Film review by: Witney Seibold

          As a mystery, Stephen Daldry’s investigative 9/11 treasure hunt “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is first rate. In a very simple and classical sense, the film bothers to present us with a mystery, and while the main character’s methods in solving it may be questionable, watching him do it is irresistible. As the character in question solves more and more, we learn more and more about his character, about his past, about his autism, and about the mysterious old man (Max Von Sydow) who has joined him on his excursions.

          As a comment on post-9/11 New York, however, the film mutates into something nearly insufferably ham-fisted. The film follows a young boy, about 11 years old, named Oskar, played by first-time-actor and one-time “Jeopardy!” champ Thomas Horn. Oskar has just lost his father in the World Trade Center incident, and his structure-obsessed mind has no cogent way of dealing with the sorrow he feels. His father (played by Tom Hanks in flashbacks) had a knack for giving Oskar elaborate games and mysteries in order to relate to him. When Oskar finds a key in his dead father’s belongings, he sees it as a mystery to solve, and proceeds to map out a mass interview scheme to find to whom the key belongs; pressing a wide swath of New Yorkers on their lives.

          Watching Oskar overcome his grief, and try to break free from his manic, detail-oriented routines in order to solve what this key might mean is fascinating, and I enjoyed the scavenger hunt aspects of the film. I’m a sucker for a good scavenger hunt movie, and tying it in with grief and escape is canny. That a mysterious neighbor joins him only adds to the mystery, and Max Von Sydow is really very good as the mute gentleman who seems to be able to say more with looks than his 11-year-old counterpart can with 30 minutes of nervous chatter. It’s when we see Daldry’s real intentions that the film begins to slip. Daldry, who previously made Big Issue films with “The Hours” and “The Reader” is in full-tilt pandering mode again. He is not merely telling a story about a boy, or even making a quiet comment on the way 9/11 shaped the lives of certain New Yorkers. He seems to be, through subtle messages, and extended shots of the actual building collapsing, making a definitive film about the ultimate New York experience. And while I’m sure there were plenty of New Yorkers who experienced the World Trade Center incident as the traumatic experience it was, I’m willing to bet it didn’t feel as encapsulated the way Daldry’s film makes it out to be.

If you’re going to tackle a Big Issue, and weave it into a mystery about a little kid getting over the death of his father, you have to use a light touch. And light touches is not Daldry’s talent. He makes beefed-up Hollywood melodramas that almost feel like silent films in how bombastically emotional they are. He’s making operas disguised as quiet little dramas. If you’re going to look at such a visible and well-remembered national disaster like 9/11, perhaps “operatic” should not be the note you’re going for. Someday, I’d love to see Daldry actually make an opera.        

          Horn is a first-time actor, but, thanks to his big blue eyes, and his precocious chatter, feels like a grade-A Hollywood moppet. He was fine, I suppose, but I think I’m not alone when I say that I found him to be a mite grating. Sandra Bullock plays his mother, but doesn’t have much in the way of direct influence on his life.

          “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” is certainly not as bad as I’ve made it sound. As I say, the mystery is interesting, and, for long sections, it’s hugely engaging. We really do want to know the mystery of the key, and we may even feel wrapped up in our young hero’s need to overcome his depression, and his need for life to seem rational and sane at all times. It’s only when looked at from not so close, and not so loud, that the film begins to feel a little trite. Otherwise, It’s fine.

Film review by: Witney Seibold

          Michel Hazanavicius has previously directed a pair of recent high-profile French spy spoofs about agent OSS-117 (played in the films by Jean Dujardin), which are, essentially, yet another send-up of the James Bond myth. The humor was broad and silly (most of the jokes stemmed from OSS-177’s inability to change his racist and sexist attitudes, á la Austin Powers, but with a Gallic classiness), but the attention to detail was impeccable. Hazanavicius, to make sure the 1960s period felt authentic, tracked down period suits and dresses, arranged period-style lighting, and even shot on 1960s film stock to make the film look as genuine as possible. The thematic ambition of the film weren’t very high, but the sheer, pure love of old cinema was at the forefront.

          Hazanavicius and Dujardin have now reteamed in yet another love-story-cum-fairy-tale about old movies with “The Artist,” an honest-to-goodness silent film about an old-timey silent film star making the awkward adjustment to the world of talkies in the late 1920s, and finding that the quickly-changing world of film technology is leaving him behind. The film is sweet and fun and funny and enjoyable, and, thanks to the current film technology revolution and the slow bloating rise of the in-home-only movie-viewing attitudes, feels striking significant.

          Dujardin plays George Valentin, a Valentino-type film star who is charming, slicked down, and surging with ego. He smiles for the cameras, hogs the spotlight at premieres, and has no luck placating his long-suffering wife (Penelope Anne Miller, so that’s where she’s been). Coming down the stairs behind him (to borrow a phrase from “Showgirls”) is Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), a cutecute, extra-smiley young ingénue who aspirations of taking the new talkie world by storm, and who has a burning crush on Valentin (which is demonstrated in an adorable scene wherein Peppy makes out with Valentin’s coat). As Peppy’s new talkies begin to gain traction in the world, Valentin’s films begin to flop. Valnetin decides to make the silent epic he’s always wanted to outside of the studio system (represented by an L.B. Mayer-type, played by John Goodman). His ambitious art film flops.

          It’s then surprising how much of the film is devoted to Valentin’s fall. We spend a good third of the film, if not more, detailing the onset of poverty, the lack of work, and the slow increase in helplessness and loss of hope. Eventually Peppy, now wealthy, begins surreptitiously purchasing his old belongings. Only Valentin’s faithful butler (James Cromwell) stays by his side.

          This film is up for Best Picture this year at the Academy Awards, and it is currently the front-runner. I can see why. It’s a fairy tale about Hollywood’s past. It’s a sweet, funny, brief (at only 100 minutes) loving ode to the way Hollywood change can be a positive thing.

          In a way, “The Artist” serves as a startling counterpoint to Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo,” also up for Best Picture. “Hugo” looks to the past, and finds that old films should be restore, perfected, enjoyed by new generations. It explains, in no uncertain terms, that your work as an artist will remain vital through the ages, and you will live in a state of constant rediscovery (so long as film preservationists do their job). “The Artist,” by contrast, features a scene where the title characters, when looking over his old films, forgotten by the world after only a few years’ time, burns his old movies in a fit of depression, and only finds new hope in embracing the new, and moving into a talkie with music and dancing. “The Artist,” I’m willing to wager, would seem chilling to Scorsese, as it seems to argue that clinging to the past and keeping it alive is a futile exercise, and that we, instead, should actively destroy the past, and mutate into something new.

Hollywood, I think, prefers the latter model, which is why much of The Academy loves the film. I would argue that there is room enough for both in cinema. We should have old films preserved to inspire new generations and keep the history of the medium alive. At the same time, though, we should cautiously strike out in new directions, and explore what new tools we can with new technologies. One, however, should not necessarily trump the other.

“The Artist” itself, though, may not have that much on its mind. It’s wispy and breezy and fun. The actors all smile, and the story is simplified and sweet. It becomes, perhaps, a mite too dark at times, but it never feels deep. I liked it just fine.

But I like “Hugo” better.

Film review by: Witney Seibold

Ti West‘s “The Innkeepers” is a horror movie, but you wouldn’t guess it at first glance. The setup is boilerplate haunted house stuff: A haunted hotel called The Yankee Pedlar (set in the real-life Yankee Pedlar, supposedly really haunted) is about to close. There is no furniture on the third floor, and only two guests left staying. It is quaint and home-like, and not cavernous or eerie like The Overlook from “The Shining.” There are the usual strange noises and creaky floorboards in this haunted place, but ghosts are not usually properly seen. The hotel is manned by two young people, a girl of about 17 and a boy of about 21, and they have been using tape recorders and cheap cameras to try and record paranormal phenomenon. All familiar so far.

But, looking at the film, you sense a much lighter, conversational tone. Claire (the excellent Sara Paxton) is a bored teenager given to flights of comically neurotic panic about her stalled life, and Luke (Pat Healy) is an equally bored but far more cynical burnout who seems at peace with his stalled life. They are going to lose their jobs when the hotel closes in a few days, and are going to spend their last few nights in the hotel. They occasionally, when the muse strikes them take up a camera or a tape recorder and wander down the halls, idly looking for ghosts. They are not really passionate paranormal investigators. They are young, somewhat lazy enthusiasts.

The bulk of “The Innkeepers” is devoted to the conversations between Claire and Luke. Their banter is easy and natural, and feels like it could have come from a Kevin Smith film. As such, the film is actually light and funny. This is the way haunted house pictures ought to be made. Let us get to know the characters first, then put them in a spooky situation, so we know why they’re there, and why they should, perhaps, remain out of ghostly danger. There is also a Shirley MacLaine-type ex-actress (Kelly McGillis) in the hotel, and she seems to be able to intuit the ghostly presence around her. Claire, wide-eyed and enthused, believes everything the actress tells he about the ghost. Luke, wry and cynical, seems to have affected a kind of hipster nihilism, and while he’s funny and friendly, when pressed, may not actually want to see real ghosts.

The film has its share of Gotcha! moments, as creepy apparitions spring up unexpectedly from the edge of the frame, frightening us. Yes, we do actually see some ghosts, and while it’s fun and spooky, it’s not nearly as nuanced and textured as the dialogue. What Ti West does is, rather than make a big spooky place with impossible twists and cobwebs, allows the dread to creep in subtly around a real-life (feeling) place.

The ending of such stories are rarely satisfying, so the final scenes may not leave you with a sense of supernatural justice/revenge/irony/whatever. But “The Innkeepers” is still way fun. It’s one of those horror movies that reminds you how fun it is to be scared. Remember those? Horror movies that were fun to watch? Y’know, not just gruesome or uncreative retreads of 1980s slasher material? They’re still out there. 

Film review by: Witney Seibold

I was disappointed there wasn’t more wolf mayhem. I wanna see a pissed off Liam Neeson punching wolves!

Joe Carnahan‘s “The Grey” is a cold, textured, and harrowing film about the ugly desperation of survival, and the hope we try to mine from different places, if any hope exists. It strikes a tone of, well, grey bleakness from beginning to end. Our hero has given up on life, and finds that, when life is all he has left, he’s willing to fight.

Liam Neeson plays a large, steely-eyed, broad-shouldered Alaskan miner named Ottway who has been hired to shoot the wolves that come near the mine. This is a modern place of grizzled castoffs. The bar seems to be perpetually full. I imagine no one would willing take such a job unless they were fleeing from something, or desperate for work. Early in the film, we see Ottway putting a gun barrel in his mouth, accompanied by flashbacks of a blissful time in bed with a pretty woman. An ex-wife? This is a wounded man.

Ottway gets on a plane with some mining buddies, and it promptly crashes in the wilds of Alaska. A few people survive. One of the survivors, bleeding to death, is talked into oblivion by Ottway. His calming description of death belies the thoughts of a depressed man. Trapped in the bitter cold, and salvaging what food they could from the plane wreckage, Ottway and a group of peers find themselves fighting off bitter cold, potential starvation, and a group of angry wolves. Ottway explains about the wolves, and while there are a few people who doubt him and panic at him, he seems like a calm authority.

Ottway is a not a grizzled badass, but a horrified and hopeless man whose default “surivual mode” is the only thing keeping him upright. There are some recognizable character types amongst his peers. There’s the hopeful father looking to get home (Durmot Mulroney), there’s the puffed-up ex-con (Frank Grillo), there’s the flip wisecracking one (Joe Anderson). In many films to depict people in desperate situations, there is often a scene or two of people merely screaming at one another as to what step to take, and who should be in charge, and such scenes are usually insufferable, and need to be waited through. “The Grey” has a fewe hints at such things, but Carnahan seems to have a more realistic grip on how desperate people react in extreme situations. With goals in mind to distract them from their situation. Eventually our heroes leave the crash site, venture into the woods (will they be safer there? Who is to say?), and try to trek their way to safety. They die off one at a time. In ways you don’t want.

The film eventually comes to a scene where Ottway, in a final plea, calls to God to save him, only to renounce Him. “Fuck it,” he says “I’ll do it myself.”

“The Grey,” through its posters and marketing, seems to be promising a film of over-the-top action and mayhem. What it delivers instead is a bleak, compelling and powerful tragedy about survival, and how life can wear you down to a point of needing to physically fight back just to stay standing. There are tastes of hopes along the way, but the film is largely grey.

Stay through the credits. You may find something to satisfy you. You may. 

Film review by: Witney Seibold

Not to sound like a bored cynic, but I have to confess that, very occasionally, I find myself getting tired of the handheld, you-are-there approach to certain types of filmmaking. Mostly of genre filmmaking. As cameras become smaller and smaller, shaky handheld camera movement seems to be proliferating. This has made for some immediate and impressive films made my ambitious filmmakers with the newfound means to express themselves in affordable ways. On the other side of the spectrum, though, you have films like Ben Wheatley‘s “Kill List,” a rather silly little crime thriller which distracts you from its doofy material through its attempts at kitchen sink realism.

For the bulk of the film’s first third, we only see Jay (Neil Maskell) and his pretty blonde wife (MyAnna Buring) bickering about domestic issues, money, and generally experiencing the quotidian grind of living in a stagnant domestic arrangement. She complains that he hasn’t worked in eight months. Jay’s yobbo buddy Sam (Harry Simpson) often comes over for dinner and the like, and said dinners usually melt down in a furor of awkward arguments and too much alcohol. Sam seems to work the same job Jay does. Had this been handled by a more skilled director of kitchen sink realism (of course Mike Leigh jumps immediately to mind), these scenes would have been a beautiful and painful end in themselves.

But Weatley has a mystery on his mind, and it’s soon revealed that Jay and Sam are actually professional hitmen who work for a shadowy cabal of graying white guys in suits. The glamor of assassination is bled out, as Jay and Sam are depicted as bored, unattractive working-class stiffs who feel about their job the same way embittered insurance salesmen may feel about theirs. Jay is the slightly less stable of the two, and very occasionally makes a larger mess than he should. Indeed, when faced with a child pornography dealer, Jay, a father, flips out and goes after others in the same pornography ring on his own. Sam is the one to calm him down. Recent movies seem to be asserting that pornography involving children is the single most heinous crime that humans could possibly be involved in, and it’s several steps above murder. Not that I will defend such horrible crimes, but… well isn’t murder also pretty heinous?

Sam and Jay do things professionally, if not necessarily well. That, too would have made an interesting film; the sloppy, warts-and-all life of none-too-bright working class hitmen. Had the film stopped there and been a slice-of-life drama about the lives of criminals, I would have been fine. The material could have had a more emotional edge; the handheld camera work does nothing to enhance these people, and, indeed serves as a barrier to looking at them up close. Weird that such an immediate style could have that effect.

But there is a further mystery, and that’s where “Kill List” begins to unravel entirely, to the point where you might find yourself staving off a powerful string of snickers. Each of Sam’s and Lay’s victims seems cheerful and grateful when they see hitmen at their door, and take a certain amount of glee in getting killed. I wasn’t sure if this was some sort of nihilist fantasy, or if there was a twist to come. It’s the latter. Our heroes, you see, run afoul of a “Wicker Man”-type sacrifice cult, bent on hanging virgins and claiming souls or whatever such cults are generally up to. Sorry, but I don’t buy it anymore. Such cults have been shocking since the original “The Wicker Man,” and shoehorning them into this unduly stylized action thriller doesn’t make them spooky again.

“Kill List” purports to style, but is about as shallow as its title makes it sound. 

Film review by: Witney Seibold

          A cartoonish lump of noisy, colorful, children’s war fantasies, Anthony Hemingway’s “Red Tails” is a bold stylistic leap of ridiculousness. Hemingway is, as I have learned through come cursory internet research, known for his gritty and raw hand in hit cult TV shows like the new “Battlestar Galactica,” “Tremé,” “The Wire,” and “Heroes.” His first proper feature film is more stylistically in tune with 2008’s “Speed Racer” than it is with any of those shows. “Red Tails” tells the story of a group of Negro pilots who fought in some notable skirmishes in WWII, and doesn’t seem to have any sort of relation with any actual reality; I’m sure the historical details were well-researched enough, but the actual impact of the film is less biopic and more Saturday morning cartoon. The planes, all created through CGI, have well-lit and clearly choreographed fight sequences that are exciting to watch. The characters are all personality-free archetypes that would have felt old and clichéd in a 1945 newsreel. The plot points are all predictable, screenwriting-101 laundry list requisites. And the film goes on for 135 minutes.  

          This is not to say the film is bad. I actually was rather entertained by the clunky drama and rock-stupid dialogue (example: “Look! Some Germans! Let’s get ‘em!”). I kind of liked the over-simplified version of history, in an object lesson sort of way. The characters may have been whitewashed and milquetoast types, but they were warm and familiar enough to be inoffensive. The film takes on such a boldly jingoistic, wholesome up-with-the-people approach, it almost feels like a propaganda film in itself. Like a hero film for 10-year-old black boys the world over.

          “Red Tails” contains some of the couthest soldiers in war film history. These men in uniform are all immaculately clean and shaven, all have peerless skin and well-maintained haircuts. They do not cuss. They do not sweat. They bleed only in the most aesthetically pleasing ways. One of them does drink, but his toothless alcoholism is seen as a negative (even though he doesn’t ever seem to be visibly drunk). They each have their G.I. Joe nicknames at the ready. Ray Gun, Smokey, Deacon, Lightning, Easy, and Joker. Ray Gun is the “kid.” Smoky (Ne-Yo) is the lisping music man. Deacon (Marcus T. Paulk) is the religious one (he carries a picture of Black Jesus). Lightning (David Oyelowo) is the cocky crackerjack. He has a bonus subplot in the form of the pretty Italian girl (Daniela Ruah) whom he plans to marry (That he even has a romantic subplot is a clear indicator that he will be dead before the film ends). Easy (Nate Parker) is the alcoholic leader of the gang. Cuba Gooding, Jr. plays their stalwart commanding officer, and allows his gigantic pip do most of the acting for him. Terrence Howard plays the CO who is fighting for his Negro pilots, making impassioned pleas to his white and mildly racist superiors (represented by Bryan Cranston).

          I said that the film was breezy enough to be inoffensive, but let’s look at that statement a little more closely. While the film is fun to watch, and unapologetically artificial and sentimental, I wonder if it might not actually be a little offensive. It does bring to light the accomplishments of an entire squadron of talented pilots and devoted soldiers who accomplished a lot of difficult and dangerous tasks during wartime. What the Tuskegee Airmen accomplished was a wonder of civil rights, fighting for black people 20 years before the civil rights revolution began in earnest. Seeing them fight and making their accomplishments visible can only be a service. But by turning these men into bland, cartoon heroes with no personality, a clearly simplified army life and a stylized action-movie version of combat, are we not robbing them of their vital humanity?

          What we have is Lucasfilm and a talented director teaming up to tell a very, very simple tale, based loosely on real history, and rubbing it of all its actual humanity in order to thrill us will some admittedly great special effects. If a pulp version of history is your bag, then dig in.

Film review by: Witney Seibold

          Steven Soderbergh’s films are, when you look over his career, all over the map. He is a director who does not seem happy unless he’s breaking some sort of ground.  He can be an efficient director-for-hire (as in his “Ocean’s” movies), he has experimented with mumblecore (“Bubble”), he has tried his hand at different kinds of ensemble dramas (“Full Frontal,” “Traffic”), and he’s even made biopics (“Kafka,” the upcoming “Magic Mike” and “Behind the Candelabra.”) and remakes (“Solaris”). I admire this tendency greatly. While his films may not always work, he’s willing to try new material, and adapt them to his idiom. It’s his habit of gleefully dipping his toes into new material that, no doubt, led to his conception of “Haywire,” a legitimate spy thriller with brutal fights, dumb dialogue, a typically oblique story, and a hot chick, all filtered through Soderbergh’s recognizable aesthetic. “Haywire” plays like an arty version of a long-forgotten ninja film from 1989.

          The hot chick in question is Gina “Crush” Carano, a former American Gladiator and MMA champion. The story goes that Soderbergh, trapped in a hotel room for the night, caught one of her fights on cable TV, and decided that she was talented and sexy enough to put in a movie. Since this “I’ll put you in pictures, kid” approach is a classic exploitation moviemaking formula, Soderbergh and his screenwriter Lem Dobbs (“Kafka,” “Dark City,” “The Limey”) seem to have intentionally constructed a kind of cheesy screenplay full of spy twists and turns that are orchestrated to be unrealistic and kind of oblique. The plot turns clearly exist as an excuse to feature Carano in some really amazing fight sequences.

The fights are – to use an overused word – awesome. They play like impressive dance numbers, but actually pack punch. People look like they’re getting hurt, and they employ the space around them. The edits are mercifully spare. Eye gouges, high kicks and bodily smashing all have real weight and power behind them. When someone goes flying into a glass bar in a ritzy hotel room, it looks like, well, they’re being smashed through glass. These are not the fights of untiring superbeings with steel fists who never get injured. Nor are these light-footed kung-fu dance sequences where people move at a sped-up pace. These are the fights of someone who actually, well, fights. I think I can safely say that “Haywire” features some of the best cinematic fighting I’ve seen in many years.

What’s more, Carano is gorgeous. She has a pretty face, a nice athletic body, and looks dynamite in a dress. It’s no wonder Soderbergh wanted to cast her. Carano is, however, clearly an athlete before she’s an actress, so her line readings are clunky, and her tougher-than-leather attitude is clearly an affect. But I’ve said this before: sometimes bad acting can be more charming than good acting. When athletes act, through their bad line readings, you at least get the sense of the real person underneath. Carano may not be much of an actress, but she doesn’t need to be. She’s a badass, and often that’s all you need.

The story is a lump of spy hokum that I could barely keep straight. Carano plays an elite-ops spy-type named Mallory who is called by her various shadowy bosses to various exotic locales in order to assassinate various shadowy politicians. Intelligence is miscommunicated, alliances are tested, and eventually it’s revealed that it was all part of an elaborate betrayal, for which Mallory must get an extended badass revenge for. Peppered throughout are about a dozen recognizable actors, all taking part in this backstabbing scheme at various levels. There’s Ewan McGregor (doing his adorable American accent), there’s Michael Douglas, there’s Antonio Banderas, there’s Michael Fassbender somewhere in there, and there’s the lunkhead stud du jour (and natal Soderbergh muse) Channing Tatum, complete with his big biceps and cylindrical head. Even Bill Paxton shows up.

I think that this was Soderbergh’s attempt to make a 1989 straight-to-video spy movie (with, say, Cynthia Rothrock or someone comparable). But it’s not an attempt to recapture the old style of such a movie (i.e. the “Grindhouse” approach), but more a way to update the material into a new aesthetic idiom. I’d say he was successful.

Film review by: Witney Seibold

          Alexander Payne’s strengths lie in deeply flawed people coming to the slow realization of their own flaws, all through a tragic or dramatic event. Yet he often delivers these tragic flaws through the lightened lens of carefully subdued comedy. We may be watching horrible events in peoples’ lives, but they always feel bright and chipper and oddly upbeat. This can work very well (as in “About Schmidt”) or fairly well (as in “Sideways”), but Payne’s work continues to stretch just how wrenching a comedy can be. He seems to want to outdo Woody Allen in his skill of affected and yet emotionally disarming tragicomedies. With “The Descendants,” Payne has continued to hone his storytelling acumen, and comes with a story that is his bitterest to date, his most atmospheric, and quite possibly his best. Indeed, “The Descendants” is one of the best films of the year.

          “The Descendants” is essentially a film about the philosophical strength of good humor. A man, over the course of less than a week, must re-unite with his recovering addict teenage daughter, cope with the indefinite coma of his recently injured wife, earn the trust and respect of his younger daughter, brave the familial pressure of his land-happy extended family (he owns a stretch of Hawai’ian land worth billions), and somehow make sense of the recently broken news that his comatose wife was cheating on him and fully intended to leave him.  What can a man do, but face all these things with as much good humor as he can muster? Matt (George Clooney), however, is constantly on the edge of fraying. He and his two daughters Alex and Scottie (Shailene Woodley and Amara Miller) seem to lean on one another like a tripod. Each two legs are unexpectedly dependent on one another.

          Alex is the one who breaks the bad news to her dad about mom’s infidelity, and she, subsequently, comes in support of Matt’s need to seek down the man she was seeing (Matthew Lillard). The family turns what could have been a petty act of attrition into a kind of twisted family adventure, mostly for vindication, but partly to move out from under the cloud of the ailing mother. It’s amazing how Payne made this film look and feel a lot like a sitcom in its setup, and ultimately made a penetrating family drama about the hurt family members can do to one another, and how the healing can be just as accidental. I’m sorry if I’m making this sound like a TV movie of the week, but it’s more certainly the genuine article.

          Some people have attacked this film as being another midlife crisis film about the incredibly wealthy. I always thought angsty dramas about wealthy people are meant to prove that wealth doesn’t solve angst. Yes, Matt is sitting on billions of dollars worth of Hawai-ian land. He’s also concerned with his birthright. That land will ultimately serve as his last connection to the world. His decision to sell it or to hang onto it is more than just high powered businessmen deciding how to spend their money. But enough of my defensive tone.

          Clooney gives one of his better performances as Matt. Matt is kind of a dopey dad, dressed in the usual Hawai’iam shirt and flipflops, and looking every bit a dip. He is clearly unprepared for the horrors in front of him, and often declares it aloud. We do get the sense of him floundering, and how his desperation easily trades places with an unexpected inner peace.

          Keep an eye on Nick Krause. He plays Alex’s dizty blonde would-be boyfriend, and comes across like a clueless version of Keanu Reeves. He is hilarious, and will be a big star someday.

          The final scene in the film is a quietly hopeful note. I don’t want to reveal what happens, except to say that it is a depiction of a small, quiet, warm moment at home, proving that incidental moments can be the strongest of all. “The Descendants” is a very, very good film.

Film review by: Witney Seibold

          There is a weird overlap between Goth and cuddly. Some of the women who pierce their nipples, wear standoffish leather outfits, and listen to aggressive heavy metal music sometimes tend to have a stuffed animal collection on their beds, or be really fond of Disney movies. Walk into a Hot Topic sometime if you doubt me.

          I think the a large part of the appeal of the original “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2009), which was a huge hit in book form and caused a stir in film form, was the bold strength of Lisbeth Salander, played then by Noomi Rapace. In the original film, Lisbeth was kind of a recluse who lived on junkfood, and resented that she was reliant on government handouts (handouts that would, ultimately, make her the target of a rapist). She was a strong punkrock superhero with computer hacking skills, weird friends, and the skills to aggressively pick up any man or woman she chose. She was a naturally badass kind of character. Her spiky outer shell was a shield of fuck-yous, gradually built up after a childhood of abuse, and a carefully cultivated disdain for society at large. She was mean and violent, but resolute. In this new version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” remade only two years after the fact in English in what is, at least in my mind, a clear moneygrab for a larger American audience, Lisbeth (now played by relative newcomer Rooney Mara) is less of a strong violent punker, and more of a wounded puppy. Her spiky bisexual Goth exterior this time seems to mask a gentle lamb inside, a lamb that is only looking for cuddly comfort and the right man. There are only a few visual cues in the film to indicate this, but I think it’s definitely there. There is a scene, for example, late in the film, when Lisbeth has just bedded Mikael, and she happily accepts smooches and light touches from him in post-coital afterglow. In the first film, she wasn’t much of an afterglow kind of girl.

          So, yes, David Fincher, who has made some truly excellent films in his career, has now given us an unfortunately trite retread of a lot of what we have already seen in the 2009 film. The films’ stories are nearly identical, and a lot of the visuals are transposed directly. I hate to write a review that merely compares this film to the last, but the last was so fresh in my mind, and so present in the popular consciousness, that I feel it’s the only way to look at it.

          The story, just so I can do my critical duty: Mikael Blomqvist (Daniel Craig), recently disgraced by some bad journalism, has been hired by the aging patriarch (Christopher Plummer) of a remote wealthy family, to investigate the kidnapping-or-perhaps-murder of his niece some decades ago. Meanwhile, Lisbeth Salander secretly spies on Mikael and aids him in subtle ways. She is also on the government dole, causing her fat, unappealing government go-between to take sexual advantage of her in exchange for her rightful monies. Lisbeth is notably raped, and subsequently gets some rather graphic revenge.

          This bugged me a little: The film takes place in Sweden, all the characters are still Swedish, but they all speak English. Some have Swedish accents, but some don’t. When they read storefront signs, they are in Swedish, but when they read from books, it’s in English. The lack of continuity drove me a little crazy.

          The sex and violence in this film are no more or less graphic than they were in the last version, but they do seem a lot more lurid this time around. Fincher filmed the scenes in a particularly shocking fashion, adding perhaps a touch more blood, or a bit closer eye to sexual detail. Before, the sex and violence seem to spring a bit more naturally from the story. This time, they seem like intermissions from the story (as sex and violence typically do in American films). So rather than being caught up in the fact that Lisbeth is seducing Mikael, we are more focused on the way she styles her pubic hair. Oddly, in being bolder, the film feels more shy.

Niels Arden Oplev, the director of the original, seemed to have a better eye as to what (I imagine) the tone of the book to be; that is to say it was an airport novel. It was a lurid thriller with some awesome characters, a twist ending, and a serial killer to track down. The literal translation of Stieg Larsson’s book was Men Who Hate Women, so there was also a powerful feminist undercurrent. Fincher’s version, for all its literary fealty (I’ve been informed by my wife that this version cleaves closer to the events of the book) and attention to gore and sexual detail, feels more rote, less dynamic and oddly flat. What’s more, since Lisbeth was seen as someone trying to be invisible, rather than someone who was trying to give a big middle finger to all she met, the feminism was a bit weakened as well.

If you’ve never seen the original film, you may get caught up in the taut story and twists and turns. You’ll like the cobalt-blue photography, and Fincher’s usual panache. But this is not Fincher in high gear. This is his director-for-hire work, churning out a good but unremarkable thriller.

I apologize for the wry cynicism, but there you are.

Film review by: Witney Seibold

          This is the first animated film Stephen Spielberg has made, and it kind of shows. Let me explain what I mean by that. A live-action film director, even in the age of CGI, still has the limitations of reality. They must world with real actors, a real camera, and real props and sets. Cameras cannot, after all, be placed just anywhere. And while most creative directors use their technical limitations to grow aesthetically (art can’t exist without restraint, etc. etc. etc.), I imagine there are some who feel a bit stymied by the low level of technology available. Spielberg, then, by making an animated film, has granted himself the freedom to essentially put the camera wherever he wants, as there is, after all, no camera to speak of.

          The result is a non-stop, completely frenetic adventure film that breathlessly rushes from one spinning, speeding action set piece to the next with little time for exposition or even a brief rest. The “camera” never stops moving in this film; every single shot is a slow pan, a quick tracking shot, or an impossibly long zoom.

          This means that you will indeed be dazzled by the bright images and creative pulp conceits in the film, and you may even find yourself charmed by the boyish reporter Tintin, and his shallow-yet-intrepid need to solve a mystery. If you were like me, however, you’ll find the charm quickly worn down by a surfeit of action, swirling camera movements, and complicated plot machinations that speed by far too quickly to absorb in any sort of meaningful way; you won’t be lost, but you won’t much care (there is a scene wherein characters give vital lines of exposition during an action sequence). Spielberg is a master of a certain kind of adventure film (look at the chintzy fun of his “War Horse,” for instance), but when allowed to work unfettered in a completely CGI-animated environment, he seems to have stepped over a few important aesthetic lines. As a filmmaking experiment, “The Adventures of Tintin” is fascinating to look at, and may even be pretty entertaining for some people. As a film, though, it feels like it didn’t get the attention the material demanded. Had it been a 20-minute short film, perhaps it would have been perfect.

          The characters are, I should also mention, achieved through CGI motion capture. This means the usual thing that motion capture has implied in the past: that certain shots will be appealingly real, some will be uncannily strange, the caricatured facial design can come across as weird (realistic skin, but an oversized nose), and the eyes are a little dead. Motion capture can occasionally work to great effect, but in its history, it has only worked well a few times. I admire the armies of computer technicians and expressive motion capture actors that are continuing to try something new.

          The story is taken from a few of the books by world-famous cartoonist Hergé, whose work has sold millions in Europe, though he is something of a cult figure here in the U.S. The story follows Tintin (voice and movements of Jamie Bell) and his intelligent dog Snowy, already well-established adventurers, going after a hidden treasure as indicated by a secret map hidden inside a model ship. Also after the treasure is the evil Mr. Sakharine (voice and movements of Daniel Craig) who has more information on the matter. We also eventually meet the perpetually intoxicated comic relief sidekick Capt. Haddock (voice and movements of Andy Serkis) who, somewhere in his booze-damaged brain, holds the secret to the treasure’s final resting place. The various action-packed dealing between these three make for some spectacular chases and flashbacks, including an unedited take wherein the trio chase each other through the streets of a Moroccan Kasbah, firing guns and grabbing desperately at an eagle that holds a treasure map.

          Tintin is a Dickensian cipher at best. He has little to offer the story, and it’s only his bland sort of heroism that keeps the tale moving forward. As the film progresses, focus shifts to comic relief Capt. Haddock, and the film begins to drown in his CGI mugging and drunken tirades. It’s not insufferable, mind you, but it does occasionally come close.

          “The Adventures of Tintin” was written by “Doctor Who” guru Stephen Moffat, cult film hero Edgar Wright, and the director of “Attack the Block,” Joe Cornish. The second unit was directed by Peter Jackson. That such a dream team of geek icons would come together for any project probably had some audiences built in. But perhaps there were too many over-enthused hands in this one. “The Adventures of Tintin” is a wild ride that frays itself to the quick. You may be charmed for a span, but you’ll leave kind of exhausted.