The Boxtrolls

The Boxtrolls – Dirs. Graham Annable & Anthony Stacchi (2014)

Nothing against computer animation, but it is a shame that it has supplanted hand-drawn and stop-motion as the predominant art form. What a strange sight it is to see CGI versions of Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, and Charlie Brown. Thank goodness there are still hard working animators dedicated to keeping traditional methods alive.

The Portland-based Laika continues to make strides in stop-motion animation with films like Coraline and ParaNorman, both of which were nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards. The Boxtrolls continues that streak, but it's the slightest entry in their oeuvre and if I had my druthers I would have slotted The LEGO Movie in its stead.

The Boxtrolls is set in the Victorian-era village of Cheesebridge, a charming little burg built on top of a mountain. Cheesebridge does have one major drawback. They are plagued by subterranean creatures known as Boxtrolls, who earned their name for their penchant of wearing cardboard boxes like turtle shells. When parents want to scare their kids straight, they tell them the Boxtrolls will snatch them out of their beds and gobble them up.

However, none of those tales are true. Just ask Eggs (Isaac Hempstead-Wright), an orphaned boy who has been raised by the little critters and actually believes himself to be a Boxtroll. It seems these lies have been spread by one Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley), who has fashioned himself a premiere pest exterminator. Make no mistake, he has no altruistic bent. Snatcher wishes to use the Boxtrolls in a scheme to climb the social ladder and join the exclusive White Hats. Led by the Mayor of Cheesebridge, Lord Portley-Rind (Jared Harris), the White Hats gather together to taste some of the world's finest gourmet cheeses.

If I've discussed Snatcher more than I have the protagonists, it's because the villains are the most interesting characters in the film. With his stringy hair and hook nose, Snatcher takes obvious inspiration from the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. He goes to such great lengths in demonizing the Boxtrolls that he dresses in drag and performs a stage show as Madame Frou-Frou. Snatcher has three henchmen under his employ, the first being Mr. Gristle (Tracy Morgan), a diminutive lunatic who simply repeats the last word he heard. There's also Mr. Trout (Nick Frost) and Mr. Pickles (Richard Ayoade), who try very hard to convince themselves that they are the good guys of the story.

The Boxtrolls themselves don't play much of a factor. The Boxtrolls opens with a terrific introduction to their underground lair filled with knick knacks that have been transformed into Rube Goldberg-ian gadgets. After that, they're simply creatures who must be rescued by their human friends. Eggs is a surprisingly bland hero while his companion Winnie (Elle Fanning), the daughter of Lord Portley-Rind, is defined only by her morbid fascination with assorted grotesqueries ("I was promised rivers of blood!").

That's not to say that The Boxtrolls isn't without its charms. The details in the production design are exquisite with elements of Gothic horror, German expressionism, and Roald Dahl. The animators' passion can be seen in Snatcher's ragged, red jacket and every cobblestone that paves the street of Cheesebridge.

Laika's track record proves they make pictures that appeal to audiences of all ages while never condescending to their youngest viewers. The studio hasn't shied away from giving the kids a good scare, from an otherworldly creature sewing buttons into your eyes or a town plagued by puritan zombies. It's all in good fun and never in a manner that would rack up therapist bills. The Boxtrolls follows suit with a plot drawing parallels to Nazi Germany with the title characters serving as scapegoats for a power hungry madman. The city's leaders are portrayed as ineffectual twits and the townspeople are a few pitchforks shy of becoming a rabid mob. Although Snatcher wants nothing more than a seat at the White Hat table, he is violently allergic to cheese and his face swells to gruesome extremes.

There's a mid-credits scene in which Trout and Pickles ponder the notion that an invisible puppetmaster is behind their every move. This shifts into a time-lapsed video of Laika CEO Travis Knight animating the henchmen's movements. It's a clever button to a movie that could have used that same inventiveness in the screenplay loosely based on the novel, Here Be Mosnters! by Alan Snow. The Boxtrolls doesn't measure up to Coraline or ParaNorman, but the animation and off-kilter sensibilities can still be admired.

Rating: ** (*****)

Maleficent

Maleficent - Dir. Robert Stromberg (2014)

"Let us tell an old story anew and we will see how well you know it."

So begins Disney's latest attempt to mine their rich archives and re-imagine a classic fairy tale, both of which have become big business. Alice in Wonderland scored over a billion dollars at the box office to get the ball rolling. The House of Mouse has a live-action version of Cinderella coming in 2015 along with remakes of The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast in development. Maleficent is Disney's most radical interpretation of the classic tale of Sleeping Beauty, told from the point of view of one of their most iconic villain.

In a medieval fantasy land, there was an enchanted forest known as the Moors, which neighbored the kingdom of man. In the Moors, lived a young fairy named Maleficent (played as an adult by Angelina Jolie) who came across a farm boy Stefan (who eventually becomes Shalto Copley) as he attempted to steal a gem. The two grow close, but further apart as time goes on. Stefan is driven by his ambition to one day become king, a Herculean task given his station in life. Yet, he manages to worm his way into King Henry's (Kenneth Cranham) inner circle, just as his forces suffer a debilitating loss as they attempt to conquer the Moors. The dying King decrees that the one who brings him the head of Maleficent will inherit the throne. Stefan betrays Maleficent by drugging her though he is unable to go through with it. Instead, he cuts off her wings and brings them to the King. Maleficent awakens in horror and the forest grows dark in sync with her pain and anger. Meanwhile, Stefan is crowned the new monarch, marries King Henry's daughter, and they have a child of their own, Aurora (Elle Fanning).

Maleficent makes a grand entrance during the baby's christening and places a curse upon her. On her 16^th birthday, Aurora will prick her finger on the needle of a spinning wheel and fall into a deep sleep with true love's kiss the only thing that will awaken her. King Stefan orders all spinning wheels in the land destroyed and for Aurora to live in anonymity with three fairies: Knotgrass, Flittle & Thistlewit (Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville & Juno Temple).

Maleficent marks the directorial debut of Robert Stromberg, a veteran visual effects artist and production designer who won Academy Awards for his work on Avatar and Alice in Wonderland. Maleficent is certainly dripping with eye candy though anyone who has seen those aforementioned films, along with Oz: The Great and Powerful (another of Stromberg's projects), will see nothing new. The enchanted forest is a glowing world of pixies, goblins, and living trees, but there's not a lot to differentiate it from Pandora or Wonderland. The score by James Newton Howard feels just as rehashed, trying too hard to sound like the work of Danny Elfman.

Maleficent is practically a one-woman show with Angelina Jolie giving a towering performance as the title role. Makeup by Rick Baker accentuates her otherworldly beauty with pronounced cheekbones, cat-like eyes, and her trademark crown of horns. Jolie clearly has a passion for the character and relates to the movie's themes as an adoptive mother and a woman who underwent a double mastectomy. The film positions Maleficent as a tragic figure demonized for decades by patriarchal oppression. The scene in which she loses her wings is an obvious metaphor for sexual assault, but the screenplay by Linda Woolverton (who turned Alice into a Joan of Arc-esque heroine) never fully follows through with these elements. Even at a brisk 97 minutes, the plot feels padded out. The disjointed nature could be chalked up to multiple rewrites (including uncredited work by Paul Dini) and reshoots supervised by John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side, Saving Mr. Banks). The pivotal moment when Maleficent places the curse on little Aurora stands as a highlight with Jolie really sinking her teeth into the role. The rest of Maleficent never lives up to the promise of this sequence.

The second act derails the entire movie as it focuses on Aurora being reared by the bumbling fairies. It's not that these characters are stupid; it's that they are Homer Simpsons stupid. They are so idiotic that there's no possible way Darwinism hadn't already done them in. Maleficent secretly observes them in bemusement while making sure the fairies don't accidentally poison Baby Aurora or allow her to wander off a cliff. Disney was able to cast three splendid actresses for the parts, but have them do nothing but forced slapstick. When they aren't slapping each other like the fairy tale Three Stooges, they're trapped in the uncanny valley as computer generated creatures that never look quite right. The filmmakers also had the opportunity to create a complicated villain in Stefan, but chose to turn him into a one-note baddie. Stefan descends into madness and you wonder if he cares at all about his wife or daughter. He becomes a paranoid shut-in who hears voices in his head. At this point, regicide would be entirely justified. Elle Fanning as little to do as Aurora who is rendered as little more than a wide-eyed china doll. The inclusion of the dragon and Prince Phillip (Brenton Thwaites) are simply perfunctory nods to the original animated picture.

In recent years, Disney has done a fine job in creating stronger female characters after decades of pretty princesses passively waiting for their Prince Charming. Maleficent falls in line with recent releases such as Brave, Tangled, and Frozen, but doesn't do anything interesting with the subject matter aside from presenting a special effects extravaganza. This is the same story as seen before in Wicked, Oz, and Once Upon a Time. There was an aura of menace and mystique with the original Maleficent that disappears in the 2014 version. Darth Vader, Wolverine, and Michael Myers didn't benefit from an origin story and neither did Maleficent.

Rating: ** (*****)

We Bought a Zoo

We Bought a Zoo - Dir. Cameron Crowe (2011)

The holidays are usually a great time for Hollywood to unleash schmaltzy, family friendly entertainment to the masses. This past Christmas was no different with the release of Steven Spielberg's War Horse and Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo. Both directors had been incognito for several years, but have returned with a vengeance.

Crowe wrote and directed one of his most critically acclaimed films in Almost Famous, based on his experiences as a teenage journalist for Rolling Stone. However, Vanilla Sky, his remake of Alejandro Amenabar's Open Your Eyes, met with mixed reactions and his rom-com Elizabethtown was a critical and commercial flop. Crowe's recent output includes a documentary on Pearl Jam and one on Elton John and this drama based on Benjamin Mee's memoirs, We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Changed Their Lives. A columnist for the Guardian, Mee, purchased the troubled Dartmoor Wildlife Park in 2006, which he ran with his wife (who later passed away from a brain tumor), brother, two children, and mother.

For the first time, Crowe isn't the sole credited writer. He rewrote the screenplay originally penned by Aline Brosh McKenna, who also adapted The Devil Wears Prada and I Don't Know How She Does It. Crowe transplants the story from foggy England to sunny Southern California and casts Matt Damon in the role of Benjamin Mee, a writer who has just lost his wife to cancer. Benjamin is left alone to care for his young daughter, Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), and teenage son, Dylan (Colin Ford). Dylan deals with the death of his mother by drawing gruesome pictures in art class and is eventually expelled for stealing.

Looking for a change, Benjamin quits his job and purchases an 18-acre farmhouse outside the city that actually houses a ramshackle zoo. The zoo is maintained by a skeleton crew led by the spunky Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson) and is home to a variety of species including tigers, peacocks, a lion, and a depressed grizzly bear. Rosie predictably falls in love with the place while Benjamin sees it as a new adventure, but Dylan hates it there, despite a budding romance with Kelly's shy cousin Lily (Elle Fanning). Kelly isn't enthusiastic either, seeing the new owner's lack of knowledge and experience as a severe detriment. Benjamin has to mend his broken family and rally everyone together in order for the zoo to pass inspection. Can they pull it off or will the zoo be shut down forever?

If you have any doubts in your mind, then We Bought a Zoo must be the first movie you've ever seen. Crowe sticks to a well-worn formula with characters drawn in broad strokes. Rosie is precociously precocious and Dylan is the typical angry and brooding adolescent. The supporting characters are similarly thin with Angus Macfadyen as the angry Scotsman, John Michael Higgins as an unctuous zoo inspector, and Almost Famous lead Patrick Fugit as the guy with a monkey. Seriously, that's his character, he has a monkey.

Music has always played an important role in Crowe's films. Aside from a serene score by Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi, Crowe's soundtrack selections are way too obvious, just as obvious as a subplot involving a tiger with failing kidneys that's meant to echo Benjamin's spousal loss. Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More" comes on when Dylan gets kicked out of school while a rain soaked montage is set to "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" by Randy Newman. "Don't Be Shy" by Cat Stevens becomes the theme for the awkward and budding romance between Dylan and Lily, which comes close to replicating the iconic love stories of the 80's that Crowe became famous for.

We Bought a Zoo has some strong points. Matt Damon is infinitely likeable in the lead role, Elle Fanning gives another solid performance, and Thomas Haden Church injects some much needed wit as Benjamin's brother. You'll definitely get a warm and fuzzy feeling thanks to cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (21 Grams, Brokeback Mountain), who gives the film a bright, sunny sheen. However, it doesn't feel like a Cameron Crowe movie. There are no "You had me at hello" or John Cusack holding up a boom box moments. In the end, We Bought a Zoo is an innocuous little picture that might have aired on the Disney Channel on a lazy weekend afternoon.

Rating: ** (*****)

The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker - Dir. Andrei Konchalovskiy (2010)

As a film critic, I am blessed to be able to review and discuss so many great films. The trade off is that I am often forced to sit through some truly terrible ones. But, never have I run into a movie so horrible that it actually made me question my choice to become a critic. Never until The Nutcracker, a movie so wretched that it not only made me question my career choices, but made me question the very purpose of my life. Yes, the sheer horrendousness of The Nutcracker actually shook me on an existential level.

Filmmaker Andrey Konchalovskiy has had a long and varied career. He co-wrote the screenplay for Andrei Rublev with the great Andrei Tarkovsky along with directing films like Runaway Train and Tango & Cash. Okay, so they all can't be winners. Still, Tango & Cash is a cinematic classic compared to The Nutcracker: The Untold Story, a decades old dream project of Konchalovskiy's. These dreams must have come after imbibing of too much egg nog and fruitcake. Konchalovskiy and co-writer Chris Solimine adapted their script from Tchaikovsky's famed ballet and E.T.A. Hoffman's original story, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, which inspired it. There are also Nazis because everything is improved with the addition of Nazis.

The film is set in Vienna during the 1940's with young Mary (Elle Fanning) looking forward to spending Christmas with her family. Those hopes are dashed when her parents (Richard E. Grant and the director's wife, Yuliya Vysotskaya) plan to attend a lavish party with all the other bluebloods. She is further irritated by her younger brother, Max (Aaron Michael Drozin), when he callously breaks her toys. The holiday picks up when the children are visited by their eccentric Uncle Albert Einstein (Nathan Lane), who gifts Mary with a wooden nutcracker. Later that night, Mary is shocked when the Nutcracker (voiced by Shirley Henderson) comes to life. It turns out the Nutcracker, calling himself N.C., is really a prince who was transformed and banished from his land by the evil Rat King (John Turturro) and his goose-stepping minions. Together, Mary and N.C. embark on a quest to break the curse and liberate the prince's kingdom.

Konchalovskiy's production is a nightmarish melding of musical and dance while blatantly stealing from other fantasy works like The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland. Another character, a dreadlocked drummer boy named Sticks (Africa Nile), looks like he wandered away from the cast of Stomp. The second-rate Terry Gilliam style set designs and special effects range from downright laughable to ugly eyesores. There is absolutely no sense of grandeur. There's no sense of grace to the few dance numbers in the picture. The first is an approximation of the "Waltz of the Snowflakes" with Elle Fanning twirling around with snow fairies in front of some atrocious green screen work. Later, we get John Turturro effeminately prancing around before electrocuting a shark inside an aquarium tank in a random reference to contemporary artist Damien Hirst's The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. I suppose the audience is supposed to think Konchalovskiy is incredibly cultured and intelligent for throwing this into a kids' movie.

The one good thing The Nutcracker has going for it are the renowned compositions by Tchaikovsky. Unfortunately, Konchalovskiy finds a way to ruin those by drowning them out with inane lyrics by Tim Rice, who has written lyrics for Andrew Lloyd Webber (Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita) and Disney (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King). Don't expect comparable work here, Rice must have pulled stuff out of his ass for a quick paycheck. The music gets off to a rotten start with Nathan Lane and his cartoonish German accent crooning a Mary Poppins-esque ditty about relativity to "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies."

Despite advertising itself as a whimsical fantasy for the whole family, The Nutcracker has enough creepy imagery that parents should be warned. In fact, some adults may also find some of its elements to be disturbing as well. When angered, Turturro's face morphs into a more deformed rat-like visage that instantly reminded me of Large Marge from Pee Wee's Big Adventure. The wooden Nutcracker also has a sinister bent with his bulging, soulless eyes. There's also an unsettling monkey man. I haven't even gotten to how the rats are rounding up all the children's toys and throwing them into a massive crematorium. Talk about poor taste.

The Nutcracker was released into theaters at the end of 2010 around the same time as Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, which also starred Elle Fanning. You might notice she looks a lot younger here. That's because this film went into production in 2007 and set for a release in December of 2009 as The Nutcracker in 3D. However, the post-conversion process was so shoddily done that it was pushed back another year while the $65 million budget ballooned to a ridiculous $90 million.

Even when I have to write a bad review about a picture, I try to be diplomatic about it. I try to find at least one or two redeeming qualities. Alas, there are none aside from the miniscule relief I felt about not having to see this crap in 3D. I cannot hold back the epic levels of hatred I had for Konchalovskiy's The Nutcracker, which has earned a whopping 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. How did anyone possibly think anything about this movie was a good idea?

Rating: DUD

Super 8

Super 8 - J.J. Abrams (2011)

Steven Spielberg. It's hard to come up with another filmmaker who had such a tremendous impact on pop culture. Just in the 1980's alone, he directed E.T., and all three Indiana Jones movies not to mention worked as producer on The Goonies, Back to the Future, Gremlins, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He did a lot to shape my own childhood as well as the formative years of JJ Abrams. In fact, as teenagers Abrams and Matt Reeves (who directed Cloverfield and Let Me In) were hired to restore some of Spielberg's home movies that were shot on 8mm. It's no surprise that Abrams first collaboration with Spielberg would be evocative of the man's most beloved films. Super 8 not only pays homage to some of those aforementioned pictures as well as Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It acts as a tribute to a time when all you needed to make a movie was passion and ingenuity, rather than $200 million and the rights to a hip comic book.

Super 8 is set in the fictional town of Lillian, Ohio during the summer of 1979. Though set in the 70's, this sleepy little burg seems more like a time-lost town existing perpetually in the 50's, untouched by the modern world far past their city limits. This is a time before the instant gratification of the digital era, back when you had to wait three days to develop your film. Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) has suffered the tragic loss of his mother due to an accident at the steel mill. His father, Jackson (Kyle Chandler), a sheriff's deputy, is equally distraught and doesn't know how to deal with his grief or his son. Jackson wants to send the boy off to baseball camp, but Joe has promised to help his best friend, Charles (Riley Griffiths), with his zombie movie. Charles thinks of himself as a junior George Romero though his zombies look more Raimi than Romero. Charles has a ragtag group of pre-teens to work as his cast and crew. There's lead actor Martin (Gabriel Basso), a nerd with thick glasses; Preston (Zach Mills), a nerd with big ears who is their utility player; and Carey (Ryan Lee) who has a penchant for fireworks and setting things on fire. Naturally, he is their special effects guy.

For his latest feature, Charles has snagged Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning), a pretty girl who Joe has a crush on, to be their starring actress. While shooting a night scene at the train stop, the kids witness a massive wreck as a pick-up truck collides head on with an oncoming train. Soon, the Air Force, led by Col. Nelec (Noah Emmerich), arrives en masse in Lillian and offers the barest of information to Jackson and the other local officers. Electronics are stolen, dogs run away, and people begin disappearing. Something escaped from the train and it's up to the pint-sized protagonists to investigate these strange happenings.

Super 8 is a compelling blend of old-fashioned storytelling with modern filmmaking techniques. The film could probably be described as Stand By Me meets Cloverfield and set to a John Williams-esque score by Michael Giacchino. The children possess a sense of wonder and curiosity that makes them aware of the dangers around them while the adults remain ignorant or disbelieving. Super 8 also delves into issues of father-son relationships, which have been at the center of many Spielberg productions.

The child actors Abrams has cast are phenomenal, despite Super 8 being the debuts of many. They not only give brilliant performances, but they even look like they could have been in an 80's movie. Joel Courtney, who makes his film debut here, resembles Henry Thomas in E.T. while the huskier Riley Griffiths looks a bit like Jerry O'Connell in Stand By Me. Both are great, but the scene-stealer is Ryan Lee as the mischievous Carey. Lee possesses the holy triumvirate of cute kiddie attributes: braces, a lisp, and an overbite. Then, there's Elle Fanning, the younger sister of Dakota who comes off a fantastic and naturalistic turn in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere. Fanning manages to give two great performances in the movie as well as in Charles' movie-within-a-movie. There's a magnificent moment when Alice displays her acting abilities for the first time and completely bowls over her male peers.

The dynamics between the kids and the creation of Charles' amateur movie form the spine of Super 8. It is a slight disappointment when the story devolves into a standard creature feature. One of the criticisms levied at Abrams and the way he apes Jaws in the slow build up to the reveal of the monster. The shark was logically hidden by his underwater habitat while Abrams finds artificial methods to keep the thing from viewers. I didn't have a problem with any of that so much as I had a problem with the repetitiveness that gradually came about. Abrams dips into the well once too often by using multiple scenes in which oblivious characters investigate a strange noise only to be snatched away screaming. The climax is far too chaotic and builds to a resolution that ultimately feels rushed. The idea of the creature as a metaphor for Joe's pain comes off as ham-fisted and never fully effective.

And if you loved the lens flares in Star Trek, you'll love the lens flares in Super 8, a trademark Abrams borrows liberally from Close Encounters. If you didn't, you may find them distracting, particularly when a lens flare pops up while the kids are spelunking down a dark subterranean tunnel. Still, Abrams direction is strong and the train wreck stands as one of the best action sequences of the year. The children run for their lives amidst a mass of explosions as train cars careen in every direction. My eardrums nearly burst during the IMAX screening I attended.

Super 8 isn't empty spectacle. It's a blockbuster with genuine emotion and an aura of magic hearkening back to the heyday of Spielberg's classics. It's not a film only about special effects, but about summer friendships, first love, and pure imagination.

Rating: *** (*****)

Somewhere

Somewhere - Dir. Sofia Coppola (2010)

Sofia Coppola made a strong debut as a filmmaker with 1999's The Virgin Suicides, but it was Lost in Translation that made her a critical darling. Her second film did exceptional box office (especially for a film that only cost $4 million) and received numerous awards. After finding such success, many independent filmmakers choose to tackle more ambitious films as their next project. So it was with Coppola who chose to shoot her passion project, Marie Antoinette, with Kirsten Dunst in the lead and a budget ten times that of her previous movie. The picture was not given the same positive praise as Lost in Translation and was even booed the Cannes Film Festival. Coppola's decision to use an anachronistic pop music soundtrack with tunes like "I Want Candy" by Bow Wow Wow was a head scratcher for most. Personally, I feel Marie Antoinette is a widely misunderstood film as it was never meant to be an historically accurate biopic, but a piece of pop art and commentary on teenaged célèbre.

Taking the criticism in stride, Coppola has gone back to her roots with a low-budget and intimate tale of two individuals attempting desperately to connect. Call it Lost in Hollywood. Stephen Dorff plays movie star Johnny Marco, who has the type of career some predicted Dorff could have and should have had. Marco lives an utterly empty life as a glamorous Hollywood celebrity. This is symbolized quite bluntly during the opening scene in which Marco aimlessly drives his Ferrari in a circle out in the desert.

In between filming and press junkets around the world, Marco lives at the trendy Chateau Marmont, a hotel for the rich and the site of John Belushi's fatal overdose. As an A-lister, Marco doesn't just get room service; he gets strippers sent to his pad, blonde twin strippers with portable poles, no less. He runs through an endless parade of women. Most of the ladies practically throw themselves on him. Some send him anonymous profanity-laced text messages or tell him to his face how big a jerk he is. None of this sparks even an iota of genuine emotion from Marco. He can barely keep himself awake for the strip routines; he even falls asleep while attempting oral sex on a woman he just picked up. Only when Marco spends time with his daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning), do we see a softer side to the bad boy.

Marco gets the occasional day with Cleo, but the latest daddy day becomes an extended stay when his ex-wife dumps Cleo on him for unknown reasons. As more time is spent between the two, Marco comes to the realization of how much he has missed and how much his little girl is slowly becoming a young woman. This revelation hits Marco when he looks up from his Blackberry to watch her during an ice skating lesson.

Is it difficult to feel for a millionaire movie star who tools around in a Ferrari and has woman flashing him at random? Yes, it is hard to sympathize with someone who is so miserable, yet still has so much. Somewhere becomes a far more interesting film when it moves past mopey Marco to the father-daughter relationship. Nothing feels forced or scripted about their scenes as little events work to build their connection. Cleo makes Eggs Benedict for her dad and his pal (played by Jackass's Chris Pontius, of all people) and beams a mile-wide smile as Marco is honored at an Italian awards ceremony.

Throughout it all, Elle Fanning gives a wonderfully understated performance, one that ranks at the top of female performances in 2010. Fanning deserves to be at the head of the youth movement of actresses that includes Hailee Steinfeld and Chloe Moretz. When one of Marco's one-night stands shares breakfast with them, Fanning brings a subtle change to her facial expression, a change that undoubtedly involves staring daggers at dad. Dorff compliments Fanning's performance well and is more than suited to play the brooding movie idol.

Just as the actors adopt a minimalist approach to their parts, Coppola adopts an equally minimalist approach to her direction. The camera lingers on the characters' inertia. The unique framing of the camera and the director's fascination with the most mundane tasks owes much to Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, which cinematographer Harry Savides screened for her. Coppola's penchant for infusing her pictures with pop songs is absent here as she goes for a purely diagetic soundtrack, aside from a score by the band Phoenix (fronted by Coppola's husband, Thomas Mars).

When Cleo is gone, it feels like the heart has been ripped right out of Johnny Marco's chest. It feels the same for the film as well. Elle Fanning is really the heart and soul of Somewhere and whenever she and Dorff are on-screen together is when the magic happens. Lacking that strong emotional core, Somewhere becomes a cold character study.

Rating: *** (*****)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Dir. David Fincher (2008)


Benjamin Button will stand for years to come as a monumental achievement in technical wizardry. However, the film isn’t there to service the special effects; the effects are there to service the film. Director David Fincher, known for darker fare (Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac), has created a vivid storybook tale of love and mortality.

Brad Pitt plays the title character for much of the film, usually hidden behind a layer of make-up and CGI effects. He is born at the end of World War I in New Orleans, except he is born with all the ailments of an 80 year-old man. His skin is wrinkled, his limbs are arthritic, and his eyes are stricken with cataracts. The baby’s mother dies giving birth and the father, Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng), leaves the baby at the doorstep of a nursing home. There, he’s taken in by Queenie (Taraji P. Hanson), the caretaker who names the baby, Benjamin. He begins life as a lame-legged old man, fitting right in with other inhabitants. Soon, he meets the red-haired Daisy (Elle Fanning as a child, Cate Blanchett as an adult), the granddaughter of another tenant. For Benjamin, it’s love at first sight while Daisy senses a kindred soul underneath his elderly exterior.

Benjamin devours life with a youthful exuberance. He explores New Orleans with a newly-arrived pygmy and gets a job on a tugboat with Captain Mike (Jared Harris). At sea, Benjamin sees more of the world and visits his first brothel. He travels to Russia where he has an affair with Elizabeth Abbot (Tilda Swinton), the wife of a British diplomat. Returning to the States, his relationship with Daisy goes through its ups and downs. It isn’t until the two reunite in their middle age that their love affair can finally begin. But, love is fleeting when Benjamin realizes he’ll grow younger and younger.

The script was co-written by Robin Swicord and Eric Roth who took inspiration from a 24 page short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald to create a near three hour masterpiece. Roth previously won an Oscar for his adaptation of Forrest Gump and you can clearly see echoes of that in Benjamin Button. Both films star a passive protagonist moving through the 20th century and a love that is doomed by circumstances worldly and physical. However, Button manages to avoid distilling almost an entire century of history into a series of contrivances and empty Hallmark platitudes. While this works great, there are two glaring omissions. Though Benjamin is raised by an adoptive black mother, the issue of segregation in the south is never mentioned. Sprinkled throughout the film are scenes with an aged Daisy on her deathbed as her daughter (Julia Ormond) reads from Benjamin’s diary just before Hurricane Katrina strikes. It feels like a superfluous addition when the tragedy isn’t truly addressed.

Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett give fine performances though not as strong as some of their other films. The romance between Benjamin and Daisy is at its strongest when they’re at their most miserable. It’s not nearly as interesting when they’re happy, frolicking in their sparsely furnished apartment as the Beatles play on The Ed Sullivan Show. The best performance belongs to Taraji P. Henson for her portrayal of Benjamin’s Butterfly McQueen-esque adoptive mother.

Rating: *** ½