Are the Oscars Broken?

The Oscars are this Sunday – I’ll post my predictions later this week – but for weeks we’ve been reading opinion pieces about what is wrong with the Oscars, or calling this the most boring slate of nominees ever, calls to change the system yet again, and people wondering why the critics, the Academy and the public seemingly disagree so much on what constitutes the best in film every single year. I agree with some of the complaints, but not all of them.
No, this year’s slate of 9 nominees is not the most exciting the Academy has ever put forth – but taken as individual films, I understand why all 9 were nominated – even if I didn’t think much at all of The Help, have very mixed feelings on Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and don’t think War Horse or The Artist were among the very best films of the year. But looking at the Academy to reflect your own personal taste is a recipe for disappointment – they never will. Remember back in 2007 when people complained that Zodiac or The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford were infinitely better than Juno or Atonement. I agree with that, but the truth of the matter is that neither of those films were ever in competition with Juno or Atonement – they were in competition with No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. People have different definitions of what great films really are, and those who want darker, more complex films, went with No Country and Blood instead of Zodiac and Jesse James. Those who like light comedies went with Juno, those who like old fashioned period pieces when with Atonement. No one was deciding between Jesse James and Juno – they were deciding between No Country and Jesse James.
But I think the real reason why people are disappointed with this lineup is not the individual films themselves, but what they mean taken as a whole. There is very little darkness at all in the 9 films nominated. Midnight in Paris, Hugo, The Artist look at past artistic generations with nostalgia, War Horse was a throwback to the studio era epics; The Help was a 1960s style look at racial relations; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close milked the emotions of 9/11 without really dealing with that day, but the emotional journey of a young boy. The Descendants is a feel good comedy/drama about a man reconnecting with his kids. Moneyball was built around an old school movie star performance by Brad Pitt. Even The Tree of Life, the one film in competition not like the rest in terms of being Oscar bait, really is a nostalgic look back at childhood, and an epic look at our place in the world, that ultimately ends being fairly uplifting. If you liked the films, you left the theater feeling good about life.

This lineup I think really is the nightmare lineup that people had in mind when the Academy went from 5 to 10 nominees for Best Picture. That happened in 2008 when the two most acclaimed films of the year, The Dark Knight and Wall-E, also happened to be two of the biggest hits. Instead of going to the genre comic book film or the animated throwback to the silent cinema, the Academy nominated what they always do – biopics (Milk, Frost/Nixon), WWII Nazi drama (The Reader), epic length, movie star filled film about aging (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and the feel good underdog story (Slumdog Millionaire – your winner). The hope was that by expanding to 10 films, it would allow a more eclectic mix of films to be nominated. And the following year, I think they actually succeeded. Normally, a small, quirky, non-violent Coen film like A Serious Man would not have had a chance, and neither would an animated film (Up), an action filled, sci-fi blockbuster (District 9) or a true word of mouth hit (The Blind Side) never would have been nominated. But they were. The next year (last year), Winters Bone didn’t get left behind in the indie ghetto, neither did an animated sequel (Toy Story 3), a high concept sci-fi film (Inception) or an audience friendly Western (True Grit). Things were going well.
But the rules changed again this year – now there would a floating number of nominees, anywhere between 5 and 10, and to qualify, you needed to get a certain number of #1 votes. The object of the rule change was to appease those who felt that getting nominated had become too easy – and to add more prestige to it. They shouldn’t have bothered. Because these 9 films, no matter what you think of them individually, all are fairly typical Oscar bait – yes, even The Tree of Life. No, I do not believe, as some have claimed, that the directors went out of their way to make an Oscar film (after all, Woody Allen thinks so little of the Academy, he refuses to join, Terrence Malick won’t even do interviews to support his film, let alone show up, if Martin Scorsese wanted to win another Oscar, he would not have made a children’s film, the films of Spielberg and Daldry are perfectly in keeping with their bodies of work, Brad Pitt fired an Oscar winning director on Moneyball – Steven Soderberg – to get the film he wanted, Alexander Payne doesn’t seem to care that much about awards, Tate Taylor was an unknown writer/director writing an adaptation of a then unpublished book and Michel Hazanviscious could not imagine that the way for a largely unknown French filmmaker to get to the Oscars would be to make a silent, black and white film). Next year, I think they should go back to either of the old systems – five or ten nominees – and drop the whole benchmark of #1 vote’s thing. Either way is preferable to this.
As to why critics, audiences and the Academy disagree on what the best films of the year are, I think the truth is that the Academy’s taste has not changed in decades. I have been going back and watching some best picture nominees I had never before in the last few weeks – The Dresser, An Unmarried Woman, The Turning Point, The Towering Inferno, A Touch of Class, Sounder, The Emigrants, Fiddler on the Roof, Nicholas and Alexandria, Airport, Hello Dolly, Rachel, Rachel, Romeo and Juliet, Alfie, The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming – and have to say that while I mixed feelings on many of those films (truly, I have only loved An Unmarried Woman, Rachel, Rachel and Alfie), none of them would look out of place in the current lineup. Audiences have abandoned these types of films mostly, and critics have never really agreed with the Academy. Instead of asking why the Academy doesn’t agree with the public, perhaps we should ask why audiences prefer Twilight or Transformers over The Descendants and Moneyball.
I will be an Oscar devotee until the day I die. Why? Because even if I do not agree with many of their choices, it sets the debate in motion every year about what the best films of the year are – which no matter how close or far away from the Academy’s tastes your movie tastes are, is a valuable exercise. None of the other movie awards shows, none of the critics top 10 lists or critics surveys would exist without the Oscars. Besides, isn’t half the fun of the Oscars bitching about what they chose?

The Oscars are what they are. They always have been. Unless you want to take up the cause of Wings being better than The Crowd or Sunrise in the first awards 84 years ago or argue that The Broadway Melody, Cimarron, Cavalcade, The Great Ziegfeld, The Life of Emile Zola, Mrs. Miniver, Going My Way, Hamlet, The Greatest Show on Earth, Around the World in 80 Days, Gigi, Ben-Hur, Tom Jones, Oliver, Chariots of Fire, Braveheart, The English Patient, Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind or Crash represent the best that cinema has to offer, than I don’t understand what people expect. The Oscars have always been this way. So why does it seem like every year, so many people seem so shocked by what they choose.

Movie Review: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance * ½
Directed by: Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor.
Written by: Scott M. Gimple & Seth Hoffman and David S. Goyer.
Starring: Nicolas Cage (Johnny Blaze / Ghost Rider), Violante Placido(Nadya), Ciarán Hinds (Roarke), Idris Elba (Moreau), Johnny Whitworth (Ray Carrigan), Fergus Riordan (Danny).

I am a Nicolas Cage fan, even though I have to admit that he makes far more awful movies than good ones. I remember a piece written by NYT Film Critic Manhola Dargis a few years ago, on the heels of Cage`s brilliant performance in Werner Herzog`s Bad Lieutenant::: Port of Call, New Orleans, where she essentially compared Cage to George Clooney – and said she preferred Cage. True, as she stated, Clooney is one of the most consistent actors out there right now – you can almost guarantee that anything Clooney is in is at least good, if not great. But Clooney could never do what Nicolas Cage does when Cage gets the right role. The problem is that Cage doesn’t get the right role very often, and yet he insists on making numerous movies every year. In 2011, he made three films – including Trespass and Season of the Witch, which both made my bottom 10 list of the year, alongside Drive Angry, which was one of my favorite guilty pleasures. When Cage is on – like in Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation, Lord of War, The Weatherman, Face/Off and the aforementioned Bad Lieutenant there are few actors better than Nicolas Cage – and not only that, you cannot imagine another actor in their roles. But sweet Jesus, when Cage is in a bad movie, he can be absolutely God Awful. He throws himself full tilt into every role, even the ones he shouldn’t.

All of which brings me to Cages most recent film, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. The first Ghost Rider was silly and ridiculous in the extreme, and wasn’t very good, but was at least an interesting time waster, the sequel isn’t even that. Cage is once again Johnny Blaze, who made a deal with the Devil for his father’s life, and now transforms into the Ghost Rider, a demon who devours the wicked souls of the world. After the first movie, Johnny has decided to hide out in a bombed out town in Eastern Europe and control his curse. That is when Moreau (Idris Elba) shows up with an offer – there is a young boy, Danny (Fergus Riordan), who for some reason is about to become the anti-Christ because of a prophecy, unless Moreau and his ancient religious group, can protect him. Unfortunately the kid has fallen into the hands of Ray Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth), an ex of Dannys mother Nadya (Violante Placido), who has been hired by Satan (Ciaran Hinds), to bring him the child. If Johnny will use the Riders powers to track down the kid and help protect him, then somehow Moreaus group will help life Johnny curse.

Directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who are without a doubt the worst directing duo out there right now. Their two Crank films were two of the absolute worst films of the last decade, and whose Gamer was forgettable other than a strange dance sequence with Michael C. Hall. They seem to want to be the next Michael Bay, but no matter how bad Michael Bay can be, he has never approached the type of ineptitude on display in Neveldine and Taylors films. Here, not only do the use the Bay-esque shaky camera and rapid fire editing, but they go so far over the top with some of their stylistics that you cannot help but role your eyes.

I find it hard to criticize a movie about a guy with a flaming skill sucking the souls out of people as a having a preposterous, because really, even a good movie with this basic outline would be preposterous. And yet, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance does this one worse – its plot is boring and not very well thought out. If you’re going to make an over the top comic book, than fully embrace that, and this movie never really does that. The characters, outside of Cage, are never really thought through or interesting in the least – even though they cast some good actors in the roles. But why cast Ciaran Hinds, who could play Satan with delicious glee or menace, and make him so damn boring. It makes no sense.

As for Cage himself, he does what he always does, which is go way over the top, and embrace the loony, zany dialogue he is given. Cage has no off switch, and even in a horrible movie like this, he really does seem to be given it his all. Yes, he is awful, but how could he have played this role any better. It is an impossible role. Cage has a unique gift but far too often, he puts it to use in horrible films. If he was more selective in his roles, his reputation would be much, much better.

Movie Review: Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films

Oscar Nominated Animated Short Films
One of my favorite things to do in Oscar season is watch the short films. Last night, I watched the animated short films program – all five nominees, and four “highly commended” films. The program runs only about 80 minutes, but for the most part was pure joy – and I suggest that you check them out. Mini reviews of the shorts follows.

Nominees

Sunday/Dimanche ***

Directed by: Patrick Doyon.
This is a charming, old fashioned little film about the routine on Sunday for a French Canadian family – church, Grandma’s and home. The visual look of the film is stylized – the characters, the houses, the cars, the animals, are not realistic, but made up mainly of interesting geometric shapes more than anything else. It centers on a young boy, who begins his day by squashing a quarter on the train tracks. I liked the animation more than the story itself, which is a little slight, a little obvious, but it’s an enjoyable little film.

A Morning Stroll *** ½
Directed by: Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe.
The morbid side of me thinks that A Morning Stroll is the best of the nominees. It is a little film, taking place in three parts – one in 1959 one in 2009 and one in 2059 – and tells the same basic story – a man walking down the street in a major city, who sees a chicken pass him by, knock on a door and go inside. The changes to the story – in terms of animation, which goes from very simple black and white almost like a New Yorker cartoon to high tech compueter animation, and the story – the guy in 1959 is amazed by it, the guy in 2009 is amazed, briefly, then distracted by a new game on his cell phone, the guy in 2059 – a blood thirsty zombie with a throbbing brain – makes this the funniest, bloodiest of the bunch. Yes, it’s a bit slight compared to some of the other nominees, but it was the most amusing 7 minutes I spent during this program.

Wild Life **

Directed by: Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby.
My least favorite of the nominees is this painterly film about a young British man who travels to Alberta in 1909 to become a rancher. His letters home to his rich family tell a sunny story of him finding success, but what we see is much harsher, as he struggles for survival – and intertitles compare his fate to that of a comet. Personally, while I didn’t mind the animation, I didn’t love it either, and I found the storytelling rather pretentious and unmoving. Perhaps its only because this was the only film of the nine shown that realized used dialogue, but I felt it was out of place. Overall, this felt much longer than its 15 minute running time.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore *** ½

Directed by: William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg.
This wonderful film is starts with a Wizard of Oz in reverse, as the title character, obsessed with books, gets swept up in a wind storm and goes from a color world to black and white – but when he discovers a magical library, full of walking, floating books – and one very animated copy of Humpty Dumpty – his world turns back to color – and books do that for everyone he shares them with. This is an old fashioned story, extolling the love of books and reading, always an important message, that uses cutting edge technology and many different techniques to tell its emotional story. Yes, I think I loved A Morning Stroll more, but this is probably the biggest technical achievement in the race.

La Luna *** ½

Directed by: Enrico Casaroasa
Pixar always seems to have a nominee in the running, and their entry this year La Luna is up to their usual high standards – unlike their feature from 2011 Cars 2. It is the charming, heartfelt little story of two old men and their new protégé, a young boy, whose job it is to clean up the moon. This is a beautiful film from start to finish, with distinctive visuals and character designs. Certainly a possible winner, and it would be a deserving one, as it once again proves why Pixar does this better than anyone else year after year.

Highly Commended

Skylight *** ½

Directed by: David Baas.
There were two Canadian films nominated – Dimanche/Sunday and Wild Life – but personally, this Canadian film, which just missed the cut, was the best from my home country. It is an hilarious, very short (five minutes) animated mock documentary about the dangers to wild life – especially penguins – because of the hole in the ozone layer. It’s technical aspects are spot on, making this look and feel like the typical of film your teacher used to show in class on the old reel to reel projector. Yes, it’s a one joke film, but at only five minutes, its still hilarious.

Nullarbor ***

Directed by: Alister Lockhart.
This is an amusing road comedy about a young hotshot in his sports car desperate for a cigarette and the road war he wages with an old man in his beat up old car on a long stretch of nearly deserted Australian highway. Personally, I would have nominated this film instead of at least two of the actual nominees (Dimanche and Wild Life), as it was witty, funny, well animated and extremely entertaining. Yes, the ending was a little obvious, but it was still effective.

Hybrid Union ** ½

Directed by: Serguei Kouchnerov.
This is an amusing little film about three little vehicles competing in a race with each other – one using an old fashioned fossil fuel consuming engine, another using solar power, and how they compete against each other despite their limitations – until a “smart” vehicle comes along and shames them both. Again, I liked the animation itself – the amusing designs of the vehicles is a highlight – but this was a one joke comedy that went no where – and unlike something like Skylight, its one joke wasn’t nearly as funny.

Amazonia **

Directed by: Sam Chen.
Easily my least favorite film on the bill, this one centers on a very hungary lizard, who makes friends with a frog, and tries to find food in the Amazon, while avoiding becoming food for larger predators as well. The whole thing seemed a little too childish too me – well animated to be sure – but also exceedingly obvious, without a hint of darkness, and just quite simply not very good. I wouldn\t have chosen this one to end the program with, but that’s just me.

Movie Review: Safe House

Safe House ***
Directed by: Daniel Espinosa.
Written by: David Guggenheim.
Starring: Denzel Washington (Tobin Frost), Ryan Reynolds (Matt Weston), Vera Farmiga (Catherine Linklater), Brendan Gleeson (David Barlow), Sam Shepard (Harlan Whitford), Rubén Blades (Carlos Villar), Nora Arnezeder (Ana Moreau), Robert Patrick (Daniel Kiefer), Liam Cunningham (Alec Wade), Joel Kinnaman (Keller), Fares Fares (Vargas).

Denzel Washington has such gravitas as an actor that even in a movie as patently ridiculous as Safe House, you believe him. In fact, Washington is so good in Safe House that he makes the whole movie work. No, the movies plot isn’t the least bit realistic or original, but then it was never really meant to be. And the hand to hand combat scenes are shot in that annoying shaky camera style where it becomes almost impossible to tell who the hell is fighting and what the hell they’re doing to each other. And yet, when Washington is on screen – and he’s there for most of the movie – you don’t really care. Throw in a solid supporting cast, some excellent car chases, and a plot, that while unbelievable, does keep you guessing from one scene to the next, Safe House actually becomes a fairly good guilty pleasure.

Washington plays Tobin Frost, once one of the best CIA agents they had, but who a decade ago turned rogue, selling intelligence to whoever was willing to buy it. In Cape Town to buy a file from a MI6 agent, and then turn around and sell it again, he gets caught in a trap he cannot escape – so out of desperation heads to the American Consulate and tells them who he is. It isn’t long before the CIA sends a team to pick him up for some “enhanced interrogation”. To do this, they go to the safe house manned by frustrated, low level CIA agent Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds), who wants a chance to do field work, inside of sitting inside an empty building answering the phone, and watching surveillance video all day. Of course, the safe house is compromised, the interrogation team gets killed, and Weston has to take control of Frost himself and hit the road, trying to stay one step ahead of their pursuers. But how did they know about the Safe House in the first place? Can he even trust his own superiors?

Safe House keeps you guessing from one scene to the next – you never really know who to trust, who is good, who is bad or why everyone is so intent on catching or killing Frost. You don’t much care either, because Safe House moves so quickly from one scene to the next, and pumps up the action, violence and overall volume to such a high degree, that you don’t really have time to think. Directed by Daniel Espinoza, the film is obviously inspired by frequent Washington collaborator Tony Scott (Man on Fire, Déjà Vu, Unstoppable) – in fact the style is so similar to Scott’s that when I saw a preview, I just assumed that this was another Tony Scott-Denzel Washington film. I kind of wish it was – because even though Scott has gone further and further over the top over the years, his high style works perfectly for his movies – and although he cuts as rapidly as Michael Bay, his action scenes still somehow manage to make sense. While Espinoza is able to get the multiple car chases and shootouts pretty much spot on, he fails in the films many hand to hand combat scenes. In particular, there are a few fight scenes at the end of the movie where I could not tell who was fighting who, or what the hell they were doing to each other. You kind of have to wait until the dust settles to figure out who is still alive, and just how injured they are.

A movie like Safe House needs a baseline to make it believable – and that baseline is Washington. Washington is such a charming actor, with that smile, that you cannot help but like him, even in a role like this where he is clearly not a good guy. He also has that physical intensity, that simmering rage and violence just beneath the surface, that you know he’s capable of just about anything, which is why you stay on the edge of your seat throughout. Ryan Reynolds is essentially playing the straight man here, being a fairly straight forward, almost boring character, as to not detract from Washington. As the CIA agents in Washington, desperate to find and keep Frost, Vera Farmiga, Sam Shepard and especially Brenden Gleason are all quite good. This is the type of film you know all three are doing for a paycheck more than anything else, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t fine in their roles.

You really cannot take a movie like Safe House all that seriously – you see where its going from the beginning, and the plot is unbelievable. And yet, perhaps because of all the serious Oscar movies I have watched recently (not just from 2011, but years past as well for my soon to return Best Movies I’ve Never Seen Before series), Safe House, as a straight ahead, balls to the wall action film and guilty pleasure did its job. It’s not a great movie by any means, but if the preview intrigues you, I cannot imagine you being disappointed by the film.

DVD Review: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part I

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part I *
Directed by: Bill Condon.
Written by: Melissa Rosenberg based on the novel by Stephanie Meyer.
Starring: Kristen Stewart (Bella Swan), Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen), Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black), Billy Burke (Charlie Swan), Sarah Clarke (Renée), Ashley Greene (Alice Cullen), Jackson Rathbone (Jasper Hale), Peter Facinelli (Dr. Carlisle Cullen), Elizabeth Reaser (Esme Cullen), Kellan Lutz (Emmett Cullen), Nikki Reed (Rosalie Hale), Anna Kendrick (Jessica), Michael Sheen (Aro), Booboo Stewart (Seth), Alex Rice (Sue Clearwater), Kiowa Gordon (Embry), Tyson Houseman (Quil), Chaske Spencer (Sam Uley), Bronson Pelletier (Jared), Alex Meraz (Paul), Julia Jones (Leah).

I read all four Twilight books, and while I wouldn’t describe any of them as good books, Breaking Dawn reached a level of stupidity and ridiculousness that was simply mind boggling. I feel the same way about the movies – only the third installment – Eclipse – directed by David Slade even approached being a good movie. For the final installment – split into two parts a la Harry Potter – they hired a very good director in Bill Condon – whose three previous films, Gods and Monsters, Kinsey and Dreamgirls – were all entertaining and well made. But he is undone by the material he has to work with here, which is just plan awful. No, he really doesn’t do the movie any favors – the film is poorly made – but hell, if you hired Martin Scorsese to direct this movie, it would still be shit.

The final chapter of the Twilight Saga (and how pretentious is it to refer to it as a Saga?) begins with Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson), her vampire boyfriend, getting married in what is admittedly an absolutely beautiful wedding, even if it is the type of wedding that only ever really happens in the movies. They then head off to an island off the coast of Brazil for their honeymoon – where after years, they will finally give into the urges they have been fighting since the beginning of the series and have sex. After the honeymoon, when Bella can experience sex as a human (and the sex here is literally bed shatteringly amazing, once again setting up unrealistic expectations of first time sex that will never be met in real life), Edward will turn her into a vampire, so they can “live” together forever. Of course, things don’t go as planned – and Bella ends up pregnant with some sort of vampire/human hybrid, that no one even knew was possible to create. While the obvious thing to do would be to give Bella an abortion – after all, no one believes that Bella will survive the pregnancy or the birth, and they cannot turn her into a vampire until the baby is born – she refuses. So the series, that has always been a religious series about not giving into sexual urges before marriage, becomes a pro-life tale.

The problem I have always had with the Twilight series – both as books and movies – is that for all the serious talk, for all the threats and bubbling resentment and sense of impending violence between vampires and the werewolves (led by Taylor Lautner’s Jacob), is that nothing much actually ever happens in the movies. They are all talk and no action, films that build and build and build towards a climax, and then simply deflates at the end. This is even more the case with this film, because the filmmakers decided to milk the series for all it is worth, and split the final movie into two movies, even though there is barely enough material in the book to make one movie let alone two.

The acting in the Twilight films has always been suspect at best. My favorite actor in the series has always been Billy Burke as Bella’s father, whose bitterness, resentment and almost hatred of Edward comes out in hilarious ways at times – unfortunately, he’s barely in this film. Kristen Bell has proved in other movies (Into the Wild, The Runaways) that she actually is a gifted actress – but Bella is such a blank slate, such a nothing of a character, that frankly, it’s annoying to watch her whine her way through another movie. I hope she gets good work after this series is over. Robert Pattinson’s Edward is perhaps an even more boring character – even more of a blank slate than Bella – and Pattinson really doesn’t bring anything to it either. Isn’t Edward supposed to be a bad boy? Why the hell is he is miserable all the damn time? I have seen nothing in Pattinson’s performance so far to suggest he is actually a good actor, but really, truly hope that he proves me wrong, as David Cronenberg has cast him in the lead role of his next film. The most interesting of the three main characters has always been Jacob, but unfortunately, Taylor Lautner is clearly one of the worst actors I have ever seen. If he didn’t look so good without his shirt on, there would nothing in worth watching.

The screenplay for this movie is awful – full of horrible dialogue that makes already questionable actors look even worse than they probably actually are. Condon, as director, brings nothing to the table here – the special effects, even the most simple ones, are laughably awful. The numerous CSI-like shots inside of Bella’s blood stream are also awful – and I defy anyone to watch the scenes between the werewolves where they communicate telepathically and not break out into unintentional laughter.

 
I know a lot of teen girls love this series – and they don’t care what I have to say about it. They made it one of the biggest hits of 2011, and no doubt, Breaking Dawn Part II will be one of the biggest hits of 2012. Good for them. I just wish that the Saga they love so much had something more to offer them. You can make a mass market entertainment about teenage romance, and not make it so god awful. Twilight isn’t that series.

Movie Review: Le Havre

Le Havre *** ½
Directed by: Aki Kaurismäki.
Written by: Aki Kaurismäki.
Starring: André Wilms (Marcel Marx), Kati Outinen (Arletty), Jean-Pierre Darroussin (Monet), londin Miguel (Idrissa), Elina Salo (Claire), Evelyne Didi (Yvette), Quoc Dung Nguyen (Chang), François Monnié (Epicier), Little Bob (Himself), Pierre Étaix (Docteur Becker), Jean-Pierre Léaud (Le dénonciateur), Vincent Lebodo (Francis), Umban U'kset (Mahamat Saleh).

Aki Kaurismaki’s Le Havre is essentially a modern day fairy tale. Life doesn’t work like it does in this film – certainly not for poor, illegal African immigrants caught in France on their way to England – but don’t we all wish it would? It is an inspiring film, where really only one character is all that bad, and everyone else pulls together to do something for the greater good. No, life doesn’t work like this, but no, I didn’t really care while watching Le Havre. I was simply having too much fun.

Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms) is a failed artist who works in the small French coastal town of Le Havre shining shoes. He has been married for a long time to Arletty (Kati Outtinen), who stays at home and waits from him to come home and give her the money he earned that day to put it in a little shoe box for later use. In the paper he sees the story of a group of illegal African refugees who were caught in a shipping container (who miraculously despite being forgotten there for weeks on end, all survive) and the one young boy who escaped and is on the run (the paper wonders if he’s armed and dangerous or has possible connections to Al Qaeda). But Marcel meets the poor boy hiding under a pier, and takes him home. By this point, Arletty has been taken to the hospital, and told she has incurable cancer – although she lies to Marcel about the extent of her illness. Through the course of the movie, Marcel will seek help from all of his friends and neighbors – none of whom doubt the innocence of the boy. He’s just trying to get to London and his mother. Even the police inspector assigned to the case (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) doesn’t much care about catching the boy – he knows Marcel has him, but tells him that he investigates crimes, not immigration issues.

Many of Aki Kaurismaki’s films have been much darker than Le Havre, although they almost all share this films deadpan comic tone. His work has often been compared to American indie maverick Jim Jarmursch, and the similarities between the two filmmaker’s styles is clear. I’m sure that Jarmursch loved the performance of Little Bob in this film, and this is exactly the type of strange musical act that he would love – a one of a kind musical act, that is completely strange, but mesmerizing in its own way.

 
Kaurismaki’s latest film is much more hopeful than any of his other films that I have seen. It ends with not just one miracle ending, but two, as he fully embraces the fairy tale aspect of his story, And yet, this is still clearly a Kaurismaki film – his films are often about desperate losers in impossible situations, and so too is this film. Andre Wilms does an excellent job in the lead role, but he is essentially a Kaurismaki hero – a man whose dreams have been crushed, who lives now a desperate existence, And yet, while most Kaurismaki heroes fail at their dreams, this is a man who sacrifices everything, and actually succeeds. Perhaps this is a sign that Kaurismaki is softening after nearly 30 years of making films, or perhaps he just wanted to see his lovable losers finally succeed for once. Either way, this is one of his best films.

DVD Review: In Time

In Time ** ½
Directed by: Andrew Niccol.
Written by: Andrew Niccol.
Starring:  Justin Timberlake (Will Salas), Amanda Seyfried (Sylvia Weis), Cillian Murphy (Raymond Leon), Vincent Kartheiser (Philippe Weis), Olivia Wilde (Rachel Salas), Johnny Galecki (Borel), Alex Pettyfer (Fortis), Matt Bomer (Henry Hamilton).

I know I’m not the first person to say this, but I have always thought that if you’re remake a movie, you probably shouldn’t remake a classic, that was perfect to begin with, but rather a movie that had promise that for whatever reason just didn’t work the first time around. If studios would do that, I would suggest that someone remake In Time, because the idea behind the movie is brilliant, but the execution of that idea just isn’t up to the idea itself. The idea of currency literally being replaced by time – so that the rich can live forever, where the poor literally live day to day, under the constant threat of death. This near future, science fiction film could not possibly be timelier. And yet, In Time never quite figures out what to do with this premise – and instead of crafting an intelligent film, it devolves into action movie clichés. Too bad, because this movie had the potential to be great.

The film stars Justin Timberlake as Will Salas, a poor factory worker who has to go to work every day just to earn enough time to get back to work the next day. In this future, everyone has been genetically engineered to stop aging at the age of 25 – until then, you’re clock doesn’t wind down at all. When you hit 25, you get one year of time. The poor need to use this time to pay off their parents debts, so that shortly after they hit 25, they are living day to day. The rich can pass their time down to their kids, so that they can live forever. Everyone is split into certain districts, based on their time remaining – and it costs so much to move between zones, that no one ever does it. But one day Will meets a rich man in a bar – with over a century of time on his arm (which is where your countdown clock is located). Will saves him from some people who want to steal that time from him. To pay him back, the rich man gives Will all his time – killing himself. Will, angry at the system (which had just allowed his mother to die), decides to travel to the richest district to get revenge.

There are great ideas running through In Time – at least beneath the surface. Will quickly draws the attention of the timekeepers (led by Cillian Murphy`s Raymond Leon), who track him down quickly. But by then, Will has connected with Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried), the daughter of the richest man in the world. Sylvia essentially becomes his Patty Hearst – first a hostage Will uses to get away from the timekeepers, but soon joins Will in trying to bring down the system.

 
Andrew Niccol is a talented writer and director. His Gattaca was one of the best science fiction films of the 1990s, and his Lord of War was a grossly under rated, very entertaining film about an amoral arms dealer, who wins. In Time is more like his Simone, which was also a film with a brilliant premise – a Hollywood director (Al Pacino) who creates a virtual actress so he doesn’t have to deal with the ego of other actresses, only to find the virtual star becomes a huge celebrity that overshadows him. That film aimed to mock our celebrity obsessed cultures, and although that target should be easy, Simone missed the mark. In Time is like that as well. In a year where the Occupy Wall Street Movement made headlines, and the chasm between the rich and the poor grew wider and wider, a movie like In Time should have easily tapped into that anger. But instead, In Time devolves into an action movie – with bank heists, shootouts and car chases galore, that takes center stage and pushes the ideas into the background. Too bad, because the idea at the heart off In Time deserves a better movie.