Reviews by JxSxPx

While never truly a great show, The Nanny turned The Sound of Music-like premise on its head and added a deliciously tacky Queens, New York sheen. Much of the show was rooted in the fact that Fran Fine was a Jewish American princess was dropped into a world of emotionally restrained and stiff-upper-lipped WASPs and English blue bloods. We all knew that it was only a matter of time before Fran and her boss ended up together, the kids would eventually love her and think of her as their mother, and so on and so forth. But The Nanny was designed as comfort food, like most sitcoms.

One’s tolerance for the show depends entirely on how one takes to Fran Drescher. I find her I Love Lucy-esque antics to be endearing, her nasal whine to be a bit of character in an otherwise bland setting, and her personality to be lovably goofy, tacky and flashy. She’s essentially playing a fictionalized version of herself, but there’s enough of a character there to say that she truly sparkles in the role. And why shouldn’t see? She created, wrote and executive produced the show.

The Nanny isn’t just a one woman show, and towards the end of the run the title becomes a misnomer as more and more episodes deal less and less with the concept of the show and more with Fran becoming a wife and nouveau riche. It has a fantastic ensemble to always perform each of their parts perfectly and bring a unique chemistry to the series. Although why Renee Taylor, Ann Guilbert and Rachel Chagall were considered guest stars when they appear constantly throughout the show is anyone’s guess.

Say what you want about Steven Spielberg as an artist and director, but as maker of grand entertainments there’s currently no one who can compare. Whether he’s aiming for prestige, like he is here, or going for full-on fun-ride, like [Link removed - login to see], Spielberg is a master of simple stories and many people’s first introduction to the greatest artists of film through his homages. And War Horse is a technically well-made, beautiful looking film that tells a sentimental and lovely story. And that’s about all it is.

War Horse tells the story of World War I through the journey of Joey, an English horse, as he travels from one side of the conflict to another. An eclectic assortment of international actors deliver universally strong performances, but very few of them manage to make a lasting impression since they’re all tasked with essaying a quick character sketch before we move along. Just the main family (Peter Mullan, Emily Watson, and model-pretty Jeremy Irvine) shows up for longer than a prolonged cameo. This proves problematic since we can never connect with a character long enough to actually care about what happens to any of them. But it all looks so pretty. The cinematography is awash in color in a way that hasn’t been seen since movies like The Red Shoes and Johnny Guitar. But John Williams’ score is a bombastic thing that clubs you over the head with its ponderous emotionality. This sentimental streak will either leave you a crying mess or, like me, you’ll feel slightly manipulated and wildly indifferent to the whole spectacle. The Adventures of Tintin was the better of the two Spielberg films this year, but War Horse is worth a look as long as you don’t expect too much from it.

The Adventures of Tintin, rightly, reminded me immensely of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Of course, Raiders owed a tremendous debt to Herge’s comic strip so it only makes perfect sense that they possess a similar tone and propulsive narrative that never stops for a moment. It was possibly the most fun I had during a movie throughout all of 2011.

The story, like it really matters, relies upon a loose but intriguing mystery surrounding family secrets and random artifacts. But the plot in a film like this doesn’t matter much, and it knows to play second fiddle to the action, spectacle and gee-whiz sense of fun and adventure.

Leave it to director Steven Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson to pull in a pedigree cast for a motion-capture animated film. Jamie Bell is utter perfection as the titular hero, a potent combination of grown-up adventurer and little-boy precociousness. He’s also smart, inquisitive and appears to lack that nagging voice in the back of your head that says, “This is a bad idea.” Daniel Craig delivers a deliciously droll and malicious performance as the heavy, while Nick Frost and Simon Pegg turn up and do a befuddled and scatterbrained cop-buddy duo. But the best performance, which is no turn surprise since he is the Lon Chaney of this type of filmmaking, belongs to Andy Serkis as the perma-drunk Haddock.

And since this is animation, by and large, Spielberg’s imagination has been allowed to explode into set pieces that are ridiculous, awe-inspiring, wildly entertaining, and sometimes all of these things at once. Although, the final battle between Haddock and Craig’s Rackham using cranes as swords leaps directly into over-the-top hysterics. Sure, it’s entertaining, but unlike the section which sees our main characters trying to pilot a crashing plane through a storm and into a desert, it doesn’t have any weight.

It’s the child-like innocence and sense of fun, something missing greatly from today’s film-making, that truly inspires awe. Sure, Spielberg has made a career out of making very grand and proficient entertainments, but when someone gets this far into a career no one really expects them to live up to their glory days. We just expect something solid, and hopefully good. The Adventures of Tintin echoes the days of Raiders and Jaws.

However did Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman get the funding to make this film? It eschews so many of the conventional narrative tricks for character studies like this, namely our main character doesn’t appear to change much by the end. We’re stuck with a dark, sour, alcoholic woman whose personal highlights are behind her, and who has crystallized her power-bitch prom-queen persona into a frightening psyche. It’s not that Mavis is a terrible person that makes the film’s existence so shocking, but it’s how nonjudgmental about her character it all is.

In a more just year, Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt would have gotten Oscar nominations for their brave, ferocious and comedic work in this film. The flimsy concept that Young Adult rests its story structure upon makes the screenplay fall slave to it, but the performances manage to rise above and inject a true vitality to the material. Theron’s daily beautification after a night of binge drinking and not-cute-anymore party-going is fascinating to watch. Her commitment to looking rode hard and put away wet is great, especially since she never seems to have any boundary issues with her character’s reprehensible nature. Oswalt on the other hand has turned his chubby geek persona and minded it for depth of feeling. We view Mavis’ poor judgment and steely-eyed sociopathic behavior through him, and he never flinches in calling her on her bullshit. A scene late in the film in which he explains the day he was beaten badly in high school is shocking for both how well Oswalt performs it as dramatic actor, and how moving his inner anguish is shown onscreen.

Mavis’ last novel in a young adult book series is a cringe-inducing story-within-a-story device never gels with the rest of the film. It’s clear that this projected fantasy is how Mavis views herself and others as the story progresses, but it’s too clichéd for how daringly original the rest of the film is. Young Adult is a movie with a charred black heart at its center, and anytime it deviates from this it suffers. But Theron’s statuesque bitch and Oswalt’s handicapped angry nerd/Jiminy Crickett make the whole thing worth watching.

I have no proof otherwise, but I have a sneaking suspicion about Carnage as a work of theater: it plays better onstage than it does as a film. Why? Because if we’re trapped inside a theater as it plays out in front of us, we’re being made complicit in the actions and arguments. And there’s a certain energy involved in live theater that can’t be replicated in film. But Polanski turns in a very smooth and fine film. The wraparound segments featuring the two boys involved in the fight showcases that much of the fighting is about something very superficial, if anything had been slightly different maybe the families would have been reversed. And he is blessed with an absolutely stellar cast that in any other year would have been nominated all around at the Oscars. Kate Winslet and Jodie Foster in particular deliver typically fantastic performances. Considering everyone involved, it could have been better, but what is here is pretty damn good.

The Descendants has no moment that you can’t predict coming up soon, but that matters very little in the grand scheme of things. When something is so well-written, acted, directed, and put together you can easily forgive the fact that you know exactly how it will all end. As it moves along to the resolutions we know are coming it strikes some unique tones and creates true moments filled with humor and the messiness of life. It’s a film in which the stages of grief are acted out as they happen.

As his wife lies dying in a hospital bed, a man must step up and become a parent again after years of leaving that duty to his wife. On top of that, he’s been named trustee to his family’s large land-inheritance on the Hawaiian Islands. To further complicated the matters are the cousins who are positioning for a sale of the land that will make everyone rich(er), a discovery that his wife was carrying on an affair right before her accident, and trying to become a parent when your kids are now teenagers.

I loved that The Descendants wasn’t rushing through any of these plot strands, but instead let them flow and ebb naturally and coming crashing in together in moments of serendipity and the unpredictable nature that life so awkwardly takes on much of the time. You see, his emotional reactions to one sub-plot are directly affected by all of the rest. The film shows you how grief takes on many forms and emotional colors, and how it can make you laugh at something when you’d normally cry, and vice versa.

At the heart of the film rests the central performances from George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller and Nick Krause. Woodley and Miller play the two teenage daughers, Krause is Woodley’s well…it’s hard to define. He’s clearly her best friend, but if there’s something more going on between the two of them it wouldn’t surprise, but it was never spelled out. And Clooney is, of course, our main character. That the film never asks us to like Clooney is great, because who else in Hollywood is more likable or beloved? His character’s flaws are put on prominent display from the very beginning, and he is aware of them. Throughout the film we watch as he tries to change and become more involved in his life, but change is a long and slow process. That’s not to say that we don’t observe some, but we don’t observe as much as other films would allow us to view. And Woodley as the eldest daughter is an absolute knockout. I was rooting for her to get an Oscar nomination, but it never came to pass. She is so natural in front of the camera; there is never a moment of artifice or awareness of its presence. A solid group of character actors lend their support, with Robert Forster and Judy Greer delivering some very impressive, award worthy work in relatively short amount of screen time.

And by the end, as the core family unit goes out onto the water to spread the ashes and some flowers into the waves, I felt the same catharsis that the main characters must have. Truly, one of the best pictures of 2011. But I think I forgot to mention that much of it is actually very funny. Just like Payne’s other films like Election or Sideways.

Having never seen the original Swedish trilogy, I can’t compare the two films. And having never read the books, I tried but found it to be incredibly dry for the brief page count I made it through, I can’t say how it compares either. In fact, the source material has never had much of an interest for me. I only saw this because I’m such a fan of David Fincher. And he delivers a solid film, but it’s by no means perfect and it feels strangely beneath his immense talents.

I won’t repeat the plot, which by now everyone should be at least vaguely familiar with, so instead I’d like to focus in on the technical aspects of the film. The film opens with a powerful bang that the rest of the film never quite matches. I’m, of course, talking about the opening title sequence in which the entirety of the trilogy’s technological and psycho-sexual complexities are enacted over an avant-garde cover of “Immigrant Song.” As oil drenched versions of our two main characters morph, violent tear each other apart, or have computer wires wrap them up like poisonous vines, everything we need to know about this pulpy series is played out before our eyes. The rest of the film feels almost unnecessary by comparison.

And, as with [Link removed - login to see], Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross deliver an electronic score which goes back and forth from icy, remote textures that recall that darkest of the New Romantics as envisioned by modern day technology, and a more Industrial Rock sound that wouldn’t seem out-of-place on a Nine Inch Nails record. I hope, should they make the other two films, they’ll come back and expand on the soundscapes that have been created thus far for the franchise.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is blessed with a remarkable cast from top to bottom. Daniel Craig does a variation of his James Bond performance, but instead of being wildly competent and a real user of women, he turns that archetype upside down and creates a portrait of man who is a bit of a womanizer but is also very bruised, emasculated and dependent upon the help of others. Christopher Plummer, always a welcome sight, Joely Richardson and Stellan Skarsgard are given juicy and prominent supporting roles and turn out fantastic performances.

The rest of the cast is uniformly strong if without making a lasting impression. But Rooney Mara as Lisbeth, the main role and much like Scarlet O’Hara a coveted woman’s role for the ages, is something of a revelation. Sure her accent is wobbly and a bit of a mess, but she is fearless in her performance. When decked out in full-on Goth/Punk mode she is a spectre of techno-geek gone horribly wrong. And like how Travis Bickle wore his Mohawk as a suit of armor, so too does Mara. Her performance isn’t perfect, it’s frayed around the edges, but it’s a great leading role for new starlet.

It’s a beautifully done film from a technical standpoint, and I normally don’t mind slowly moving, cerebral-minded films, but there was something about Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy that almost put me to sleep multiple times. I left the theater thinking of it as very expensive Ambien, although nowhere near as bad as [Link removed - login to see], which was much shorter and felt far more laborious to get through.

I will say this about it, while I couldn’t get into the film’s particular groove, I did appreciate all of the technical aspects about it. The cinematography is absolutely stunning. The de-saturated colors give the film an anemic, withdrawn, and carefully modulated tone, which is utterly appropriate for the material. Hair and makeup are expertly done. Mark Strong’s balding comb-over looks incredibly convincing, and Tom Hardy’s frosted and feathered blonde hair makes him look like all of those 70s-era boy toy pin-ups. The costumes are incredibly accurate to the time period and add to the overall impression. And each of the performances are carefully controlled, but are still fine examples of pyrotechnic acting. Gary Oldman, who in any other year would have been the frontrunner for the Oscar, in particular is just incredible. The way he uses his glasses as shields from everything, the way that he tries to blend himself into the wall, it’s all so perfectly chosen for a character who requires anonymity and the ability to blend in to effectively get the job done.

Perhaps it’s the way that the plot slowly unfolds, but if you use the old theory that the biggest named guest star in a TV show is inevitably the killer, then figuring out the grand mystery at the heart of the film doesn’t take much work. Or maybe I just wasn’t in the mood for a meditative spy film. Or maybe I hyped myself up too much and the film couldn’t live up to the promise in my head. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is very good, but also incredibly dull. Maybe a second look will change my mind, but it will be a while before I come back around to it.

I maintain that Meryl Streep should not have been given an Academy Award nomination for The Iron Lady. How dare I! And I would tend to agree. Streep never turns in a half-assed or bad performance, and her technique is beyond words. And, yes, she is a paragon, a veritable living monument to what great acting can be, should be, and is. But the film fails to completely use her as a resource. Granted, she does wear the old age makeup wonderfully and acts through it (think of a movie like J. Edgar which featured actors caked in bad makeup unable to project through it), and she does project a steeliness and adopts a perfect accent. But I always felt like it was a great bit of mimicry, and not that impressive a piece of acting. This has to do with the script.

The script trots out her cabinet members, children, (deceased) husband, and other various members in her life and flashbacks when convenient to move the narrative forward. I couldn’t distinguish one member of her inner-circle from the other. Names, if they were mentioned at all, don’t register because no one is ever developed beyond the briefest and quickest of sketches. Especially egregious is the treatment of her family members. Her daughter drops in early on to take care of the elderly Thatcher, and promptly disappears for long stretches throughout the rest of the movie. And, worse still, Jim Broadbent, a fantastic actor, is given practically nothing to work with as the specter of Thatcher’s husband, Denis. His character is not consistently written, and some of that could be attributed to the fact that he’s mostly viewed as a ghostly presence to torture Thatcher in her old age and prompt her flashbacks.

Perhaps if the film had taken a point-of-view on Thatcher, good, bad, or otherwise, or had a more overall message to deliver about her and her life, it would have been immensely better. As is, Thatcher seems to have sprung up fully formed and to have never changed or grown as an individual. Her questionable policies and decisions are only briefly touched upon. It’s like a Cliff Notes version of a current politician who deserves a longer, more fully developed treatment. But Streep has made a point lately of working with directors, and a few projects, well below her talent-level. The Iron Lady was directed by the same woman who did Mamma Mia!, that should be all you need to know.

Imagine a moving Caravaggio painting pumped full of the LSD-like drawings of a hyperactive gore-obsessed Greek mythology major, who may or may not be a homosexual male. That gets us somewhere within the ballpark of Immortals, Tarsem's latest fairy-tale inspired fever dream of a film in which Greek myths get dramatically restructured and re-envisioned. (I spent a good deal of time trying to remember how many of the story beats and the myth of Theseus went together, turns out they don't. What is here is like three-in-one, with a small dash of this-and-that.)

The plot is truly secondary to the gorgeous visual palette of the film, the highly stylized sets, and the faintly ridiculous costumes. The Greek gods and goddesses in this film are forced to wear some of the most bizarre headgear that I'm not unconvinced wasn't a joke on the costume designer's part. But since the costume designer is Eiko Ishioka, and is amongst my favorite all-time costume designers, I let it slide knowing that she was probably given free reign to go nuts. And go nuts she did. I would love to see Tarsem tackle an actual monster, creature, or some kind of fantasy makeup, but here we're given a Minotaur that's actually a man in a barbed wire helmet. It's an exquisite piece of craftsmanship and design. As are the Indian inspired wraps, robes, gowns, and headdresses that the oracle and her ladies wear throughout the film.

This highly crafted, impeccably designed production aspect of the film carries over in the cinematography. Everything in this film is bathed in a golden hue which adds to the mythic (and highly improbable) element by distancing us from reality to a greater degree. Sure it's an exercise in style, but so few films dare to play with colors in a unique way that this feels like a leap-forward for stylized action-adventure films. Enough of that shaky cam bullshit, give me grand vistas swathed in color and played up on a deliciously operatic scale. The very frequent and very bloody and graphic fight scenes play out like some kind of ballet of blood, intestines, and viscera thanks to the excessive style of the film.

And that final shot looks like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel being blown into the heavens as various figures battle in a way that almost looks like an intricate dance. No, it's not perfect. Nor is it even a very good movie, but it dares to be something strange, wonderful, and different. For that, I give it a tremendous amount of respect. Truly, Tarsem has taken classical art, avant-garde fashions, and a fairy tale-like eye for both whimsy and violence and made a series of three films that dare to be unique and individual. He may be more obsessed with expressing the hypnotic and imaginative visions in his head than in crafting a narrative, but in a medium that relies so heavily on images, I forgive him for the latter.