The Men Who Stare at Goats

At the beginning of The Men Who Stare At Goats, a confiding message beforehand says that 'more of this is true than you might think.' Maybe so, maybe not so much, but it's an entertaining black comedy, involving guns, drugs, and goats based on the also apparently true memoir of the same name by John Ronson. The film, given only lukewarm consideration by the critics, takes very near to awkward dives between lightness, very dark humor, and compassionate drama, turns out unscathed, if not exactly on top.

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor,) a journalist, is dumbstruck when his wife has a revelation over the fragility of life after the sudden death of a co-worker. Instead of taking an Eat, Pray, Love expedition, leaving her baffled husband to go to India and so on, she dumps him, apparently deciding life is too short to spend time in his company any longer. After a rather childish tantrum where he breaks dishes and yells at her and her one-armed boyfriend, Bob goes to equally childish lengths to impress her.

"I'm in Iraq, covering war stories," he says in a comfortable American hotel. "I've seen things you shouldn't. "Bang-bang-bang!" He kicks the head of the bed and exclaims, "I've got to go." He then decides that it would be best if he actually did some research there, forgetting just walking into a war-torn country with a camera is not worth it to win back a girl who's clearly gotten over him.

Then he meets Lyn Cassidy (George Clooney,) who's unlike anyone he's ever met- impulsive, smart, and completely convinced the minority he follows is in the right. Sound like somebody you know...? And he says he's a psychic spy, trained by the millitary to read thoughts, drive blind folded, and dissapate clouds with the power of his mind. Hmm.

This takes Bob back to meeting Gus Lacey (Stephen Root,) a member of the same group Lyn joined that he interviewed for a piece in the paper. Gus lives with his who-knows-how-old mother, who serves him drinks, and speaks of his military job in the New Earth Army whimsically. "We were trained to kill animals," he says. "With our minds, that is correct." Bob is shocked. He is serious, in that deadpan way Stephen Root is good at. Gus then shows Bob a video, to prove it, of himself telekinetically killing his pet hamster. What Bob sees is... the hamster acting wonky, yes, but hardly dying.

Lyn takes Bob on a sort of adventure (if you can call it that,) thanks in part to random fate and in part to Lyn's total belief in his psychic powers. Finally they find the New Earth Army base and meet stoned out Bill Jango (Jeff Bridges,) who ran the place for some time, and Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey,) who took over. Interspersed with the journey are flashbacks so you have met the characters before you actually met them.

In the end, The Men Who Stare at Goats (with it's abundance of deliberate quirky-isms) is not an epic achievement, but it is funny and witty, and though a streak of oh-so-dark humor pervades, admirably entertaining. In this day and age, I think we kind of need New Earth Warriors, who strive to 'fight without killing,' minus those poor goats. You'll see what I mean (Rated R.)

In the Bedroom

One of the most interesting things about Todd Field's In The Bedroom is the way it slowly unravels, not discharges with a bang, a downward spiral of grief and hopelessness. It is so easy to portray life as a utopia before tragedy strikes- in this, the said event reveals hidden repressions and resentments, and tears the lives of the victim's families apart. It is based on the short story The Killings by Andre Dubus, a former captain of the marine corps who eventually wrote about gun-related tragedies and the double sided nature of revenge. This film permeates vengeance- each time, some body gets hurt (or killed) and not a single person wins.

I see In The Bedroom tagged as 'melodrama' on Imdb. According to my film-based book 'melodrama' is 'bold and passionate drama, with distinct lines between good and evil' (not a direct quote.) Although the film is made up of victims, perpetrators, and passive bystanders, with a victim inevitable turning the tables on the perpetrator, it's anything but simple, armed with a certain ambiguity that sets it apart from the others. No one is selfless, and the dimwitted, impulsive killer, though not with much going for him, is not the typical unkillable Halloween psycho.

The film follows two families, the Fowlers and the Strouts, living in contemporary Maine, whose lives are going in very different directions.Matt Fowler (Tom Wilkinson) is a doctor, and is concerned about a job for his son Frank (Nick Stahl) that reaches his full potential. Frank is an affable young man whose ambiguous attitude towards his future are causing Matt and his wife Ruth (Sissy Spacek) some headaches. He is gifted at architecture, with elaborate drawn structures all over his walls, but he includes working on a boat catching lobsters

This is partially because he is unsure if he wants to be what his parents want him to be, partially because of Natalie Strout (Marisa Tomei,) an older woman and well-intentioned mother of two boys, who he has fallen for. Natalie has just suffered a violent break-up with Richard (William Mapother.) The is an implication that Richard has physically abused at least one of their two sons, Jason and Duncan, and Natalie wants out of that relationship.

One day Frank is beaten, and he comes home with black eye. He doesn't want to call the police, says Frank. It will just scare Natalie's boys. The next time Frank encounters Richard, the Fowler parents are thrown into a guilt-ridden nightmare that will strain, bend, and perhaps break them. Matt halfheartedly continues to participate in life, whereas Ruth sits quietly, almost comatose, smoking cigarettes on the chair. Ruth mistakenly confuses Matt's attempts to reacquaint himself with life with not grieving, and the event unearths discontentment and suspicions.

There are only a few faulty scenes One involves claustrophobic close-ups and buzzing sound effects seem to have come straight out of Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead, which served it's purpose of slightly surreal humor in the latter. Here it is odd and uncomfortable in a not remotely riveting way. The acting, on the other hand, is very good. The commendable performences and realistic rappor t between family members make one care about the characters and where the plot is going, which you know, thanks in part to me, is nowhere good (rated R)

Michael Clayton

It seems passivity is the enemy here, and there's enough of it to spare in Michael Clayton, a law thriller that uncoils gradually, and reveals suddenly. Everyone has the 'whoops' factor tied around their little finger, where nothing said or done has any connection to them. This includes the eponymous lead, played by George Clooney, who is loyal to his friends and practically useless to anyone else.

Michael is what is called a 'fixer,' which is a dodgy job description if I ever heard one, and of questionable legality. When someone messes up, their lawyer sends him in to manipulate, tweak, and shift the story in their favor. For instance, an upper class married man 'thinks' he hit someone with his car. Instead of coming to see the victim is okay, the driver (Mr. Greer) drives home and contacts his lawyer, who contacts Michael.

"What do they do if the car is stolen?" Mr. Greer reasons. "Happens all the time." Michael senses that he is in tpo deep then, so leaves the man to solve it for himself. He has more personal matters to attend to. The body (?) is never recovered, or maybe it's just a miffed drunk staggering home. It seems for these people, this is more plot point than climax.

In this case, Michael Clayton tries to find what Mr. Greer hit, but he is violently interrupted. Then the film is taken back four days, in a tangle of a story that seems like it will never be explained, but is. In the time before that incident, Michael is living his ordinary life of 'fixing' and pawning of his personal belongings, trying evade bankruptcy.

Then he gets a phone call, and is told that his friend and legendary fellow lawyer, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson,) has left his manic-depressive medication and gone bonkers. To be more specific, he stripped down during a law hearing and proclaimed his love for the plaintiff, the much younger Anna Kysersun, then chasing her and her company through the streets with inexplicable motivations.

Apparently that's not the worst part. While Arthur was shedding his attire in a fit of mania, he also had a moment of clarity- that he had the power to stop the evil that is been taken place, and as people probably suspected, that the cancer Anna and her family have been plagued by (which has already taken the life of her mother and brother) is in fact a direct result of U-North, a 'very safe' weed killer Clayton, Edens and others have been supporting.

U-North's weed killer, which is accompanied by green, reassuring advertisements, was used by Anna and many others on family farms, and got into their water streams. Worse for the corporation, Arthur doesn't only know what's going on, he has proof for it (a piece of paper showing that U-North knew, too) and has reached a quasi-midlife crisis where he's started questioning the morality of the stuff he's been doing for years.

Kenner, Back, & Ledeen (the law firm they work for) has funded U-North and they stand to lose a lot of money if the corporation comes crashing down. As good friends as Michael and Arthur are, Michael is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and can't afford to lose more, and his reaction is less 'it's not true' than 'we promised we wouldn't talk about it.'

Arthur, off his meds and with a perhaps not perennial sense of purpose, abandons Michael as a lost cause and enlists Anna's help to expose all the people who have been hurt with the pesticide (Anna is a real sport about Arthur's infatuation and clothes-shedding incident, though I couldn't tell if she really liked him or sensed she shouldn't be on his bad side.)

This makes him the not most popular person of U-North, and shady action against him by the nervous, twitch-ridden, and chilly Karen Crowder (the always chilly Tilda Swinton, who nevertheless seems mild-mannered enough for one one to think she knows less than she knows.) Michael Clayton does damage control, trying to to call Arthur into his right mind to support a deplorable lie.

The film is sort of brilliant the way it that it creates spontaneous, deliberately awkward dialogue that is usually nit picked and glossed over by the movie. At first, this promises to only be the norm with the Bipolar character, Arthur, but it soon spreads over into universal nervousness. of course, the characters have a lot to be nervous about. never has stumbly screenwriting and unnecessary 'uh's and 'er's impressed me more.

As with just about any film thriller, the script obscures truth from the characters, and their intellect suffers increasingly agitating pitfalls. Of course, the Arthur character has just escaped the numbing effects of his mood stabilizers and is 'feeling' the world for the first time in ages, so a little imprudence can be expected of such big adjustments.

However, the others, stressed as they might be, play aggravatingly dumb and don't provoke sympathy as often as a sharp "Really? Are you that stupid?" The performances are very good- nothing unusual from Tilda Swinton (she's playing her White Witch with a couple quirks.) George Clooney was just fine and doesn't need guff from people who think he just a ladies man with a self-important ego (maybe so, maybe not, but let's not judge, shall we?)

Tom Wilkinson strikes a balance between vulgar and vulnerable, and does well both feigning an American accent (he's British) and conducting his shallow, disorganized, and ridiculously fast speech, which gives the feeling he believes the oxygen is being pulled out of the air. And cliche is sidestepped when Michael's son Henry, a smart alecky and precocious kid, doesn't fall victim to 'child in trouble' script, and is at no point threatened, menaced and ransomed (Rated R.)

Note- This movie uses the fancy writing device of 'mentally ill person talking,' as Arthur carries on long monologues of what someone not playing with the full deck might say to fit the director's pretentious vision. As moviemaking is an art form and a little pretentiousness applies, this is neither a compliment or an insult, just a thought.

Michael Clayton

It seems passivity is the enemy here, and there's enough of it to spare in Michael Clayton, a law thriller that uncoils gradually, and reveals suddenly. Everyone has the 'whoops' factor tied around their little finger, where nothing said or done has any connection to them. This includes the eponymous lead, played by George Clooney, who is loyal to his friends and practically useless to anyone else.

Michael is what is called a 'fixer,' which is a dodgy job description if I ever heard one, and of questionable legality. When someone messes up, their lawyer sends him in to manipulate, tweak, and shift the story in their favor. For instance, an upper class married man 'thinks' he hit someone with his car. Instead of coming to see the victim is okay, the driver (Mr. Greer) drives home and contacts his lawyer, who contacts Michael.

"What do they do if the car is stolen?" Mr. Greer reasons. "Happens all the time." Michael senses that he is in tpo deep then, so leaves the man to solve it for himself. He has more personal matters to attend to. The body (?) is never recovered, or maybe it's just a miffed drunk staggering home. It seems for these people, this is more plot point than climax.

In this case, Michael Clayton tries to find what Mr. Greer hit, but he is violently interrupted. Then the film is taken back four days, in a tangle of a story that seems like it will never be explained, but is. In the time before that incident, Michael is living his ordinary life of 'fixing' and pawning of his personal belongings, trying evade bankruptcy.

Then he gets a phone call, and is told that his friend and legendary fellow lawyer, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson,) has left his manic-depressive medication and gone bonkers. To be more specific, he stripped down during a law hearing and proclaimed his love for the plaintiff, the much younger Anna Kysersun, then chasing her and her company through the streets with inexplicable motivations.

Apparently that's not the worst part. While Arthur was shedding his attire in a fit of mania, he also had a moment of clarity- that he had the power to stop the evil that is been taken place, and as people probably suspected, that the cancer Anna and her family have been plagued by (which has already taken the life of her mother and brother) is in fact a direct result of U-North, a 'very safe' weed killer Clayton, Edens and others have been supporting.

U-North's weed killer, which is accompanied by green, reassuring advertisements, was used by Anna and many others on family farms, and got into their water streams. Worse for the corporation, Arthur doesn't only know what's going on, he has proof for it (a piece of paper showing that U-North knew, too) and has reached a quasi-midlife crisis where he's started questioning the morality of the stuff he's been doing for years.

Kenner, Back, & Ledeen (the law firm they work for) has funded U-North and they stand to lose a lot of money if the corporation comes crashing down. As good friends as Michael and Arthur are, Michael is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and can't afford to lose more, and his reaction is less 'it's not true' than 'we promised we wouldn't talk about it.'

Arthur, off his meds and with a perhaps not perennial sense of purpose, abandons Michael as a lost cause and enlists Anna's help to expose all the people who have been hurt with the pesticide (Anna is a real sport about Arthur's infatuation and clothes-shedding incident, though I couldn't tell if she really liked him or sensed she shouldn't be on his bad side.)

This makes him the not most popular person of U-North, and shady action against him by the nervous, twitch-ridden, and chilly Karen Crowder (the always chilly Tilda Swinton, who nevertheless seems mild-mannered enough for one one to think she knows less than she knows.) Michael Clayton does damage control, trying to to call Arthur into his right mind to support a deplorable lie.

The film is sort of brilliant the way it that it creates spontaneous, deliberately awkward dialogue that is usually nit picked and glossed over by the movie. At first, this promises to only be the norm with the Bipolar character, Arthur, but it soon spreads over into universal nervousness. of course, the characters have a lot to be nervous about. never has stumbly screenwriting and unnecessary 'uh's and 'er's impressed me more.

As with just about any film thriller, the script obscures truth from the characters, and their intellect suffers increasingly agitating pitfalls. Of course, the Arthur character has just escaped the numbing effects of his mood stabilizers and is 'feeling' the world for the first time in ages, so a little imprudence can be expected of such big adjustments.

However, the others, stressed as they might be, play aggravatingly dumb and don't provoke sympathy as often as a sharp "Really? Are you that stupid?" The performances are very good- nothing unusual from Tilda Swinton (she's playing her White Witch with a couple quirks.) George Clooney was just fine and doesn't need guff from people who think he just a ladies man with a self-important ego (maybe so, maybe not, but let's not judge, shall we?)

Tom Wilkinson strikes a balance between vulgar and vulnerable, and does well both feigning an American accent (he's British) and conducting his shallow, disorganized, and ridiculously fast speech, which gives the feeling he believes the oxygen is being pulled out of the air. And cliche is sidestepped when Michael's son Henry, a smart alecky and precocious kid, doesn't fall victim to 'child in trouble' script, and is at no point threatened, menaced and ransomed (Rated R.)

The Visitor

The Visitor is a abashed statement movie, like Hans-Christian Schmid's Requiem or Mike Leigh's Vera Drake, that really needs an open mind to operate (the latter didn't really work for me, because science reasons that pregnancy involves a infant and not a fetus-shaped problem.) Although in many ways the themes are universal, the film has a very liberal center, and the viewer needs to come in who can think, not reaffirm.

The film opens with middle-aged Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins,) who stares almost desperately out the window for his piano teacher to come. As soon as they dully carry out their lessons, he informs her he is going to give up the class. It was really more his wife's, who has died, thing anyway. This reflects the whole movie, he wants interaction with people, than quickly rejects them.

Walter divides his time between Connecticut, where he halfheartedly teaches college courses with young adults who have probably long since given up hope of surprise or freshness, and New York, where he pretends to be writing a book that has been put indefinitely on hold. His subject of teaching is global economics- an odd choice, considering it's been a long time since he was involved with (not to say 'cared about') anyone, including himself. He's kind of like an agoraphobic who drones on about the joys of the outdoors.

His only passion, in fact, is music, which is quickly fading. His teacher tactlessly asked if she may buy the piano if he gives it up, and makes it clear he doesn't have the raw natural talent of his late wife. Throughout the film, the only time he is relieved of his perpetual slump is when he hears music in the streets, or in recording, or in his head. Even his manner of walking becomes more perked and interested. When he doesn't hear the beat, it gets so bad that I wished for the sake of him and his tortured students that someone could get the guy and Mp3 player.

His wake-up call begins when Walter visits his apartment in New York, and walks into his own bathroom to find Zainab (Danar Gurira) in the tub. She has a boyfriend, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman,) who clearly doesn't take to strange men wandering in when Zainab is bathing. Walter senses trouble about ten seconds before Tarek slams him against the door and nearly beats him to a pulp. After a tense confrontation, they calm down, and Walter gets the chance to shakily say he is not a sex criminal.

Apparently, Tarek and Zainab, two immigrants (the first from Serbia and the latter African) immigrated quite some time ago, and a shady Realtor give them an used apartment. He never managed to mention that there was still an occupant who came every now and then, and expected 'his' home to be untouched. Even though Walter suspects something is up with their entry to America (the first thing Tarek worries about after he assures his wife has not been violated is the police,) he allows them to stay, a favor Zainab takes begrudgingly.

I was never sure if Zainab was worried by the vague threat of sexual violence (something painfully embarrassing he says doesn't help, although it isn't actual interest but just social incompetence,) or if she is humiliated by accepting charity from a slightly pretentious college professor in a suit and tie, but she gives him such hateful looks that I would be quickly throwing up my hands in defeat and searching for a new New York dwelling. Tarek, however, takes a liking to him (it's so much more convenient for the plot if they get along, but Haaz Sleiman genuinely personable performance makes it believable.)

Tarek befriends Walter and makes it his mission to rekindle his participation in the music world. But one day Tarek is violently hauled off by Law Enforcement by passing over the turnstile (it is possible considering the suddenness and harshness of it that it was racially motivated, but this, like a lot of things in this movie, goes unsaid.) they discover he doesn't have a green card, something a smart man like Walter must have suspected, and he is placed without rhyme or reason in a holding facility for illegal immigrants. For obvious reasons, Zainab cannot go there, so Walter serves as a kind of spokesperson between them, and sets out to allow them passage in the United States.

Now the problem with Walter (and quite possibly the main reason he seeked solitude from the human race) is this-he has the unique, unfailing (dis?) ability to skew everything that comes out of his mouth to alienate, aggravate, and discomfort everyone around him. When he wants to be kind, he comes off as pretentious. When he wants to crack a joke, he's comes off as nervy.

Between the lead character and the reflective awkwardness and misunderstanding of the people around him, The Visitor presents decent characters who are to some degree separated by their own hang-ups. The four main characters (I'll get to the fourth in a little bit) are racially very different from each other, but the movie suggests that it is human foible rather than that leaves them, in communication, picking up the pieces and starting again.

The final lead is Mouna (Hiam Abbass, who from her profile on video sites has done a lot for the Middle Eastern movie-making industry,) Tarek's mother, who comes to his home, finds out the situation, and refuses to leave. Walter develops quite the crush on her, which seems reciprocated, and they make tentative steps toward a relationship, which is perhaps appropriately not fully developed but kind and not purely physical. And Walter gets Tarek a lawyer who would hopefully grant him Asylum, and makes his own personal changes. If he can't help the others, he reasons, he can help himself.

So far the director, Tom McCarthy's, films have dealt with prejudice in some form or another. The other one I have seen, The Station Agent, had the talented Peter Dinklage as a independent man suffering from dwarfism (or more fully, people's reactions to it.) He faced the daily degradation of being shamelessly photographed when picking up a gallon of milk. The minorities in The Visitor suffer being observed and judged by strangers who don't know the first thing about them, and that's just the beginning of it.

It is only when Walter gives his impassioned speech about rights that the film lapses into corn, because the movie is yelling at us as well as the characters, and what should have been dealt with a careful hand by the director is instead dealt by jack hammer. But McCarthy's vision is wider than many modern film director ("things go boom" is the total story of many modern films, including your pick of plot rentals,) a farther humanity, and a very good cast (Rated PG-13.)

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson, universally both loved and hated as the number #1 presenter of indie quirk, is also known for putting his offbeat characters and situations through decidedly grownup live-action. But Fantastic Mr. Fox, his first foray into the family genre, has no hint of unprofessional or slovenly animation, held together awkwardly with his trademark differentness.

This film, although not reaching the emotional heights of Pixar's Up, which it lost to in the 2010 animated Academy Awards (much to fellow reviewer Nick Duval's chagrin,) boasts wonderfully unique animation (whose vivid oranges and browns and lovingly detailed fur is a far cry from the paint-by-numbers visual schemes of Dreamworks,) never overdone 'human' conflicts, and characters more bizarrely three-dimensional than Danny De Vito's take on Roald Dahl, Matilda.

Plotwise, the original, simplistic Fantastic Mr. Fox has more or thown aside, (as in the original Mr. Fox had no neighbors, no family, and no pop culture references,) But Wes Anderson has kept the edgy spirit of Roald Dahl intact, with human beings replacing grown-ups as the oppressing, shamelessly ignorant bad guy.

The staring scene opens with the eponymous (and otherwise unnamed) Mr. Fox, who, despite his good intentions, never quite gains the viewer's sympathy. He's a nice guy with a problem- he always needs to be under the impression that he is outfoxing the man, and getting his way comes as naturally to him as breathing.

When he is reunited with his wife (who has an unexplained stomach flu, fulfilling the rule for unreasonably sick married heroines,) they go on their nightly raid, and are quickly caught due to stupidity on the part of Mr. Fox. Mrs. Fox's secret is revealed, and the film cuts forward two years (twelve fox years.)

Mr. Fox is now living in a safe but inelegant hole habitat that hurts his pride, accompanied by his wife (Voice of Meryl Streep,) and moody adolescent son, Ash (Wes Anderson regular Jason Schwartzmen, who is considerably past adolescence.) Ash is at a stage where he desperately wants to impress his father, and has the famous complex of needing to make his parents proud.

Everyone 'helpfully' implicates that he shouldn't try to measure up to his dad, and Ash stirs up hell trying to get attention, spitting, grunting, and wandering heatedly around the house in an angry huff. The unsteady family balance is upset further by visiting cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson, voicing, well, obviously,) who's father is sick with double pneumonia.

Kristofferson is an earnest soul who has the unfortunate ability of doing whatever Ash is unsuccessful at flawlessly. This immediately attracts the resentful attention of Ash, especially when Mr. Fox starts treating him like the son he never had. The situation goes from bad to worse when Mr. Fox, in a sort of midlife crisis, somewhat cruelly strings pleasant but dim-witted opossum Kylie along to steal from a trio of very armed, very dangerous farmers.

Kristofferson is brought along (he turns Ash away, although I highly doubt he gave him the chance to prove his incompetence) and the trio take dozens of chickens from the homes of Nathan Bunce, Walt Boggis, and Franklin Bean (Michael Gambon, no longer channeling his inner Dumbledore) , who don't have a lot of compassion for woodland creatures. They, nearly as frustrated by their own stupidity as the fox's cleverness, attempt to dig the community out.

The rest I will leave you to find out, as the film itself is not long, nor overloaded enough to need a reviewer to preexplain all the plot-lines and pitfalls. The pitfalls of the film are few, save some plot holes (like Ash's inexplicable change of clothes halfway through the film) and dialogue that OD's occasionally on quirkiness and doesn't step in time to the snappy pace the plot has going.

I am disturbed by people's ludicrous complaints about this film, including the gimmick where they say 'cuss' instead of the specific word (a lot of children's movies don't bother) and that they talk about *gasp* existentialism. Adult themes in an animated movie won't anyone, and it's nice that someone realized putting references beyond the age group can involve old songs and eccentric happenings, not pee-pees and wee-wees that everyone takes for granted (Rated PG.)

Step Brothers

Okay. If you are planning to rent this film because you like Will Ferrell, or because you laughed (as I did) at his intellectual masterpiece Land of the Lost... stop and think for a minute, a practice this film ignored completely. Emotionally underdeveloped males are not funny.

Vindictive man-child squabbling is not funny. Middle aged men too lazy and pathetic to get off of their behinds and get jobs, but only feed off of their long-suffering parents with the will and determination of parasites... not funny. Even if one of them is played by Will Ferrell, the humor is still pretty nonexistent.

Step Brothers, an uneasy blend of Paul Blart- Mall Cop and Chuck & Buck, is the kind of throwaway film people might awkwardly refer to as 'cute' (as in "was it a good movie? it was... cute.") The trouble is, it is far too resolute in it's crudity to pass as such.

It mistakes winces for laughs, and hammers it's content ferociously into the viewer's face, hoping that it's gall will earn some kind of respect. It's not even or satirical enough to pass as dark humor. As a feel-good raunchy comedy, it misses it's mark completely, despite some 'ah gee' moments near the end where relationships are salvaged and the imbeciles are rewarded for their actions.

The premise runs like this- two older people Robert (Richard Jenkins) and Nancy (Mary Steenburgen) meet at a science convention, bond, and are in each other's pants within the next five minutes. They put their clothes on, straighten up and get married. Nancy and Robert would like nothing more than to take Robert's boat and embark on an indefinite vacation.

The trouble arises with their two sons, Brennan (Ferrell) and Dale (Reilly,) middle-aged slackers who live at home and don't take well to the courtship.The two of them spend the film masturbating, eating junk food, being beaten by children, beating children, and flaunting foul language like a college degree. Their idiocy is almost redeemed by the introduction of Brennan's successful brother, Derek, who is more deplorable than they are. But it's tough compitition.

One both rubs his testicles on a drum set and is forced to lick a mound of dog feces, all in the same film. If you are interested in seeing Will Ferrell's balls, maybe you should rent and enjoy this movie. If not.... maybe not. They should probably be marked as Will Ferrell= Brennan and John C. Reilly = Dale, since there is no personal variation between them. They exist as characters to disgust and half-heartedly amuse.

Although Richard Jenkins, playing in my recent reviewed film Burn After Reading and receiving an Oscar nomination for The Visitor (bought but not seen) has participated in many of the Farrelly's films, I had no idea he could sink this low. He's the only character with a working brain in the film (as his wife smiles and says "I think they're bonding," he responds, "I don't like this.")

However, for this character to work, one would need a director with a apparently functional brain. At an afterwords at the credits, when Brennan and Dale face their grade school-sized bullies, one punches a child repeatedly, his head bobbing back and forth like a rag doll. That's the whole trouble with Step Brothers- it has no understanding of what's funny and what isn't. Equipped with this bumbling ignorance, it shamelessly hits all the wrong notes (Rated R.)

Ils (Them)

Horror filmmaking, a visualization of things no one wants to happen to them, can be morbidly fascinating, or even lyrical. Tomas Alfredson's Let the Right One In, particularly, told it's story brilliantly and in some ways transcended the vampire genre. Them, a slight trip into depravity and advertised as 'the movie that terrified the French,' is not. It is tripe. The film doesn't stand as as much a worthy story with characters as a gaudy set-designed ego trip, with meticulously designed dark corners, piercing screams, and convenient pitfalls.

When the heroine, schoolteacher Clementine, chose a place in the attic of her sprawling isolated home to escape from the home invaders of the film, of course it is an otherwise empty section with cellophane hanging in clumps from the ceiling, each one vaguely looking like a cloaked face. Of course Clementine and her boyfriend Lucas live in an isolated manor. And finally of course the isolation is broken by a 'annoying' dog, who barks to warn them too late.

I was warned . When a teenage girl feuding with her mother gets run off the road by a unknown being, I heard her, just as it began to rain, segueing from a irate calls to screams, more and more desperate "Maman! Maman! Maman!!!" The car? It doesn't start. The rain obscures anyone from view, as does the trunk her mother ignorantly poked around in. The cell phone shakes in her hand, and she can barely release a squeak, much less a 'help.'

After the inevitable death, the film focuses on Lucas, a writer who does his best work playing arcade games, and Clementine, a frustrated primary school teacher. For a period of about fifteen minutes, the two exchange a stream of smooth and natural dialogue, in such a way I mistakenly started hoping that I would care what happened to them. After that, the script runs out of such dialogue, and settles on standard horror talk. I started laughing out loud at the banality of it, a bad sign with a film that wants to be taken this seriously.

"______!" (insert name, repeat 20-30 times.)

"I'll go check."

"What was that sound?"

"Don't leave!"

The acting of the film is decent, the performers pounding on the one note the director brings to the table (mostly comprised of frightened shrieks and tear stained faces.) The plot is a series of grotesque occurrences, putting the characters through horror and trauma. It is 'compensated' for it's plotnessless with a couple of jumps (it barely succeeds.) The slashers are barely frightening, and completely nonsensical.

Simply put, it is a series of close escapes and killings, too premeditated and shallow to provoke much reaction. I learned something, though. Nothing about safety, nothing about human nature. I learned that because a film has cool cover art, a cinematic pedigree (foreign,) and is spoken in a pretty language (French,) does not make it very much superior to American money mongerers. Nor does it classify as high film-making. That is all. (Rated R.)

Burn After Reading

As I write this review, I will attempt to gather my thoughts. This is the kind of film that remains lean at 90-something minutes, but still may take dozens of viewings to catch all that the Coen brothers put into it. "Burn After Reading" got lukewarm praise from many critics, and was considered somewhat of an exercise after No Country For Old Men, a grungy and solemn film that was embarrassingly nearly impossible for me to connect with.

The two share some traits- flawed characters, moments of jarring violence, and an ending that had me throwing my arms up in disappointed anger. This time, however, they apply the tone of a very dark comedy, and I'll say it- I think I like this better. It resembles, slightly, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction in style- this is a film of sad characters, a sad story, and sad implications. But if it is a story of pathetic lives that intersect in violence, why is it so damned funny?

Not that I got it at first. I'm still not sure I do. Around the beginning I began seriously questioning the relation between content and style. The movie broadly uses claustrophobic, sharp camera angles and an overblown, anti-climactic soundtrack, all the while often leading to ice scraped out of it's tray and liquor poured into a glass.

I was trying to figure out the Coen's intentions- were they expecting to stir people up, only to see the outcome permeating banality? Then I realized. Although this film has a blunt edge, it is a satire. The only thing left to wonder is... a satire of what? I have a few ideas, but no concrete answers. Of course, that gives me much more idea then any of the characters in this film.

"Burn After Reading" connects several different stories, with the deliberately confused style and pacing as an unusually morbid farce. Osbourne Cox, a member of CIA (John Malkovich) is shown first. He has just been fired- 'for your drinking,' they say. After a humorously absurd flinging of obscenities, he storms out toward home, where his shrill wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is much more concerned then anything about the cheeses he was meant to pick up for a house party.

Everyone in this film seems to relate to each other is some way- chances are, sexually. Katie has another CIA member, Harry (George Clooney,) over when her husband's elsewhere. Harry, not an expert in the department of committing, meets Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand,) a self-centered, socially incompetent woman who is suffering a midlife crisis, which involves as many internet flings as possible and a whole lot of liposuction.

Brad Pitt is Chad, a dim-witted and possibly homosexual co-worker of Linda's, who helps her look through personals for a guy who is not a 'major loser.' Their boss, Ted, is a meek man who, despite having feelings for Linda, is terrified he may fall into the 'loser' category. He is she and Chad's boss, though I'm not sure he would be forthright enough to actually fire anybody.

Anyway, Chad is 'lucky' (unlucky?) enough to find a CD-rom containing information of Osbourne Cox's, which involves enough code and 'number shit' to make he and Linda assume it must be worth something. Ted knows an impending disaster when he sees one, and quickly makes it clear he wants it out of their gym. It just so happens that the files are a memoir that Osbourne has decided to write, a concept which makes Katie scoff.

Then Chad and Linda attempt in a vague, hare-brained manner to blackmail Osbourne for what they have find. On the up side, it does not contain any ultra-secret files, that Osbourne would kill for. On the down side, he really wants to write the memoir, and they have caught him in exactly the wrong time, at a time of dispute with Katie, loss of his job, and the effects of the liquors that litter his cabinets, which he is *not* addicted to.

One thing is sure- there's a certain morbid fascination in watching a couple of nimrods attempting to perpetrate crime, with only the vaguest notion that they may be considered accountable. Chad, in particular, tries to threaten Osbourne with the persona that must result from too many late night TV noir movies.

Brad Pitt, who I am not sure I've seen in a film all the way through and not the tabloids, is a surprise. Here he is unabashedly satirical as a simpleton to has no clue how to deal with the situations he gets in ("Osbourne Cox," he says gruffly, then assumes the expression of a 12-year-old making his first prank call. )

John Malkovich, who plays a man who starts out a few slices short of a pizza and works his way to a mound of crumbs, is disturbing/funny in his projection of negative energy. I also liked Frances McDormand, who turns around sharply from the sensible role she played in the period drama I watched a couple weeks , Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day. Richard Jenkins puts some gravity and an earnest presence. as a likable side character who, in the tradition of likable side characters, is killed the most brutally.

But there are problems. Certain scenes seem like segments that the Coens wrote background details on, then forgot how to edit coherently. I guess there is something reassuring about know the directors put much more into the film, then is initially thought, but come on.

One scene, so out of flow with the rest of the story that I half thought it was a dream or a hallucination, has Osbourne tell of his dismissal to a nearly comatose old man (presumably his father,) on a boat that shows up later in the script. The father, who is doing the easiest bit of acting consisting of nodding and staring with unfocussed eyes into the distance, seems like he shouldn't be here.

He obviously can't live on his own- does Osbourne care for him? Where does he stay when the plot doesn't need him? Is he in a rest home? Who leave a daft old man to sway and sit hunched on a boat all day? Osbourne, maybe? I was also annoyed by a scene where Ted implicates at a unusual past profession. "Why did you leave?" Linda asks. "It's a long story." And? Why introduce it?

The absolute best thing about "Burn After Reading" is the dialogue and details, which link into each other in an intricate way. There are gaps, but it isn't the norm- nearly everything that happens has something to do with something else. I would however, have preferred that they change the ending, which brazenly leaves loose ends. After No Country For Old Men it may be a Cohen trademark, but honestly, it's not a tradition I want built upon (Rated R.)

Alice in Wonderland

Okay. Forget that well-loved pop-up book you cherished when you were eight. If you know Tim Burton in the slightest, you won't need to be told this isn't anything like that. Fans of the directors work- Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, even Sweeney Todd- Will allow him to take the story from Lewis Carroll's hands and adapt- hence, take great liberties with it. Others will wince at the special effects and try to call brightly colored, non-Burtonized Wonderland to their mind.

First, though, let me make something clear- I like Tim Burton very much. I know that we live in a society where children watch Saw and Pulp Fiction with wild abandon, but I think kids should watch kid's movies up until a certain age. I did not categorize this as family because I don't think should be considered that by a long shot. I remember at one time literally covering my mouth with my hand and considering the ludicrousness of the PG rating.

Well, it's not extreme from an above-thirteen year-old standpoint, but when the theaters tagged this PG I at least halfway expected to keep it clean, like Up. It was not. I think the scene where the Red Queen's slimy cohort aggressively comes onto Alice ought to sum it up. Plus the eyeball (which was a gasp on my part.) Come on, folks, do not make the foolish assumption I did- this is Tim Burton. Do you really think he was going to go all 'precious moments' on you?

Mia Wasikowska, who is a young actress I have seen only once before, plays Alice. She's the curious type stuck in a society full of bores. She is expected (in the classic tradition of the period piece) to marry Hamish (Leo Bill)- Tim Burton not so subtlety makes it clear- she should not marry him. Hamish is, though not as bad as his cold Aristocrat mum, harsh, spoiled, and annoying, with bad teeth to top it off.

Alice's own mum forgets to mention Hamish will be proposing- a small detail that may of slipped her mind considering the circumstances. Hamish has failed to mention this as well. He proposes (I felt humiliated for Leo, having to make sure every viewer saw that smile on the big screen,) and she, seeing limited escapes, runs for it. Hamish is still whining about his rejection while she chases a white rabbit and falls down a hole.

The hole takes her quickly out of her banal period-piece setting and into a room that seems far to sophisticated for a common forest animal. As soon as she gets out (using unusual food products I shouldn't have to go through,) and as soon as she steps onto real Burton land, where the weirdos immediately pop up. It is is difficult to tell at first which are harmless and which are out to get her, being that most of them look equally freakish.

If I was her, I'd be exiting Johnny Depp's presence first. He is quite good as the Mad Hatter, but with disturbing make-up and a gap-toothed grin he seems to be trying to out do the grotesqueness of his gaunt Sweeney Todd. But this Depp has no razors, just a large hat that can teleport the wearer at will. He is, however, there to help, whereas the Red Queen (Bonham-Carter recreating the unpleasant and slightly psychotic manner of her Mrs. Lovett character) has not have pure intentions.

The fantasy world Burton creates is brilliant, though not of the same 'reach-out-and-touch-it' quality as Avatar. With it's pasty dark colors and bizarre animals, he doesn't seem to be going for the same realism that Cameron did. The royally strange features and dark hues give off the slight feeling of a surrealist painting on film.

Alice only seems moderately shocked by the change of climates, though she is puzzled by the Hatter's claim that it is her destiny to keep the place safe from the Red Queen, who has a grudge against her sister (Anne Hathaway.) Much of the film is dedicated to Burton's creations- two morbidly obese, ball-shaped brothers, a dodo bird, and a contrary mouse who wields a sword like Desperaux with a edge.

Mia Wasikowska starts out mildly likable if stoic and distanced, looking perpetually wide-eyed at the situation around her. She warms up about halfway through, and ends up a pretty convincing heroine. Bill has an amusing but terrifically one-note role, which seems to be all that Burton needs. The biggest disappointment is Anne Hathaway, who is usually vivid. Here she is so incredibly bland as to make me wish she was putting a Bonham Carter dose of zest into the role.

At one scene, The Red Queen accuses the White Queen of 'batting her eyes and getting all the love from Mummy and Daddy.' The same could be said of Hathaway- she blinks meaninglessly, delivers a couple of waifish lines- that's about it. I was thinking how much she could have put into it- The Red Queen was sadistic, fittingly weird, and even sad, as if Helena was doing a lot- The White Queen is simply shallow and dull.

A lot of the characters, especially the fantasy ones, were great to watch- I couldn't help but like the completely self-serving, creepy-smiled cat with a hat complex, voiced by Stephen Fry- he popped in and out regarding others' crises smugly, and stole just about every scene he was in. I must admit I quite like talking dogs, if they are done right- I never even recognized the usually-slimy Timothy Spall voicing a sad-eyed basset hound unwillingly associated with the Red Queen.
At times this movie wallows in it's own weirdness and becomes willfully incoherent to a fault- Johnny Depp's dance, while undeniably amusing, appears to have come out of Left field as an inexplicable ending to a climactic battle scene. At it's best (my favorite was the scene where Alice mutters the six impossible things before breakfast to herself while fighting the Jabberwocky,) it is morbidly enchanting. Over all, it is unabashedly, unashamedly Burton. Which is great with me, but I think Disney has some explaining to do (Rated PG!?)