Paranormal Activity

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (Oren Peli, 2007)

Like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, the low budget chiller PARANORMAL ACTIVITY assembles raw footage found in the aftermath of an encounter with something beyond our understanding of the natural world. Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat play a couple who observe weird occurrences and sounds in their home and are becoming more spooked by them. In keeping with the intent of passing this off as real, the actor's first names share their first names with the characters.

Katie has experienced these disturbances since childhood and feels they are becoming more persistent. In the hope of finding an explanation, Micah purchases video equipment to record nearly everything that happens when they are awake and asleep. What the tapes reveal does not comfort them.

The makers of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY understand that the most frightening things are what we imagine but can't see. Whether it's the creaks and cracks of a home settling at the end of the day or the hiss of air that sounds like vague voices coming from the vents, things that go bump in the night can scare even the most rational person, especially one who's half-asleep.

Writer-director Oren Peli uses PARANORMAL ACTIVITY'S limitations of a single location and low budget to his supreme advantage. The camera never leaves the property on which the couple's home sits, so no relief is ever provided. The mental wear and tear of living in a stressful place and in an increasingly tense relationship is played beautifully by the actors and is thus transferred to the viewers.

Peli stokes audience suggestibility and encourages scanning the video noise for the tiniest sign of something supernatural at play. With agonizing anticipation of something bad happening, he teases for long stretches and then delivers fleeting but startling glimpses or sounds of something untoward going on.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY isn't an actor's film per se, but it wouldn't be as eerily effective without Featherston and Sloat's believable, lived in performances. Since we observe everything through their eyes, the film becomes scarier the more their relationship frays.

Grade: B+

Whip It

WHIP IT (Drew Barrymore, 2009)

In WHIP IT the unconventional Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page) seeks an escape from her podunk hometown of Bodeen, Texas and the beauty pageants her mother Brooke (Marcia Gay Harden) enthusiastically signs her up for.

Bliss finds the answer at the roller derby in Austin. The fast, hard-hitting sport featuring strong, uncompromising women is a refreshing alternative to the images she knows. On the sly Bliss tries out for and wins a spot on the team and becomes a star known as Babe Ruthless. The secrets she keeps from her family and teammates can't remain hidden forever, though.

WHIP IT bears the personality that director Drew Barrymore has cultivated as an actress. The feminist coming of age sports dramedy has a sweet and sunny disposition bolstered by a proud independent streak. WHIP IT can lapse into sitcom mode from time to time, but other than Jimmy Fallon's grating work as a roller derby emcee, Barrymore is adept at getting good performances even when the material takes exaggerated routes.

Page's well-rounded turn as Bliss has grit, sass, and vulnerability, all of which are essential to the character striking out on her own path despite what her parents expect. Yet Barrymore doesn't let Bliss off the hook when she makes bad decisions.

Daniel Stern plays Bliss' father as a sensible man who knows to let his wife and child sort out their differences while also taking pride in his daughter's self-discovery. The moments in which he hunts and pecks at a keyboard to see Bliss on the roller derby website and later is able to display his joy to the neighbors are nice, small character flourishes. Harden initially comes off as the stereotypical uptight mother, but just like a child discovering that mom is more clued in to reality than anticipated, her character deepens.

The first-time director shows a nice touch for depicting small town life as well as parsing family dynamics. The Cavendar home looks and feels like a rural or suburban residence, and the relationships seem natural too. If Barrymore wishes to carve out a non-acting path for herself, WHIP IT certainly demonstrates that she has solid instincts.

Grade: B-

Surrogates

SURROGATES (Jonathan Mostow, 2009)

In the futuristic world of SURROGATES, most people stay at home and mentally control human-looking androids that they send out to work and play. Since it's rare for people to leave their private spheres, crime has plummeted.

If a surrogate is damaged in any way, the operator remains unharmed. Or at least that's always been the case until cop Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) discovers that two operators died when their surrogates were attacked and terminated. The possibility that users can be harmed through their surrogates threatens to upend civilization's current way of functioning.

SURROGATES establishes an intriguing premise for exploring a world in which virtual life trumps physical reality, but the thematic potential is squandered in favor of a by-the-numbers police procedural. Who's responsible for murdering people through their surrogates is much less interesting than thinking about technological innovations and the foreseen and unexpected social and ethical implications they can have on society.

In SURROGATES who one can be depends on the mechanical avatar chosen to represent oneself. But what are the costs of putting forth a false or idealized image and withdrawing from an existence outside one's home? SURROGATES is a movie that has a lot on its mind but chooses the least compelling aspect to focus on.

I've read nothing to suggest that the film was tampered with in the editing room, but SURROGATES has the marks of a movie that's been oversimplified due to a studio's lack of confidence in its complexity. Most noticeably, the surrogate resistance movement gets short shrift when it would seem to be critical to digging into the film's themes.

The sleek visual texture and rich thematic potential make director Jonathan Mostow's inability to corral the ideas all the more disappointing. Technology often moves faster than society can deal with the moral quandaries it creates. SURROGATES poses some provocative questions. If only it had debated them.

Grade: C

Jennifer's Body

JENNIFER'S BODY (Karyn Kusama, 2009)

In JENNIFER'S BODY Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried are unlikely best friends who find themselves at odds when one of them becomes possessed by a demon. Carrying the unflattering nickname Needy, Seyfried's character is a regular teenager who has always played second fiddle to Fox's Jennifer, the hottest girl in high school.

Jennifer knows how desirable and popular she is and flaunts the power her looks give her. The wounds Jennifer inflicts are purely emotional until a demon enters her body and takes control.

Rather than an out-and-out horror film, JENNIFER'S BODY is a supernatural high school dark comedy with a feminist bent courtesy of director Karyn Kusama and JUNO screenwriter Diablo Cody. In blending so many genres it's inevitable that JENNIFER'S BODY is somewhat confused about its identity and can't withstand the strain of a disjointed plot. An inciting tragedy and Jennifer and Needy's connection are among the points that lack sufficient explanation for what follows in the film.

Kusama and Cody aim to examine the power and fear of female sexuality, particularly among adolescents, but the muddled second half can't fulfill their ambitions. Seyfried, the film's true lead, turns in a solid and sensitive performance while Fox fails to locate the nuance in her character. She's not entirely to blame. The script doesn't clarify her motivation for a decision in a key scene and then leaves the audience in the dark about what makes her behave so monstrously.

Cody has received some backlash for her signature slang-heavy dialogue. Such criticism has merit, mainly because of the showy but empty nature of her words, but her sharp conversations occasionally draw blood and laughs, such as when she takes on disparate subjects as the tween flick AQUAMARINE and 9/11 fetishization.

Like a girl transforming into a woman during adolescence, JENNIFER'S BODY aspires to be smart, hip, sexy, and scary. Kusama and Cody don't fully succeed in making JENNIFER'S BODY as clever as intended, but in deploying Fox's physical allure as a weapon in the film and to prospective viewers of it, they unleash some potent ideas and subvert the genre.

Grade: C

The Informant!

THE INFORMANT! (Steven Soderbergh, 2009)

In the fact-based comedy THE INFORMANT! Matt Damon stars as a corporate executive turned whistleblower in a major multi-national price-fixing case in the early 1990s. Damon is Mark Whitacre, an up-and-coming divisional president at agri-business giant Archer Daniels Midland.

Mark's first contact with the FBI comes when he tips off his superiors that a Japanese competitor claims to know of a mole at ADM and wants ten million dollars to reveal who it is. He worries that the bureau's tapping of his business phone line at home will reveal what else he's involved in, so Mark confesses that his employer has him conspiring with other corporations to set the global market on lysine.

Mark agrees to cooperate with the FBI and make tapes documenting the illegal business practices, but for all of his help, the confident and bumbling informant complicates the case far beyond anyone's expectations.

Director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns could have adapted Kurt Eichenwald's book as a thriller. Instead THE INFORMANT! treats the true story as a comedy set to a jaunty Marvin Hamlisch score. The music and light tone serve as counterpoint to the serious business of corporate criminality and the drudgery of collecting and understanding the complex evidence needed for prosecution.

Soderbergh and Burns deftly present the puzzling information in a clear and highly entertaining manner, but for all of their hard, workmanlike efforts, the film is Damon's through and through. At first Damon's hilarious performance appears to be little more than playing the clueless schlub who narrates his exploits with an internal, analytical yammering, which is funny enough in its own right. Damon's layered work gradually transforms this unlikely hero into the type of person Whitacre's FBI handlers couldn't have anticipated encountering.

Whitacre was the highest ranking executive informant who ever cooperated with the bureau. The story about why he chose to help is fascinating, perplexing, and, in a certain light, outrageously funny.

Grade: A-

(Photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

Sorority Row

SORORITY ROW (Stewart Hendler, 2009)

In SORORITY ROW five sisters of Theta Pi pledge to keep quiet about the accidental, prank-related murder of one of their friends. Cassidy (Briana Evigan) is not in favor of covering up the death, but she doesn't feel she has a choice when the others threaten to pin the blame on her if she won't keep their terrible secret. Eight months later at graduation a killer with a lethally customized tire iron goes about avenging the dead girl the sorority sisters dumped in a mine shaft.

About halfway through, SORORITY ROW seems to abandon being a horror movie and gives itself over to comedy. Perhaps that is the best course of action as this remake of a 1983 slasher film is certainly more successful producing laughs than scares. Leah Pipes is very funny as the imperious and emotionally frigid leader of these morally repellent sorority girls. If she wants a future playing wicked queen bees, this performance shows she's cut out for it.

Rather than its partial tongue-in-cheek approach, SORORITY ROW would benefit from full commitment to dark humor, a la the 1988 Winona Ryder film HEATHERS. The movie is clearly sympathetic to the killer's blistering assessment of Greek life. Even its conflicted protagonist Cassidy is far from blameless in hushing up her friend's murder.

SORORITY ROW drops hints of a potentially withering commentary on group-think, but ultimately it's as conformist as its characters. The film caves into the demands for brain-dead horror cliches, gratuitous nudity, and run-of-the-mill suspense captured in needlessly shaky camera work. SORORITY ROW can laugh at the fact that it falls in line with genre conventions, but it doesn't excuse how easily it adopts them. After all, isn't going along with a plan despite knowing better the same thing its main character is guilty of?

Grade: C-

All About Steve

ALL ABOUT STEVE (Phil Traill, 2009)

In ALL ABOUT STEVE crossword puzzle creator Mary Horowitz (Sandra Bullock) grudgingly accepts a parentally-arranged blind date with cable news videographer Steve (Bradley Cooper). Upon seeing her handsome date Mary becomes hot to trot, but her intensity and incessant chatter lead Steve to cut short their time together. His job provides the convenient excuse of a breaking news assignment out of town. Steve politely but insincerely says that he wishes Mary could accompany him.

Instantly obsessed with Steve, Mary misreads the situation and decides that fate is telling her to follow him around the country. The situation worsens when Steve's co-worker, pompous news reporter Hartman Hughes (Thomas Haden Church), encourages Mary's seemingly delusional actions.

ALL ABOUT STEVE is constructed as a romantic comedy, but Mary's tireless, stalker-like behavior suggests that this ought to be a horror film. There's that and the matter of ALL ABOUT STEVE being dreadfully unfunny. Hartman feeds her delusions, but Mary's inability to decode social cues and her ceaseless cheer are intended as cute quirks, as though she's an innocent venturing into the world for the first time.

Bullock plays Mary as a sweet savant with no concept of how demented she is. Twinkly tics and all, Bullock's performance is an irritating one, to say the least. It's as if Poppy, the positive thinking main character of HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, wandered into this movie and lost all self-awareness.

Propagating ALL ABOUT STEVE'S spectacular misconception is its drumbeat of up with the unusual, down with the press. There's a touch of Billy Wilder's ACE IN THE HOLE to ALL ABOUT STEVE'S media criticism, although if that parallel was intended, director Phil Traill and screenwriter Kim Barker missed that the gathering gawkers and carnival building up around a rescue site were not positive developments.

ALL ABOUT STEVE is an atypical romantic comedy, but different for different's sake doesn't automatically equate to good.

Grade: D

Extract

EXTRACT (Mike Judge, 2009)

In the comedy EXTRACT Joel (Jason Bateman) might appear to have everything he could want, but he's struggling to keep it together. He's founder and owner of Reynold's Extract, which is doing good business and has a large corporation inquiring about a buyout. Joel is also married to a woman he loves and has a nice home and car.

Unfortunately for Joel an employee injury on the factory floor could be financially devastating to the company and jeopardize the potential sale. Factor in Joel's nonexistent sex life and temptation in the form of Mila Kunis' flirtatious temporary worker Cindy, and it's a recipe for constant aggravation.

EXTRACT writer-director Mike Judge, whose credits include OFFICE SPACE and the animated series KING OF THE HILL, may be the filmmaker who best understands today's working middle class. Although EXTRACT is far from his greatest accomplishment, primarily due to the film's underwritten feel, he remains a sharp and humorous observer of the small, common nuisances that slowly and quietly crush spirits.

With EXTRACT Judge collects and loosely connects amusing vignettes from middle class life, be it the overly friendly neighbor whose nose is always in one's business or the pettiness of one's employees when they detect the slightest hint of favoritism. The plot is pretty much a mess, but Judge strings together plenty of minor laughs to disregard the film's structural chaos.

Bateman is a dependable lead in a role not far removed from ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT'S put-upon Michael Bluth, and he has good chemistry with a badly bearded Ben Affleck as Joel's bartending best friend Dean.

The film gets stolen, though, by Dustin Milligan as a dim-witted gigolo that Dean convinces Joel to hire to test his wife's fidelity and possibly give him an out for hooking up with the foxy temp. Milligan plays stupid convincingly, but he doesn't overdo it. You can practically see and hear the gears working in his head as he tries to process the instructions he'll inevitably fail to follow properly.

EXTRACT works better as a bunch of miniature observations than as a singular piece, but viewed within the context of Judge's body of work, it's a funny and worthy addition to his suburban comedies.

Grade: B-

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA (Stephen Sommers, 2009)

In G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA, the titular Joe isn't a real American hero but an international force of special operatives fighting to keep the world safe. Arms manufacturer James McCullen (Christopher Eccleston) has created warheads containing nano-mites that gobble metal. He sells four of the weapons to NATO but intends to have The Baroness (Sienna Miller) steal them back.

American soldiers Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are on the delivery mission when the G.I. Joe team comes to their aid. Once the missiles are safe, Duke and Ripcord are free to go, but they decide to stick around, earn spots as Joes, and work to bring down McCullen.

G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA is like a term paper that fulfills the word count requirement and drops in key phrases to demonstrate some familiarity with the material but is largely filler. Director Stephen Sommers delivers plenty of effects-heavy action sequences, some which work and some that don't, and has a zippy way of coloring in multiple character backstories without bogging the film down as an origin tale. There are worse summer movies based on toy franchises that one could see.

But with scene after scene of whiz-bang combat, G.I. JOE feels insubstantial and lacking in personality. Since it plays more like an introduction to a potential series of films than a self-contained piece, nothing seems to be at stake. With an overpopulated cast of characters, each gets a single defining trait and showcase moment. That's fine for action figures or an after school cartoon, but the film feels unmoored without a dynamic hero leading the way. G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA is paced well and entertaining in stretches, but it also produces a lot of wheel-spinning until the signature villains finally emerge.

Grade: C

Avatar Day

WOW! THE FUTURE OF THE CINEMA HAS BEEN AND FOREVER WILL BE FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED!

OK, maybe not.

I'm not sure why I decided to put in a ticket reservation for tonight's showing of a preview reel from James Cameron's AVATAR. The offer arrived in my inbox Monday morning, and without thinking about it I went to the site to register.

But why? I don't make it a point to track down every tidbit of information about upcoming films prior to seeing them--I'd prefer to be, you know, surprised--so going to a theater to watch about fifteen minutes from a movie that won't be released until four months from now really doesn't make any sense. I confess, though, that hearing all of the hype piqued my curiosity enough to want to see what is supposedly such a big deal.

Let's get the obvious out of the way upfront. There's no way of telling how well the six scenes and brief montage shown for Avatar Day actually work within the context of the entire film. Seeing the footage in IMAX 3D provides a better gauge of the visuals than a trailer streamed online, but at this point they're just disjointed scenes of pretty pictures.

In the filmed introduction Cameron informed viewers that all of the footage was from the film's first half and contains no spoilers. I have a feeling I know what the film is about, more or less, but I'll keep my trap shut because there's no point in hypothesizing now.

The Avatar Day scenes contain enough exposition to clarify a general storyline, but the most time is dedicated to effects-heavy sequences, which is what those in attendance likely wanted to see most urgently. The avatars' confrontation with some alien animals and the hero's attempt to do something akin to bronco breaking of a dragon-like creature look impressive, but what else is there to say about them?

Correct or not, my initial impression is that AVATAR appears to be a mostly animated film about the long and slender blue cats which serve as avatars for the soldiers and that are also the planet's natives. I've heard a little grumbling about the character design, but I reiterate that judgment should be reserved until the film, not snippets, are seen. My feeling on the 3D is what it always is: 3D injects an inital "ooo" factor and then dissipates.

What's the benefit of the studio doing a national campaign like Avatar Day rather than rolling out this footage at Comic-Con and then putting it online? Beats me. My guess is that anyone who attended these screenings was already committed to seeing the film on December 18. Sure, it snags some preview coverage--I wouldn't be writing about AVATAR otherwise--but is it worth the expense of renting all those IMAX 3D auditoriums nationwide to help get the word out to those who are unaware of the film? Apparently someone thinks so.

The Hurt Locker

THE HURT LOCKER (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008)

With little more than a month remaining on their 2004 tour of duty in Baghdad, Bravo Company's Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Spc. Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) are hoping to get out of Iraq alive and in one piece. In THE HURT LOCKER a routine but dangerous mission results in a fellow soldier's death. Naturally, the accident unsettles the surviving men in the company, the jittery Eldridge in particular. Bravo Company disarms improvised explosive devices littering the war-torn streets, so very little margin of error exists for avoiding tragic consequences.

The introduction of Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) to their ranks does nothing to alleviate Sanborn and Eldridge's uneasiness. James possesses a phenomenal talent for disabling IEDs and staying cool under pressure, but he's also prone to risk-taking that endangers himself and all other military personnel in the vicinity. For James such disregard for protocol is necessary to achieve the adrenaline rush that attracts him to the work and makes him so successful. It certainly helps that he's wired a little differently than other soldiers, but his methods also ratchet up the tension in already stress-filled situations.

Screenwriter Mark Boal based THE HURT LOCKER on his experiences as an embedded journalist with a bomb disposal unit in Iraq. The script's authenticity and director Kathryn Bigelow's cinema verité style pull us into the film with a mixture of awe and terror. The film plunks us among these men performing incredibly hazardous work day in and day out and leaves us with frazzled nerves and appreciation for their service. Viewed purely as an action film, THE HURT LOCKER delivers again and again with tense scenes of IED disarmament and the potential for combat at any moment. The repetition can have a numbing effect, which admittedly works toward the film's purpose of addressing war's addictive nature, but it also causes THE HURT LOCKER to lose some steam toward the end.

Bigelow's naturalistic direction is critical to maintaining realism and intensity in the action sequences. The camera is often used as if the photographer is alongside the soldiers. When Bravo Company engages in a firefight with insurgents in the wilderness, the camera hunkers down with the men and keeps to a range as far as their equipment permits them to see. This may sound like an inconsequential or restrictive creative choice, but in this instance pinning the camera to a single spot in the rocky terrain is paramount for conveying screen geography and fostering suspense.

THE HURT LOCKER avoids explicit political statements about whether the United States military's presence in the region is legitimate or unjustified. Implicitly positive or negative readings of the film's stance on the War in Iraq probably reflect the beliefs viewers carry into the theater than what's on screen. This isn't a coward's way out for the filmmakers but rather an acknowledgment of the soldiers' reality. THE HURT LOCKER goes to great pains to present the challenges confronting them and how they function. When staring at several bombs that need to be disarmed, philosophical debates about patriotism or warmongering aren't the most urgent things coming to mind.

Grade: B

(500) Days of Summer

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER (Marc Webb, 2009)

In (500) DAYS OF SUMMER Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) just can't get over Summer, the greeting card company co-worker who captures and inevitably breaks his heart. Tom should have anticipated this outcome and not simply because their initial flirtation took place over shared love for the doomed romanticism of The Smiths. Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) told him upfront in no uncertain terms that she wasn't looking for a serious relationship and, in fact, doesn't believe in love.

For awhile their casual and affectionate coupledom is more than enough to satisfy Tom, but the increasing differences in what Tom and Summer get and expect from the relationship eventually put an unbearable strain on it. She calls it quits. He falls to pieces.

Tom's friends and little sister Rachel (Chloe Moretz) try to help him cope, but he can't see beyond his hard-fixed belief that Summer is the one he is meant to love forever and ever. Tom holds out hope that a reconciliation may happen. Since the film doesn't introduce to the characters on the 500th day, perhaps he has reason to think things will work out.

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER'S non-linear timeline skips among the highs and lows during the not quite seventeen months in which Tom meets, dates, and remains hung up on the woman he is determined is everything he could ever want and more. Never mind that she doesn't reciprocate his ardor with the same intensity or desire for long-term commitment. The movies, pop music, and even the sentimental cards he writes for a living all reinforce the idea of a single soulmate and eternal happiness. Tom knows he's found this person in Summer, so why doesn't she feel similarly?

The answer, of course, is that life and love are rarely as tidy as art's simplified representations and the romantic's self-deluded perceptions. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER takes a hammer to romantic comedy tropes that distort the interpersonal dynamics between men and women into childish knight-in-shining-armor and princess fantasies. Of particular note is when the film shatters illusions with an amusing and heartbreaking scene that plays out in split-screen. One side is labeled "expectations", and the other is dubbed "reality". For Tom the gulf between the two sides of the frame is wide. He's fated to be miserable until he can accept that what he hoped for and what happened don't align.

While (500) DAYS OF SUMMER doesn't deal in the common yet unrealistic movie portrayals of falling in love, that hardly means it's a bitter or unpleasant film. It's romantic, funny and, yes, sad because director Marc Webb and screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber strive for emotional realism that audience members can relate to better than the exaggerated nonsense that passes for many film love affairs.

(500) DAYS OF SUMMER can bring out that jubilant feeling, such as when Tom celebrates a relationship breakthrough by strutting down the street in a musical number scored by a bouncy Hall & Oates hit. The scene is over the top yet retains the ring of truth. Likewise, (500) DAYS OF SUMMER expresses the humor and pain of romantic contradictions. Tom's adoration of Summer's quirks turns into annoyance after they've broken up. His impression of her has changed, not Summer's specific qualities. These kinds of small details regarding how people think and behave is what makes the film more keenly felt than offerings in which both halves of a pair detest one another for ninety minutes and then awaken to their mutual but previously inevident passion in the final reel.

The advantage (500) DAYS OF SUMMER has over other romantic comedies isn't any radical innovation, yet it eludes a fair number of these films. Simply put, here the characters communicate. The enjoyment and heartache come from seeing Tom and Summer experience ups and downs together. Keeping them apart in any manner of contrived scenarios would be the typical gambit. When the characters do separate, it's not due to any villainous conduct on either part but a genuine disagreement on what the relationship should be.

As the commitment-seeking emotional mess and the nonchalant pragmatist, Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel are a delight to watch as they reverse gender stereotypes. Gordon-Levitt displays a great deal of charm by investing Tom with the enthusiasm and wounded nature of a puppy dog. Deschanel plays the familiar part of mildly eccentric dream girl, but she inhabits the role with an introvert's grounding and secrecy. Tom may view Summer as an angel of salvation, but Deschanel plays her like the flesh-and-blood mortal she is.

Stylistically Webb indulges a taste for French New Wave playfulness, some of which almost nudges the film into overly cute territory. Another unmistakable influence is ANNIE HALL. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER doesn't reach the rarefied level of Woody Allen's masterpiece, but the film's bruised yet clear-eyed romanticism is refreshing to find in a genre that often settles for something less than truthful or passionate.

Grade: B+

The Ugly Truth

THE UGLY TRUTH (Robert Luketic, 2009)

Is there nothing grander than young love born from loathing and hatred? So says THE UGLY TRUTH.

Television morning show producer Abby (Katherine Heigl) would like to meet and marry Mr. Right, but she's not in any hurry to encounter who she envisions as the ideal man. It's a good thing Abby can wait. No one is likely to match the extensive and impractical checklist of criteria she's decided her companion must match.

Cable access show host Mike (Gerard Butler) dispenses relationship advice that, at best, could be considered sexist and more likely is misogynist. Mike's crude musings about men and women infuriates Abby when she stumbles upon his program one evening. The following morning she's even less pleased to learn that this oaf has been hired to goose the ratings for her show.

Mike and Abby get along grudgingly for the sake of work. To persuade her that his philosophies about interactions between the genders have merit, Mike offers some CYRANO DE BERGERAC-like help so Abby ensnare the hot podiatrist next door. She consents to carrying out his seduction techniques despite being unconvinced about his methods.

Romantic comedies have a tradition of exaggerating how people act and respond when it comes to matters of the heart, but even by those loose standards THE UGLY TRUTH far exceeds the limits of believable behavior. The film's comedic centerpiece is a scene in which Abby is humiliated during an important business dinner. It's the perfect encapsulation of everything wrong with THE UGLY TRUTH. The individual developments test the screenwriting credibility enough as it is. The chain of events is wholly implausible.

First, Abby and Mike have a graphic discussion at work about her sexual frustration. Next, Mike sends her vibrating panties to relieve the tension. Abby's date informs her that he's running late, so she slips on the stimulating underwear to bide the time. Practically as she's putting them on, Mike and her boss are at her door insisting that she must accompany them to a critical meeting. Perhaps mistakenly she slides the panties' remote into her purse and departs with her co-workers. At the restaurant the control falls out of her purse and is picked up by a boy. Since the remote looks like a gadget developed by a scientist in a 1950s movie, the boy begins playing with the device. The vibrating panties start working their magic. Rather than excusing herself, Abby moans and twitches in ecstasy in front of the entire restaurant. Mike even notices that the boy has the remote, but instead of putting an end to the situation, he is amused by it all and lets it continue.

While a similar scene takes place in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY, there are crucial differences between the films. It's debatable whether either scenario might occur in public in real life, but unlike Meg Ryan's Sally, Abby in THE UGLY TRUTH has no control of the situation and is the one being embarrassed. In WHEN HARRY MET SALLY the humor derives from the male character's belief being challenged and him being made uncomfortable. Abby's degradation in THE UGLY TRUTH has a measure of vindictiveness and elicits cruel laughter. THE UGLY TRUTH has a pretty hateful attitude toward women, something forcefully emphasized in this scene

THE UGLY TRUTH'S gender politics draw inspiration from THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, but that doesn't absolve the coarse and nasty tone throughout a film that's supposedly a love story. Two-thirds of THE UGLY TRUTH concentrates on knocking Abby down peg after peg and provides no basis for attraction between her and Mike before delivering the predictable and dubious third act change of heart. THE UGLY TRUTH has all the honesty and romance of an Axe body spray commercial.

Grade: D+

88 Minutes

88 MINUTES (Jon Avnet, 2007)

Nine years after forensic psychiatrist Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino) provided crucial testimony in the conviction of serial killer Jon Forster (Neal McDonough), the verdict begins to be called into question. In 88 MINUTES a murder replicating the methods of the old crimes suggests that perhaps Forster was wrongly imprisoned.

The timing is of extreme importance since the killing comes on the eve of Forster's scheduled execution. Clues at the new murder scene open the possibility that Gramm himself is the culprit. Meanwhile, a mysterious caller informs Gramm that he has two minutes shy of an hour and a half left to live and sends him running around Seattle to stay alive and solve the crime.

88 MINUTES is the sort of overblown thriller in which every action, no matter how insignificant, is pregnant with portent, yet it's a film of nothing but red herrings. Director Jon Avnet and screenwriter Gary Scott Thompson have concocted a silly mystery that gets more outrageous and laughable as the clock ticks down to the zero minute.

Again and again 88 MINUTES torpedoes suspicion regarding Gramm and loses internal consistency. Since multiple attempts to kill Gramm occur long before time is up, it's abundantly clear that he is not guilty of what has been set up and that the film's countdown device doesn't matter at all.

The decisions made in 88 MINUTES never make any sense. When the abusive former boyfriend of Gramm's teaching assistant Kim (Alicia Witt) appears with a gun at his front door, she tells her boss to open it because the guy wouldn't hurt her. Never mind that he used to beat her and is thought to be out to kill Gramm. Sure, come on in and make yourself at home!

Equally as implausible as the conspiracy to frame Gramm is how every woman in the the film throws herself at him as though the old professor is America's heartthrob. Leave it to the movies to make it so all females are rendered powerless by the unexplained pull of his erotic magnetism.

The portrayal of Gramm's irresistibility verges on parody. That farcical quality can also be read in 88 MINUTES' preposterous mystery. Unfortunately for the filmmakers, they didn't set out to make a comedy.

Grade: D

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN (Larry Charles, 2006)

Sacha Baron Cohen is fearless. In BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN, the British comedian makes fools of unsuspecting ordinary Americans (and some unordinary ones) while frequently putting his own wellbeing in danger. As Kazakh television reporter Borat Sagdiyev, Cohen shatters the customs of polite society. He makes horribly racist, sexist, and homophobic comments, but his broken English and guilelessness give him a pass (for awhile) with most he encounters. The character allows him to hold up a mirror to such ridiculous attitudes when his new acquaintances use the openings Borat gives them to express similar beliefs.

Ostensibly a road movie and a fake documentary that the other participants don’t know is fake, BORAT follows the enthusiastic reporter and his obese producer Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian) as they journey across the country. Their visit to America is supposed to be limited to New York City, but when Borat stumbles upon an old episode of BAYWATCH on his hotel room television, he switches their plans and sets out for Los Angeles so he can take Pamela Anderson as his wife. Along the way he talks with politicians, an antiques dealer, television anchors, fraternity brothers, and more as he takes the pulse of the United States, particularly the South.

At the risk of using hyperbole, BORAT is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. Cohen’s total commitment to the character and control is astonishing. I can’t imagine a more gut-busting and shocking scene than Borat and Azamat’s naked wrestling. Cohen and Davitian go for broke and at least twice manage to top what you expect can’t be topped. While Cohen’s acting may not typify what gets classified as outstanding acting, this is a great performance. In our daily lives we’d find Borat detestable, but on screen, even when being actively mean to undeserving folks, he’s completely likable.

Borat has no boundaries, and much of the humor comes from how he upsets the normal social balance. Whether trying to be friendly with New Yorkers on the subway or southern gentlemen and women at a dinner party, Borat tests the limits of what people will accept before they are offended.

Cohen’s playing the ultimate rube in the big city, but the joke’s on those he meets. On the positive side, BORAT reveals an America where people are happy to accept someone interested in learning about this nation. Although the butts of his jokes, many people are unfailingly polite until Borat exceeds their tolerance for being offended or having personal space invaded. A hotel worker gently corrects Borat when he begins unpacking his belongings in the elevator because he’s under the wrong impression that it is his room.

There’s no doubt that Cohen is pushing his subject’s buttons, and sometimes the results, while a riot, aren’t pretty. Borat highlights American ignorance, particularly when people excuse his most inflammatory words and actions as cultural difference. The more outrageous his statements or deeds, the more someone is willing to chalk it up to the Kazakh way. It doesn’t speak well of our education and beliefs about other cultures when Borat can get away with what he says and does.

Many of the funniest bits are Borat’s interactions with others, but this is a film packed with many less complex laughs. The chicken Borat packs in his luggage is one of the best recurring gags in the film. About the time we’ve forgotten about the animal, it squawks and delivers one of the funniest moments in a movie with wall-to-wall laughs.

Most film comedies, even the good ones, are safe and predictable. Even the “edgy” ones seem too self-conscious in their provocations. BORAT is the rare comedy that operates without a safety net. Cohen and director Larry Charles’ film provides constant laughter and surprises while daring the viewer to be rightfully offended. This is a bold film likely to elicit strong opinions. Put me down on the side of those cracking up even when it feels wrong to be laughing.

Grade: A

(Photos TM and © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.)

Gran Torino

GRAN TORINO (Clint Eastwood, 2008)

For supposedly his last time performing on screen, Clint Eastwood chooses to go out as the kind of tough, no-nonsense son of a gun that has defined his acting career. In GRAN TORINO Eastwood is newly widowed Walt Kowalski, a crusty Korean War veteran who doesn't suffer anyone or mince words, no matter how inappropriate they might be. Walt's an equal opportunity offender who's just as quick to tell off his own children and grandkids as he is to apply racist terms to the many immigrants who now live in his old Detroit neighborhood.

The retired auto worker's most cherished possession is a 1972 Gran Torino, so he doesn't take kindly to Thao Vang Lor (Bee Vang) a boy from the Hmong family next door, trying to steal it as part of a gang initiation ritual. Walt feels no affection for the Lors, but when gang members try to take Thao, he chases them away.

Thao's grateful sister Sue (Ahney Her) and mother insist that the teen work for Walt as a means of atoning for the attempted car theft. Although Walt is reluctant to accept the offer, he acknowledges that this is a chance to get the neighborhood cleaned up how he wants. Through his work ethic, Thao slowly wins over Walt and increases the senior citizen's protective instinct for foreigners who end up having more in common with him than his own flesh and blood.

Like a new driver learning to operate a manual transmission, director Eastwood's awkward shifting of tones makes the lurching GRAN TORINO a frustrating ride. Parts of GRAN TORINO are clearly supposed to be funny. Eastwood's cranky old man act lets him verbally knock around a baby-faced priest, utter a stream of slurs, and even snarl the oldster rallying cry "get off my lawn" to no-good thugs.

The beloved movie star relishes the chance to put everyone in their place, but Eastwood may be having too much fun as he sets up ridiculously easy targets to hit, such as Walt's etiquette-lacking kin. Even if GRAN TORINO doesn't abide Walt's outdated racist words, it sympathizes with him and makes his offensiveness a charming quirk even in moments when his antiquated attitude shouldn't be humorous.

Nevertheless, actions may matter more than words, particularly when considering those long set in their ways, even if the comedy of Walt's insults can be jarring next to the cross-cultural and generational drama examining Eastwood's prototypical stoic hero. At a time when people rush to unload their innermost thoughts to anyone and everyone, Walt is a relic who clings to and attempts to squash his deepest feelings. How Walt lives is the only statement he needs to make, although it means presenting an incomplete picture to others.

GRAN TORINO is most invigorating when Walt's ways and beliefs are challenged. The crosscutting of culture-spanning similarities provides a strong argument for building understanding, but Walt's softening attitude toward those he once detested is less impactful due to uniformly bad supporting performances. Water may be able to wear down rock, but it's a stretch that the charisma-challenged neighbors would sway Walt.

Grade: C+

Lovely by Surprise

LOVELY BY SURPRISE (Kirt Gunn, 2007)

Being able to point people toward an unfamiliar but good movie--an overlooked gem, perhaps one that never escaped the festival circuit--is one of the most enjoyable things I can do as a film critic. Yes, negative reviews can be fun to write from time to time, but I didn't start critiquing films so I could piss all over the creative efforts of others. I'd much rather be championing movies than thrashing them, especially because I'd rather see good movies than bad ones.

I'm in my tenth year of doing film criticism online, so by now I'm on enough publicists' lists to be offered a decent number of screeners for review. Because there's only so much time in the day to watch and write about films, I tend to be particular in what I'll request. Granted, there is no guarantee that I'll like what I'll see, but I pick films that I think will interest and appeal to me. Maybe I'll uncover one of those underseen treasures.

Which is all a roundabout way of leading me to the troublesome case of LOVELY BY SURPRISE. I responded affirmatively when asked if I'd like to get a copy for review. After all, the independent comedy/drama from writer-director Kirt Gunn won the New American Cinema Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Seattle International Film Festival. Online reviews aren't plentiful, but most that I've found are glowing. It seemed like the sort of film that fell between the cracks and could use my drop in the bucket of critical support. Sounds good. And then I watched the DVD.

LOVELY BY SURPRISE layers scenes featuring three distinct sets of characters whose paths gradually converge, although not always in expected ways. The film's hub is Marian (Carrie Preston), who is writing an ambitious novel in which actions in the real world affect the characters in the book. Stuck on how to advance the story, she goes to her former writing professor Jackson (Austin Pendleton) for advice. He assesses that Marian's novel contains no conflict. Jackson proposes that this non-dilemma dilemma can be neatly resolved by killing off one of the characters. The idea troubles her, but she agrees to give it a shot.

Marian's underwear-clad characters reside in a houseboat in the middle of a field but cannot leave the landlocked vessel. For subsistence the author provides them with boxed cereal within a spear's throw and a milkman's deliveries. The stout Humkin (Michael Chernus), the one in the baby blue briefs, wants to abandon ship, but his brother Mopekey (Dallas Roberts), he of the yellow underpants, is determined to keep him onboard. When Marian attempts to kill Humkin, she presents the opportunity he needs to jump ship and the written page.

Connecting the separate scenes of the writer and her creations is easy to do, but it's less certain how the moments with grieving car salesman Bob (Reg Rogers) and his daughter Mimi (Lena Lamer) fit into the puzzle. After his wife's death Bob has taken to waxing philosophical with customers and talking them out of new vehicle purchases. He can't stop talking, but Mimi has clammed up.

LOVELY BY SURPRISE'S aggressive quirkiness is off-putting from the get-go and the biggest barrier to engaging with the film. The silly names and affected behavior of Marian's characters are the most glaring examples of a movie trying too hard to be unconventional, but it's the comedic and dramatic tones, off by a smidgen throughout, that can make the film insufferable at times.

While the final scene makes the gist of the film undeniably clear, specific questions arising from the opaque narrative aren't resolved in a satisfying manner. Every little uncertainty doesn't need to be answered, but LOVELY BY SURPRISE doesn't give the impression that it is operating with a consistent internal logic. Whether the blame stems from the screenwriting or editing is hard to say, although it probably can be attributed to both.

LOVELY BY SURPRISE employs flourishes of David Lynch-like dreaminess minus the menace. The disconnected feel, coupled with the annoying eccentricities, establishes another blockade to entering the film. Existing at arm's-length may achieve the goal of exploring the mental investment in creative work and the toll that authorial honesty and writer's block can take, but it makes for a displeasing viewing experience.

Although LOVELY BY SURPRISE drowns in its own preciousness, clearly it boasts some talent in front of and behind the camera. Preston, last seen stealing a scene as the corporate travel agent Clive Owen dupes in DUPLICITY, does a fine job balancing the fragility and intensity Marian draws upon to devote herself fully to her writing. Rogers is strangely compelling as a character obviously failing to hold himself together yet still retaining a measure of persuasiveness.

Cinematographer Steve Yedlin, who also lensed Rian Johnson's BRICK and THE BROTHERS BLOOM, favors a soft, gloomy look with bursts of color that matches the film's emotional palette. Gunn displays an eye for interesting shot composition and maintains a good pace that keeps LOVELY BY SURPRISE watchable in spite of the irritations.

These positive qualities and the DIY effort to get the film seen are why I almost feel like I need to apologize for disliking LOVELY BY SURPRISE so strongly. Almost.

Grade: D+

(LOVELY BY SURPRISE is now available on DVD.)

My Sister's Keeper

MY SISTER'S KEEPER (Nick Cassavetes, 2009)

In MY SISTER'S KEEPER eleven-year-old Anna Fitzgerald (Abigail Breslin) will do and has done just about anything for her leukemia-afflicted teenage sister Kate (Sofia Vassilieva). Their parents Sara and Brian (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) conceived Anna with the plan that she would donate what Kate needed, be it umbilical cord blood or bone marrow, in the fight against cancer.

For all of her young life Anna has provided what Kate requires, although how much of a willing participant she's been is up for debate. As Kate takes a turn for the worse, the time comes for Anna to donate a kidney to keep her sibling alive. Within the family it's accepted--and expected--that Anna will again give part of herself to assist her older sister. Needless to say, Sara and Brian are shocked when their little girl sues them for medical emancipation.

Anna hires lawyer Campbell Alexander (Alec Baldwin) to help her win the right to make decisions about her own body. Prior medical procedures to benefit Kate have had complications and required hospital stays for Anna. A kidney donation would mean lifelong limitations on what activities she can participate in. It also doesn't guarantee Kate will be cured. Anna loves Kate and doesn't want her to die, but the coercive pressure her parents, especially her mother, have put on her has reached a breaking point.

Initially MY SISTER'S KEEPER looks to be a hot button drama about the ethics of donor children, but that sensitive subject is merely the hook for getting into a story about how a family can be torn apart when one member has a terminal illness. The nonlinear storytelling divides the narration among the Fitzgeralds, which allows the film to get a broader understanding of the choices that have led to this crisis and how each person has been affected. Not all of the characters are done justice--Brian and son Jesse (Evan Ellingson) mostly serve to push the action along--but the technique fills in gaps that would exist if it were told from a single perspective.

Based on Jodi Picoult's novel, MY SISTER'S KEEPER is an unrepentant tearjerker, and writer-director Nick Cassavetes and co-writer Jeremy Leven build a solid, albeit exposed infrastructure for facilitating the waterworks. (The screening I attended featured the most audience sniffling and sobbing I think I've ever heard at the movies.)

Sara's apparent inability to consider Anna's well-being and individuality might be interpreted as monstrous behavior--sometimes she loses sight that her youngest child is more than spare parts--although her backstory and Diaz's credible performance make such reactions seem like the natural fallout from years of ferocious caregiving. Sara has so much energy and love invested in Kate that she is blinded to what's happening around her and doesn't know when to let go. Sara may be difficult to like, but Diaz imparts her with conviction and thus makes the character's reasoning seem rational to her.

MY SISTER'S KEEPER might have earned its weepy moments if it had played fair with its central dilemma rather than putting forward a false choice. The film conveniently dodges the question of whether it is moral to have a child for the express purpose of catering to a sibling's medical needs. While MY SISTER'S KEEPER may be primarily concerned with family dynamics during stressful times, the ethical question it raises looms too large for a loophole to render it unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

If the controversial issue wasn't going to be addressed, it didn't need to be introduced. The basis for an emotionally powerful and messy film about love and loss is plainly evident, but the unresolved gimmick distracts from where attention should be directed.

Grade: C+

Whatever Works

WHATEVER WORKS (Woody Allen, 2009)

WHATEVER WORKS is Woody Allen's fortieth feature film as director. Once again he uses the cinematic forum to voice his ideas and fears about love and death while cracking some jokes along the way.

Boris Yellnikoff (Larry David), a classic version of the Allen protagonist, is a New York intellectual obsessed with his own mortality. Boris may be a string theorist whose genius almost snared him a Nobel Prize, but his true calling is as a professional neurotic. Boris often seems happier when he's miserable. Lord knows he tries to make lemons when life gives him lemonade. Boris dumps his rich, highly compatible wife and jumps out of a window intent to end it all. Since the universe has a twisted sense of humor, he survives and thus has something else to grumble about.

Moving on, Boris finds contentment living alone and following his routines--or as much contentment as an agitated misanthrope can have--but his life gets upended when he meets Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood), a beauty pageant queen from Mississippi who has run away from home to make it in the Big Apple. With little more than a high school letterman's jacket to her name, Melodie needs a place to stay--temporarily, of course. He's resistant to having his space invaded but eventually agrees to let her crash for a night or two.

Then a funny thing happens. Boris discovers that he doesn't mind having Melodie around. She listens with rapt attention to his rants about people and accepts his theories and cultured tastes as her own.

On CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM David has refined an acerbic personality that turns out to be a perfect match for Boris and his acid-tinged worldview, an increasingly common character trait in Allen's movies. Bitterness has been creeping into the writer-director's work, so it helps that David, eminently comfortable in the Woody Allen role, brings an amused fatalism to the part that keeps this rather toxic-sounding man from becoming unlikable.

Boris kvetches about stupid people a lot, but David's body language tends to reflect an attitude of humored indifference. Allen also eases up on coming off like a crank when it becomes clear that Boris' intolerance and ritual bound behavior, such as his hand washing, are just secular versions of the religious dogma he rejects. Boris may not be a big stretch for David to play, but he makes a consistently funny curmudgeon.

Wood ends up being a better foil for David than expected and makes Melodie sufficiently convincing in the story, which is a pretty tall order. At first her airheaded, molasses-accented character seems like the worst of Allen's conception of non-New Yorkers, but Wood's bright-eyed, irony-free performance has charm and innocence to nicely offset the film's aged astringency. Allen continues to paint a target on his back by having another pretty young thing go gaga for an old man. The May/December romance in WHATEVER WORKS is pretty implausible. Thankfully it's the amusing collision of the brainy and the ditsy that matters more.

WHATEVER WORKS takes a serious downturn in the second half when the focus drifts from Boris. Melodie's mother Marietta (Patricia Clarkson) turns up at his door looking for her daughter, and later on her father John (Ed Begley Jr.) appears too. Not only do the awakenings of these southern conservatives to New York liberalism feel like Allen at his laziest, but also their arcs are just not that funny, interesting, or developed.

Due in part to the sheer volume of Allen's filmography, WHATEVER WORKS is bound to seem familiar, but he's found a winning formula, even if this film's title suggests a less than fastidious approach to getting it right.

Grade: B-

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS (Carlos Saldanha and Mike Thurmeier, 2009)

When sitcom characters start getting married and having children, the developments often indicate that the creative wells in the writers' rooms are running dry. These warning signs are all over the ICE AGE series, which has now yielded two sequels, with more likely to come as long as the box office receipts, not worthwhile untold stories, warrant them.

The original 2002 animated film was pleasant enough as it followed the comedic exploits of prehistoric creatures during the glacial period, but it didn't suggest untapped tales about these characters. 2006's subpar follow-up ICE AGE: THE MELTDOWN introduced a spouse for woolly mammoth Manny (Ray Romano). As ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS opens, Manny and his beloved Ellie (Queen Latifah) are waiting for the arrival of their first fuzzy bundle of joy, something which has the expectant pop in a tizzy to childproof the frozen landscape they call home.

The impending mammoth domesticity has other members of the multiple species herd feeling left out. Saber-toothed tiger Diego (Denis Leary) notices that he's losing his predatory edge and elects to strike out on his own. Sid the sloth (John Leguizamo) is mindful that he is experiencing some parental stirrings, but with no nearby female sloths to speak of, he must build a family by adopting three abandoned eggs he discovers underneath the ice.

When the eggs hatch, Sid becomes the dutiful caregiver to Tyrannosaurus rex triplets, but his happiness is shortlived when the displeased momma T. rex comes looking for her babies. She hauls off Sid and the kids to an underground land where some dinosaurs survived the global freeze. Loyal to a fault, Sid's friends venture on a rescue mission by journeying below the ice. There they fall under the leadership of the wily and possibly crazy weasel Buck (Simon Pegg).

Breaking up the main story is saber-toothed squirrel Scrat's never-ending pursuit of an acorn. The addition of the female Scratte for this third go-round presents competition and a love interest for the tireless forager. Scrat's wordless vignettes have been highlights of the previous ICE AGE films, and the nutty scenarios he gets into again are among the funniest parts of this one. Whether straining to be freed from the tar adhering him to a tree or bopping along in a bubble after that darn acorn, Scrat's scenes possess an unforced silliness missing in the primary story.

ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS needs injections of cartoon merriment and orneriness to cure the blandness afflicting the plot and characters. Buck has his humorously unhinged moments, and Sid's sweet goofiness earns a smile here and there. Otherwise a great affinity with those in the herd isn't developed.

The animation is solid and features a couple nice action setpieces that probably look neat in 3-D--I saw the 2-D version--but what lingers is the predictability and indistinctiveness of it all. ICE AGE: DAWN OF THE DINOSAURS had to concoct an explanation for shoehorning the extinct reptiles into the timeline, so why limit the dinos' expressiveness to mere grunts and roars? It's just one of several signs that the film's modest creative hits and misses qualify it as an unremarkable, fitfully diverting effort than a mammoth letdown.

Grade: C

(Photo credit: Blue Sky Studios, TM and © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All Rights Reserved.)

Friday the 13th

FRIDAY THE 13TH (Marcus Nispel, 2009)

The latest FRIDAY THE 13TH is not a remake of the original 1980 film but a reboot of a franchise that refuses to die just like its hockey-masked, machete-wielding killer. Since it begins with a reminder of the killer's fate at the end of the first movie, this FRIDAY THE 13TH might be thought of as a direct sequel.

The return to a present day Camp Crystal Lake introduces a new bumper crop of horny young people partying in the wilderness. The intervening years have not mellowed Jason Vorhees (Derek Mears), so he turns to a combination of brute strength and sadistic inventiveness to begin weeding the landscape of these buff campers.

Six weeks later Clay Miller (Jared Padalecki) comes to the area looking for his sister Whitney (Amanda Righetti), who disappeared along with her friends. The local citizens are no help, and the police have given up their search. The libidinous college students he encounters aren't terribly concerned about his story until Jason starts picking them off one by one.

The first FRIDAY THE 13TH is not a masterwork by any stretch of the imagination, but it has one crucial thing the 2009 edition lacks completely: the element of surprise. This version tries to drum up scares through cranked up, unanticipated noises on the soundtrack but rarely utilizes Jason's presence in such unexpected ways. Instead Jason is often seen before he goes about the business of killing his prey as though it's another routine day at the workplace.

Not only does director Marcus Nispel's strategy drain the moments of any tension, but it also reverses the scenarios from ones of dread to scenes that read as though there's pleasure to be derived from the impending butcherings. Audience identification is with the killer, not the victims. Certainly this bloodlust is nothing new in modern horror film. It's probably the biggest shift from the victim-sympathetic 80s slasher movies to the current wave. Moral implications aside, the tactic eliminates the potential for terror from the equation.

No one goes to a FRIDAY THE 13TH movie expecting great acting or screenwriting, but the pitiful performances, paltry story, and formulaic execution reinforce the lack of effort put into this scare-less twelfth installment. Thirteen years ago SCREAM delivered what seemed like a comedic death blow to slasher film clichés produced in the wake of the first FRIDAY THE 13TH and its slew of sequels and competitors. Unfortunately this latest entry demonstrates that, like Jason, lazy and ineffective cinematic clichés are hard to kill.

Grade: D

Bigger Stronger Faster*

BIGGER STRONGER FASTER* (Chris Bell, 2008)

Are athletes who use anabolic steroids cheating? Are the drugs detrimental to one's health? The documentary BIGGER STRONGER FASTER*: THE SIDE EFFECTS OF BEING AMERICAN doesn't always provide the expected answers to these questions.

Director and narrator Chris Bell is a weightlifter struggling with the ethics of steroid use. His two weightlifting brothers take them. He's tried steroids but feels there's something wrong about using such performance enhancements. With BIGGER STRONGER FASTER Bell looks for answers regarding the effects of steroids and the culture's obsession with perfection.

The micro purpose of BIGGER STRONGER FASTER is to explore whether anabolic steroid use is as dangerous as it is claimed to be. Bell speaks to those in the bodybuilding community who don't buy into what they consider unsupported statements of steroid use's irreversible consequences.

Presenting his information as a less strident and glib Michael Moore, Bell makes an apologist's case that is neutral toward steroids, if not an implicit endorsement of them. Considering that he expeditiously discredits the only anti-steroids doctor and layman interviewed in the film, some doubt is cast over the strength and evenhandedness of his arguments. Nevertheless, Bell succeeds at muddying the waters when it comes to what we know versus what we're told in the film about the drugs.

BIGGER STRONGER FASTER'S macro purposes are to determine where the line is between cheating and fairness and to examine what Bell believes to be a uniquely American mindset to be the best no matter the cost.

Why are using steroids to build muscle and quicken recovery times deemed unacceptable while Lasik eye surgery to improve vision is permissible? After all, both give competitive advantages. The naysayers would quickly point out that individuals aren't risking deleterious long-term effects on their well-being (or death) with vision correction. Thus, pro sports administrators don't need to legislate against it, but keep in mind the film proposes that the use of steroids is not as damaging as popularly portrayed. The documentary doesn't, nor should it be expected to, resolve the matter, but it raises big, intriguing questions that rarely, if ever, come up in the hubbub about steroid use in professional athletics, particularly Major League Baseball.

Bell is on shakier ground when he theorizes that performance enhancement is an indelibly American obsession. He is correct that our national striving for greatness emphasizes a winner above all else mentality, but Bell overreaches in applying this exclusively to Americans. After all, one of his inspirations, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was an Austrian citizen when he began winning bodybuilding titles, and blood doping isn't limited to American cyclists.

Bell wonders why many of the people in the film and the culture at large refuse to be satisfied with the natural limitations of their bodies. Why isn't fulfilling one's potential good enough? It's on this individual level, when it plays like a personal essay, that BIGGER STRONGER FASTER is most compelling.

The use of performance enhancing drugs in sports is a hot button issue that can't afford room for nuances lest some try to exploit loopholes for gain. Bell's uncertainty about the ethical dilemmas feels like a genuine and appropriate response. Agree or disagree with him, his documentary gives sports fans a lot to chew on.

Grade: B

(Photos courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)