The Dark Knight Rises (4/5 Stars)

Occupying Wall Street, if only

I would say that director Christopher Nolan’s greatest ambition with his Batman trilogy is to make the effort worth his time and talent. Here is a guy who has made some of the best and most original movies of the past ten years (Memento, The Prestige, Inception) and yet finds himself in between each of his better projects having to make yet another Batman picture. He made the first one because he was not yet a famous director. He made so much money that he was practically forced to complete a trilogy. Of course, in this day and age, trilogies are things of the past when more money can be wringed out of the type of fans that feel they are honor bound to “must see” every movie about a character (see Twilight, Harry Potter, Terminator, Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman).  But with this movie I think we can be certain that Christopher has finally paid all of his Hollywood dues.  From here on out we should be able to enjoy his creative license unfettered by silly comic books

Comic books are silly. They are so silly that almost every trick a serious movie director can throw at an adaptation of one cannot completely overcome the unreality of it all. It takes a great director to come close though and Nolan employs some rather great tricks to get as far as he did.  

First, he has created a true never before scene spectacle by embracing IMAX and physical effects as opposed to 3D and CGI in his action sequences. There is a rawness and realism to physical effects that makes violence feel more visceral than computer generated effects. Compare the fight scenes in this movie with another comic book tent-pole this year, “The Avengers,” and you will see what I mean. There is an element of horror present in the way the main villain Bane, played by art house muscle-man Tom Hardy, goes around beating the shit out of people with his bare hands that is noticeably absent in “The Avengers.” You look at the way he kicks ass and go, “ouch.” It’s good stuff. (On another note, a serious detriment to the effectiveness of the action is the PG-13 rating. Bane twists and breaks a lot of necks in this movie, but these actions are only visually implied and always just off-screen.)  The IMAX is incredible and actually worth paying more money to see (as opposed to say anything but “Avatar’ in 3D). The cool thing is that Nolan is not just using IMAX for cityscapes and sunsets; he is using it for conversations and fistfights. And it isn’t for just a scene; half of the movie was filmed with IMAX cameras. There is more clarity, there is more detail, and it is far grander.

Second, Nolan actively tries to ignore elements of the comic book. Take for instance the character of Selina Kyle, played by Anne Hathaway. In the comic book she is a leather bound fanboy fantasy known more often as “Catwoman.” The name “Catwoman” is not uttered in this movie, nor does Selina Kyle spend her alter ego time in fetishistic leather carrying a whip. Nolan rightly chooses to drop these details and focus on the woman. In fact, he does this with Batman, played again by Christian Bale, as well. There is far more Bruce Wayne in this movie than his alter ego. And it works too. Usually it is the villain that spruces up a sequel because the hero is already established. Not here, Bruce Wayne is a more compelling character than the mysterious Bane. Of course it doesn’t hurt that Bane is never without this breathing contraption that covers his features and masks his emotions and motivations. You need to be able to see evil geniuses without their disguises in order to grasp the understanding needed to truly fear them. Masks are for flunkies like Darth Vader. Keep that in mind as you watch this movie.

Third, Nolan always contains an undercurrent of current political issues in the Batman movies. In the second movie, we had the Dark Knight providing vigilante justice against terrorism using techniques Dick Cheney would deem absolutely necessary. (It is a relief to see a movie tilt right in its politics every once in a while if only for originality’s sake.) In this movie, we have a strong current of class warfare. One of the early targets of Bane is the stock market where he takes several bankers as hostages. Then there is Selina Kyle, the cat burglar who steals from mansions and tells a vacuous billionaire, “There is a storm brewing, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches. Because when it hits, you’re all going to wonder how you thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.” It would be an incredible and ballsy thing to do and pull off this type of conflict. Here you have Batman, whose alter ego is a billionaire playboy who inherited all his wealth and stature, and on the other side you have Bane, a man born with nothing in what is referred to as the worst jail on Earth. He escapes and builds his army of menial laborers and wayward forgotten youth underground in the sewers of Gotham city till one day he rises up to daylight and takes over the city. Unfortunately even though Bane professes that his many acts of terrorism are acts of class warfare against the greedy and ungrateful rich amongst us, it turns out it is just a cover for more humdrum motivation. Bane wants to simply destroy Gotham entirely. I know, I know. That disappointed me too. It’s a recycled nefarious plot that the movie freely admits is identical to the one in the first movie, “Batman Begins,” except this time the villain is going to try it with a nuclear bomb.

 There is a problem with that of course visually speaking. For those that remember “Batman Begins,” the Gotham in that movie looked and felt like a leaking shit-bucket, something that would actually make sense (using warped logic but still some logic) to wipe off the face of the Earth. You can’t say that of the city in which “The Dark Knight Rises” takes place. There has been a rather grand transformation of Gotham between the years, even more so considering the way the city looked like in “The Dark Knight.” I mean the first place looked fictional, the second place looked very much like Chicago, and this one is obviously Manhattan. The inconsistency is something that might make one wonder just where the hell is Gotham and why can’t the makers make up their mind about it. As far as I can tell, they changed the city to Manhattan in order to service a plot point. They needed a place with bridges to blow up. Again, the problem is that Manhattan nowadays looks unavoidably like a big pile of money. So a story about class warfare could certainly work, but a story about destroying a city because of its wretchedness wouldn’t. I will however give the movie credit in one important respect. It wasn’t the logistical nightmare that “The Dark Knight” was. Bane’s plans may be too grandiose to be plausible but they still followed the internal logic of the character as opposed to the meticulously thought out miracles of foresight the Joker, supposedly an agent of chaos, kept accomplishing.

Let me take a moment to explain what I mean by “too grandiose to be plausible,” because that phrase strikes to the heart of what the problem is with most comic book movies. Nowadays these movies are not simply content to be fun-filled frivolity. Nolan’s Batman trilogy is perhaps the best example. There is plenty of psychology, pathos, and Deep Meaning all over these movies. However the schemes of the villains are far too successful to make any sense given how simplistically they are accomplished or on the other hand how simplistically they are brought down. Because of this, the movie gains a feeling of unreality whenever say an entire police force armed only with handguns decides it would be good tactics to charge a line of tanks and machine guns at least fifty feet away from it in a narrow alley (and actually succeeds in doing so). This feeling of unreality tends to undercut all of the psychology, pathos, and Deep Meaning. There’s this great quote from Spiderman. It goes, “With great power comes great responsibility.” In respect to moviemaking, writers and directors have the power to pull heartstrings, change minds, and make us care deeply for the lives of fictional people. At the same time though, if they choose to commit the viewer to such catharsis, they also have the responsibility to not fill the rest of the movie with contrived bullshit. That means if you want to make me care about Michael Caine crying up a storm, I better not see action sequences that confound the laws of logic or physics or both later on in the movie. I really don’t think that is too much to ask. For the record, “The Dark Knight Rises,” for the most part does not have this problem. It just has it to the point where I cannot say it is a great movie. It isn’t. 

Inception (5/5 Stars) July 20, 2010

A movie of immense ambition perfectly realized

I recall a scene from Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Being John Malkovich’ where the title character starts crawling into the portal that will lead into his own head. Another character looks on and remarks, “What happens when a man goes through his own portal?” It was a very good question, particularly because at that point in movie history it had never happened before. There was no genre outline for what was supposed to happen. The movie had defied genre and boldly stepped into the realm of the truly original. I remember the sense of suspense and wonder that came from watching that particular scene. Where will this movie go? What will I see? What is going to happen next!? Now take the suspense and wonder from that one scene in ‘Being John Malkovich’ and prolong it for an entire movie and you will get a sense of what it feels like to watch “Inception,” the new movie by Director Christopher Nolan and starring Leonardo Dicaprio. It is an experience that must have accompanied the people who first saw such movies as “Apocalypse Now” or “Citizen Kane.” It is an experience that occurs only when a movie reaches for that zenith of Ambition and realizes it perfectly. I don’t have to see any more movies this year to say that “Inception” will be the best one. It is quite possibly one of the best movies ever made. 

Now let me think, what was the movie about? It was very vivid when I first watched it. It would be best if I saw it twice but I will take a crack at describing it anyway. Right now there is a unique form of Corporate Espionage called ‘Extraction.’ A group of specialized corporate thieves drug a person, invade his subconscious through his dreams, and steal an idea. It’s a bit complicated. One person, usually the architect, is the actual dreamer. They create and control the dream world. The others involved in the heist and the actual victim are voyeurs in the dream and their subconscious fill in the blanks and details of the dreamer’s world. There are several dream rules that you may remember from your own experiences. Some of them include: You can never remember how a dream started. The dream is especially realistic because when a dreamer is dreaming they can’t tell that they are in a dream. You can escape the dream by dying or falling but ordinary pain won’t wake you up. The time in a dream is prolonged because of the amount of brainpower you exert. For example, ten seconds in the real world is a minute in a dream. Most interesting is the concept of a dream within a dream where all the previous rules apply but even more so.

But alas there is just too much to explain for a dinky little review. I can only say this: that the enormous amount of exposition was always exceedingly interesting to learn and exhilarating to watch. Most importantly, it made sense. Writer/Director Christopher is a master storyteller in that sense. Recall what he taught us in “Memento,” about memory and what he taught us in “The Prestige,” about magic. Both had convoluted plots but we always understood what was going on and why. In this movie he teaches us with the same skill about Dreams. But that’s not all. In this movie, the intellectual exercise is just half the equation. Let’s not forget that Christopher Nolan is also the man who gave us “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight.” Those were both great big summer blockbusters with incredible action sequences. “Inception” is the successful combination of Nolan’s two disparate talents: Intellectualism and Spectacle. Oh and what a powerful fusion of imagination it is! The thing about Dreams you know is that they are bound only by imagination. Thus huge special effects sequences fit right into the story seamlessly. They never feel forced. In fact, these action sequences will make you think even more about what is happening. This is best combination of smarts and physicality since “The Matrix.” It’s like Charlie Kaufman wrote a James Bond script. One of the best scenes has Joseph Gordon Levitt involved in a fistfight in a hotel lobby where the laws of gravity keep on shifting. Wow! No, I don’t have the space to explain why, but it was awesome! If Christopher Nolan doesn’t win the Oscar for Best Director this year then the Academy has a hole in its head. 

Wait, I’m getting too far ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the beginning. Leonardo Dicaprio is the leader of the group also known as the Extractor. His long time associate is played by Joseph Gordan Levitt (3rd Rock from the Sun, (500) Days of Summer). He is the Point Man. These two are approached by a very powerful corporate man played by Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai). He is the Tourist. Watanabe wants Dicaprio not to steal an idea from a corporate rival played by Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later, Batman Begins) but to give that man an idea. This is known as “Inception.” If you thought Extraction, something that you had never heard of before was hard to pull off, Inception is twice as tough to accomplish. Too succeed in this mission Dicaprio hires Dileep Rao (Avatar, Drag Me to Hell). He is the Chemist and will provide the hardcore sedatives to lull everyone into a 10-hour deep sleep on a plane flight across the Pacific. Dicaprio also hires Tom Hardy, a man who specializes in shape-shifting. Within dreams he can impersonate friends, enemies, and beautiful women. He is the Shade. Then Dicaprio visits his father, played by Michael Caine, and asks for his most brilliant student. This turns out to be Ellen Page (Juno). She is the Architect. The Chemist will drug everyone. The Architect will design the Dream Space. The Shade will trick the corporate rival. The Tourist will provide backup. The Point Man gets to beat up bad guys in gravity changing hallways. The Extractor will plant the idea. 

I should also mention that the Extractor has something dark buried in his subconscious. It is the vision of his wife who used to be a part of his team. She is played by Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose). Since the Extractor’s relationship with his wife ended somewhat violently, his vision of her in his subconscious is quite a dangerous thing. Let’s just say she tries very hard to wake everybody up (i.e. she has a habit of killing people). 

By the way, I have only described the setup to the heist itself. So everything I just told you about is exposition. When we get into the heist, which plays out on several levels of dreams within dreams, then it gets really really interesting. I won’t give any spoilers because you wouldn’t be able to understand them anyway. It would be impossible to understand what happens in the second hour until you have actually watched the first. There is no way to jump into the middle here. Every single minute of the 2 hours and 40 minute movie is important. (By the way, those two hours and forty minutes seemed like a half hour watching this movie. I couldn’t have been more entranced.)

I think it is fair to say that Leonardo Dicaprio has the best agent in the world. He has done nothing but superior movies for about a decade now. (Shutter Island, Revolutionary Road, The Departed, Blood Diamond, The Aviator, Gangs of New York, Catch Me if you Can). When you think about it, he also has an odd habit of picking roles that involve doomed romances. For instance have you noticed how many times his love interest has died/gone crazy (Inception, Shutter Island, Revolutionary Road) or that he’s died/gone crazy (Titanic, The Aviator, The Departed) or they both have died/gone crazy (Romeo & Juliet, Shutter Island). Then there are also instances where he just dies (The Quick and the Dead, Blood Diamond) or the love simply goes unrequited (Catch Me if You Can, Body of Lies, This Boy’s Life). I think his most successful romance was with Cameron Diaz in Gangs of New York and I can’t really even remember if that relationship was ever consummated. He plays J. Edgar Hoover in his next movie, a closeted homosexual who openly despised gay people. Hoover did have a long-term relationship with another FBI man though. It seems hard to believe that a story about Hoover just might be Dicaprio’s most successful romance, but it might have that potential. With Dicaprio’s fine performances in two movies this year I believe he should be a front-runner for a Best Actor Oscar. If I had to choose which movie to nominate him for, it would be Shutter Island, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t also do a great job here. 

If I had to choose a performance I thought looked like the most fun though it would have to be Joseph Gordan Levitt’s. His fight in the hallway was just ridiculous. Also I had a blast in the scene where Ellen Page realizes an entire city landscape is at the whim of her imagination and starts rearranging the physics of it. What can I say, this movie is special. A freight train runs through a city street without the aid of railroad tracks. Yes it makes sense. Go ahead and take a leap of faith with a master storyteller.

A final note on the ending of the movie, which I believe was about one second to short. I believe that it would have toppled. I say this because I would be extraordinarily confused if it didn't. Right now, I am certain that it was wrong of Nolan to end the movie on an ambiguous note at all. To think he diligently led us all that way only to cut us off at the last moment is decidedly uncool. Of course, I remember being underwhelmed by the endings of both "Memento" and "The Prestige" when I first saw them also. But After watching both those movies again, I became much more accepting of what Nolan was trying to teach me. That's normal. When a movie introduces a new way of thinking about something (whether it be memory, magic, or dreams) it is hard to accept the new thought process right away. I know it is quite possible that "Inception" will be an even better movie the second time around. I'll add to this review my thoughts about the ending as soon as I get to see it a second time.

(500) Days of Summer (5/5 Stars) July 23, 2009

Boy meets Girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t. Agony and Ecstasy ensue. (500) Days of Summer is the directorial debut of Marc Webb and stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a boy named Tom and Zooey Deschanel as a girl named Summer. It was written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Webber, a team that according to IMDB was also responsible for Pink Panther 2. Go figure. Anyway this time they’ve penned a cinematic gem that should join the short list of great romantic comedies like Annie Hall, When Harry Met Sally, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Watch for this movie come awards time because this is just the kind of Original Screenplay the Academy loves giving the Oscar to. 
Tom is introduced to us as a boy who believes in love. Summer confesses at one point that she doesn’t even know what that word means. She doesn’t want to date Tom and says so. That being said, she will sleep with him and indeed starts everything herself one day in the copy room by walking up to him and, without saying a word, kisses him. Poor Tom, he never had a chance. The movie creates some very inventive ways to illustrate how Tom feels about Summer. It employs an omniscient narrator, direct to camera soliloquies, flashbacks and flash-forwards, karaoke, at least one heartfelt resignation speech, and black and white artistic renderings. At one point it ventures into a black and white documentary and we are informed that Summer’s high school yearbook quote was a song lyric that sings, “Colour my life with the chaos of trouble.” Another inspired spectacle occurs when Tom, high on love, walks down the street super happy and the entirety of Los Angeles breaks into song and dance all around him to the tune of “You Make My Dreams,” by Hall & Oates. When Tom feels the agony of bona fide rejection the movie feels it too, the entire screen morphing into a black and white etching and deconstructing before our eyes. 
But what really makes this movie special is the details. The attention paid to the specifics draws the movie into pure cinematic poetry in some scenes, like when Tom and Summer play house in an Ikea, or when Tom draws the LA skyline on Summer’s arm, or when the movie splits the screen showing what Tom’s expectations of a rooftop party would be on one side, and what the reality is on the other. I especially loved the work that went into the Greeting Cards that Tom works on. (I haven’t mentioned that yet. Tom works at a Greeting Card company. Summer is the new assistant at the office.) Some of them are pretty damn good like, “Everyday I am proud of you, but today you get a card.” Or “I Love Us.” Or how about the first scene in which they talk to each other. They are both standing in the elevator when Summer hears ‘The Smiths’ through Tom’s headphones. She breaks the ice by saying she like ‘The Smiths,’ compliments his taste in music, and sings offhand one of their lyrics. The lyric they chose for her to sing in this tiny little moment was so perfect and profound that my reaction to it was the same as Tom’s: “Holy Shit.” 
Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been quietly pulling together a very impressive track record of small independent movies. Here, he should formally carry on the torch of Heath Ledger as the most promising young actor in the business. Zooey Deschanel matches him in every scene. She infuses her character with this innocent confidence that is both terribly cute and infuriating. One can completely see why Tom, when asked whether he would rather marry, boff, or kill her, says he’d like to do all three. I especially liked it when he surmised that she might be an evil robot. Boy that takes me back. Could these two get nominations? I don’t know, but I will say this, I am starting to warm to the idea of the Best Picture category holding ten nominees instead of five. This type of movie wouldn’t have made it in the past, but with the extra room it should be able to get in handily. It is certainly one of the best movies I have seen this year. It’s the best romantic comedy I have seen since ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall.’
Did I mention that this movie was funny? Well it is. It’s not all love and misery you know; it’s got wit, warmth, quick one-liners, a fight, comic vignettes, keen juxtaposition, and clever coincidences. Heck what more can I say. This movie has it all. I really hope it comes to a theater near you soon.

Miracle at St. Anna 09/27/08

Miracle at St. Anna, I admit, is a great idea for a movie. It deserves to be made again, by somebody completely different or maybe from Spike Lee again, just with a clearer focus on the story and better judgment on the merits of some scenes. It also needs better technical expertise. Spike Lee has obviously never filmed a war movie before. The battle scenes themselves are, I admit once again, great ideas. The first one deals with the Buffalo soldiers of WWII. They are of the few black men who fought in the war. They are crossing a river to fight the Germans, who have set up a loudspeaker manned by Axis Sally. She is a smooth talking Kraut who gently reminds the men that they are fighting for a country that hates them. To make matters worse, the soldiers are led by a racist commander who makes several bad decisions. The battle is not nearly as good as it should be. The camera shows no strategy, its pretty unclear where the soldiers are or what they're end goal is. At this point we don't know who the characters are. No one has been introduced. 
September is the heartbreak month of movies. It is where all the misguided attempts of proven directors are stored away in hopes nobody sees them. For three weeks straight I have been let down by the likes of Spike Lee, The Coen Brothers, and Woody Allen. Those are tough pills to swallow. I look forward to October and perhaps the first great movies of the fall season. 
Back to this film: I hope that someday it is remade. There is a great movie here, it is simply buried under bad acting and confusing meandering scenes. The mystery that bookends the movie is unnecessary. The racial commentary seems forced. A love story is completely one-sided and smacks of jungle fever when the Italian woman jumps in the sac with the American soldier so quickly. I don't know, maybe I missed something there.
There are two characters that for half of the movie are completely perplexing. One is this little Italian kid that talks to an imaginary friend and the big soldier, with a pint sized brain, that saves his life. When they speak its like dumb talking to dumber. The kid repeatedly calls the big guy 'The Chocolate Giant.' In fact, there are many allusions by the Eye-talians that this man is the 'largest negro you've ever seen.' I don't know, I know its supposed to be funny, but I was brought up not to laugh at that sort of thing. 
Then there's the revisionist history. There's this one scene where the black soldiers are refused service at an ice cream shop that is serving German POWs. They are threatened with violence if they don't leave. I have no trouble with that. History says that sort of shit happened. What I didn't approve of is when the soldiers came back with loaded guns and basically held up whitey at gunpoint. In the movie they get away with it scot free. I honestly don't believe that would have happened. In reality they would have been lynched the same night. The scene played less as truth but as some sort of cinematic revenge on Whitey exacted by Spike Lee. The emotion behind the scene is understandable but it does not belong in what I assume is a serious film. It should have been left in the deleted scenes on the DVD with a commentary track with Spike Lee saying "Yeah I shot this and I liked it a lot, but at the end, it was a bit out there, you know."
So why isn't this a bad review, what with all my criticism so far. Well, because the story saves itself from Lee's worst efforts. Two thirds of the way through the story we finally figure out why the kid is talking to an imaginary friend. I won't give it away, suffice to say the kid has seen something terrible and is in a state of shock. There the story ratchets up a notch and we are drawn into the story. The troop of four is stuck behind enemy lines and surrounded. There is a last battle with the Nazis, a couple double-crosses, and the tender conclusion to the kid's story. To save these scenes from going completely to waste, this movie needs to be made again. 
ps. I actually still don't know what the miracle was or why the guy at the beginning would say that he's the only one who still knows. I figure, what's the big mystery.? Did I miss something? Why would this operation be kept under wraps. Keep in mind, I'm not saying that the story is deficient because there isn't a mystery. In fact, I would say it is better if the whole mystery thing was dropped and the movie was told in a more straightforward, less meandering way. 

Stop-Loss 03/29/08

Stop-Loss is about the controversial military loophole that keeps soldiers in the army after their tour of duty has been fulfilled. A soldier played by Ryan Phillipe has just gotten back from Iraq to his small All-American Texas town. He is given a bronze star and a purple heart. People call him a hero. Then he refuses to comply with the unfair ruling of his superior officers. Haunted by his tour in Iraq he refuses to bend to the loophole. He is threatened with felony convictions and becomes a fugitive. Certainly this is not the way to treat war heroes. This movie will rattle your soul and convince you of the subjects injustice. To that particular purpose it succeeds. But otherwise for as many good performances and scenes in this movie, there are a couple that fall flat, and it contains a melodramatic ending that almost kills it.

Kimberly Pierce, the director of Boys Don't Cry, another movie set in poor and lonely Texas, has not made a film in years. And it shows just a little bit. Her sincerity is unquestionable but there are some choices she made that are simply wrong. I usually don't bash actors, but I wonder how Ryan Phillippe is becoming the go-to-guy for a war veteran (His last movie was Flags of Our Fathers). He does a good job most of the time, but there's just a couple scenes too many where his voice quivers and his lips tremble and he seems like he's about to cry. It makes more sense for him to be mad. The scene where he contradicts his superior officer and says "Fuck the President," is great. There needed to be more scenes like that. 
Pierce is also hit and miss with the post combat syndrome of these soldiers. It makes sense when one soldier gets completely wasted, thinks he's in Iraq, and starts digging a trench to sleep in. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance is certainly powerful and compelling. (Gordon-Levitt is quietly putting together a string of small good movies like last year's "The Lookout" and this one. I'm quietly starting to pay attention.) Other scenes though, like when Phillipe goes psycho on a bunch of street thugs ring false. The delusion goes on for too long, besides Ryan is supposed to be the sensible one. None of this compares though to the biggest miscalculation of the movie. And that is the WWF style fight scene that takes place in a graveyard at the movie's end. A soldier's funeral is supposed to be serious stuff right. And these characters obviously take it seriously. Why on Earth did Director Pierce choose to stage a completely unrealistic and exploitative fight? And then after that, have the characters start crying again. 
These are my reservations about the film. But I still recommend it because for every bad scene there are three good ones. The part in Iraq, the military hospital, the medals ceremony, the Texan society, and especially Joseph Gordon-Levitt's doomed veteran are all worthy of praise. I wonder if it will take Kimberly Pierce another ten years to make her next movie. I hope its sooner.