Latest Reviews: December 18, 2008

Adam Resurrected
In the '20s and '30s, Adam Stein (Jeff Goldblum) was a popular magician/comedian in Germany. But, just as his star ascended, so did Hitler's; he is hauled off to a camp and separated from his wife and daughter. This would be bad enough, but the camp is run by Commandant Klein (Willem Dafoe), whom he had once mildly humiliated during a performance. Klein forces him to be his private "dog" – literally running around on all fours, barking, and eating out of a dish. Now, 16 years after the war, Adam is lives at the Seizling Institute, a mental hospital for Holocaust survivors in the middle of the Israeli desert. He is adored by all, and most specially by the head nurse (Ayelet Zurer), who has become his lover. But things get weird when Adam – who has been promised that no dogs will ever be allowed at Seizling – psychically detects a canine presence.

This modestly budgeted indie provides a flashy part for Goldblum, one that exploits his unique comic style. But he can't save the film. It seems to have been written in a tone of magical realism, but the director is Paul Schrader, a filmmaker who has many talents, but no feel for whimsy, let alone magic. The result moves briskly enough, but it remains resolutely earthbound. (Andy Klein) (Laemmle's Sunset 5)

The Class
With a title literally meaning Between the Walls in the original French, the 2008 Cannes Film Festival winner is an unqualified triumph for veteran director Laurent Cantet (Time Out, Human Resources) and co-screenwriter/star François Bégaudeau. Loosely based on Bégaudeau’s semi-autobiographical 2006 novel, this is a gritty, unflinching look at the power struggle that unfolds between a French high school teacher and his undisciplined, often hostile class of mostly immigrant students. Though set almost entirely within the confines of the classroom itself, it’s the walls that divide the various ethnic student cliques from one another (and from the teacher) that most define the film’s core struggle – the clash between education and assimilation, identity and homogenization.

Cantet’s decision to shoot the classroom scenes with three simultaneously running cameras – one on the teacher, another on the scripted student, and another free to roam for spontaneous, unscripted moments – is nothing short of brilliant, infusing the picture with a chilling realism rarely achieved in modern narrative cinema. In a strange, unsettling way Cantet’s picture could almost be seen as a tragic sequel to Bertrand Tavernier’s equally brilliant 1999 film It All Starts Today, as if Tavernier’s socially neglected, working-class kindergartners were now finally old enough to carry out the consequences of that neglect as Cantet’s confrontational immigrant high schoolers. A provocative, indelible achievement. (Wade Major) (The Landmark West Los Angeles)

Gomorrah
Italy’s official entry for the Foreign Language Oscar, this portrait of mob activity in and around Naples is based on a ripped-from-the-headlines book by Roberto Saviano (whose work reportedly forced him to go into hiding from the Camorra crime family). Director Matteo Garrone (The Embalmer, First Love) intertwines five stories: a longtime mob debt collector (Gianfelice Imparato) is getting in beyond his depth; a dress manufacturer (Salvatore Cantalupo) secretly farms out work to a local sweat shop of Chinese immigrants; an educated young man (Carmine Paternoster) goes to work for a seemingly legitimate businessman (Toni Servillo), whose operations are less than savory; an adolescent boy (Salvatore Abruzzese) tries to ingratiate himself to the local mobsters; and two shallow twentysomething halfwits (Marco Macor, Ciro Petrone) take Al Pacino in Scarface as their role model and try to muscle in on mob turf.

Garrone may be trying to give us a panorama of Camorra activity and the ways it twists everyone’s lives, but a little more focus would have helped. It takes forever to learn to distinguish the characters and to figure out what minor characters fit into whose story. But, even if the actors hadn’t included so many lookalikes, the constant intercutting would still have made the film hard to follow. Add to that Garrone’s realistic, faux cinema-verité style, and there’s nothing here to draw us in – nothing particularly interesting or engaging about the stories or the characters. (Andy Klein) (Laemmle’s Sunset 5)

My Name is Bruce
The author of If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor could never be accused of taking himself too seriously: The director/producer/star continues to poke fun at himself in this good-natured spoof, in which Bruce Campbell the B movie actor is mistaken for the action hero he plays in Cave Alien and its sequels. When Jeff (Taylor Sharpe), Bruce’s biggest fan, who calls his idol “the best actor of his generation,” inadvertently rouses Guan-di, the Chinese god of war and protector of the dead (oh, and also the patron saint of bean curd), from the site of a cave-in where 100 Chinese miners died, he seeks out Bruce to lead the town of Gold Lick (population 339 ... 338 ... 337 ...) into battle. Bruce goes along with the plan, thinking it’s a birthday prank by his agent (Ted Raimi, in one of three roles) and enjoying the perks of being famous in a small town – including free booze and Jeff’s sexy MILF (Grace Thorsen). Ego-free – or, rather, egoless – Campbell portrays himself alternately as a prick and a drunken lout, although he does always look good (maybe too good) for the part. In the tradition of Campbell’s Evil Dead series, the acting is stiff and the effects low-rent, but it’s all in good fun, especially for fans who will appreciate the allusions to his oeuvre. (Annlee Ellingson) (Nuart)

Nothing But the Truth
When reporter Rachel Armstrong (Kate Beckinsale) outs CIA agent Erica Van Doren (Vera Farmiga), she becomes the target of relentless special counsel Patton Dubois (Matt Dillon), who has been hastily appointed to trace the source of the leak. Naturally, Rachel stands on principle and refuses to reveal the informant to Dubois’s grand jury. Despite the entreaties of her venerable lawyer (Alan Alda), the judge (famed attorney Floyd Abrams) throws her in jail for contempt. Nobody expects this to be a longterm situation, but they’re all wrong; Rachel is in stir so long that her relationship with her husband (David Schwimmer) and son (Preston Bailey) begins to fray.

Writer/director Rod Lurie (The Contender, Resurrecting the Champ) has an affinity for political subject matter, and here he’s taken a number of facts from the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson/Judith Miller case of a few years ago and spun them into a more linear narrative. He also abandons significant aspects of the story, some of which would have led to more interesting ethical questions than the film deals with. Lurie’s style has grown increasingly fluid, and the players (especially Farmiga) deliver, but he tosses everything away with the last twist. It’s only a surprise because, if you see it coming, you won’t believe that he would actually dare use it. (Andy Klein) (Majestic Crest)

Seven Pounds
Will Smith often shares the screen with aliens and zombies and superheroes, yet this is his first film to be wholly unbelievable. Smith plays Ben Thomas, a miserable IRS agent, who takes his job too seriously, stalking tax offenders (Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, both good, as always) and asking their acquaintances if they’re “Good People.” He’s obviously up to something, but we don’t find out what until it’s far too late to care – writer Grant Nieporte’s clumsy big reveal triggers giggles, not gasps. What I love about Smith’s films is that he approaches each as though the former teenage millionaire, box office king, and two-time Oscar nominee still has something to prove. If his character is going to glower and sulk and plot, then by golly, he’s going to out-Hamlet Hamlet. His commitment gives decent-enough movies the verve of a touchdown. Still, Seven Pounds is a stinker that will be immortalized as Smith’s first flop; like The Pursuit of Happyness, Smith’s last outing with director Gabriele Muccino, it’s handsome, self-serious nonsense – an anecdote from Reader’s Digest that swaggers in like a life-changing event. (Amy Nicholson) (Citywide)

Wendy and Lucy
Alone except for Lucy (her retriever) and some vaguely defined dreams of a new life, Indiana native Wendy (Michelle Williams) is driving through the Pacific Northwest to Alaska, in hopes of a summer of lucrative work at a fish cannery. When her car breaks down in a sleepy, boarded-up Oregon mining town, however, the thin fabric of her financial situation comes apart, and she confronts a series of increasingly dire economic decisions, with far-ranging repercussions for herself and Lucy.

Director Kelly Reichardt (working from a screenplay written with her Old Joy collaborator Jon Raymond) uses a formal minimalist style to construct an emotionally impressionistic road movie that feels rudderless in ways mostly enthralling but sometimes frustrating. A carefully observed film about sympathy and generosity at the dirty-fingernailed edges of American life, Wendy and Lucy also touches on the limits and depths of people’s duty to one another. If the film sputters a bit in conveying much of substance about what Wendy thinks about her predicament, Williams is never less than hypnotizing. And in the current recessional times, the film’s empty canvas and melancholic tones serve as a vessel for those looking to turn the personal into the political. (Brent Simon) (Laemmle’s Sunset 5, Laemmle’s Town Center 5, Laemmle’s Playhouse 7)

Where God Left His Shoes
Gulf War veteran and aspiring boxer Frank Diaz (John Leguizamo) has always tried to do the best for his family. However, when they are thrown out of their tiny apartment and forced to move into a filthy homeless shelter, their only chance at a Section 8 apartment hinges on Diaz’s finding a job by five o’clock on Christmas Eve. He pounds the pavement, accompanied by his adorable son (David Castro), but paying gigs are elusive.

Writer-director Salvatore Stabile’s Christmas weepie explores that unexpectedly subtle line separating those who are just making it from those who have fallen into despair and desperation. It tries to tug the heartstrings like a violin, but the central situations inevitably feel more forced than sympathetic. For instance, why doesn’t Diaz’s wife (played by an increasingly brittle and frustrated Leonor Valera) get a job herself, instead of pouting like a trophy bride all day? Leguizamo is a dynamic and appealing performer, but he often seems too burly for the supposedly vulnerable character he’s playing here: It’s hard to buy that he can’t find any work. The film is ultimately one long Christmas trudge through the drab and grey streets of Manhattan. Yes, the piece is meant to be somber and glum, but as a holiday film, it’s a tedious work of ho-ho-humdrum. (Paul Birchall) (Laemmle’s Grande 4)

The Wrestler
See Film feature.

The Yellow Handkerchief
On the day he is released from prison, Brett (an excellent William Hurt) enjoys a cold beer, inquires about southbound bus routes, and finds himself in a convertible with Gordy (Eddie Redmayne), an awkward, clearly white boy who claims to be Native American, and Martine (Twilight’s Kristen Stewart), a teenager left to her own devices by an absent father. Erin Dignam’s script contrives to keep the unlikely trio together as they travel toward New Orleans – nature conspires to force them into a crummy motel one night and an abandoned farmhouse another – but the bond they form is complicated and real: Each has felt apart from the world around them and through the others finally feels a part of something larger than him- or herself.

Brett, it turns out, is heading toward May (Maria Bello), and what starts out as a road movie turns into a powerful love story. The interplay of the two plotlines works best when Brett’s past with May comes in snatches of memory and imagery and it remains unclear how such a seemingly decent man ended up behind bars. Eventually, he relates his story in episodes to his traveling companions, a format that is narratively necessary but sacrifices the elegiac beauty of the early part of Udayan Prasad’s film. (Annlee Ellingson) (Laemmle’s Town Center 5)

Yes Man
Loan officer Carl Allen (Jim Carrey) is a walking vortex of negativity, determined to cloister himself in his own negative little world by refusing even his best friends their most innocuous requests. A chance encounter with an old friend (John Michael Higgins), however, leads him into the world of a frighteningly charismatic self-help guru (Terence Stamp), who peers into Carl’s tattered soul and challenges him to change his life by saying “YES!” each time opportunity presents itself.

Extremely loosely based on the 2005 memoir by British journalist Danny Wallace (“loosely” meaning “shares nothing but the basic premise”), this hyper-high-concept comedy from director Peyton Reed (The Break-Up) would seem to be ripe Jim Carrey material, trading on a karmic conceit not unlike that of 1997’s hugely successful Liar Liar. Ironically, the way in which that conceit is tackled differs markedly from previous films, as if its makers really wanted the audience to take home something more substantial than a belly full of laughs. Make no mistake, this is still formulaic romantic comedy fare – a routine boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-gets-girl-back scenario with the always delightful Zooey Deschanel (flawlessly cast opposite Carrey) as the free spirit who helps set his spirit free. But it’s formula in the service of a noble idea – one which promises to infect even the most jaded viewer with the power of the word “Yes!” (Wade Major) (Citywide)

Also Opening This Week:
The Tale of Despereaux. Exiled from his home, a mouse (voice of Matthew Broderick) is befriended by a princess (Emma Watson) and a rat (Dustin Hoffman). Sam Fell and Robert Stevenhagen directed this animated feature from a script by Gary Ross; the voice cast also includes Robbie Coltrane, Richard Jenkins, Kevin Kline, Frank Langella, William H. Macy, Tracey Ullman, and Sigourney Weaver. (AK) (Citywide)