Martin's Musings

True story: In 1971, author Clifford Irving pulled the wool over publisher McGraw-Hill’s eyes when he told them he was collaborating with the reclusive Howard Hughes on his autobiography. The new film The Hoax tells the story of Irving’s lie, and does so in convincing fashion. Hughes’ life, of course, was the subject of Martin Scorsese’s long and overrated The Aviator, and it’s fun to see a different perspective on that subject.

The Hoax boasts a top-notch cast, including Richard Gere and Alfred Molina as the author and his researcher partner. Both are very good. It’s especially enjoyable to watch as Gere keeps cooking up new stories on the fly. The story moves at a good pace, and director Lasse Hallstrom (Chocolat, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape) keeps it all grounded in reality, with archival footage peppered in for period effect. Of course, given that the movie is based on Irving’s own memoir about the experience, it doesn’t really dwell much on how the publishers themselves fell for Irving’s hoax. It’s hard to believe it could be as easy as it’s portrayed, even if it was 1971, in the days before the Internets and the mass media. Nevertheless, this is a true story about an untrue one, and as I’m trying to get across here, it’s a good one. I give The Hoax a B+.

I’ve been asked by a couple folks why I still haven’t seen 300 yet, so I wanted to explain, because as your friendly neighborhood frequent moviegoer, I know you look to me for guidance on how to spend your hard-earned cash. The truth is, I just wasn’t all that impressed by the last two films in the series, 298 and 299, so I’ve decided to skip 300 entirely. I’m sort of hoping 301 is better, because at the peak of the series — 294 — it was really very good. Kind of like how Oceans 11 was a much, much better movie than Oceans 9 was. Same with Apollo 13; they almost stopped making those movies after Apollo 12, but somehow Ron Howard got back on his game for the 13th film in the series and then called it a day.

Similarly, I’m having a hard time getting excited about The Last Mimzy, seeing how I never did get around to seeing the first or second Mimzy movies. Does anyone know, were those two any good?

(Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Please tip your waitress.)
(And of course, this is posted with apologies to Todd, who thought of at least one or two of these jokes before I did. Though in my defense, they’re not really the kinds of jokes anyone should want to take credit for. But it’s alright, Todd can have all the credit he wants.)

Unlike David Fincher’s other movies — say, Fight Club or Panic Room — Zodiac is generally a straightforward, no-tricks, procedural drama. If anything, you can say it’s quick moving, because the film covers about 20 years in about two-and-a-half hours. There’ll be a one minute scene and then the action will jump forward two weeks, or a month, or a year. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

Zodiac tells the true story of the Zodiac killer, who is alleged to have killed about a dozen people in San Francisco starting in 1969 and was never caught. Actually, the film tells the story of the efforts by cops, reporters, and a newspaper cartoonist to figure out the Zodiac’s identity. And like I said, they never did solve the case conclusively, but thanks to cartoonist Robert Graysmith’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) efforts, they got very close. Actually, the Zodiac killer has already inspired a handful of movies, including Clint Eastwood’s original Dirty Harry, which featured a bad guy named “Scorpio” who also threatens to kill schoolchildren.

As you’d expect, this movie features a big cast of well-known actors (Anthony Edwards, Robert Downey Jr., Brian Cox, Philip Baker Hall, Donal Logue, Chloe Sevigny, Adam Goldberg, etc.), but I thought only Mark Ruffalo was worth noting for his performance. In those rare moments when the film sort of drags, his energy keeps it going. And Sevigny actually has a pretty thankless role as Graysmith’s wife. But no matter. Zodiac is generally a solid, entertaining film that doesn’t really feel as long as it is. That’s because it’s well-paced and even has a few suspenseful scenes. So I’m going to give it a B+.

(click on the link for my review)

1. IMAGINE ME & YOU

2. GAME 6

3. SHE’S THE MAN

4. DAVE CHAPPELLE’S BLOCK PARTY

5. V FOR VENDETTA

6. FRIENDS WITH MONEY

7. UNITED 93

8. MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3

9. POSEIDON

10. X-MEN: THE LAST STAND

11. THE BREAK-UP

12. KEEPING UP WITH THE STEINS

13. THE LAKE HOUSE

14. CARS

15. CLICK

16. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST

17. SUPERMAN RETURNS

18. THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA

19. YOU, ME AND DUPREE

20. MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND

21. SCOOP

22. THE NIGHT LISTENER

23. LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

24. WORLD TRADE CENTER

25. THE ILLUSIONIST

26. TRUST THE MAN

27. SNAKES ON A PLANE

28. THE LAST KISS

29. SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS

30. HALF NELSON

31. EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH

32. THE DEPARTED

33. JACKASS: NUMBER TWO

34. BORAT …

35. FAST FOOD NATION

36. FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS

37. THE PRESTIGE

38. STRANGER THAN FICTION

39. CASINO ROYALE

40. SHUT UP & SING

41. FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

42. BOBBY

43. HAPPY FEET

44. THE GOOD SHEPHERD

45. THE HOLIDAY

46. THE HISTORY BOYS

47. BLOOD DIAMOND

48. THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

49. DREAMGIRLS (2x)

50. ROCKY BALBOA

51. WE ARE MARSHALL

52. THE QUEEN

53. CHILDREN OF MEN

54. NOTES ON A SCANDAL

55. BABEL

God bless Billy Ray. The director coaxed a good performance out of Hayden Christensen in Shattered Glass in 2003, and now he’s done the same with Ryan Phillippe in Breach, a film that tells the story of the efforts in 2001 to catch FBI agent Robert Hanssen, who was suspected of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia. The end result of this film is known up-front — not only is this a true story, but the movie begins with a clip from John Ashcroft’s press conference announcing his capture — so it’s more about the way he was captured. Hanssen, who is played brilliantly by Chris Cooper, was a devout, seemingly by-the-book FBI agent, who doesn’t suffer fools. I love that the Boston Herald called this movie The Devil Wears Brooks Brothers because at first it’s like that. But as Hanssen’s clerk, Eric O’Neill (Phillippe), starts to peel away the layers and becomes an instrumental part of the FBI’s attempts to catch Hanssen, the movie becomes more cat and mouse and less, um, catty. Because we know how the story ends up, there aren’t too many surprising twists like you’d find in a conventional spy thriller, and Ray does his best to ratchet up the suspense a few times, but mostly Breach plays like a solid inside-D.C. drama that eschews such conventions. As mentioned, both Cooper and Phillippe are good, but Laura Linney, as O’Neill’s real boss, just doesn’t carry her weight. For some reason, she can’t bark orders like the rest of them and it’s almost laughable. They say good movies don’t get released in mid-February, and while I didn’t enjoy Breach as much as Shattered Glass, I still say it’s still worth seeing. I’m giving it a B+.