Films

Alfie

Alfie presents a glimpse of the dizzyingly fast-paced social life of a serial womanizer. Jude Law has the clothes, the car and the looks to get any girl—and he does, with an endless string of paramours ranging wildly from an aging cosmetics empress (Susan Sarandon) to a flighty, semi-psychotic teenager. But the car is borrowed, the suits were on sale and beneath Law’s charming smirk is a calculating mind. Alfie has no warmth or romanticism, despite his British charm. The movie captures his gradual comprehension of that emptiness surprisingly well. His self-discovery is aided by the stylistic device of Alfie’s narration directly to the audience; in his self-absorption, Alfie considers his life to be the constant focus of a camera. But his ostentatious posing for the camera also reveals Alfie as childish and even innocent—he doesn’t think his actions affect anyone. Jude Law’s acting, on the other hand, has just the right touch of joviality and supreme confidence with which Alfie begins the movie. The film is utterly realistic in demonstrating that understanding mistakes is not always enough to rectify them. (MAB)

Around the Bend

The redemption of a long-estranged parent is hardly a novel plot in contemporary cinema; it has congealed to the point where every hug, tear and clumsy montage seem carefully choreographed. Refreshingly, Around the Bend, reveals an organic push and pull that approaches the mostly shapeless narrative of real relationships that is only reinforced by the subtle performances of screen legends Christopher Walken and Sir Michael Caine. (WBP)

The Forgotten

The Forgotten has the makings of an intelligent paranoid thriller, but I found nothing spectacular or terrifying in it, only government agents scrambling to hide a conspiracy and scrambled plot lines trying to hide a lack of creativity, despite the guarantee a seemingly competent cast should offer. Julianne Moore’s Telly Paretta is a likeable everywoman. Her therapist (Gary Sinise), is appropriately authoritarian, while her husband (ER’s Anthony Edwards) appears to be phoning in his support from another planet. They are too hampered by the product they’ve been asked to deliver to hope to redeem it. (ABS)

Friday Night Lights

The clichéd line is never uttered, but without listening very carefully, you can hear its echo throughout Friday Night Lights: In Odessa, football is a way of life. And, as is quickly shown, it is the only way of life for residents of this small Texas town, where state champions become legends and those who fall short become mere pariahs rejected even within their own families. Though American society worships successful professional athletes, the cult following earned by 17-year old high school seniors is for the most part less widespread. Director and co-writer Peter Berg rightly devotes more time to te Panthers’ trials in their daily lives—how they survive in the face of such intense scrutiny—than their gridiron exploits to underscore that this isn’t just a game but a profession. (TJM)

The Grudge

The camera stumbles upon a door, it bursts open, the hand of the dying woman drops, a guttural boom blasts from the sub, and that four-dollar bucket of flat Diet Coke resting patiently at your side becomes fizzy and fresh on your lap as you jump—hard. It’s these moments—when some random horrific element comes from nowhere—that make the first act of The Grudge, Hollywood’s latest attempt at remaking a foreign blockbuster, extremely enjoyable. Yet tension gives way to torpor as the first act crawls to a close: the slow reserved pace that initially generates bloodcurdling moments soon begins to retard the motion of the film. Even the supposed surprise ending becomes an “Oh, okay” moment instead of a “Wow, no way, that’s his father?” one. The movie, then, becomes a woeful drudge of cinematic excess: it’s cool for the sake of cool. (BJ)

I Heart Huckabees

Albert is unhappy and he isn’t sure why. Sadly, we never care. The root of Albert’s malaise, I think, is that he has sold out. He has entered into a partnership with Huckabees, a chain of K-Mart-like stores, to throw some muscle behind his coalition to save a local wetland. Russell’s sly appropriation of American corporate-speak provide the best moments in the Huckabees script: therapy would be unbecoming for a corporate executive, so Brad rationalizes his sessions with “existential therapists” by insisting they are “pro-active and action-oriented.” While all of the characters in Huckabees seem primed to arc from ironic distance to grand, tragic catharsis, Jude Law alone provides the emotional proximity the film coaxes you into longing for and then so cruelly denies. (DBR)

The Incredibles

Pixar, the ingenious powerhouses of animation that brought the world personified toys, monsters and phosphorescent fish, has taken on a PG-rated action adventure for its latest premise: the story of an average superhero family. In his glory days, Bob Parr (Craig T. Nelson) was known to the world as Mr. Incredible, a superhero capable of foiling a bank robbery, stopping a runaway locomotive and coaxing a kitten down from a tree all on the way to his wedding. Segue to 15 years later and Mr. Incredible and his wife Helen, formerly known as Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), and their three children are attempting to live a normal suburban life under the Witness Protection Program. Bob juggles a potbelly and a mind-numbing job as an insurance claims specialist while longing for the old days; Helen is not willing to give up the peaceful life they have earned. Everything changes when Bob receives a communiqué calling for Mr. Incredible’s help in a top-secret mission on a mysterious island. The mission eventually pulls the entire Incredibles family into a battle to save the world from their nemesis, Syndrome (Jason Lee). Writer-director Brad Bird (Iron Giant, The Simpsons) has created a film that skillfully blends the excitement of a superhero movie with a carefully-measured dose of family film sensitivity. (JYZ)