Hereafter, Fair Game, Life As We Know It, Jolene

Clint Eastwood keeps churning out a movie a year, and they are predictably smooth, entertaining, engrossing and watchable. This is equally true of his latest film HEREAFTER, which despite the fact that there are a lot of this type of topic on TV and theatre and movies (think MEDIUM, The MENTALIST, The SIXTH SENSE to name just a few), Eastwood makes this film very serious and contemplative, and because it is so well acted and produced, our attention is held raptly for the whole two hours. Afterwards we might complain that we've seen it all before, but at the time it works well. There is a particularly rapturous and frightening early segment that is awesome in its technical skill and special effects---a tsunami hits an Indonesian coastal village---but the rest of the film is more concerned with feelings of loss and loneliness, and sadness permeates most every scene. GRADE------B

There is a good, complex political story in FAIR GAME (a lame title) by director Doug Liman, which is based on the true story of Valerie Plame, the ex-CIA spy who was outed by the Bush administration in retaliation for articles written by her husband writer Joe Wilson about the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the political lying and coverup. Unfortunately, the film is nearly undone by a busy camera style that feels like the camera-person is a 12 year old dyslexic boy filming while on roller skates. Watching such a film makes a lot of people nauseous and can give you a headache. It is certainly annoying, and instead of creating tension (the plot has plenty of that anyway) it makes you want to escape to the exit. Fortunately, the plot has a lot of surprises and irony, and the actors, especially leads Naomi Watts and Sean Penn create a very human side to these protagonists. GRADE--------B

I kept avoiding SECRETARIAT because it seemed to be promoted as a generic Disney-fied film, and I was partly right. (I saw it this week because AMC theatres have now added early matinees before noon on Fridays in addition to Saturdays and Sundays for just $5 and I was desperate to see something to show my support. I ended up with a PERSONAL, PRIVATE screening, and enjoyed myself for it.) The film plays like a very safe, gentrified version that many Disney dramas fall in to. But the story is very engrossing, and the ace in this film is Diane Lane's strong performance as a wife and mother of four who against the odds (and her husband's wishes) takes over her dying father's horse ranch and raises and trains the remarkable big red horse who went on to win the very rare triple crown of horse racing. A colorful near-hammy performance by John Malkovich is also quite entertaining, and by the end I was won over. GRADE------B-

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT is a predictably plotted comic filming of a sad and serious subject. When a young couple dies in a car crash, they leave the care and upbringing of their baby to their best single friends---two people who tried to date once, disastrously, and who now hate each other. They are forced now together to raise this one year old. Thankfully, Kathrine Heigl (Grey's Anatomy) and Josh Duhamel (TV's Las Vegas) are charming together and create some interest in the obvious plot trajectory. GRADE---------C+

One of the first creators of the Seattle International Film Festival, director
Dan Ireland's latest film was screened several years ago at SIFF, and has just now started opening around the country. To be fair, the film has almost faded from my memory and I have not seen this latest version which may have been tweaked or reedited, but what I remember most was that the film seemed to be a hodge podge of adventures as the young main character called JOLENE (played nicely by newcomer Jessica Chastain) grows up from her teen years from a neglected orphan to a manipulative young adult, the result of abusive relationships and an unloving family base. The most distinctive episode has her under the care (in prison) of a lonely guard (Frances Fisher) who has sexual designs on her, and later she becomes involved with a Las Vegas mobster, with tragic results. The film ends enigmatically. I didn't really care too much about her. Yes, it was a hard knock life, but she is also portrayed as an amoral, mixed up human being who makes a lot of bad choices, too. The film was a let down for much of that SIFF audience, who mostly walked out in stunned silence, even though the film makers were present in the audience. GRADE------C

This week the DVD choices were not so hot. My wife and a good friend Curt are both fans of THE LONG LONG TRAILER (1954) which is based on a popular novel at the time, but played to me like an extended version of an I LOVE LUCY episode, where Lucy and Ricki get married and leave for an extended road trip/honeymoon pulling a very (dangerously) long trailer across the country. There are the typical jokes about trying to control a trailer that large (can't pull over easily, can't stop too fast, can't back it up without some catastrophe, etc), and Lucy has a hobby of loading up on canned goods in the already overloaded rig, as well as collecting huge rocks (mini boulders the size of sea turtles) that add tons of weight. I don't think I laughed once, but smiled a few times. Strictly for lovers of I LOVE LUCY. GRADE-----C+

A film noir that seemed rather flat to me was CRISS CROSS (1949) with a strong cast including Burt Lancaster, Yvonne de Carlo and Dan Duryea. It is very watchable (especially de Carlo, who I haven't seen much of except for The Munsters), but raised a lot of red flags for me, and the ending (Shakespearean, with everyone lying dead) left me feeling rather tired instead of inspired. GRADE------C+

Guy Ritchie's film before SHERLOCK HOLMES(2009)--- which plays like another version of LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS--is called ROCK N ROLLA (2008)which features some amusing performances by Gerard Butler, Tom Wilkenson and Tom Hardy. But is it just me or has he remade the same film some 4 times now. (Also see REVOLVER and SNATCH.) London gangsters with strong accents, lots of humor amidst the violent outbursts, plenty of gun play, plot twists, revenge, murder, torture and corruption and a scene or two of kinky sex. Seen it all before, Guy. Let's try a different genre. (In fact, SHERLOCK HOLMES 2 is coming soon.) GRADE------C+

A British film that was hardly released, CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA (2005) wants so hard to be a BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM or BRIDE AND PREJUDICE or THE WEDDING BANQUET, but it is most definitely not in every aspect. When a young man returns from medical school he moves in with his male lover and his aunt and cousin. Immediately his East Indian family plans for him to get married to a long time family friend, and arranges a wedding party. The young man is so passive that he cannot tell his family that he is gay, so ends up going along with the plans so as not to hurt any one's feelings (?!--what about his boyfriend?!) There are a couple of funny characters, including the abrasive, drunken auntie, her precocious daughter, and the grandmother who loves to give the evil eye to the auntie. After several amusing twists, the truth comes out in a potentially very moving scene, but the film is so poorly filmed and photographed and leisurely directed that even that scene is blown. If ever a film needed to be remade, this one could be improved about 200 percent. GRADE--------C-