Iron Man 2

Tony Stark is back in Jon Favreau's Iron Man 2, the much anticipated sequel to its critically acclaimed 2008 predecessor. This time around, Iron Man's (Robert Downey Jr.) suit is being sought after by the American military but he refuses to reveal its secrets, claiming to have privatized world peace, the ultimate achievement of the symbolic individual. But historical familial enemies have surfaced, and Stark's Russian shadow-self Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) develops a personalized nuclear apparatus of his own which threatens to dismantle Stark's global franchise. Both of their parents worked together to design the technological infrastructure that created Stark's business, but the elder Vanko (Yevgeni Lazarev) was sideswiped by Stark's father (John Slattery) after which he spent the rest of his days immersed in bitter misery. When the military discovers that another individual has created an Iron Man-like suit, Iron Man's novelty, the fact that he could justify not sharing his design because there was no comparable opposition, wears out, and Stark's friend Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) comes calling. Stark also makes full-time assistant Pepper Pots (Gwyneth Paltrow) the CEO of his company, American weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) eventually 'hires' Vanko to streamline the development of battle ready 'Iron Man' suits, the secret intelligence agency S.H.I.E.L.D recruits Tony to see if he has what it takes to be a member, and Stark continues to fall further in love with Pepper while remaining mesmerized by the sultry Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson). Justin Theroux's script is jam packed with several additional subplots, every scene bristling with dynamic multidimensional energy, and while they are laid on a little thick, they manage to transform Iron Man from a particular galaxy into a melodramatic universe, which is one of the principal motivating factors on every fantasy sequel's agenda.

The issue of a privatized military remains problematic and should be investigated however. I suppose that if and only if a socially conscious peace promoting tyrant thwarting military industrial complex destabilizing individual makes up a one-person privatized military (who occasionally requires assistance from close friends), who doesn't take particular sides and is interested in preventing governments from imperialistically colonizing other countries or enslaving their own populations, then a privatized military is okay (the anti-revolution). Hence, Iron Man 2 is an idyllic fantasy, one wherein the individual can function in a godlike fashion outside of communal confinements in order to keep that community safe. His lifestyle is bohemian, and his private interests wolfish, but when it comes to protecting the public from the forces of evil, he's unconditionally ready at all hours of the day, never wavering in his altruistic commitment, always.

But how does this relate to education? What if one school of thought is responsible for guaranteeing intellectual and cultural safety, and only people subscribing to that school are presented as just guardians of a unilateral global political aesthetic (privatized Philosopher Kings)? If that aesthetic has a communal basis that seeks to preserve and maintain an inclusive diverse multicultural multilingual peaceful public organization, complete with universal supporting educational and medical institutions, institutions that would prevent their military from developing and obtaining potentially perverted weapons of mass destruction, without aggressively forcing their ideology onto the cultures of surrounding nations, preferring organic internal growth to hostile external confrontation, while still functioning as a contributing member of the global economy, but not to the extent that it sacrifices its social programs in order to pay its dues, then I guess that's okay. This liberal philosophical kernel facilitates the development of a multidimensional ethical orchard whose political fruit is openly accessible. At the same time, if the one principal school of thought promotes a one-dimensional divisional political frame that preys upon racial tensions in order to divide and conquer the workforce, encouraging different minority groups to squabble amongst one another while a dominant elite few control the means of production and prevent the people from having access to the knowledge required in order to earn a higher income, or charge them astronomical sums in order to be educated so that they'll be mired in debt afterwards for an interminable period of time, then I guess that's not okay. The question is, does Iron Man 2's privatized symbolic individualized military support a Democratic or a Republican ethos, and if it indeed supports one more than the other, how does it demonstrate this support? In order to answer these questions, I've provided some of the film's Republican/Democratic evidence below in order to demonstrate how it supports both ideologies. If we can determine which side's evidence is more convincing, then we can reach a verdict regarding the political character of Iron Man 2, and, derivatively, that of its quintessential political kernel: an individual privatized military.

Republican points: the majority of characters are beautiful; the principal villain is poor; the exaltation of privatization exalts privatization; many of the locales are populated exclusively by the elite; foreigners are depicted as villains insofar as Vanko is Russian and the French police in Monaco allow him to escape; as Pepper attempts to run Tony's company, a Republican pundit calls her a "pin-head"; the film focuses much more of its attention on technology than humanity; and Tony Stark, as the ultimate individual, ideally embodies the forces of capitalism.

Democratic points: Stark can't win this one on his own: the individual needs the support of his friends the most prominent of whom are female and African American (although they could be female and African-American Republicans); as Pepper attempts to run Tony's company, a Republican pundit calls her a "pin-head," and Favreau's direction indicates that we should consider the comment ignorant (it was still presented nonetheless); the private can't function without the public, the two dimensions forming a politico-ethical yin and yang: the private dimension may as well be represented by an individual who is committed to bringing about world peace; the film's secondary villain, military arms dealer Justin Hammer, is incompetent and a prominent American; while speaking to a Senate committee, Lt. Col. James Rhodes demands that his commentary be presented in context; the principal villain is poor and brilliant, and his anger is justified (although his methods are not) insofar as his family was humiliated by the Starks (his relationship with Hammer productively deconstructs his villainy as well); and women are depicted as being thoroughly qualified for tasks traditionally undertaken by men and there is no mention of family or childrearing.

Within Iron Man 2, we have a privatized personalized military. Overtly, this military obviously supports a Democratic viewpoint insofar as it legitimately seeks to secure a balanced world peace, while also supporting a Republican viewpoint inasmuch as it is a privatized military operated by a wolfish individual capitalist. Favreau and Theroux's film has provided a host of conflicting ideological baggage to support either case, only a small amount of which has been presented here, in order to cleverly disguise/ignore their political motivations. I believe that their Iron Man is more Democratic than Republican since their multilayered plot has intelligently crystallized an assiduous ambiguity, or, alternatively, represents Anarchism's progressive dimension (not as a dominant political aesthetic but as a deconstructive tool to challenge ideological stances) (eventually one must act and deal with the communal consequences of their actions [the ways in which they were interpreted, regardless of motive]). Bold, beautiful, complicated, resilient: there's a lot more going on in Iron Man 2 than many similar sequels and I highly recommend trying to figure things out on your own or with friends.

Crazyheart

The careers of many successful musicians have their ups and downs, and Scott Cooper's Crazyheart begins by introducing us to one of country music star "Bad" Blake's (Jeff Bridges) less fortunate moments. He's 57, has lived through 4 divorces, and currently travels from city to city in his ancient suburban in order to play for modest yet enthusiastic crowds in small bars and bowling alleys. Smoking and drinking constantly while still managing to competently perform (although he may have to take the occasional 'rest' in the middle of a song), times are tough for this living legend and it's been a while since he's caught a break. While playing in Santa Fe, he agrees to provide journalist Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal) with an interview and the two hit it off. Thanks to her sober advice, Bad feels more comfortable reestablishing a relationship with country music celebrity and former protege Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), and his fortunes begin to relatively improve.

Simultaneously interrogating the life and times of a prominent musician and the consequences of alcoholism, Crazyheart demonstrates that life on the inebriated road necessitates a host of artistic acclimatizations, the most disruptive of which often result in successful professional developments. The film doesn't really vilify alcoholism to any serious extent, and even builds Bad up as a badass tough-as-nails aging artist, still playing by his own idiosyncratic rules, who has aged to much to sustain his choice of lifestyle (it demonstrates that alcohol abuse results in a peculiar constitution without moralizing intently on the subject). Instead, it poetically highlights the productive tension maintained between personal reclusion and communal creation, while evocatively elucidating one man's saturated experience.

Gunless

The new Canadian western comedy from director William Phillips examines the dynamic relationship forged between a wild individualistic American rogue and a settled congenial Canadian community. In Gunless, Sean 'The Montana Kid' Rafferty (Paul Gross) escapes from his hanging only to wind up surrounded by decent folk who are relatively ignorant of the American Wild West's code. His integration is smooth if not bumpy insofar as he quickly catches the eye of a local belle (Sienna Guillory as Jane) while still taking the time to 'call-out' Jack, the blacksmith (Tyler Mane), after he uses the word "common" in one of his introductory remarks. The plot comedically incorporates a basic formulation of Aristotle's conception of virtue (the virtue of a knife is its ability to slice) which causes Rafferty to dramatically (if not ironically) question his profession's means-of-production. Then, as he sacrifices his individuality for the community's greater good (after those wishing to hang him show up in town), that community responds in his defence by any-means-necessary.

And there's a gunfight, A-Team style.

The film intermingles slapstick relief with cerebral comic portraits (Rafferty and the carrot) in order to provide a sophisticated mix of jocular wherewithals. Structurally, some of the plot devices simply don't work insofar as The Montana Kid is much too friendly to be considered a ruthless killer, and who invites someone to dinner after they shoot up the local 'bar'/dry goods store? The title is problematic since the town isn't gunless and neither is The Montana Kid, the term "gunless" perhaps referring to Rafferty's identity crisis after winding up in Canada; but this doesn't sufficiently explain things since the town's residents do their best to build up his character, and the man he wishes to duel even reforges said duel's required second pistol even though he wants nothing to do with the duel itself. The relationship between Canadian history and Gunless's social dynamic is legitimate if not infantilized: the one Native character (Two Shoes played by Graham Greene of course) consistently outsmarts his liaison in the NWMP (Dustin Milligan as Corporal Jonathan Kent) and is consequently rebuffed (Native wisdom was overlooked and dismissed [or rewritten from an Anglo-perspective] as the West was Anglicized); there is only one character who speaks French (Anglophone policies of assimilation prevented a French Canadian identity from prominently developing in the West); the Asian family runs the local laundry, doesn't show up for the town dance, and is ignored in an educational setting (laws sought to prevent the immigration and integration of Asians into Western Canadian society [see Howard Palmer's Alberta: A New History][the Asian girl speaks perfect English but is introduced in isolation]); a prominent woman attempts to run her own farm (there must have been examples of strong women in frontier towns taking matters into their own hands who weren't segregated, but the fact that Rafferty's advice helps her to run her farm more efficiently still accurately reflects 19th-century patriarchal norms); and the ambiguously gay character is allowed to integrate as long as he marries and stays in the closet (however, the church is surprisingly absent from the film). Gunless also shows how Canadians are occasionally not as polite as they are generally depicted (when the NWMP troops give Montana a beating) while still depicting them as being generally polite. But this depiction is cultivated with its bold, underrepresented underside, for when push comes to shove, the town's inhabitants are ready to fight for what/who they believe in (Vimy Ridge, Québec's Bill 101). I liked Gunless for the ways in which it demonstrates the potentially productive relationship maintained between a community of individuals in a lighthearted, homely fashion (even if that relationship developed in less than two weeks). More cute and cuddly than rough and tumble, Gunless's theoretically absent arsenal still subtly presents an inordinate ordinance.

How Canadian!

Date Night

Meet the Fosters (Steve Carell and Tina Fey), a successful suburban couple comfortably going through the motions, taking care of their two children, and heading out for date night every Friday. Apart from the facts that they're rather busy, and their friends the Sullivans (Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig) are getting a divorce, everything seems tranquil enough if not mundane and uneventful.

Until they decide to steal the Tripplehorn's reservation at a posh restaurant in the centre of a big city one surprising and uncharacteristic night. As it turns out, the Tripplehorn's (James Franco and Mila Kunis) are blackmailing a gangster (Ray Liotta) whose taken pictures of a politician's (William Fichtner) lusty nightlife in order to secure some much needed scratch. The gangster's henchmen, who are also policepersons (Jimmi Simpson and Common), corner the Fosters while they're finishing dinner and demand the return of their boss's philandering flash drive. After a narrow escape, and several spur-of-the-moment relationship related outbursts, it's up to Mark Wahlberg (Holbrooke) and the power of love to unconditionally save the day.

Or night, as it were.

The film's well done and I enjoyed the intelligent ways in which it intermingled the high and low. A lot of its script is concerned with a traditional, stereotypical, steady-as-she-goes marriage, but, if push comes to shove, that traditional couple is still ready to perform a live sex act. The situations in which they find themselves are plausible yet ridiculous, identifiable yet obscure, sordid while remaining wholesome, and fortunate if not predictable. It was still a little to straight and narrow for my tastes; however, since said tastes are so used to not encountering sprightly representatives of the straight and narrow, this straight and narrow film stood on its head.

With Leon (J. B. Smoove) from Curb Your Enthusiasm's sixth and seventh seasons.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

Never thought I'd see Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant reworked and revitalized but that is what Werner Herzog has done in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans. Opening on an heroic note, Lieutenant Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) quickly proves that he is on par with Harvey Keitel's degenerate masterpiece, as he travels the streets of New Orleans using his badge to procure as much prurient activity as he possibly can. Things are complicated: a camera has been placed in the police department's evidence room, making it more difficult for him to obtain free narcotics; when a costumer assaults McDonagh's prostitute partner (Eva Mendes), he threatens him even though his political contacts are severe; he is suffering from chronic back pain, the result of his aforementioned heroic act; his gambling debts mount as he can't catch a break and his bookie (Brad Dourif) comes calling; a protected witness escapes under his watch and after ruthlessly interrogating his politically connected grandmother to discover his whereabouts, he is temporarily removed from duty; his relationship with his recovering alcoholic father (Tom Bower) remains estranged; and he can't find the means to put the cocaine dealing murderer Big Fate (Xzibit) behind bars. Certainly not the most family friendly film, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans offers a pristinely nocturnal portrait of a successful substance abusing professional scumbag, shot through the discarded lens of an alcoholic looking glass. Deconstructing the traditional hard-working-by-the-book-master-narrative, it brazenly points out that corruption often finds its own rewards, while highlighting the nefarious steps that must occasionally be taken in order for justice to be virtuously upheld.

Hot Tub Time Machine

Was looking forward to taking a dip in Steve Pink's Hot Tub Time Machine but found it's waters far to tepid. It's fun watching three old friends reinvestigating their youth back in time at their favourite ski resort, but I never developed a bond with any of the characters, felt its crude emphasis was often nasty, couldn't get into most of the "reliving their youth with a 21st century twist" bits, and patiently waited for a montage that never came. At the same time, watching John Cusack (Adam) get ridiculously wasted on multiple substances while pining for a lost love was funny, the humour's dry yet over the top like a well mixed self-aware chocolate martini (so self-aware it's aware that being self-aware is becoming cliché unless you conceal your self-awareness), going back to the 80s for a romp including John Elway's famous Drive caught my attention, and it was nice to see Crispin Glover (Phil) heroically stealing scenes. My "make-it-or-break-it" Hot Tub Time Machine factors came down to Chevy Chase and the dynamics of time travel. I often like integral non-sequiturs and the ways in which they complicate things, but I couldn't help being annoyed by the repair man's babble and the fact that he didn't simply lay things out like Back to the Future's Doctor Emmett Brown. The answers were probably there, cleverly encoded with idioms and innuendo, but I found them as confusing as Adam's accidentally-along-for-the-ride-nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke), and potentially will never see their mysteries revealed (something deeper than the forbidden substance found in the Russian red bull). Unless in twenty years I travel back in time and have to see Hot Tub Time Machine again in order to maintain the integrity of the space/time continuum. If that happens, I'll search for the hidden meaning while making sure to hit the gym and eat solidified carbohydrates.

Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands

Alberta's tar sands are definitely a controversial issue. It is claimed that they represent the world's second largest oil reserve and are essential for the maintenance of the United States's oil supply. The profit potential for the companies involved in extracting their bitumen is enormous and they also produce lucrative revenues for Alberta's economy. Tough to sincerely criticize an industry that supplies your citizens with job opportunities and disposable incomes but the pollution generated from the tar sands megaproject is a phenomenon worthy of such criticisms. In Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands, Peter Mettler films the tar sands's impact on the Albertan environment from a helicopter, providing shots of open pit mines, tailings ponds, and industrial complexes, while juxtaposing them with surrounding untouched forests. The images speak for themselves and the environment has been devastated on a massive scale, the landscape resembling a bleak, stark, uninhabitable lunar catastrophe. Information presented: the tar sands operation burns enough natural gas to heat 4 million homes daily; the project could industrialize an area the size of England; per day, routine business releases as much carbon dioxide as every car in Canada; to date, no comprehensive assessment of the project's social, economic, and environmental impact has been undertaken; the Athabasca River, part of the world's third largest watershed, flows through. Mettler's accompanying narration near the film's conclusion suggests that there are alternatives to developments such as these which should be considered considering their environmental impact (solar energy for instance). In order to stop these operations and adopt alternative sources as our principle cultural fuel, it will take a massive social movement with local and international groups uniformly focused on transforming global economies from those that are founded on non-renewable resources to those that are nurtured by sustainable growth.

Crude

An oil company moves into your jungle home, sets up shop for 26 years, leaves, and your environment's polluted to hell. You dig beneath the ground and instead of soil you find toxic sludge. Your iridescent drinking water stinks like petrol and tastes rancid. Cancer rates in your village are through the roof and you can't afford medical treatment. Your culture and associated way of life has been drastically destabilized by industrial runoff and you've been seeking financial retribution from a dismissive multinational for a seemingly endless period of time. Joe Berlinger's well-rounded documentary Crude provides an intricate examination of the infamous Amazon Chernobyl case, wherein 30,000 Indigenous inhabitants of Ecuador have taken Chevron to court. Berlinger presents viewpoints from both sides, the Chevron reps claiming they cleaned up their mess (to the tune of 40 million) and that PetroEcuador (the company who took over production in the 90s) is to blame. The Indigenous plaintiffs recognize PetroEcuador's crimes and have a separate lawsuit on the back burner quietly steeping. But for now it's Chevron on the hook, sued for 27 billion, trying to justify their position by blaming the sharp increase in cancer rates on poor sewage treatment, claiming there are acceptable levels of hydrocarbons in the water, and boasting that their environmental record is spic and span. If you ask me, based upon Berlinger's filmic evidence as well as the testimony of Steve Donziger, Pablo Fajardo, and several local residents, Chevron must think we're drinking volcanic glasses of idiot juice if we're to believe their side of the story. They definitely cleaned up something, and drawing the line where Chevron's guilt ends and PetroEcuador's begins is complicated to say the least. But these people are suffering, they weren't suffering before Chevron (or Texaco) showed up, and they're living and breathing the effects of Chevron's environmental degradation day in and day out, period. Hopefully the international attention surrounding the case will help speed up the legal process so that these people can be justly compensated for the scurrilous and foul way they've been treated.

Surrogates

Jonathan Mostow's Surrogates reminds me of James Cameron's The Terminator insofar as they are both science-fiction films which express a paranoid attitude regarding post-modern technological developments. In The Terminator, we're exposed to a world where machines rule and the natural path has been thoroughly eroded (note that as it has become increasingly obvious that we are necessarily linked to technological advancements, the Terminator series has adjusted and in Terminator Salvation we meet a humanistic machine/human hybrid). In Surrogates, we're exposed to a world where the majority of people have purchased beautiful remotely-controlled androids (surrogates) to live out their lives for them; or, a world where people live out their lives on the internet after creating multiple ideal identities. Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) has a surrogate but longs to have person to person conversations with his wife (Rosamund Pike as Maggie Greer) who criticizes him consequently. Eventually, Dr. Lionel Canter (James Cromwell) (creator of the surrogates) seeks revenge after his son is murdered by a weapon which destroys surrogates but also bypasses their safety mechanisms and kills their operators. He's also rather upset after having been pushed out of VSI, the company he founded to market, develop, and promote the surrogate lifestyle. He finds a way to use the weapon to destroy every surrogate and their operators, and, after the worst antagonist/protagonist encounter I've ever seen, attempts to do so. Fortunately, Tom Greer is there to prevent the weapon from annihilating humanity, but, eager for a conversation with his wife, he still uses it to destroy all the surrogates, taking us back to a simpler time (i.e., before the internet) (the John Carpenter ending). Thus, the distraught individual makes a personal choice that collectively disrupts the foundations of his culture, a culture that had practically eliminated violence, crime, racism, and so on. I find it hard to believe that anyone could be nostalgic for that way of life and had a tough time digesting the ending. The internet presents a lot of opportunities and an abundance of information and I'd rather partake in its virtual reality than any of its preceding fantasies. I suppose Surrogates is saying that things are moving to quickly and we should slow down and reevaluate the ways in which the internet is permeating every social/cultural/political/economic/ . . . sphere, and the ways in which it is changing traditional methods of human interaction. This makes sense: I don't want to go camping with a laptop. But socializing on the internet isn't some grand disruption of the traditional order of things that threatens the ways in which we interact with one another. In fact, it broadens the social domain and provides us with another means through which we can communicate on a progressive social scale, while still continuing to have face to face conversations.

Clash of the Titans

Perseus is back in Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans and he must once again come to terms with his demigod status. Cast off at birth by his earthly step-father Acrisius (Jason Flemyng), Perseus (Sam Worthington) is raised by the humble fisherperson Spyros (Pete Postlethwaite) until he is killed by the vengeful Hades (Ralph Fiennes). Humankind has had enough of worshiping capricious gods and seeks to place themselves at the forefront of their culture, much to father Zeus's (Liam Neeson) dismay. King Cepheus (Vincent Regan) and Queen Cassiopeia (Polly Walker) grievously insult the gods for which Hades demands the sacrifice of their daughter Andromeda (Alexa Davalos) as punishment. But before the monstrous Kraken can devour Andromeda, Perseus has the chance to travel to the underworld with a group of soldiers in order to cut off the head of the vile Medusa (Natalia Vodianova) (which can turn the Kraken to stone). Meanwhile, Hades has grown sick of living beneath the earth and seeks to overthrow Zeus and rule Olympus above. Will his devious plan to use humanity as a means to obtain his revolutionary ends succeed?, or will he remain stuck in his subterranean domain for all eternity?

The film's not the greatest but has a quick pace and an adventurous character that makes it entertaining if not progressive. It's also very similar to Desmond Davis's 1981 version which calls into question why they made it in the first place (couldn't they have done something with Cadmus or Orpheus? [I suppose they're making a fortune]). I liked the inclusion of the Djinn, the ways in which Perseus prefers his humanistic to his divine nature, the two hunters who accompany the soldiers on their quest, and the idea that the titular clash is between titanic humanists and gods. But the humanists pay to steep a price for their free-thinking ideas for me to believe that this isn't just another calling card for the 21st century's military industrial complex. It also contains banal generalized terse dialogue, consistently harsh consequences, and one-dimensional character development.

Queen of the Damned

It's surprising how subdued Michael Rymer's Queen of the Damned is, considering that it showcases the reawakening of Anne Rice's famous vampire, Lestat (Stuart Townsend), and his subsequent rise to rock and roll superstardom. To its credit, Queen of the Damned doesn't provide formulaic crests and valleys as it unreels its dark and sombre narrative. Instead, it proceeds by introducing shocking scenes in a sedate manner that melancholically mediates the sensational subject matter. Lestat is awake after sleeping for a hundred years and ready to embrace the twentieth century. As his popularity grows and he continues to openly claim to be a vampire, his fellow creatures of the night grow increasingly irate and seek to ensure that he delivers a final performance. Unfortunately for them, Lestat's music awakens another slumbering vampire, the ancient Queen Akasha (Aaliyah), who admires Lestat's unabashed openness and seeks his assistance in subjugating humanity. Observing the events is Jesse Reeves (Marguerite Moreau) of the paranormal activity monitoring group Talamasca. Her burgeoning humanistic interference is all that stands in the way of either a resumption of the habitual vampiric code, or the unleashing of a monstrous new world order.

I'm not sure if Rymer meant for the film to be so laid back or if he simply failed to dramatically execute the traditional climactic build up (either choice explains why his film was panned), but Queen of the Damned's absent cataclysmic content supports its subterranean form. You would think Queen Akasha would have had a more prominent role but Marius (Vincent Perez) almost receives as much screen time (if not more). I liked how the film's primary focus was relegated to a secondary role for it formally highlights the ways in which supporting players often have a more prominent effect than their political object of desire. But all of these reversals and sedatives aren't surrounded by an inspiring entourage of symbolic pillars (although the musical accompaniment worked well [original music by Jonathan Davis and Richard Gibbs]), which, unfortunately, causes the film to fall flat.

Zombieland

Keep to the path and follow the rules, unless, of course, you're in search of a twinkie. Ruben Fleischer's Zombieland hilariously and absurdly chronicles the death-defying feats of four post-zombie take over survivors in the United States of America. When a hopeless situation arises there's always a serendipitous solution. If your neighbour suddenly turns into a flesh craving representative of the undead, remember the double tap. While fleeing the legions of zombies seeking to devour your post-pestilanic consciousness, make sure to pursue a little romance. And if in doubt, thoroughly express your rage but don't forget to fasten your seatbelt.

Legions of the undead is perhaps to strong a phrase insofar as Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) find themselves ditched and weaponless in a town whose resident zombies are curiously abstaining from their cannibalistic pursuits; but this is an absurd campy comedy whose internal chemistry supports such logical inconsistencies. Give 'em the finger, when a weapon's been used once, discard it; beware of clever fast-talking survivalists (Emma Stone as Wichita and Abigail Breslin as Little Rock); and it's never to late to check out Pacific Playland. If you're going to function as an individual, things are bound to be tough; and uniting your interests in order to obtain common objectives requires a cultivated degree of expedient trust (your chances of succeeding being ridiculously sublime) (in the beginning you have plenty of opportunity to proceed unnoticed). The showdown will eventually come and your success is dependent upon the reception of your cultural/musical/political/commercial/ . . . aesthetic. Just follow the lead of these four reluctant heroes and you're bound to receive critical acclaim.

She's Out of My League

Can't say I understand much about the dating world besides the fact that people often go out on dates and get to fool around afterwards. Yup, that's about all I know, but my lack of knowledge regarding this subject helped me to understand Jay Baruchel's hapless Kirk in the new romantic comedy She's Out of My League, and I was glad to see that he had a couple of moves to show off. Kirk's life is stuck in a predictable routine wherein he goes to work, hangs out with his friends, is derided by his sibling, condescended to by his family, and bored with his job as a Transportation Security Administrator at the Pittsburgh International Airport. Not much has changed over the last ten years and he can't get over the one girl he ever dated, Marnie (Lindsay Sloane), who has managed to maintain a social relationship with his parents. Then, out of the blue, like a wild, blond, voluptuous, productive, maelstrom, Molly (Alice Eve) enters his life, fully equipped with a well paying job and a vivacious personality. She's into Kirk but Kirk can't figure out why and the two engage in a complicated dialogue concerning the compatibility of their divergent lifestyles.

If you like raunchy masculine jock humour tempered by contemplative productive principles you'll probably enjoy She's Out of My League. Jim Field Smith layers his film with a thorough contingent of adolescent humour, considerate compromises, and elated evaluations. The subject matter (should a well endowed successful female date a gaunt mundane male) receives serious reflection and writers Sean Anders and John Morris don't simply pepper their dialogue with one-dimensional catch phrases (Kirk's friends each represent a character type however: Stainer the jock extreme, Jack, the thoughtful mechanic, Kirk, the comic unconfident shy individual, Devon, the sensitive helpful married man [T. J. Miller, Mike Vogel, and Nate Torrence]). A couple of scenes could have been left out to shorten it up a bit, and the feminine point of view receives a lot less screen time, but its final message is something I have to applaud for it firmly suggests that hope still exists.

Alice in Wonderland

Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is back in Alice in Wonderland, another trip down the rabbit hole into the blue collar realm of the working class. Having run away from her aristocratic engagement party, Alice is ready to hide out among the people before choosing whether or not to marry the ungodly Hamish Ascot (Leo Bill). But unbeknownst to her, her underground world has been ravaged by the wicked Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and her nouveau-riche Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee). The Mad-Hatter (Johnny Depp), Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), and Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry) are still doing their best to go about their daily business, but Underland's playful, picturesque, phantasmagorical playground has been seriously destabilized (the majestic White Queen [Anne Hathaway] powerless and distraught). Will Alice passively accept these changes and quietly look on as her friends and acquaintances are scurrilously downtrodden? Not on her watch. After the blue collar workers remind her who she is, it's payback time, and the Red Queen had better be ready for a full on aristocratic onslaught of revolutionary fury. Dramatics aside, the film's made for kids and Linda Woolverton's script is tame and family friendly. A lot of scenes are cut short and could have used a bit more dialogue to strengthen their characterizations (when the Mad-Hatter first encounters Stayne, the Knave of Hearts [Crispin Glover], for instance). The relatively sane Mad-Hatter's character is built-up at the expense of the surrounding cast and it would have been nice to see some of the supporting characters receive more screen time. And Alice's unfortunate return to her nascent social realm is far to cutesy and perfect. Predictable and saccharine yet jocular and entertaining, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland packs a solid kitsch punch with an extra couple of jujubes. And one more thing, Mia Wasikowska's performance is outstanding and whomever decided to keep her off the promotional poster made a serious mistake (like the film made more money because Johnny Depp's highlighted on the poster).

New Moon

I've seen better films than Chris Weitz's New Moon. In fact, I've seen much much better films that Chris Weitz's New Moon. I enjoyed Twilight because I wasn't familiar with the story or any of the characters, generally like vampire films, and was entertained by its down home country charm. But in Twilight's sequel these characters are supposed to dynamically grow and change and develop and evolve, which, I'm afraid, they don't, in fact, most of the film just follows around heartbroken Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) as she pines for lost love Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) while taking unfair advantage of the feelings of Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) whose too ingenuous to know any better. And when it comes to choosing between them does she pick bucolic Jacob, with his intricate knowledge of blue collar affairs and humble well-meaning disposition? No, no she does not, she chooses aristocratic Edward so that she can fly high with the elite and enjoy a fast-paced urbanized existence even though Jacob is better for her which can't help but tear ya up inside. Perhaps she should go for both of them and give birth to Aristotle's golden mean, a werewolf-vampire; not sure if that's what Aristotle was after but who knows! Apart from that, unless you want to watch a teenaged girl lament her failed relationship while engaging in reckless acts and crying for 90 minutes, I suggest you steer clear of New Moon and wait for Eclipse to be released this June.

It's bound to be better.

Do Communists Have Better Sex?

André Meier's “Do Communists Have Better Sex?” playfully examines the cold war sexual dynamics of Eastern and Western Germany. The film consists of interviews with prominent intellectuals, newscasts, theoretical observations regarding the ideological motivations promoting different sexual attitudes within the two countries, propaganda, and contrasting Christian and Trade Union viewpoints concerning birth control (with comedic cartoons interspersed throughout). The contrasts are strikingly manufactured and Meier's film doesn’t try to solve anything. Instead, it places different approaches within a light-hearted yet provocative frame that gives both sides the chance to display their motivations. In the East, there isn't as much to buy, but there's all kinds of room for the development of one's imagination.

The screening I viewed at Cinema du Parc was followed by two American educational films. In the first, an Italian who speaks English with an accent awaits the birth of his child. However, his child is born dead and his purebred American doctor (who speaks perfect English) informs him that the cause of death was syphilis (purebred Americans never get syphilis!). Fortunately for this noble savage, a cure for syphilis exists, enabling him and his wife to have more children in the future. The end of the film vilifies brothels and who is shown operating these brothels but an African American woman? Racist ethnocentric propaganda at its best cunningly indoctrinating the land of the free. No mention is made of the costs associated with the required medical treatment. Fortunately, this humble Italian-American baker was likely free to receive an additional mortgage.

The second video chronicles the sexual development of a caucasian American teenage girl. She is interested in sex but confused. Her father has no advice and quietly reads the paper while his wife cooks dinner and takes care of the family. After a disastrous encounter with a nogoodnik who is only interested in one thing, she falls for a beautiful caucasian American boy. The quarterback of their high school football team no doubt! Afterwards, their relationship flourishes because they decide to have their sexual union sanitized by the bonds of marriage, legitimizing the purity of their future. Note that they come from the same social class, revel in their popularity (in moderation), and only have jealousy confronting their happiness. No mention is made of material sexual realities because everything is perfect, and only people who have something wrong with them could possibly not know how to naturally engage in healthy sexual activity. Propagandistic drivel, straight from the puritanical pulpit, idealistically scoring another touchdown for one-dimensional conservative points of view. Came close to throwing up my popcorn. With laughter!

Capitalism: A Love Story

Michael Moore, filmmaker, social activist, practical idealist, prominent voice. For twenty years he's been crafting socially conscious films which subvert the wealthy American elite in a playful, satirical fashion, and Capitalism: A Love Story once again displays his characteristic dynamic wit. Within, he uses conservative tropes to convey his liberal message to a wider audience. He interviews progressive Catholic thinkers to reestablish the left wing religious dimension (not to say that said dimension is exclusively Catholic, Moore just happens to have been raised Catholic so he interviews Catholic priests primarily). He focuses on his home town of Flint Michigan and includes a scene shot with his dad. He seeks unionized social justice with the degree of confident bravado you'd expect from a small town Western sheriff (masked by a subdued delivery). And he clearly indicates who the American villains are, to the best of his abilities, thereby utilizing the Republican political form and revitalizing it with ethical Democratic content (while simultaneously highlighting Democratic disappointments). He uncovers Citigroup documents which indicate that 1% of the population has more wealth than 95% of the American people combined; he points out that the majority of Americans have no hope of becoming one of the lucky few and could benefit from forming labour unions; he presents codetermination worker cooperatives (California's Alvarado Street Bakery and Wisconsin's Isthmus Engineering) which actually use democratic ideals to structure their business "hierarchies" as well as Vermont's socially democratic Senator Bernie Sanders; he includes footage of how Franklin D. Roosevelt supported the Flint Sit-Down Strike (1936) by sending in the military to protect striking workers; and he suggests that some German businesses have adopted social democratic practices which allow workers to elect members of their company's board of directors. He points out a lot of things and it's a film so the level of analysis is often terse and sentimental, quickly jumping from one scene to the next, presenting a wide variety of possibilities without offering a sincere degree of reflection. And it's also a film inasmuch as it's symphonically built with crescendoes and diminuendos, good guys and bad guys, ambiguity, and a compelling climax. Moore mentions that the one thing which frightens the plutocrats the most is that every American citizen has a vote and can theoretically elect individuals who threaten their capitalistic monopoly with progressive universal legislation. In presenting Barak Obama, Moore cleverly suggests that perhaps he is the person America's been waiting for while carefully enumerating his corporate sponsors.

Ichi

Fumihiko Sori's Ichi presents a resilient blind beautiful sword fighter (Haruka Ayase as Ichi) travelling the Japanese countryside alone in search of the sightless man who helped cultivate her skill, playing the shamisen to make ends meet. Unexpectedly along for the ride is Toma Fujihira (Takao Ôsawa), a shunned samurai warrior who has been unable to draw his sword ever since its blade accidentally took his mother's sight. The pair winds up in a small inn town where the peaceful innkeeping Shirakawa group have had enough of the ruthless, disfigured Banki (Shido Nakamura) and his gang. As they become caught up in the conflict, will Ichi help Fujihira draw his blade?, and will Fujihira melt Ichi's chilly disposition so that she can escape her volatile past?

The film's entertaining enough, with strictly drawn boundaries regarding good and evil, effective doubling, and generally strong performances (especially from Yôsuke Kubozuka as Toraji Shirakawa) (although Bandi's trademark laugh becomes tiresome). A wide variety of nefarious no-good-nicks suffer the wrath of Ichi's calm and delicate back hand slash, and Fujihira provides alarming and awkward comic relief until he comes to terms with his solidified strength. The final sword fight is a bit of a let down, short and to the point rather than extended and intricately choreographed. This is a shame insofar as three of the four main characters suffer from a disability and had the final showdown been elaborately executed, it would have formally accentuated the ways in which said disabilities had been overcome (although by leaving it short and sweet it reflects the theme that disabilities are serious liabilities in Japan, and therefore extremely difficult to overcome). In addition, Ichi seems to be championing feminist forms of political action (Ichi's cultural shackles represented by her blindness) but in the end it's the men who take care of the serious business. Nevertheless, with a fast-paced plot filled with consistent and multidimensional action, Ichi's scope is adventurous and dynamic if not bold and progressive. Part comedy, part romance, while still developing a fluctuating sense of evolving responsibility, Ichi slices and dices its way into the samurai genre, curiously examining gender and power.

Law Abiding Citizen

Taking the law into your own hands, frustrated by the deals and dilemmas necessitated by the nature of the legal system: it's pay back time. In F. Gary Gray's Law Abiding Citizen, Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) refuses to accept the compromise which frees one of his wife (Brooke Mills) and daughter's (Ksenia Hulayev) killers (Christian Stolte as Clarence Darby) after only 5 years and strikes back with a full on blitzkrieg. His object of vengeance is principally lawyer Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) but his methods seek to "incarcerate" anyone associated with the original trial. His goal: teach Rice that you don't make deals with murderers. His methodology: take out anyone and everyone responsible. As a work of fiction, Law Abiding Citizen works well insofar as the ending champions an either/or legal system where the ambiguous dimension structuring day to day judicial decision making is severely criticized (and the either/or mentality is fictionalized). However, if it is stating that this either/or mentality should be adopted, then, from a more practical point of view, the ending becomes problematic. One way out of this predicament is to firmly interpret the ending as a situation where Shelton represents the subjective rogue, Rice, the objective standard. Rice can apply his objective standards generally aside from situations where he encounters the subjective rogue, situations wherein there is no compromise due to the designs of the rogue's ambitions. But if this dimension is being fictionalized then Gray supports a system where Rice can only apply his objective standards to situations where there is no compromise, thereby making the exception the universal and leading us back to the high and low imbroglio. Whether or not Shelton wanted Rice to kill him in the end is ambivalent as well: did Rice truly outsmart Shelton or was Shelton expecting Rice to outsmart him? Was he simply prepared for both options? Does this layer of ambivalence suggest that Gray is fictionalizing the ambiguous dimension of legal proceedings in order to applaud an objective either/or system which is subtly yet directly presented? Either it's an ambiguous ending or it's not, or perhaps the ending is both ambiguous and polar. You decide.

Joyeux Noël

The setting's World War I. Scottish and French troops are fighting the Germans. Heartbreak, lesions, and loss on both sides as they dig in and fight it out attrition style. But Christmas arrives and three commanders miraculously come together and order a ceasefire to give their troops time to celebrate. This unsettles their superior officers and soon enough there's hell to pay, respect for humanity be damned. What Christian Carion's Joyeux Noël points out is that superior officers who are theoretically responsible for representing and maintaining acceptable models of behaviour often take none to kindly to being outshone by their subordinates, especially when such actions resolutely salute the ideals for which each respective officer stands. A gregarious film showcasing hearty camaraderie and its humanistic complement, Joyeux Noël is a must for the annual holiday circuit inasmuch as it thoroughly embodies the spirit of the season.

Up

It's never to late to follow your dreams and you can almost accomplish anything. This message curiously permeates Pete Doctor and Bob Peterson's Up (a Disney/Pixar production) although it is examined from competing patriarchal conceptions of the aged caucasian male. The hero: Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner and Jeremy Leary) and his wife Ellie (Elie Doctor) have dreamed of following Charles Muntz's footsteps and travelling to South America's Paradise Falls since they met. But during their marriage they could never find the funds or the time to do so. After Ellie dies and Carl unfortunately assaults a construction worker, he decides it's time to live their dream and turns their house into a flying machine propelled by thousands of balloons. Accidentally along for the ride is young boy scout Russell (Jordan Nagai) who is working on his helping the elderly badge. The villain: Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) has been living in Paradise Falls for decades trying to capture a rare bird after having been accused of fabricating its existence by the scientific community. While unable to trap the bird, he has created a collar which allows dogs to speak and attached one to each of the "hounds" in his pack. After Carl and Russell reach the area surrounding Paradise Falls, the bird in question takes a liking to Russell's candy bar and begins following them to Mr. Fredricksen's chagrin. Only after Russell helps Carl to discover that Muntz will likely kill the bird after capture does he begin to snap out of his self-possessed fantasy and start fighting back against his childhood hero.

On the one hand we have the old-school conception of the traditional white patriarch, Charles Muntz, for whom nature is a resource to be sequestered and conquered. Obviously possessing an extremely gifted intellect, he cannot overcome the slander attached to his good name and rather than finding other ways to positively contribute to society lives out his days in the wilderness adhesively clutching the past. In the beginning, Carl too wishes to hold on to the past and live out the rest of his life in what he and his wife always dreamed would be paradise. However, young Russell's influence inspires him to stand up and take a side (the child being the teacher of the man) and he embraces the revolutionary environmentalist point of view, disregards his possessions, and decides that it's time the traditional patriarchal male destabilizes his historical stereotype by overtly challenging the forces of imperialism. Thus, the child helps the old man to recognize the horrific dimension of his fantasy and he is then able to develop a confident voice of his own which he uses to reinvigorate his reality. It's no coincidence that the incomprehensible chocolate loving bird is female and that Carl would have never embarked on his journey had he not callously assaulted a worker.

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker's script (written by Mark Boal) skillfully brings the Iraq war to life. Somehow, it manages to calmly present snapshots of 39 days of a bomb squad's Iraq rotation. We aren't bombarded with left-wing or right-wing propaganda regarding whether or not the war is justified. Instead, we simply observe a group of soldiers as they go about their business of warring, doing their best to pacify the country. In fact, in one scene two soldiers (Jeremy Renner as SSG William James and Anthony Mackie as Sgt. JT Sanborn) discuss why they're fighting and neither of them can come up with an answer. And no direct answers are provided, although at least two collaborating viewpoints are established, one suggesting that war is a drug and participants are addicted, another, that soldiers defuse bombs to save children. Altruism or expediency?, probably a combination of both considering how psychologically complicated things must become after you've been fighting for awhile. Answers: there are no answers but there is a war and there are people fighting it. Director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break) objectively displays this fact and gives us enough credit to come to personnel conclusions of our own.

The Blind Side

The Blind Side is Republican and therefore problematic. John Lee Hancock's film concerns an extremely rich caucasian Republican family who adopts a traumatized African American youth. Thus, it immediately sets itself up as another narrative where condescending white people are the only saviours of down and out black people who would have amounted to nothing had they been left to the resources of their own community. This dimension functions throughout and cannot be ignored. But at the same time, it is the true story of a remarkably generous big-C Christian family who adopted a troubled youth in order to give them a chance at a better life. The Tuohy's are incredibly hospitable, not condescending, and bend over backwards to accommodate Michael Oher (Quinton Aaron). His past is full of tragedy, his demeanour excessively aloof, and his grades are lacking credibility. But he's really good at football (yeah, I know) and if given the right opportunity might just make the big time.

It's in the bible people!

But seriously, the film's self-reflexive nature is commendable and I truly enjoyed the ways in which John Lee Hancock and Michael Lewis's script poked fun at Republican stereotypes. To make the film acceptable to hard-line Republicans, a woman is given the most prominent role: Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock). This is the same device used by progressive thinkers to break down racial barriers on shows like Star Trek: The Original Series, where it might be okay for a caucasian man to kiss an African American woman, but it's not okay for a black man to kiss a white woman. Bullock gives the performance of a life time and truly shines in humanitarian splendour. Three stand out scenarios: after hiring a Democrat to tutor Michael (Kathy Bates), Sean Tuohy (Tim McGraw) states something like: "who'd have thought we'd have a black son before meeting a Democrat." I found this to be hilarious. It was intelligently situated, perfectly timed, and culturally disruptive, insofar as it points out that Christian Republicans who demonize Democrats without ever having met one (living their lives in isolated communities) (if such persons exist) are perhaps not living up to their open-minded Christian ideals. The Tuohy's assume Michael wants to play football at a university due to his success and support him full-heartedly. But when it occurs to them that perhaps he never wanted to play football period, they apologize and state that they will support him if he decides to pursue another career. Thirdly, the intertextual domain falls apart when Leigh Anne overtly explains the ways in which Munro Leaf's The Story of Ferdinand relates explicitly to Michael. But at the same time, the traumatic moment from Michael's past which continually resurfaces is not elucidated explicitly, an interesting twist of events where the somewhat insignificant detail is pronounced, while the more relevant motif is subdued, Hancock's subtle formal complement to his film's progressive dimension (by reversing the order of things formally, he complements his film's deconstruction of Republican normalities on a subconscious level).

It's difficult to effectively work within stereotyped traditional domains where there is a right and wrong and find ways to progressively and cross-culturally point out potential ideological shortcomings that seem as if they've been generated from within that ideology itself. This is what John Lee Hancock's The Blind Side has done, playfully pointing out the Republican blind side if you will, and for that reason, I found it to be an exceptional film.

An Education

Difficult, being a young romantically inexperienced teenaged student studying hard to be accepted by Oxford while dealing with the daily complications of social and familial life. In Lone Scherfig's An Education, we meet such a person named Jenny (Carey Mulligan), an ambitious confused high-spirited girl attending an exclusively female school in London during the 1960s. Things proceed as per usual until the free-spirited thrity-something handsome heartthrob David (Peter Sargaard) enters her life by offering her a ride. The two hit it off and both Jenny and her parents are overwhelmed by David's manners, culture, gifts, and charm. Musical performances, trips to the country, a weekend in Paris, dinner and dancing: an enticing and exciting courtship ensues. But things aren't as austere as they originally seem to be, and the bright and promising future David offers may be nothing more than dust in the wind.

An Education intelligently examines what can be thought of as future prospects from multiple angles. Each adult represents a different potential life path for Jenny and she's bewildered by the options. Should she spend her life studying dry literature in dusty educational institutions just so she can wind up teaching dry literature in dusty educational institutions? If she marries rich will her future be secure as her father (Alfred Molina) hopes? Should she emulate her mother (Cara Seymour) and wind up reserved and complacent after years of predictable middle-class married life? Or follow Helen's (Rosamund Pike) fashionably fast-paced footsteps, sacrificing knowledge for glamour in an epicurean salute to the avant-garde?

The point is, it's difficult to be young, and boring to be proper, and when exhilarating opportunities arise it's easy to let them take control. And youth and financial insecurity are sincere motivators as Jenny's father regrettably points out. If you make the "wrong" decision and follow a problematic path, you will certainly face consequences for your actions. But An Education demonstrates that such consequences are by no means absolute which is refreshing to see since so many films rely on melodramatic retributive constructs to "dramatically" tie things together.

Lorne Scherfig's Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself is a really cool film too.

Up in the Air

Flying high, city to city, your life in a suitcase, firing people for a living, aware of every hotel/car rental/flight deal in the USA, trying to save up 10 million air miles, lovin' it. That just about sums up Ryan Bingham's (George Clooney) life in Jason Reitman's new film Up in the Air, a romantic comedy that probes the depths of the resolute "can't be tied down" bachelor. Bingham works for a company that flies its workhorses around the country 24/7 firing people for firms who don't have the gusto to do it themselves. But technological complications arise in the form of a lively young graduate (Anna Kendrick as Natalie Keener) whose videoconferencing ambitions threaten Bingham's comfortable lifestyle. But before taking her revolutionary ideas to heart, manager Craig Gregory (Jason Bateman) decides she needs to learn the ropes herself and sends her "on the road" with the veteran Bingham. During their trip, experience meets education in an age-old rivalry designed to test the limits of both their idealistic life plans. Throw Bingham's love interest Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) into the mix, along with a troublesome wedding, and you have a multi-layered quizzical examination of the platonic nature of values, thoroughly saturated with longstanding larks.

A thoughtful, entertaining, somewhat unpredictable story, Up in the Air demonstrates how things work out when they don't work out while deconstructing the concept of love. Whether or not it considers the subjective life to be ideal is up for debate insofar as its heartbroken protagonist sustains his uncommitted lifestyle by suavely spreading misery as the crow flies.

Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

Lee Daniel's Precious lucidly deals with difficult subject matter in a heartbreakingly blatant fashion. Claireece "Precious" Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is illiterate, pregnant with her second child, overweight, and constantly abused by her vicious mother (Mo'Nique). Whenever she encounters another round of caustic verbalizations she instantly retreats into a fantasy world where she's where it's at and everything's perfect. Things are seriously hard up until she receives the chance to study at an alternative school where she meets a colourful cast of disenfranchised characters. After finally having met some people who treat her with respect, she begins to bounce back and develops a colourful personality of her own. Definitely not the easiest film to watch, Precious provides its audience with a bold taste of what it's like to suffer. While overtly displaying some of the most gruesome representatives of humanity, it also champions hope and focuses intently upon how one can escape an outrageously abusive situation, thereby saluting democratic social safety networks and the strong individuals responsible for making them work.

Revanche

Problems. Solutions. What happens when simple plans go terribly wrong or your perfect life lacks one component culturally representative of stability? Götz Spielmann's Revanche tackles tough problems and even tougher solutions in a concretely realistic fashion, developing dynamically hard-boiled characters in a complicated, nocturnal narrative. Ex-con Alex (Johannes Krisch) and his prostitute girlfriend Tamara (Irina Potapenko) plan to rob a bank and escape to the South while husband and wife Robert (Andreas Lust) and Susanne (Ursula Strauss) struggle to have their first child. One poorly aimed bullet ruins one potential future while possibly consummating another; Robert does his best to cope while Alex works through his frustration. Revenge is in the works, but rather than showcasing its bloodthirsty desire, Spielmann lethargically allows it to steep, thereby using his characters to demonstrate a broad range of its associated affects. Functioning as a steadfast foil is Alex's grandfather Hausner (Johannes Thanheiser), constituted like a rock, embedded, providing age-old bits of timeless empirical wisdom to anyone fortunate enough to listen. Revanche certainly isn't pretty, and it doesn't deal with cookie-cutter subject matter as it evocatively unravels its panorama, definitive and lucid, decadent and deadly. Bizarre in its motivations and cryptic in its revelations, Revanche oddly functions as a formulaic compromise, conceptualizing high and low.

The Invention of Lying

Matthew Robinson and Ricky Gervais's The Invention of Lying introduces a simplistic plot that collapses beneath the weight of its subject matter. After having lost his job, apartment, and chance with a beautiful woman (Jennifer Garner), Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais), who inhabits a world where no one lies, discovers that if he engages in the act of lying he can do whatever he wants. No one clues into the fact that he's using his imagination to conjure fantastic stories and everyone supply acquiesces to his mischievous, modestly mendacious designs. But he has a conscience and won't lie in order to seduce his love interest, even though she consistently mentions that he isn't an adequate genetic match due to his gut and pug nose. That's about it. Apart from Gervais's characteristic dry wit, a number of entertaining cameos, and the odd hilarious bit, the film falls apart after Bellison learns to lie and would have been much funnier if it had taken place solely in the world where everyone tells the truth. Some basic plot developments are suspect as well, for instance, after having spent all of his money on rent, Bellison has money to spend at a casino, and Bellison's nemesis Brad Kessler (Rob Lowe) questions his statements even though he's supposed to believe everything everyone says. It's like Gervais's attempt to move away from sordid material into a more family friendly domain shatters his usually impeccable humour and results in a cutesy-wutsey romp, occasionally funny, but generally dismissible. Not a word of a lie.

A Serious Man

The Coen Brothers's A Serious Man examines the impact of a series of disruptive events upon the life of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg). Things are going well for Larry near the film's beginning insofar as his status-quo routine is firmly established and he is being considered for tenure at the educational institution where he works. Things could certainly be better: he has trouble establishing a dialogue with his children, his gun loving neighbour (Peter Breitmayer) doesn't recognize where his lawn ends and Larry's begins, and his down-on-his-luck brother (Uncle Arthur played by Richard Kind) lives with his family and can't seem to get his life together. But these minor problems are dealt with stoically albeit non-confrontationally by the introverted Larry who still remains confident in his work and cohesive in his appearances. Then, suddenly, his wife (Sarah Lennick) announces she's leaving him, a hopeless student (David Kang) places him in a ludicrously awkward position, his brother is arrested, the tenure committee begins to receive disparaging letters, he's forced to endure humiliating conversations with his wife and her new love interest (Fred Melamed), he gets in a car accident, discovers he owes Columbia Records a large sum of money, and so on and so on, while seeking help from confusing rabbis (Simon Helberg, George Wyner), making sure his son (Aaron Wolff) is ready for his Bat Mitzvah, living out of a matchbox hotel (with his brother), . . . ; in short, things amusingly spiral out of control as Larry tries to keep from discombobulating. It's definitely a Coen Brothers film inasmuch as they effectively introduce over a dozen dynamic characters and awkward situations who/which are tightly tied together in a coherent chaotic whole, a whole which situates old world legends in a post-modern predicament while simultaneously disseminating that very same predicament as an old world legend. Some of the characters could have used some more screen time (Uncle Arthur for instance), the ending could have had a little more closure (the Coen Brothers taking a roguish shot at their audience), the Dybbuk could have been reintroduced a bit more directly (although I suppose it's amorphous presence is meant to stimulate debate [a debate about which they are likely chuckling]), and Larry could have occasionally expressed himself more elaborately (although I suppose that's the point of the ending). But, nevertheless, A Serious Man playfully and mischievously creates a multi-dimensional functionally dysfunctional world, wherein audience and characters alike are treated to a cornucopia of possibilities and a plethora of problematic realities.

District 9

What happens when a spaceship full of aliens possessing highly advanced military technology parks itself over a major city and waits for first contact? In Neill Blomkamp's District 9, those aliens are transferred from their ship to a segregated section of town, fenced off from the strictly human, and left to struggle while the military tries to find a way to harness their secrets. Seen as an economic burden, a foreign intrusion, and a quizzical curiosity, these aliens make ends meet with the limited resources left at their disposal, scraping by a meagre living while holding on to their coveted technologies. Enter Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a hapless, enthusiastic, South African citizen, who is accidentally sprayed by a clandestine fuel while serving a couple of aliens their eviction notice. This fuel transforms his body into a human/alien hybrid, extremely sick yet capable of firing extraterrestrial weaponry. None to happy regarding his life threatening transformations, Wikus escapes the authorities and flees to the only place he can hide, the alien's pseudo-encampment. There he reencounters the fuel's creator and the two launch a preposterously poignant plan to save both their lives.

District 9 examines racism, technological progress, media manipulation, militaristic modifications, and misfortunate messianic mollifications in a fictionally scientific fashion. The film's intellectually deep but solidly entertaining, bridging the gap between esoteric modes of artistic expression and smash-em up mass marketed 'action' flicks. Bit over-the-top, vicious, and sensationally subtle, District 9 still focuses on contemporary racio-cultural issues, productively pointing out that these problems persist. It's a shame that these narratives often boil down to who has the bigger gun, but, unfortunately, this is a cultural code that has been heuristically hard-wired, a potential fact, which, if I'm not mistaken, Blomkamp is ironically deconstructing (banging his head against the wall) by using de Merwe as his hero.

The Maiden Heist

Wasn't too impressed with Peter Hewitt's The Maiden Heist. I rented it because I couldn't resist seeing a film starring Christopher Walken, Morgan Freeman, and William H. Macy, and while they played their quirky typecast characters with the same seductive skills that have sustained their prolific careers, their acting couldn't overcome the lacklustre script as the film flounders during its second act. What's missing is a serious problem. Each of the aforementioned stars works as a museum security guard who has fetishized a particular work of art. Upon learning that their favourite pieces are to be transferred to an exhibit in Denmark, they concoct a plan to steal them. But while heisting, their plan goes off without a sensational hitch, leaving their audience slightly bored by the lack of substantial shock. The introduction's strong enough with a startling opening scene which showcases Walken's traditional mania, but as the plot slowly unravels, and the characters develop a stronger relationship with their favourite work of art than they do with each other, nothing unforeseen is introduced to ridiculously yet rationally complicate things, which results in a mediocre finish.

Angels and Demons and The Dark Knight

Rented Angels and Demons and The Dark Knight the other weekend and was surprised by the similarities between their endings. Both films showcase idyllic characters who have fallen from grace (one by his own free will, the other pushed) in their pursuit of the greater good. And at the end of both films, the powers that be use their influence to ensure that both characters are venerated, in order to avoid disrupting their elevated cultural image. Thus, the public within both films avoids falling into a cynical abyss by not having their heroes seriously defamed, while their audience falls into a cynical abyss after having been provided with a direct representation of historical manipulation, a direct representation which calls into question the saintly status of their inveterate icons. Of course they're both simply films so their demonic destabilization of the established order of things can be dismissed angelically as pure fiction. But the interactions between these two narrative levels forge an interesting balance, subtly illuminating the fictional aspects of these non-fictional dark knights.

The Hangover

Don't really see what all the hype's about surrounding Todd Phillips's The Hangover. Sure, some scenes are seriously hilarious, and it's fun to watch a group of rowdy dudes hit some cataclysmic highs and lows while partying it up in Vegas. But a lot of the humour is of the "taser to the groin"/"beaten down with a crowbar"/"I'm a lunatic psycho" variety and after a while all the juvenile violence wears a little thin. The lunatic psycho (Zach Galifianakis) has a lot of offbeat points to make that infuse the film with a particularly dark functionally awkward comic sensibility, but it's overt psycho awkward without the mediated ridiculousness that made famous psychos like Serial Mom and many, many Christopher Walken characters so appealing. The over-the-top shenanigans try and establish a dimension of ridiculous awkwardness but the constant jocktacular beatings and bizarre attempts to establish a realist counterpoint destabilize its productivity. It has its moments, like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas accidentally runs into Animal House while recycling a bad "and then I #$%# her" joke, but those moments are few and far between, and the high-powered "yeah, we're full of testosterone" backbone doesn't help The Hangover convalesce.

World's Greatest Dad

Few films slowly and subtly build their dark comedic landscapes as effectively as Bobcat Goldthwait's World's Greatest Dad, and the finished product is an hilarious mixture of aerobic angst and ideological agony. The facts: single father Lance Clayton (Robin Williams) works as a high school poetry teacher whose elective class is none to popular. He's been trying to sell a book for most of his adult life with no success and his anti-social son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) disdainfully dismisses his heartfelt attempts to establish a loving relationship. Well, one day Kyle accidentally chokes himself to death and after discovering the body, Lance can't let the police find him in such a disheveled state. So he writes a suicide note and moves him to the closet, making it look like Kyle traditionally took his own life. But unfortunately for Lance, the suicide note is discovered online and quickly disseminated to the majority of his high school's student body. Much to his surprise, Kyle becomes something of a legend as the students cast him as a tragic misunderstood hero, a misguided object of idolatry and veneration. The only thing Lance can do is go along, and soon his poetry class is full of admirers and he's invited to Dr. Dana's (Deborah Horne) television show to plug his conjured version of Kyle's diary. But all good things must come to an end, and just as the high school library is being renamed in Kyle's honour, with a special appearance by loveable singer-songwriter Bruce Hornsby, the truth, and Lance's shot at the big time (including his first book deal), comes crashing down. Wherein lies the ideological agony of the film insofar as realistically speaking Lance's co-workers etc. are upset because he lied to them, but, ideologically speaking, they're even more upset that he told the truth, thereby ruining the cult of Kyle by delegitimizing their exhaulted hero. Things return to normal for good 'ole Lance and he looks like his life has improved remarkably in the aftermath, Goldthwait's succinct salute to Lance's courageous individualism. By showing us what Kyle was like before his deification and then forcing us to awkwardly watch the absurd heights said deification reaches (notably the recurring shots of Kyle's uncharismatic comic "portrait"), Goldthwait maniacally and ingeniously establishes an elegant elegy for what it feels like to squirm, not as raunchy or frank as a well-crafted John Waters film, but just as resolute in producing unsettling tremors of intellectual discomfort.

Daybreakers

Vampire films. I'm a sucker for vampire films, especially when they receive a glowing review in The Globe and Mail. The Spierig Brother's Undead was a solid horror flick so I was pleasantly surprised to see that they crafted Daybreakers as well, this time with a significantly larger budget. Within, vampires have taken over the earth and humans have become farm animals, brutally supplying their eternal masters with a bountiful supply of blood. But humans have become scarce, and, without their abundant blood supply, vampires are turning into bat-like creatures known as sub-siders, more animal than humanoid. Modest vampire Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) (who refuses to drink human blood) searches for a blood alternative but his experiments come up short as time begins to run out. Enter Lionel 'Elvis' Cormac (Willem Dafoe) and partner Audrey Bennett (Claudia Karvan), two tough-as-nails humans looking for a way to mass market the cure for vampirism they've discovered, much to Dalton's surprise. The three form a tenacious triumvirate of dedicated researchers avidly searching for an experimental miracle. Fighting them are the forces of Bromley Corporation, lead by Charles Bromley (Sam Neill), who prefers the taste of human blood and isn't that interested in finding a cure. In the end, there's a sensational showdown quirkily equipped with a blistering bloodbath, dramatically delineating the high interest stakes.

While generally entertaining, Daybreakers is seriously predictable. Didn't have to use much brain power to figure out what was going to happen next. I also didn't take to the plot twist involving Bromley's daughter Alison (Isabel Lucas) and thought it could have been replaced with something more subtle. Ethically, the Spierig brothers seem to be saying that if everyone wants to be part of the elite, eventually their blood supply, the working person, will run out, and the only cure for their unholy elitism will be to become human once more. However, that transformation needs to be slowly nurtured (as the scene where the soldier vampires devour one another indicates) for otherwise revolutionary chaos will ensue ala The Soviet Union. Of course the only people capable of leading this quiet revolution have no means of marketing their humanitarian solution, but at least they're aware of the problem and are trying to do something about it.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Kid movies made for grownups that can be appreciated by both kids and grownups: does it get any better? Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox was recommended to me by my niece and I had nothing to see yesterday evening so I figured I'd check it out. And much to my content surprise did I discover that not only is it the new Wes Anderson film, but it's also my favourite Wes Anderson film since Bottle Rocket. All the trademark Wes Anderson motifs are present: a family experiencing difficulty as they learn and grow together; a cunning, sly, and exceptional traditional patriarch frustrated by the routine trappings of domestic life; a dynamic cast of colourful characters each with their own endearing idiosyncrasies; and a complementary fantasy landscape full of robust depth and life, detail after detail, potentially as envisioned by novelist Roald Dahl. Mr. Fox (George Clooney) suffers a mid-life crisis and decides to once again engage in the act of thievery to overcome his troubled financial situation and regain a taste of the good life. In order to do this he must rob three affluent farmers, Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guiness), and Bean (Michael Gambon), while hiding his clandestine nightly activities from the disapproving Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep). Bean proves to be a formidable adversary and sets out to hunt down the courageous Mr. Fox once and for all. And the only way Mr. Fox's forest community can survive in the aftermath is to objectively support his rash, subjective behaviour.

On the one hand, the film is saying "don't fuck around," for if you do, you're fucked, because the powers that be are going to squash your little rebellion and uproot your traditional order of things. But on the other, it states "give 'em hell," for that's what they do, and the resultant transformed world is accepted enthusiastically (eventually) by its inhabitants. Then again, said inhabitants only enthusiastically accept their newly transformed world because they had no other choice. But they accept it so well and are so happy within that it's tough to criticize Mr. Fox to severely.

Sherlock Holmes

Enjoyed Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. Within, Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and Watson (Jude Law) are much more human than some of their previous imaginings, Holmes eagerly pit fighting and Watson trying to avoid gambling compulsively. Don't know what pit fighting and compulsive gambling have to do with being more human, but they certainly weren't borderline ideal. They are tasked with capturing the resurrected Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) who is attempting to 'cleanse' Britain's parliament in order to bring about a new world order. Professor Moriarty monitors the situation closely with the assistance of Holmes's former love interest, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams). And the conventional Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan) rounds out the cast, providing institutional relief, beguiled brooding, and unexpected assistance.

The plot's complex if not a bit over the top and the intellectual action is constant. Holmes comes across as a scatterbrained aloof eccentric who acutely, succinctly, and charismatically solves every presented problem. The dynamic between Holmes and Watson is playfully professional, Holmes trying hard not to hold back, Watson unafraid to physically express his discontent. Adler adds an additional layer of brainiacness whose sultry suppositions intensify the film's sensitivity. And Lord Blackwood's a creepy, maniacal, lunatic, whose particular brand of insanity is rationally and reasonably displayed. A definite treat for both its brains and brawn, Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes will likely enjoy a prominent position in the Holmesian canon.

Invictus

I may of missed the point of Clint Eastwood's Invictus, but I thought the first half was much stronger than the second. In the opening moments, newly elected South African President Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) must deal with his new occupation's complicated demands, many of which have arisen from the historic racial tensions between black and white South Africans. His approach to governing is unexpected: let's try and rebuild post-Apartheid South Africa as one nation, forgetting the gross injustices inflicted upon the black population and focusing instead upon what can be done to positively change the system's current composition. Considering the black population's grievances and the fact that Mandela spent 27 years in a prison cell as a result of his activism, this Ghandiesque position is commendable insofar as it prefers bonding to bloodshed. While dealing with the strains of office, Mandela takes a shining to the Springboks Rugby Team, captained by Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon), due to the fact that South Africa is about to host the Rugby World Championship. Mandela's support for the Springboks is controversial insofar as they have been seen as a symbol of Apartheid by the black population for decades, South Africa's black residents generally cheering for the opposition. But Mandela sees the team as possessing the cultural power to unite South Africa's black and white populations, and believes that if they win the Rugby World Championship it will bring said populations closer together. This is the main point of the film and as it progresses it becomes the dominant focus, going so far as to show 15 to 20 minutes of the final championship match, which the Springboks win. I thought that Invictus would have been a lot stronger had it primarily focused upon the serious political demands of Mandela's first term in office, keeping the rugby match in the background for a longer period of time, and replacing scenes like the one where Mandela greets the entire team with others demonstrating the severity of the South African racial divide. This divide is mentioned, referred to, and recognized throughout Invictus's second half, but the manner in which it is showcased is far to warm and fuzzy for my liking, thereby minimizing the effects of South Africa's World Rugby Championship victory by overlooking the grim social realities that victory was symbolically supposed to overcome.

Avatar

James Cameron's Avatar is a science fiction treat for both environmentalists and epic film lovers alike. On the far off planet of Pandora, a greedy corporation is mining a precious mineral known as unobtainium, many deposits of which lie beneath sacred portions of the planet's lush forest. The indigenous Na'vi take none to kindly to the intrusion but have learned to live somewhat peacefully with their militaristic human neighbours. Until those neighbours decide it's time to destroy their revered Hometree, a scurrilous act which unites the Na'vi tribes for a final showdown around their venerated Tree of Souls. Leading them is Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic marine who, thanks to a remarkable scientific development, is able to inhabit and navigate a Na'vi body while sleeping in a special tank. Is his leadership divine? Has he been chosen by Eywa, the Na'vi's most prominent deity, to restore balance to the planet? Will his relationship with Na'vi beauty Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) bear forbidden fruit? Or will Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) and his bombastic military commando sidekick Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephan Lang) wipe out the Na'vi and have their way with Pandora's plunder?

The ending appealed to me although it's somewhat frustrating insofar as it's only a movie. It's a lot of fun and I probably would have rated it much higher if I was still fourteen. Nothing really that new presented and honestly, I preferred Avatar's prototype, Dune. Solid reimagining of Herbert's classic novel, nonetheless, which should find a massive, enthusiastic audience.

The Cove

Evidence within Louie Psihoyo's The Cove proves that dolphins are being slaughtered by the thousands in Taijii, Japan, each year. Beginning in September and lasting until March, fisherpeople within Taijii coral herds of dolphins in an isolated cove in order to sell them to the dolphin entertainment industry. But the leftover dolphins aren't released, they're killed for their highly toxic meat which is then sold to the Japanese population, often labelled as something different. In The Cove, a group of environmentalists, many associated with the Oceanic Preservation and Sea Shepherd Conservation Societies, resolutely fight to find a way to photograph the killing, risking imprisonment, and, according to dolphin rights activist Ric O'Barry, death, to obtain their footage. While the dolphin industry in Taijii is the principal focus of the film, other subjects include the problems associated with the International Whaling Commission, the reasons why many feel justified in hunting whales and dolphins, the ways in which the Japanese whaling lobby is buying support for their cause, and the general characteristics of dolphins themselves. As a meat eater, I feel that if I generally condemn those concerned with this business I'll come off sounding like a hypocrite, so I'll qualify my condemnation by saying that I generally support the eating of farmed meat, because farmers are usually concerned with maintaining healthy marketable populations of their commodities, not slaughtering wild populations that will have difficulty maintaining their present numbers. At the same time, I find the idea of dolphin farms to be incredibly cruel, almost as cruel as the bear farms which suck bile from a bear's gall bladder periodically throughout the day (or the ways in which chicken wings are produced, or . . . ). But I'm sure the cattle industry looks pretty horrible to the majority of Hindus so I can't judge their cultural traits seriously without first turning that lens inwards. The film explores Japan's relationship with whaling from a predominantly critical angle, which seems justified considering that populations take long periods of time to reestablish themselves. Hunting whales and dolphins because they eat fish is somewhat ridiculous, as is selling their mercury laden meat to consumers (imagine eating the belugas out of the St. Lawrence). All in all, I highly commend the courage and tenacity maintained by those responsible for creating The Cove, for their commitment demonstrates that it is possible to affect social change and constructively challenge the powers that be.

Tulpan

Set in the wild and barren steppes of Kazakhstan, Sergei Dvortsevoy's Tulpan chronicles the hard times facing romantic Asa (Tolepbergen Baisakalov) and his sister Samal (Samal Esljamova). Asa served as a sailor before moving to his sister's yurt in order to learn the ins and outs of sheep herding and go into business for himself. But Samal's husband Ondas (Ondas Besikbasov) won't give him any land until he's found a bride, and, unfortunately, the only girl fit for marriage in the region, Tulpan, wants nothing to do with him. Tulpan's intransigence combines with the belittling treatment 'city-boy' Asa receives from his in-laws to cause him to consider abandoning the pastoral life. But a miraculous birth and the strength of his family ties may just be enough to let him hold on to his dreams.

Jolanta Dylewska's cinematography is mesmerizing as is the introduction to Kazakhstanian culture. While the problems faced are somewhat universal, the particular contours of each situation are informed by local custom. Definitely bucolic and definitely remote, Asa's frustrations, foibles, and fantasies are delicately displayed amidst the unforgiving landscape, the vast plains reflecting his adventurous spirit, the isolated intimacy of farm life his sense of helplessness. There's also a quirky veterinarian who arguably steals the show (with Lynchian reverberations) and a pesky goat who clandestinely complicates things.

O'Horten

Bent Hamer's O'Horten examines the life and times of the shy and modest Odd Horten (Bård Owe) as he retires after 40 odd years of driving a train. The tale is pleasantly offbeat and pastorally piquant, quaintly following Horten's adventures throughout urban and rural Norway. His routine is solid and his disaffected and curious demeanour allows him to make new friends while maintaining old relationships as well. Sauntering along at a seductively subdued pace, the bizarre situations and precise improvisations bear a detached realistic resonance that haplessly disseminates charm. Bit slow at points and remarkably awkward (yet familiar), O'Horten's fugitively quotidian individualism will still likely produce two to three comfortable shakes of the head as viewers sit back and absorb the characterization.

Before Tomorrow (Le jour avant le lendemain)

Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu's Before Tomorrow (Le jour avant le lendemain) (a product of the Arnait Video Collective) presents some picturesque pastoral panoramas in a subdued and solitary (pseudo) soliloquy. An inuit tribe celebrates the joys of life and lives somewhat harmoniously together until strangers come with guns, germs, and steel which kill everyone but a young boy (Paul-Dylan Ivalu) and his resilient grandmother (Madeline Ivalu). They struggle throughout the winter, secluded in a cave with a only a tiny fire, traditional stories, seal meat, their companionship, and thoughts of a better life further south to sustain them. Similar to other survival tales such as Cast Away and Alien, Cousineau and Ivalu pull us into their protagonist's isolation, slowly forcing us to live and breathe their loneliness while also exposing us to the strength of their resolve. The narrative does unreel very slowly at times which has a somewhat soporific affect, but sitting back and watching its forlorn form mimic its sequestered content still produces heightened periods of awareness. An intricate examination of the traditional ways of Inuit peoples, Before Tomorrow exposes us to the harsh conditions they have faced throughout the centuries while aptly celebrating their vivacious spirit.

Star Trek

Was pretty disappointed with how much I enjoyed the new Star Trek film. Was upset when I originally heard about the idea because it seems so unoriginal, bringing back Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto), and McCoy (Karl Urban) when so many new characters could have been created, forged, manufactured. Doesn't really seem like they're going where no one has gone before anyway; kind of seems like a number of Trekkian franchises went belly-up and in order not to lose sight of the genus, they returned to that genus's very genus, decadently exploding their genesis device, kind of a like a lazy, mundane cash grab. But at least the cash grab is thoroughly entertaining: wait 'till you see how Captain James T. Kirk was born. They certainly didn't slack on the script and characters like Sulu (John Cho), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) are reborn with much more depth than they ever had in the original series (they actually have personalities [or are at least intellectually gifted] and at one point Sulu even saves Kirk's life). I'm growing rather tired of how many times time travel is used as the plot device upon which the narrative twirls in Star Trek films but it's used again and wow are all things Star Trek ever turned upside down (we are seriously starting over again from ground zero). The script goes a bit haywire with Spock's emotions: this version of Spock is much easier to upset than his predecessor which is somewhat terrific. Romulan villain Nero (Eric Bana) could have been more dastardly although script writers probably didn't want to make him too dynamic due to his working class origins. A lot of the film is downright implausible: impossible situation after impossible situation finds a split second solution that saves the day and sets up the next set of sensational circumstances. And the whole 'born leader' thing is kind of annoying. But like I said, I enjoyed it, it's fun to watch fantastic science fiction, a solid reworking of the franchise, nice.

The Class (Entre les murs)

Really liked Laurent Cantet's The Class (Entre les murs). It follows the life and times of a Parisian high school over the course of a year, focusing specifically upon Mr. Marin's (François Bégaudeau) multicultural French class. The realism is solid. The scenes within Mr. Marin's classroom are generally quite lengthy, demanding an extraordinary amount of discipline from their adolescent actors, reminding me of the long, patient shots found in Elephant, The Player, Touch of Evil, and Day for Night, albeit with a relatively stationary camera. And the teens never lose character, always seeming like rambunctious, asinine, aloof, acerbic, occasionally enthusiastic, rebellious teenagers, as Mr. Marin does his best to teach them the intricacies of French. Bégaudeau's performance is exceptional, the intelligent hip pseudo-snob employing a watered down version of the socratic method while suffering the consequences of its design, treading the fine line between friendship and discipline. Unfortunately, a troubled student lashes out during one of his uncharacteristic bursts of vitriol and Marin's then forced to deal with the personal and administrative consequences of his somewhat lackadaisical style.

Definitely complex.

There's a bit of sensationalism during a scene where Marin confronts two students in the playground for ratting him out, but this superrealism can be forgiven inasmuch as you can expect teachers to forget their role from time to time as their daily grind's routine wears on. The difficulties associated with trying to find educational solutions to extraordinarily complex pedagogical problems receive serious attention within, begging the question hyperactive hypocrisy or subdued solidarity? Can you find a way to teach the majority of your students how to teach themselves? Does enabling their critical insights invigorate their wit at the expense of their learning? Can constructive enmity be used as a didactic tool? What if your subjective approach begins to threaten your professional objectivity, progressive though it may be?

The Class examines these questions and thankfully doesn't provide any answers because there definitely aren't any (although many exist from time to time) which only ennobles their pursuit. Students are definitely a handful, so are teachers. So keep teaching. And learning. And causing trouble.

One Week

Michael McGowan's One Week chronicles the impromptu road trip of recently diagnosed cancer patient Ben (Joshua Jackson). Upon hearing that he may only have 2 years to live and that only 10% of those suffering from his particular variety of cancer survive, Ben decides to hit the road motorcycle style and travel from Toronto to Tofino to figure shit out. His fiancée (Samantha Pierce played by Liane Balaban) and family are notably distressed and continually try to convince him to return home while Ben reflects upon the status of his relationship and whether or not he's truly in love. The narrator (Campbell Scott) supplies us with a constant stream of secondary information regarding the positive effects of Ben's trip (the good things that happen to those he meets because he met them) and we're treated to shots of several of small town Canada's giant tourist attractions including Wawa's Canada Goose and Port Carling's picturesque Segwun photo collage (not to mention Lord Stanley's Cup).

The shots of Ben's road trip don't unreel chronologically so don't be surprised if he's shown riding through British Columbia while still in Banff, but the scenes themselves prominently display so much of Western and Central Canada's rustic beauty that they're well worth the rental price. The cameo's from Gordon Downie and Joel Plaskett are a nice touch as well. Jackson sort of fluffs the one scene where he has to display some emotional depth but Balaban confidently backs him up and it almost passes unnoticed. A romantic look at the benefits of following your dreams and an exciting examination of one man's self-exploration, One Week's well worth the trip, especially if you've already travelled from Ontario to B.C. 3 or 4 times and want to reacquaint yourself with forgotten details of the road.

Whatever Works

Never thought I'd live to see Woody Allen and Larry David team up together but that's what they've done in Whatever Works, another tale of a neurotic sexually repressed manic depressive doing his best to get by. Within, Allen recycles a number of the themes that have successfully worked for him in the past but this time rather than star in the film himself his (alter?) ego has been replaced by Larry David (as Boris Yellnikoff) (whose resemblance to Allen is remarkable). Boris speaks to the screen and is aware he's being filmed even though his fellow cast members have no idea which simultaneously accentuates and deconstructs his mania. A disgruntled genius, Boris cast off the trappings of the ivory tower in order to teach chess, scraping by a meagre living as he presents his antagonistic reflections to anyone stuck listening to him. Enter Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood), a troubled Southerner homeless and destitute in the streets of New York. Boris takes her in, grows fond of her, and the rest of the film unreels in response to their off-beat odd coupling.

It's definitely a Woody Allen film and will most likely appeal to most of his fans. Seeing Larry David play a hapless genius as opposed to the hapless Larry David is fun, as is seeing what happens to Melodie's parents when they arrive in New York City. There are times when it's impossible to separate Larry David from Boris Yellnikoff which decreases the dramatic affects of the characterization, but I don't think this is a problem. Nothing really that new, but so much fun all the same.