemtrails as far as the eye could see. It seemed like an utter shame to waste the chance to soak up some Vitamin D by ducking inside a theater in mid afternoon.

It was the last possible day I could see it, and the last showing in the area. It was now or never. Was it worth wasting a sunny afternoon?

On some level, yes. The technical animation was interesting at times, and I find myself wishing I could have seen it in 3-D, just out of curiosity. My bad. From now on, I'm going to see 3-D movies in 3-D, I've decided.

On the other hand, I'm glad I didn't see this in the Christmas season. As a Christmas story, and moreover as a Dickens adaptation, it utterly fails. It sacrifices Christmas spirit in favor of creating an interesting ghost story (which is what generates all the interesting 3-D stuff). In that regard, it felt more like an adaptation of Disney's Haunted Mansion concept than anything else.

I can't in my wildest dreams imagine anyone, who has seen many adaptations of this story, say with a straight face, "This was one of the better ones." In fact I'm having trouble thinking of any that I would put lower than this. There are too many things in this movie that are just plain wrong, with classical "fail" written on them (for example, the wretchedly stupid "death" of the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the pointless chase-by-demonic-carraige at the beginning of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come sequence..

There was very little emotional release at the end, which just seemed to peter out, rather than giving a satisfactory salvation feeling for Scrooge. I guess there wasn't room for that, giving all the ghosty stuff that had to be crammed in.

I would close this with "bah, humbug," but in the lingering Christmas spirit, I'm going to give this movie an award it probably deserves:

Best sound effects editing: Disney's A Christmas Carol.

This latter element was by far and away the strength of the entire production, without which it would have been barely interesting.

Red Cliff

Seen at: Lyric Cinema Cafe, 9:15 p.m on Jan. 6, 2010

It took me a little while into the New Year's to feel like seeing movie. It was nice start out the year at the Lyric.

This movie very much confused me. On the one hand, it was a technical masterpiece of historical storytelling (a Chinese production directed by John Woo about a Third Century battle between Chinese warlords).

On the level of storytelling, however, I didn't know what to make of this. It was as if the entire movie was one long climax, punctuated by dramatic moments. Maybe because of the subtitles it reminded me of the style of storytelling in 1920s silent epics from Hollywood, before the canons of storytelling were established.

It left me wondering whether: a) Chinese cinematic storytelling is primitive compared to western storytelling; b) all movie storytelling lately is just going downhilll as a lost art; c) China has different cinematic storytelling of which I am not familiar; or d) this was just a bad movie, on some level.

The last choice seemed too harsh a judgement, giving the historical battle drama, which if perhaps a bit anachronistic (Hollywood always is, anyway) it nevertheless avoids all but a few flourishes of the air-spinning leg-churning martial arts fighting maneuvers that would have ruined it.

In any case it wins an award:

Best battle: Red Cliff

Best of 2009 (updated 2)

Best supernatural: Drag Me to Hell
Best Nazis: Inglourious Basterds Dead Snow
Best zombies: Zombieland Dead Snow
Best movie-within-a-movie: Stoltz der Nation, in Inglourious Basterds
Best cameo: Bill Murray in Zombieland

Best of 2009 (updated)

Best teen movie: Fired Up Adventureland
Best cheerleader movie: Fired Up
Best musical: The Hannah Montana Movie
Best song: "Friends on the Other Side," word and music by Randy Newman, performed by Keith David in The Princess and the Frog.

My Top Movies of 2009

Movies of the year:

Paul Blart: Mall Cop
The Hangover
The Proposal
Avatar
Up!

Best story on screen: The Hurt Locker
Best romantic comedy: Up in the Air
Best big budget: Sherlock Holmes
Best production: Avatar
Best animated musical: The Princess and the Frog
Best director: Nick Cassavetes in My Sister's Keeper
Best foreign language movie: Silent Light (Stillet Licht)
Best French movie: Paris
Best UK movie: An Education
Best actor: George Clooney in The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Best actress: Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side
Best supporting actress: Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia
Best supporting actor: Adam Rodriguez in I Can Do Bad All By Myself
Best royalty: The Young Victoria
Best art direction: Star Trek
Best thriller: The International
Best song: The Climb by Miley Cyrus (The Hannah Montana Movie)
Best adaptation: Watchmen
Best science fiction: Moon
Best dystopian: Gamer
Best documentary: Good Hair
Best informative: Food Inc.
Best teen movie: Fired Up
Best revival: Fame
Best villain: Matt Dillon in Armored
Best temptress: Abbie Cornish in Bright Star
Best vampires: Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans
Best Nazis: Inglorious Basterds
Best horror: The Orphan
Best zombies: Zombieland (of course)
Best cinematography: Earth



a few more to come, when I think of them.

added:
Best 3-D: Coraline
Best animated fantasy: Ponyo
Best period drama: A Serious Man

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Seen at: Cinema Saver 6, in Fort Collins, at 2:15 p.m. on Dec. 31.

Smitty likes the Cinema Saver 6. We'd had so much at Sherlock Holmes that we decided to sneak in another movie before end of the year.

We decided to see Fantastic Mr. Fox. I'd heard good things, but didn't know what I'd think of it.

During the first fifteen minutes, it was so uncanny, that I didn't know if I was going to like it very much.

But all that passed, and gave way to sheer admiration and appreciation of this movie.

Definitely one of the best movies of the year. A triumph of cinematic pupetry. Clooney (and Streep) threw me for a minute as voice actors, but they won me over.

I was not really a Wes Anderson fan before this, but I am now. In my opinion, it is by far his finest work that I've seen.

What a way to end the Aughties! Full of fun and life!

Boondock Saints II: All Saint's Day

Seen at: Lyric Cinema Cafe, at 9:45 p.m. on Dec. 30

Violence porn.

Didn't see the first one, but I can infer that it is a continuation of the same vibes and themes, using mostly the same characters, in the same highly stylized manner.

Verdict: psycho-Irish, fun at times with lots of bullets.

Sherlock Holmes

Seen at: Cinemark 16 at 12:45 p.m. on Dec. 30.

I saw this with my old friend Smitty, who dropped me a line over the holidays. I had told him that I go to see all the movies that come out, and suggested we get together. He thought that was a great idea too, and Wednesday morning we arranged to see Sherlock Holmes later that day.

I was really looking forward to seeing this movie. It looked like it could be a lot of fun, and possibly a well-told story. I wasn't put off by its having been directed by Guy Ritchie.

What an awesome pleasure this way. Definitely one of the best movies of the year. Probably in my top ten.

Much of it was due to Robert Downey, Jr. Anyone else in this role would have made this a really bad movie.

Also it was just a well-told story---and (spoiler) no supernatural. Everything has naturalistic cover. So long as they keep that, I am willing to accept a wide latitude in the details and style of the Holmes character.

Smitty liked it too. We raved about together in the parking lot.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel

Seen at: Carmike 10 in Ft. Collins at 4:50 p.m. on Dec. 29.

Wasn't planning on seeing this one that afternoon, but the battery in my car was temporarily dead, as I had left the lights on all night and the following day.

Was about exactly what it purports to be: a sequel of the first one. Same story arc, now with Chipette girl chipmunks, singing a sanitized version of Katie Perry.

Verdict: As squeaky as you want it.