Snap Judgments - a Quick Review of 5 Movies

Persepolis
Internationally celebrated, this cartoon tells the life-story of a girl growing up in 1970s Tehran, living as a teen in Vienna in the 80s, moving back to Iran for a short time in the 90s, then to France. The black-and-white visuals are half interesting-half Charlie Brown. The dialogue is occasionally witty, but the film as co-written and co-directed by Marjane Satrapi (based on her life) is mean-spirited, accusatory, and void of any self-awareness. Everyone else is the problem: ex-boyfriends, husbands, old people, young people, foreigners, Iranians, relatives, strangers, etc. Of course, the United States and Great Britain are blamed for all the horrible atrocities that have occurred in the Middle East for the past 100 years. No wonder it was a hit with left-wing elitists in Europe and America. Narrow-minded with tunnel-vision, this hate-filled diatribe will have you sympathetic with everyone Satrapi (rhymes with crappy?) encounters. C+

Grace is Gone
John Cusack is an honorably discharged Army Veteran whose wife is killed fighting in Iraq. He struggles to tell their 2 daughters. He temporarily opts to travel from Minnesota to Florida to visit an amusement park. Both views of the Iraq War are briefly argued - too briefly. The close-ups and wide-angle lenses are amateurish, but the story is honestly told and daughters are portrayed well. Cusack does not have enough acting tricks up his sleeve to remove any hints of Lloyd Dobler or Craig Schwartz from his performance. His procrastination is frustrating for the bulk of the movie, but the payoff is a potent emotional wallop. B-

Sex and Death 101
A man (Simon Baker – the third Australian in L.A. Confidential) who’s getting married in 1 week gets an email listing the names of his sexual partners. Trouble is, his fiancée is number 29 and the list goes to 101. The email is sent from some kind of “fate” supercomputer which also sends out emails to people listing the date they will die. The movie wants to ask big questions about fate and free will. It also wants to put a microscope on the sexual obsessions and attitudes of the modern male. It’s modestly successful as a sex farce but cumbersome when it strives for the philosophical stuff. Winona Ryder shows up as a woman putting misogynist men into comas. She’s still a knockout – beautiful and talented, with plenty of ticks and facial expressions to keep things interesting. But the material lets her down, dragging to a bloated 117 minutes when it should have run less than 90. C

The Spiderwick Chronicles
One of the downsides of a successful set of fantasy films (Lord of the Rings) is that you will get a slew of mediocre imitators (Chronicles of Narnia, The Golden Compass, Bridge to Terabithia, Stardust). When a fatherless family moves to a new country house, the twin sons (both played by Freddie Highmore) encounter a world of trolls, fairies, and other assorted monsters who all want a book kept in the house. The family must fight off the monsters and burn the book (no, really!) before the monsters take over the human world (or something like that). Nick Nolte is embarrassing as the main bad guy and Highmore is growing up super-awkward (after giving the best child performance this decade in Finding Neverland). The CGI characters are third-rate, the kids are whiny, and the father-figure is a bastard. C-

Honeydripper
In 1950 rural Alabama, a bar owner (Danny Glover) struggles to keep his place open while the guitar and piano battle for supremacy in the emerging blues/jazz/R&B musical scene. The performances are perfectly fine and everything is shot and edited professionally by director John Sayles. One aspect of the story is very interesting: given the ubiquitous nature of celebrities these days, it’s hard to imagine a time when people didn’t know what their radio/LP heroes looked like. But Sayles just lets the action unfold so slowly that you’ll quickly realize there’s not enough story here to make a feature length film. Sayles’s Lone Star had a deliberate pace, sure, but there was a murder mystery and thoughtful discussions on race, immigration, mental health, politics and local heroes. Here, people just talk endlessly – the characters themselves seem to be waiting for the (underwhelming) climax. C-