Two Lovers

TWO LOVERS is a brilliant film: a masterpiece by its director James Gray. Gray's images within the film are so eerie and textile, so evocative and persuasive of his vision, that I was lost within it, clamoring at all sides in order to make sense of it, or understand what I was looking at. Gray's spectral masterpiece stars Joaquin Phoenix in a brilliant role that I can only describe as a man living in our century but with the sentimentality of a cowboy. Phoenix appears as if he's sleeping while he's awake sometimes, and always plans out how he wants things to go. He sees his neighbor he has been interested in at the subway station. He pretends to look at a map while moving closer to her so that she will notice him. He's a strange man, quiet and introspective, but then at a nightclub he shines, and then returns to the vastness of the crowd. His lovable parents (Isabella Rossellini & Moni Moshonov) want him to be happy, and set up a practically arranged marriage with fellow dry cleaner owners. The daughter of the fellow dry cleaner owners is not boring though, which most films assign to the role in order to make us side heavily on one side. But Vinessa Shaw as the girl is extremely pretty, interesting, and pleasant. But Phoenix's character Leonard has been going after his neighbor who is into drugs and involved with a married man. She's played by Gwyneth Paltrow in one of her best roles: not showing us that, 'hey I'm Gwyneth Paltrow and let me show you my action side in IRON MAN 2'. Leonard is possibly suicidal, contradicts his nature at strange times, and plays opera music. Gray's images and subtext immerse Phoenix within the unique role, and the film is a wonder to behold.
Two Lovers: ★★★★

Strangers on a Train

The 1951 film, STRANGERS ON A TRAIN is quite the accomplishment. It features great acting, and Hitchcock's recognizably pleasing direction. It was co-written by Raymond Chandler, and is about two strangers, one a lazy psychopath, the other a tennis player, who meet on a train and plot to kill each other's annoyances. Robert Walker (the psychopath) and Farley Granger (the tennis player) are the two men, who talk of this prospect. It would be perfect. No one would suspect, and neither could be implicated in the other's crime. But when Granger leaves the train for his hometown, the idea leaves his head, as he was never actually serious about it. But the completely serious Walker goes through with the plot, and kills Granger's troublesome wife. This shocks Granger, and now Walker expects Granger to kill his father. Walker plays such a great character, fiddling around with Granger's lighter which could implicate him in the crime, going to tennis matches, and in the midst of the people looking back and forth stares straight ahead. Hitchcock uses his trademark obsession of items, showing us Walker while the camera sits beside the lighter, and obsessing over a certain style of glasses. STRANGERS ON A TRAIN is a damn good Hitchcock film.
Strangers on a Train: ★★★1/2

Rabbit Hole

RABBIT HOLE is a truly awful film. It deals with the aftermath of the death of a child. We learn about halfway through the film that the child ran out into the street after his dog, and was hit by a teenager who served to evade the dog, and hit the oncoming child. Aaron Eckhart and Nicole Kidman play the grieving parents. Eckhart is alright in the role, but Kidman frankly comes off as a bitch: taking out her anger on her family and friends and fellow grievers at group therapy, and then acts really nice to the kid who hit her child. She also sports a slight Boston accent every once in a while, which is so contrary to the mormon-esque poses that misled director John Cameron Mitchell employs. The film is so repetitive in its material, that it serves only as disaster porn. We get it, it's awful. We don't need to immerse ourselves in 90 minutes of pure mawkish depression. I love many depressing films like LEAVING LAS VEGAS to name the best example, but RABBIT HOLE is obnoxious in its approach. It tries to hint that it can be funny at inappropriate times, it sums up everything in a clichéd manner, and those who are supposed to be wise and profound come off as ditzy. The film deals with such a terrible event, its a shame it couldn't have given better credit to that subject. Instead it tries to make that event stylized. After all of these annoying aspects of the film are viewed as a whole, RABBIT HOLE exhibits itself to suck.
Rabbit Hole: ★

Snow Angels

SNOW ANGELS brings together the best of David Gordon Green, its director. Green is often poetic, often sepulchral, has great shots within his films, and stories about small people within vastness. It's probably his best film beside his debut film, GEORGE WASHINGTON. It's music is disturbingly tranquil, playing at all the wrong moments, and Green has every character except one say "I love you" and the person to whom its directed misses it. SNOW ANGELS is a sort of ensemble piece, which is its only weakness as that is too overused, and the film doesn't focus upon those who we want it to focus on. It concerns itself with a teenager (Michael Angarano), his old babysitter (Kate Beckinsale), and her husband (Sam Rockwell). Rockwell and Beckinsale are currently separated, and the only thing that keeps them together is their daughter Tara. The first hour of the film deals with the relationship between the husband and wife, and their various partners in happiness: whether that be sex, booze, or a dog. The story with Angarano is perhaps most fogettable in the first hour, and his presence is strange. But by the time we reach the second hour, and the story takes a horrific turn, the film is filmed with pathos, empathy, and depression. Green here is directing masterfully, allowing his actors to take over their scenes and share their energy, and forcing the camera off its subjects at perfect times. The music is great and reminiscent of FARGO, which was also about small town evils, and mixed with Green's directing, and the acting, the film only grows stronger in retrospect.
Snow Angels: ★★★★

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

The Lord of the Rings is an astounding trilogy. Aesthetically, they're masterpieces, but they also suffer from being self-important. This aspect is best exhibited by their length: no one needs to see a 10 hour long epic about the Lord of the Rings, that's geekdom. I watched the film over three days, and that was thrilling enough. To be overly critical, the films also use the same rocky backdrops too often, and otherwise, the art is pretty damn good. THE RETURN OF THE KING is a pretty thrilling film. It mostly wraps up what has happened before, and allows for hero Frodo (Elijah Wood) to destroy the evil ring of Sauron. However, people are apparently so stupid, that it becomes very hard for mankind to rally against the advancing ork armies of Sauron. So, we get an hour of that building up, and then an extremely good payoff in one of the most satisfying action sequences ever filmed. I especially enjoyed the two hobbits who were goofballs in the earlier films. Here, they bring a needed pathos that isn't as maudelin or grandiose as the rest of the film. THE RETURN OF THE KING is an excellent action/adventure film, filled with great acting, shots, and pace. Despite this, it is still pretty overrated, but that shouldn't take away from how good it is regardless.
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: ★★★1/2

Bigger, Stronger, Faster*

The documentary BIGGER, STRONGER, FASTER* suffers from the same major faults as many documentaries. 1) The narrator/filmmaker plays dumb, and never sheds any light on his own opinion, making himself seem stupid. 2) The film doesn't show as many not attackable facts as it should. The film deals with the use of steroids within sports, and is narrated/made by a guy who fits into the profile of someone who would have/ should have been using them. We watch as he watches and we see his older brother and his younger brother become vigorous "gym-rats" whose aspirations are ridiculous. They both use steroids, and the middle child Chris Bell, our narrator, is at odds for what to do, and what his stance towards steroids is. We watch as he makes the case that, as children, we are told that a certain body-type is what is okay, and how that was mostly manifested in the 80's movie stars like Hulk Hogan, Sylvester Stalone, and Arnold Schwartzeneger. The film, from that point on, engages in two depressing fashions. The first being that it is naiive about cheating and shows us the revelation that everyone in sports uses drugs, the second that it thinks we are that naiive. It has many nice scenes dealing with a hypocrisy in how we treat drugs, and that makes the film worthwhile. Otherwise, its just the true-life stories of a bunch of sad sacks who never learned that their dreams were unattainable. A decent film.
Bigger, Stronger, Faster*: ★★★

Scre4m

SCRE4M has a great first 15 minutes. You walk in expecting something stupid, it shows you a hint of that, and then turns everything upside down and pleasantly surprises you. You think, "Well, shit, they still got it" and then they wow you again. The first 15 minutes of SCRE4M show you they're self-aware, but not in the fashion of a parent who just learned what LOL means and jumps to his daughters room to joke with her. Rather, these 15 minutes are filled with the old magic that the original SCREAM had. And then everything goes to hell. Past this opening, we watch as Sydney Prescott, the victim of the original trilogy, played so perfectly by Neve Campbell, returns to her hometown of Woodsburrow, where it all began. She has a book out about not playing the victim any longer, but inevitably, her presence in the town causes everything to start over again. The film proceeds to present a plethora of hot teens, and just as they build a background for the character, thus making us "care"--STAB--they're dead. We see this pattern early on in the film, and a bunch of lame and boring stab sequences accentuated with stupid music just shows how filmmaker Wes Craven has decided that everyone watching his movie is a real idiot. Except that, he's made an idiotic film, that can't be helped by the starpower of Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courteney Cox, Emma Roberts, Anna Paquin, Kristen Bell, Heather Graham, and Hayden Panettiere. (Also, Emma Roberts is an awful actress who is trying to be "badass" in her misccast role). SCRE4M falls so close to horror movie formula its laughable, except its not...and that makes it worse. Truly awful, especially after raising expectations in the wonderful first 15 minutes (which is no where near enough to keep this movie from sucking).
Scre4m: ★1/2