Martin's Musings

Not since Once have I enjoyed a movie as much as I did Slumdog Millionaire.

A story of hope and love, Millionaire is a rare must-see in a crowded movie marketplace. It’s definitely one of my favorites of the year.

The plot of the movie is rather simple: When Jamal, a former street child from Mumbai, appears on the Hindi version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and gets every question right, he is accused of cheating. After all, there’s no way an uneducated young man who grew up poor and without parents could get questions right that scholars and other brainy people couldn’t, right?

Well, as it turns out, every question Jamal is asked has some kind of tie to something in his life. The film jumps back and forth from the quiz show to those events, but not until the end do you really know whether it was luck, money, cheating, or destiny that lead to Jamal’s success. Continue reading →

What is there to say about the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace?

To get right to the point, it’s just not as good as Casino Royale, mostly because it’s not as character-driven or fun, and it spends too much time on forgettable action. There’s no scene in the new flick as exciting or cool as the construction site chase in Casino, for example.

But that said, Quantum is not a bad movie. It’s just disposable. Daniel Craig still projects icy cool, and he still makes a very good action hero when given the chance. Continue reading →

Chances are good you’ve never seen a movie quite like Synecdoche, New York.

First of all, about that hard-to-pronounce title. The film takes place (or at least part of it does) in Schenectady, New York, where Caden Cotard (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) is living a bleak existence and is convinced he’s dying. Eager to do something with his life before he goes (“That would be the time to do it,” Caden’s therapist tells him), he seeks to create a monumental theater piece that will document his existence and show that his life has meaning.

Now, according to Dictionary.com, the word synecdoche is “a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special.”

So to that end, the play becomes intertwined with Caden’s life, and soon there are multiple actors playing the same role (in Caden’s life and in his play), and the play becomes a play within a play within a play, with scenes and lines of dialogue repeating themselves. Chronology is blurred, and you never know if you’re watching Caden’s reality or his alternate reality. Continue reading →

Role Models is far from a role model for what a great comedy should be. It has real potential — Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott are set up as big brothers to a nerd (played by McLovin himself, Christopher Mintz-Plasse) and a little kid with a big mouth (Bobb’e J. Thompson) — but it’s just not as funny as it probably should have been. Thompson is the best reason to see the movie. Otherwise, wait for it to show up on cable. I’m giving Role Models a B–.

The new film Changeling tells a true story: In 1928, the son of Christine Collins (a single mother) disappeared. In order to find him, Christine had to go up against a corrupt Los Angeles Police Department and fight for them to continue the search, even though they kept telling her it was over. And of course, this was 1928, so a woman standing up for herself and fighting back against the police department (or any government office, for that matter) was not looked at so fondly. But Christine persevered, and with the help of an activist reverend, she made a difference in the Los Angeles legal system. No, Changeling is not a made-for-TV movie for the Lifetime network. It’s an actual big-screen movie starring Angelina Jolie (and John Malkovich) and directed by Clint Eastwood. And while Jolie is fine here, this is not one for her highlight reel.

Changeling really does belong on Lifetime with all the other melodramas. Like those films, it forces the star to spend much of the movie crying and yelling — what a change from A Mighty Heart, Jolie’s last missing person drama, in which her performance was more subtle and measured. Some of the dialogue in this very slow-moving movie is a bit laughable, and one key child actor is, well, let’s just say Clint should stick to adult actors. I don’t want to completely trash Changeling because truth be told, it’s not an awful movie. But throughout, I couldn’t help but think the lead should have been played by Valerie Bertinelli or Meredith Baxter, and that Jolie should go back to making movies that are more worthy of her. No wonder this one isn’t getting the big promotional push that other films with this caliber of talent would receive. Changeling only rates a B– from me.

File this one under “I saw it so you don’t have to” — not that you really had any intention of seeing Sex Drive anyway, did you? (I didn’t think so.) This story of a shy 18-year-old virgin on a road trip to meet the hottie he’s met on the Internets and, hopefully, to have sex for the first time, is not an outrageous, obnoxious comedy like its name would imply. In fact, while there are some scenes that clearly are R-rated (one in a trailer and another in a rest room, for example), Sex Drive is actually a rather tame and sweet movie where said virgin realizes he’s actually in love with his female best friend before he can do the deed with the hottie (oops! Did I just ruin it for you?), that includes a handful of pleasant chuckles (mostly ones involving Seth Green’s Amish character). Nothing hysterical here, but nothing groan-worthy either. It’s like if American Pie and Superbad had a kid but the kid actually had a conscience. So I’m giving Sex Drive a not-awful B–.

Do not be fooled by the trailer for Rachel Getting Married: It may look like a remake of Margot at the Wedding — last year’s very good movie about a bitter, unkind sister coming home for her sister’s wedding and wreaking havoc — but it’s not. Sure, the two movies have that basic plot in common, but Rachel cuts a lot deeper, with much sharper knives, and it’s much more painful to watch at times.

As directed by Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs), the action in Rachel unfolds naturally, and it’s captured in a hand-held vérité style that makes you feel like you are there. Kym (the excellent Anne Hathaway) has gotten out of rehab to attend her sister Rachel’s wedding. Kym is still dealing with a lot of unresolved internal pain and over the course of the weekend, she takes it out on nearly every member of her family. Rachel explores these familial issues, and the camerawork is effective in heightening the immediacy and pain of the situation, but the film never really resolves anything. So what we’re left with — other than some very good performances — is basically a home movie of a very awkward wedding weekend. And as such, there are some scenes, like the rehearsal dinner one, that just go on waaaaay too long. I hate going to a wedding where I don’t know anyone, and at times, that’s what I felt like I had done. I just wanted to slip out and leave. Rachel tops out at just under two hours and it should have been about 20 minutes shorter.

It’s impressive how the central couple’s mixed race is treated as a non-issue (it’s not ever referred to), and it probably should be repeated that Anne Hathaway is very good here, as is Rosemarie DeWitt, who plays Rachel. Alas, those scenes where they can really act come too infrequently in the movie and I found myself on an uncomfortable roller-coaster ride of emotion. So I’m going to keep my review to a B.

God, Bill Maher, and the director of Borat walk into a church … No, that’s not the setup for a joke, it’s the basic premise of Religulous, a documentary in which Maher goes in search of answers to the question of Is religion good or bad for society? He travels to Israel, to a truckstop church in North Carolina, to Washington, D.C., Salt Lake City, Amsterdam, and other places, and talks to members of most of the world’s more popular organized religions. Suffice it to say, everyone gets skewered. Maher pokes all the expected holes in the idea of faith, in the double-standard that says God loves but he hates gay people, in the sexism that is so common, in the obsessiveness of some people, and then some. Much of the movie is quite funny — dare I say it’s funny as hell? — and director Larry Charles makes great use of archival and related film clips to enhance the humor. Ultimately, though, Religulous is tainted by Maher’s negative attitude. Healthy skepticism is good, and some aspects of religion are certainly ripe for questioning. But Maher doesn’t really seem to have a point here, other than saying religion is bad, and the film’s last five minutes leave the viewer with such a bad taste that it corrupts the humor that previously was so engaging. I was tempted to give Religulous a higher grade, but ultimately I’m going to stick with a B. If you’re looking for a warmer look at religion’s place in modern society, may I highly recommend A.J. Jacobs’ The Year of Living Biblically.