Reviews by JxSxPx

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau are, in my opinion, one of the greatest comedic duos of all-time. Lemmon’s mania, neurosis and jitteriness is offset by the crusty, cranky and endearing Matthau in The Odd Couple. The Odd Couple offers up two great performances from two of my favorite funny men, who were not so secretly very versatile and could play practically anything. It never quite overcomes it’s stage origins, and it seems bound to recreating the conventions, sets and staging of its theatrical run. It’s not a bad adaptation by any means, but it never reaches the glorious heights of, say, A Streetcar Named Desire which moved past its stage origins to become a great film.

The story concerns two men going through a second bachelorhood. Matthau has been divorced for quite some time, and Lemmon is just starting the process. Lemmon’s character is not one who can deal with fluctuations in his personal life, or much of anything really. Fearing for his mental health and general well-being, his friends decide that the best possible course of action would be for him to move in with Matthau. Naturally, hilarity ensues. Like when the two British girls who live upstairs come down for drinks and swinging good time, in theory. Or when they go out to a diner and Lemmon insists on clearing his sinuses. Lemmon and Matthau give it their all, and they must be commended for their great performances.

El Cid is probably the most unique of the Old Hollywood Epics. Or, should I say EPICS. They truly don’t make movies like this anymore, except for maybe The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Nothing comes as close to the sweeping and grandiose nature of these old films. But what makes El Cid so unique? It seems more intelligent, more concerned with the larger moral canvass on display. This is not a Biblical epic filled to the brim with walk-on star cameos and hilariously miscast leads. This is a true story turned into a myth, a grand feat of super heroics. This is the kind of movie that only Charlton Heston could star in.

And so he does. He plays the titular historic figure with his square jaw, masculine bravado and moral certitude, the same thing qualities that he brought to Ben-Hur and countless other epics. Yes, Heston was not the most introspective of actors, but he was asked to play superheroes, not real people. He was asked to play variations on supermen who could seemingly do anything, lead his people anywhere, defeat anyone. That quality is necessary for making these epics work. Besides Sophia Loren, he is the only real movie star to speak of in this epic. Which works to El Cid’s credit. And Sophia Loren portrays his wife, another character who is not a character so much as an archetype. To complain that she doesn’t delve into much depth is too miss the point. Two Women, Marriage Italian Style and Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow proved that she could act and delve deep for drama or comedy. She hasn’t been asked to do that her. She needs to look glamorous and portray the necessary points in her arch.

El Cid is not a perfect film though. There’s enough story to fill out the entire running time, but for some reason it loses steam and begins to feel very long during the second half. The first two hours flew by and kept my interest throughout. The court intrigue and escalating power struggle were consistently moving along at a brisk pace. Then I had to switch to the second disc and the momentum seemed to die off. Why? This is the section that makes good on the promises of war and political shakeups. I always knew where it was going, and this was my first time viewing the film, but that hadn’t bothered my previously. It was that the war is too brief, the sections with the peasants too long and the subplot with the royal children too invasive. I was always more interested in Heston and Loren. During the second half El Cid too often deviates away from the star power that kept me so enthralled during the first half. It is still worth a look and one of the better epics to come out of the era.

The harsh landscape of Cool Hand Luke works effectively to show us the psychological state of the characters. There is something almost Biblical, or, at the very least, Shakespearean, about Luke’s wanderings and sufferings, his willingness to damn it all and doom himself to martyrdom. From the very first scenes of his drunkenly destroying public property, for what purpose? even he can’t say, to the final scenes of his tormented and pleading cries to be left alone in the chuch, Cool Hand Luke is a great film that shows us someone who so totally inhabits the anti-hero persona that we, much like the characters, begin to idolize and martyr him before all is said and done.

Only Paul Newman could have ever played this role. Yes, he was a great movie star. But he was so effortless and wonderfully present as an actor. He was not a showboat Method actor like, say, Marlon Brando in some of his clumsier movies like Sayonara. He was an interior actor. By seeming to do very little on the outside, he was actually doing a lot on the inside. I can pinpoint in the film when Luke changes tracks from good-natured rabble rouser to Messiac anti-hero driven to his own destruction by his sense of purpose. What is this scene I speak of? The quiet and tender scene between Luke and his dying mother (Jo Van Fleet), in which Newman reveals to us a lot of his character’s angst, genteel nature and that smile of his. That winkle in his perfectly colored blue eyes. Luke wasn’t the only cool hand, Newman’s tremendous gifts make this movie great. Any other actor in the role and it wouldn’t have worked. I still don’t grasp how Newman won his Oscar for The Color of Money and not for this. Ration that one up to an apologia Oscar.

It’s not totally Newman’s one-man-show that makes the movie work. The performances of the inmates do their fair share. Especially George Kennedy as Dragline, the biggest, baddest man in the camp who’s vaguely-homosexual leanings for Luke helps to continue his myth, Dragline's gospel throughout the film. Jo Van Fleet has one scene, but her performance and that scene stick with you after the end. Dennis Hopper and Harry Dean Stanton also spring to my mind in small roles as inmates. Hopper being a simpleton and Stanton being another bruised and brooding inmate.

And yet, I haven’t described much in the way of plot. I feel like everyone knows the basic storyline for Cool Hand Luke. Luke drunkenly cuts off the tops of parking meters, gets sent to a prison work camp, meets the 50 other inmates and becomes their mythological hero. Luke constantly takes beatings from others – inmates and guards have their shot at him, so do the elements – but gets up each and every time. He is charming and damned with something hanging over his head. It is no wonder that they’ve placed their hopes and dreams upon him, that they have chosen him to idolize. Yet I always knew Luke was damned. No character this charming, handsome and possessed with a cause could possibly make it out of this world alive.

I liked The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, but I never really loved it. I wanted to, but there was something keeping me from totally embracing the film. It wasn’t just the specter of Heath Ledger’s death creeping in around the edges, it went far deeper than that. Perhaps it was that there wasn’t enough story for the runtime. Terry Gilliam has always favored starting with the kitchen sink and then branching out which leaves his films which an all-over-the-place quality. It works in Brazil, but it doesn’t entirely work here. Sequences drag on and on, Jude Law’s foray into the psychedelic fever-dream world comes to mind instantly, and some are just perfect, Mr. Nick’s numerous meetings with Parnassus.

It is modern era London, I think…maybe, and Dr. Parnassus’ traveling sideshow, or whatever you want to call it, is stuck in a time warp for the modern times. Dr. Parnassus was once a monk who foolishly decided to make a bet with the devil in exchange for immortality. And so begins a life long exchange between the two of them. Parnassus is a few crayons short of a full box, an utter drunk and never seems to learn that there’s no way to beat the devil, dubbed Mr. Nick and deliciously played by Tom Waits, at his own schemes. Christopher Plummer is obviously having a grand time playing this boozy carnival relic. So did I watching him. In comes Tony, played by Ledger and first glimpsed swinging from a rope and believed to be dead. And so begin the problems with the film. Once Ledger enters, his haunted presence is never far from your mind, especially with a character introduction like that. Ledger gives it his all, as always, and I still respect him for ignoring the traditional route that an actor blessed with his charm, charisma and roguish good looks could have gone. His performances is a twitchy, mumbled, neurotic enjoyable thing.

The forays into the imaginarium are blissfully candy-colored and wondrously put together. Jude Law’s segment might go on a bit too long and feature too much that could have been cut (that chorus line of half dragged out policemen pops into my head immediately), but Johnny Depp’s fantasia segment is a thing of beauty to behold. I just wish that Ledger had lived long enough to finish this movie out. No amount of special effects with fix that Colin Farrell shouldn’t have been the actor for that segment, although he does a great job with the role. It’s not emotionally satisfying enough seeing someone else in the big reveal and retribution moments. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot of fun and it’s definitely worth a trip through the imagination.

Finding Nemo is a work of sublime and perfect popular art. I could watch the movie on mute and feel every emotion just as strongly as I do with the dialogue and vocal performances in place. The animation is that detail oriented and precise. There is not a color wasted or a place where total commitment and artistic quality isn’t in place.

But unlike so many modern animated films, Finding Nemo does not confuse a dumbed down sense of pop culture ADHD for humor and heart. Instead, it builds up memorable characters, situations and pieces of dialogue and makes us care about them. I haven’t cared this much about animated marine life since I was two-years-old and watching The Little Mermaid for the first time.

By now the story should be known to everyone: Marlin, voiced to neurotic perfection by Albert Brooks, is an overprotective father to Nemo, a plucky and stubborn little fish. Nemo gets kidnapped by a dentist in hopes of becoming a future present for his niece, and Marlin goes on a heroic quest to save his son and return him to their beloved home. Along the way they meet all sorts of hilarious new friends, the most beloved and well-known being Dory, voiced by Ellen DeGeneres so adorably that she managed to resurrect her career. I love Dory as much as everyone else, but I also have a fond spot for Crush, Squirt and the crab that does kung-fu to the seagulls. It is to the writers, artists and directors of the entire Pixar staff that in practically every movie there is a brief character that does something funny that stays with me long after I have seen it. And I always look forward to that brief few seconds of their screen time each time I view the film.

Animation is unfairly written off as children's entertainment, but Pixar knows that a great piece of entertainment should hit at multiple ages and audiences. I love nearly every one of their films (I can’t stand Cars, but I know people who do). And the brilliant thing about their filmography is that everybody can have a different favorite. Finding Nemo isn’t my absolute favorite, but it ranks very high. I always want to sit as close to the screen as possible on as large a screen as possible and immerse myself completely in the undersea world they have created. It is just that beautiful.

The Incredibles looks like a Jack Kirby comic strip given three dimensional life and scope. It also comes equipped with a fantastic story, great characters and an emotional core with which we could respond and identify. The opening sequence, in which we see Mr. Incredible, Elasti-Girl and Frozone in their prime dashing about town and saving the denizens of whatever city it is that they live in, screams out its influence in 60s-era Marvel Comics, specifically Fantastic Four's goofy whimsy and action-packed familial ethos. And then it borrows a plot twist from Watchmen and creates something totally unique and original from it all. Pixar has, once more, gone beyond its influences to create something special.

Superheroes have been outlawed after Mr. Incredible stopped a man from committing suicide by jumping off of a building. He seeks damages and sues Mr. Incredible, which leads to a total governmental policy change: they’re outlawed and relocated. That’s the Watchmen influence. Now our superheroic family, Bob and Helen Parr plus their children, are living in the humdrum suburbs. It all looks a little bit like Burbank, but the suburbs look the same everywhere, no? And that focus on the family is what makes The Incredibles such a markedly different story from…say, Monster’s, Inc., this is Pixar at its most mature in tone. I know that kids loved it, but I know more adults that love this one the most. Halfway through seeing it in theaters I knew that this was going to be my favorite Pixar film, and so far it still is. (Although Monster’s, Inc. and the Toy Story trilogy are often close behind.)

Bob Parr, stuck at a job selling insurance in which he looks comically too large to be in that cubicle, welcomes a chance to be a superhero once again. In comes Mirage, a mysterious woman with a job proposition. And so begins the action/adventure portion of the story. But here’s the genius move by writer-director Brad Bird, he never drops the human element and the story always takes center stage over the visual pyrotechnics. I cared about Dash and Violet just as much as their parents. It’s also a genius move to give a depressed teenager the ability to disappear, something I bet we all wished for during those years, and the hyperactive, precocious little boy the ability to run really fast.

But let’s discuss those visual pyrotechnics. I described the film as being a moving Jack Kirby comic strip, and so it is, but there’s also the imprint of Fleischer’s Superman animated shorts on the film. Look at those Omnidroids and tell me you don’t see the resemblance to the Superman short “The Mechanical Monsters,” in which a mad man used his robotic workers to cause destruction and chaos.

And the sheer scope of the film is a thing of beauty. Not only do we see the suburbs and the city, but a tropical island fortress, take a journey under the sea, visit the ultra-modern mansion/studio of Edna Mode, to name but a few. The Bond franchise has nothing on this film.

Yet gorgeous animation is only half the battle in creating a believable character that we root for in a film like this. They need a voice to bring the personality and character to life, The Incredibles nails this aspect in every role, no matter how major or minor. Craig T. Nelson’s take on Mr. Incredible has the cocksure bravado necessary for the character at the beginning, then transitions into a more somber and wistful tone as he is forced into domesticity and giving up the heroics. Holly Hunter is all fire, sass, maternal love and warmth as Elasti-Girl. Samuel L. Jackson’s Frozone alternates between suave superhero and fraught married man, not to mention that the animators have clearly taken numerous facial tics from Jackson and transposed them into his character. Sarah Vowell and Spencer Fox complete the Incredibles as a family/superhero unit, portraying the chronically shy and self-conscious Violet and hyperkinetic and attention-seeking Dash. Elizabeth Peña’s sultry voice makes the character of Mirage, so mysterious and given too little development and screen time, a bigger bang. I walked away wanting to know more about Mirage thanks to Peña’s exactly vocal performance.

Yet it’s Brad Bird, the visionary behind the entire film, voicing Edna Mode, a scene-stealer character regardless, that walks away with the vast majority of memorable scenes and quotes. Bird gives her a cracked out energy, like Anna Wintour unleashing her megalomaniac id all over a Marvel Comics issue from the Stan Lee-Jack Kirby days. But don’t count out Jason Lee as the film’s villain Syndrome, a child who idolized Mr. Incredible but grew up jealous at the fact that he was merely adequate and normal instead of powered like his idol. His fantasy and plan to enact a new order in which he is the lone “incredible” by killing off various retired heroes and building a better killing machine that he controls feel straight from the mind of Alan Moore. And Lee’s twisted energy really sells the villain, creating a portrait of twisted ethics and the madness brought on by seeking to be something more than you are.

The Incredibles remains the greatest film version of the Fantastic Four in a roundabout way. And it's a towering achievement in Pixar’s catalog in terms of emotional and visual scope. If any film in their catalog seemed primed and open for a sequel, it would be this one. I still await it as Pixar churns out terrible cash-grabs (Cars 2), an emotionally devastating and resonant franchise closer (Toy Story 3) and a humorous but predictable prequel (Monster's University). Will we ever get Incredibles 2? At this point, it seems like it's best to just leave this one alone as a bright, shining, standard-bearer of the studio operating at its highest level.

Absolutely essential listening if you want the entire Specials story in one package. Every delicious piece of punk-fueled reggae is here and accounted for. From their first single, (“Gangsters”) to their most well-known hits (“A Message to You Rudy,” “Ghost Town”), there’s even a few rarities (“Maggie’s Farm”), live takes (“Too Much Too Young”) and B-sides (“Friday Night, Saturday Morning”) thrown in for good measure.

To hear it told through their three original albums, and in this condensed singles collection, the Specials had as much political fury as the Clash. Well, it’s true, they did. “Ghost Town” and “Stereotype” remain angry, spiked comments on then-current England’s economic and social states. But, they also knew how to thrown a good time while delivering their messages. “Too Much Too Young” goes by at a breakneck speed in the live version included here. “Rude Boys Outta Jail” shows that they knew how to transfer that kinetic energy from their live shows into the studio and eventually onto vinyl. My only complaint, and it is very minor, is that I would have replaced one of the songs. I find “Nelson Mandela”’s hyperkinetic, frankly – annoying, pop to be the wrong note to end the set on. I would have chosen something like “Bright Lights” or “Girlfriend” to help close the album and move “Racist Friend” to the end. But “Nelson Mandela” is a better known single, so I understand why it was chosen. It is a minor quibble, really.

The Singles Collection does what any greatest hits should do: presents an access point for the curious, a chronological overview of their entire catalogue and gives the die-hard fans reasons to seek it out. Their debut album remains the essential document of the 2-Tone records explosion, but this is a close contender for that title. DOWNLOAD: “Gangsters,” “Ghost Town,” “Friday Night, Saturday Morning”

I have seen Avatar numerous times, but it was not always named as such. It has been called Disney’s Pocahontas and Fern Gully, it has also gone by The Last Samurai, Dances With Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans. Avatar is the latest in a far too long line of “white guilt” movies which see our intrepid hero assimilate himself into a minority race, act as their savior, help defeat his old allies and join with them in the end. In this one, he can literally assimilate himself as a walking/talking faux-Native American…I mean Na’vi.

Wasn’t this supposed to revolutionize the way people thought of films? I guess coming up with a great storyline to go along with the visual was too much to ask for the same man who brought us some of the greatest science-fiction/action epics of recent years. Was asking for non-cringe inducing dialogue too much to ask? I would assume so given how badly scripted Titanic was. Long gone are the quotable in a good way days of Terminator and Aliens. James Cameron is the new George Lucas!

The day-glo fantasia of Pandora at night is intruiging at first but inappropriately hilarious after a while. Why trees light up where they step ala Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” music video is anyone’s guess. And the animals are phenomenal creations, even if evolutionarily speaking they get shaky. A lot of time and thought was put into the look of the film, if only more time was put into the script.

Our villains have no dimension, memorable character traits or anything distinctive from one another. They’re like Snidely Whiplash to Jake Sully’s Dudley Do-Right. If they had tied up Zoe Saldana’s character to the train tracks at some point and twirled their mustache I probably wouldn’t have batted an eye. For that matter there’s nothing distinctive about Jake Sully besides being a parapallegic. Which is an interesting twist, but little is done with it since so much of the film is with the avatars. I probably shouldn’t have laughed so hard when Jake and Netriyi held each other at the end, but seeing a large blue creature loving caress the tiny human was too outrageous and positively ridiculous for words. Unintentional laughter is my favorite kind.

Avatar is also two-and-half hours long. It feels like its five. Far too many indulgent sequences that could have been cut slow down the pace. Cameron needed some outside eyes to go over the script and give him some suggestions for improvement. Or, possibly, to just rewrite the damn thing and challenge him on some of his stupid decisions, such as the choice of “shock and awe” and “fighting terror with terror” as ham-fisted, subtle-free allusions to the present time. Pity they don’t hold water.

I didn’t hate Avatar completely. Visually it was quite pretty, even if I did get the I’m-playing-a-video-game-without-the-control feeling often. And I adored Sigourney Weaver, Joel David Moore and Zoe Saldana. But if I could have watched the film on mute I might have taken a huge sip of the kool-aid.

I wanted to love Nine, I really did. I wanted to sing its praises and talk about how wonderful the cast was across the board, about how much fun I had during the entire film, about how great the big production numbers were…I can say none of these things. Nine is a miss-fire with few redeeming qualities.

The story, as this flimsy thing could be questionably called, contains a director who has reached a creative roadblock and cannot complete his ninth film. Strange that he has such a rich and vibrant imaginary life. Every trick you can think of is thrown in for good measure. Want some black and white? You got it. Want some T&A girlie show? You got it. Want sparkles, glitter, sequins, go-go dancing and the kitchen sink? You have got that, too.

I never thought that I’d say this, but I have seen a bad Daniel Day-Lewis performance. The actor that can stand above the rest, except for, maybe, Meryl Streep, is fantastic in brooding and complicated roles. Here, he is too dour for Guido. Javier Bardem, the original choice, would have been far better. There needs to be a breezy, slightly care-free artifice, a gigolo with mommy issues, and Day-Lewis is far too dark, sour and interior for that. He’s also not much of a song and dance man.

But this is, mostly, a spotlight for some great female actors that plays out like the cinematic equivalent to one of those VH1 Divas specials. Each get their big moment (only one gets two, Marion Cotillard) and there’s a big group number at the beginning and another at the very end.

Dame Judi Dench is perfectly fine. There’s nothing terribly special about her performance, but she’s far too good for such a thinly plotted role. Sophia Loren and Nicole Kidman are nothing but glorified cameos given far-too brief screen time as hallucinations before finally being trotted out towards the end for their songs. Nicole Kidman’s song has terrible staging, but the straight-acting portion of it is wonderful. The muse gets to tell her director that she wants to play something other than a fantasy creature in human form. Sophia Loren, however, is utterly wasted in a thankless role. But it’s wonderful and sublime to see on her the big screen again. Fergie is neither awful nor terrific in her cameo role. She looks good with the extra weight she’s put on, but her breasts are immobile to the point of distraction while dancing or frolicking on the beach. She’s also not much of a singer, but she can blow. Her “Be Italian” sequence is probably the best in the entire film. The one moment in which Nine remembers that it is a musical and rallies itself for a show-stopper.

But two women that stand out the most are Penelope Cruz as the needy, desperate mistress, and Marion Cotillard as the long-suffering wife. Cotillard can tell an entire emotional story with a bat of her eyelashes or a curve of her neck or a twitch in her mouth. “Take It All” is another contender for best sequence. And Cruz steams things up in the sexy “Call From the Vatican,” another best-in-show contender. She gets to stretch her comedic acting muscles and provides ample amount of sass and heartbreak.

If they are the best, then, without a doubt, the worst is Kate Hudson. Her character is useless, shoe-horned for no effect or impact upon the story-line and forces upon us the worst song-and-dance number in a long time. “Cinema Italiano” praises the Neo-Realist Italian filmmakers for their flashy style but says nothing of their substance. The awful black and white footage and bad choreography are only the tip of the iceberg. Hudson has obviously not inherited any of her mother’s natural charm, comedic talent or ability to sing and dance. “Cinema Italiano” kills a film and is aggressively awful while the rest of the movie is just mediocre. Nine never recovers.

An Education tells the story of an innocent, slightly naïve sixteen-year-old, Jenny, who’s pretty and smart and desperately wants something that she is no way prepared to handle or deal with properly. But, truly, aren’t all teenagers like this? I know that I was.

Jenny meets David, the thirty-something who shall provide with the opportunities to see the things that she dreams of and experience her daydream fantasies, in a way that could be described as an almost-meet-cute. There’s something creepy about him from the onset, and it’s not just the age gap. There’s something in his eyes and behind the smile that seems too perfect to be true, too normal to really be sane, too well put together as sophisticated. The story tracks their relationship throughout its entire course, but he isn’t interested in just seducing Jenny, oh no, that would be too easy. He also goes about seducing the parents, who mean well but are, essential, wide-eyed country bumpkins to his smooth-talking cad.

Every performance in this film is a knockout. Carey Mulligan, who plays Jenny, needs to be put on the Oscar shortlist now. She does nothing showy or flashy, but creates a real-live person that you believe in. She feels like a real teenage girl from the moment she pops up on screen to the final few seconds, never once exhibiting an ounce of sweat or a break in character. But she wouldn’t have been able to play this so perfectly if Peter Sarsgaard’s David wasn’t played to perfection as well. He is. How Sarsgaard got lost in the awards shuffle this year is anyone’s guess, but he deserves to come in at the last second and steal a Best Actor slot from someone. Emma Thompson is wonderful as the quick-talking, acid-tongued headmistress of the school, and Olivia Williams de-glams to play a plain schoolmarm (she’s still rather fetching even with oily hair and huge glasses). But my favorite supporting performance would have to go to Rosamund Pike as the too-ditzy-for-words girlfriend of Dominic Cooper’s character. Normally cast as brainy-and-pretty roles, in which she seems right at home, she’s swimming upstream to play dumb and excels.

An Education reminds us that as teenager we may think we know what we want and how to obtain it, but once we’re handed it, it never works out the way we dreamed it would. Jenny gets to meet people who value art, but they value it as a status symbol and she loves it for aesthetic and personal reasons. She goes to France and has sex, but winds up wildly disappointed by something so brief. She falls for an older man, but quickly longs for the awkward and immature boys her own age. Gilded dreams abound.

To put it simply, An Education is extraordinary and positively delightful.