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Reviews
Nobel Son (2007)
Unfunny, convoluted, and just plain bad
Nobel Son seemed like a comedy when I watched the trailer. Thus going into it, I expected to LAUGH. Granted, there's little virtue in judging a film based upon your own expectations, and none at all in judging it based upon its trailer, but with that said, I expected this film to entertain me, which it failed to, and at the very least I hoped it would make sense, which it frequently didn't.
The story begins with Dr. Eli Michaelson (Alan Rickman) who is a major physicist of sorts and a college professor, who is an unbearable man that everyone around him loathes, who cheats on his wife with college women, and who begins the film by being informed that he is being awarded the Nobel Prize for his work (which is never spelled out that coherently and which adds nothing to the narrative anyway). Then there's Eli's son, Barkley, who is currently working on a thesis about cannibalism of all things, and who spends his time at the start of the film trying to hook up with a poet named City Hall (Eliza Dushku, who is somewhat amusing in this film, unlike most of the rest of the cast). The morning that Eli is going to Stockholm to collect his prize, Barkley gets kidnapped. When the kidnapper calls Eli about the ransom, Eli thinks Barkley's pranking him and is just angry about him not having been there to come with them to get the prize. The kidnapper decides to send the Michaelsons one of Barkley's thumbs as proof/incentive for payment, and the story goes from that point into a tailspin of confusing narrative turns and more changes from hero to anti-hero than I've ever seen in a film. By the end of thing I didn't have any idea WHO to root for, if ANYBODY.
I really didn't like Nobel Son. I wasn't amused by the plot twists; quite the opposite, actually: they confused me and took me out of the story. I also really ceased to like any of the characters, with the possible exception of Barkley's mother (Mary Steenburgen) who was undeveloped enough at the start of the film to make it less confusing later on when she's involved in various plot twists. I also think she might have been an FBI agent. Didn't really catch that part. I also really don't care.
Not everything was completely unredeemable. I thought Danny DeVito did good work as a former-OCD patient renting the Michaelson cottage, but his character was heavily underused. Eliza Dushku was pretty interesting, and although part of the movie is her just being very attractive and sensual and all that, she was convincing and semi-developed.
THe most puzzling thing about this movie is that I don't believe there was studio backing, which means that none of the big-name actors in the film got huge paychecks for this project. That leaves me wondering what pushed them to make it, especially actors the like of Rickman and Steenburgen, who are talented veteran actors. I think they're way above this schlock.
Burn After Reading (2008)
Minor Coen, but a worthy film in every way
Brun After Reading is the kind of film that feels like a breath of fresh air at this time of year. Right after Labor Day, when studios dump all of their left-over garbage into theaters in preparation for Oscar season, comes a film both brilliantly original and character-driven. The characters and the film delightfully ludicrous plot drive this one forward as was the case in such previous endeavors as Fargo and The Big Lebowski. The film begins when Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich, in a role only he could pull off), a CIA analyst quits his job and begins to write his memoirs (which really interest no one). His wife (Tilda Swinton, cold as ice) is secretly having an affair with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney, who here mixes paranoia and suave womanizer stylings perfectly) who also gets involved with Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), a gym employee who desperately seeks to get a series of plastic surgeries to fix her looks, which make her miserable. Litzke and Chad Feldheimer (Bbrad Pitt, who steals the show, as expected) find a CD at the gym that they learn belongs to Cox ad which they believe is filled with sensitive government information. They proceed to attempt to blackmail him. Richard Jenkins is also very good as their boss who unsuccessfully tries to convey to Linda the fact that he is in love with her. There are a long series of twists and turns to this film, which is what makes it so interesting from start to finish. I really enjoyed it. It's not as funny as some of the previous films, especially Fargo, but the jokes that hit hit hard, and the characters are downright fascinating. The real show-stopping scenes for me were the ones featuring J.K. Simmons as the head of the CIA. Those parts were hilarious, and I'll let you discover them for yourself. The only thing I should mention as a real disappointment is the lack of Roger Deakins's cinematography. He has collaborated with the Coens since Miller's Crossing, and his absence is made obvious by the fact that this film's look is a lot less appealing and impressive than those with Deakins as the Director of Photography. A small bother. I really recommend this film, especially since it is the first great new film that's been out in the past few weeks. i hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
College (2008)
A Cliché-Ridden, Cruelty-Filled Nightmare of a Film
The first thing I must say about College is that since the beginning, its IMDb rating has been flawed due to a number of studio-funded plugs claiming it to be a genius comedy (which of course it isn't). These false reviews are easily recognized by both the fact that they are positive and their complete lack of any detail about the film. In fact, if you replace the various movie titles with other movie titles in these reviews, it still works. Not a great review. Then, further corrupting the rating came a series of one-star reviews from people who had not seen the film and were merely infuriated by the studios pitiful interference. I can sympathize with the feeling, but it is nonetheless partially their fault that College will never have a realistic rating. The regulators at IMDb really need to go through and delete these false reviews. However, for those of you who are curious, I saw College last night, and here is my take on the film. From the get-go, you feel like you've seen this before. Drake Bell, who plays Kevin, the nice smart kid in the movie (the characters in College really are just stereotypes *sort of* brought to life), is getting ready for a college visit with his friend Morris, played by Kevin Covais who is semi-famous for being known as Chicken Little on American Idol. Covais is atrocious, but we'll get to him. In comes Carter, as portrayed by Andrew Caldwell, the apparently mandatory overweight obnoxious kid who wants to get laid and constantly talks about doing so. This guy's bound to draw some comparisons to Jonah Hill's character in Superbad, but I assure you that is both groundless and insulting. Hill's character Seth in Superbad was obnoxious, but was in fact being so to cover up his concerns with losing his friend because of his going to a different college. Caldwell is unredeemed. He just goes about throughout the movie running his huge mouth and mocking others, particularly Morris, whom he also abuses physically on a routine basis.
This constant cruelty is one of the film's greatest failures, but it also disturbingly gratifying, because quite frankly, Morris's character is unbearable. His voice is whiny and aggravating, and he spends the entire movie complaining. I found myself pleased to watch bad things happening to him, and that made me realize how terrible the filmmakers are at their craft. How can you make a movie about characters that are meant to be sympathetic, but that people instead hate? Even a character like The Silence of the Lambs's Hannibal Lecter has some appealing qualities, but this teenage boy has been portrayed so unpleasantly that I would genuinely rather have him be one of the torture victims in the Hostel series. That's not right!
When the three boys get to Fillmore University, the school that they are visiting, they find that the girls want nothing to do with them because they are high school students, and the dorm they have been assigned to stay in is inhabited by a heavyset student who is engaged in a rousing bout of self abuse (if you don't know what that means, just think of something crude that a guy could be doing in a room by himself). Thus, our single-minded "friends" decide to go stay at a frat house of which Crater's cousin is a legacy. Naturally, the frat members treat them poorly throughout the rest of the movie, bringing about retribution and so on, so forth.
The major sub-plot involves the fact that Kevin's girlfriend dumps him before the visit for not being enough fun, and thus he wants to prove her wrong. Once at Fillmore, the three boys meet three sorority girls who for some reason find them attractive, and of course don't know that they're high school students. The most shocking thing is the attractive blond girl who is attracted to Carter. Looks aside the kid's a total jerk, and besides, she could do better. In fact, nothing in this movie is remotely realistic. I'm in college, and college is not at all like College.
The gross-out humor in this is excessive and unforgivable. Half the time instead of laughing you'll be gagging. This would be a great film to show in a film class to just demonstrate who easy it is to make a pathetic cliché-fest. My favorite line in the movie is when Kendall, played by the adorable Haley Bennett, says to Kevin "you're not like other college guys". This is obviously meant to be dramatic irony, and thereby funny. It's not. Nothing in this movie really is.
Pineapple Express (2008)
Decent comedy, but a step down from some previous Rogen/Apatow outings
Pineapple Express was OK. That's pretty much how I felt about it. It was funny, and I laughed often enough, but the humor was frequently based upon the use of bad language or shock humor, and I found myself wondering too many times whether I'll find a lot of what I laughed at humorous the second time around. Unlike Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, or even Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the dialogue here didn't seem very clever or quotable, and the plot just wasn't that compelling.
This is the story of Dale Denton (Rogen), a process server and marijuana super-user who witnesses a murder committed by a powerful drug dealer (Bill Cole) and a corrupt cop (Rosie Perez) and must go on the run once they track him down through his drug dealer, Saul (James Franco, in his best casting ever) thanks to a rare type of weed called Pineapple Express.
For a while, the movie thrives upon its buddy-comedy conventions, and thanks to good work from Rogen, Franco, and a somewhat brilliant turn by Danny McBride as Saul's supplier/pseudo-friend. Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson also brighten up the screen as bickering hit men. However, in its final third or so, the film degenerates into a violent action showdown that is as unfunny as it is tonally inappropriate to this film. Though this worked brilliantly in a similar way in Hot Fuzz, that film sets you up for it from the very beginning, whereas in this film it just comes out of nowhere.
Parts of this movie really work, such as Dale's relationship with an 18-year-old high schooler (Amber Heard) and the hilarious scenes with McBride's Red, but this movie seems too confused as to what it hopes to be to successfully be anything. I'll stick to Superbad and the others, and hope that the next outing will be better.
Brazil (1985)
Easily Gilliam's best and most significant film
George Orwell's estate refused Terry Gilliam the right to call this film "1984 1/2", which is a real shame, because nothing could more aptly describe "Brazil"'s grimly humorous take on a dystopian future Britain. The story concerns Sam Lowrey, a lowly government employee who receives a routine assignment to investigate a routine screw-up that occurred when the police tracked down a supposed anarchist. Rather than terminating a renegade plumber named Harry Tuttle, they killed an innocent family man of the unfortunately similar name "Archie Buttle". As Lowrey investigates this mistake, he befriends Tuttle, falls in love with a renegade named Jill, and falls afoul of the totalitarian government he serves. This film, though dark, is full of wondrous moments and jokes, including Sam's mother's constant attempts to get her son a promotion and to set him up with a friend's brace-face daughter. Michael Palin, one of Gilliam's fellow Pythons also does brilliant work as Sam's interrogator friend, whose job (which borders on butchery most of the time) doesn't affect his happiness at all. Definitely see this film. It's really one of a kind.