THE WOLFMAN

By CRAIG YOUNKIN - February 9, 2010

“The Wolfman” is a perfect choice for updating. So much of the 1941 flick rested on good production and make-up design and now we have this lush remake from director Joe Johnston and screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker. The plot comes up a little short but for the most part they’ve created an awesome-looking film that also comes in just right in the spooky/gory department.

Benicio Del Toro takes over for Lon Chaney, Jr. as Lawrence Talbot, returning to his London home many years after the suicide of his mother. He is reunited with his estranged father, Sir John (Anthony Hopkins), and with his brother’s grieving fiancée, Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt). There have been many killings in the village and most of the mutterings among the villagers are of a lunatic let loose in the forest. Lawrence soon comes face to face with this evil as it attacks him one night, leaving bite marks before escaping. The attack leaves the villagers very wary of Talbot and even Scotland Yard Inspector Abberline (Hugo Weaving) takes a considerable interest in him as a suspect. Of course none manage to stop him before turning into a werewolf on the prowl. As Lawrence tries to control the beast within himself, he learns of a terrible secret about his family that could put Gwen in danger.

Even the original was meagerly plotted at only seventy minutes. This “Wolfman” hovers around ninety-five, wisely excising more of the meaningless talk (about Lawrence possibly be deluded, and lycan mythology), changing some plot points around (I liked the family dynamic introduced at the mid-point), and still keeping most of the better drama intact. Essentially the movie is a creature-feature-actioner (there is even a final showdown between two werewolves) but when you have production values, scares, and excitement like this, that’s hardly a bad thing. Johnston nails the atmosphere just right, dark, dreary and foggy and with very ominous shots of the moon. The film has a quick pace and is helped out mightily by Rick Baker’s phenomenal make-up effects, Danny Elfman’s haunting score, and a bloody good time where heads, arms, and so on are ripped from bodies. The creature effects, from the transformation to the carnage, is a lot of fun and exactly what people want to see from a flick like this. Benicio plays the tormented hero perfectly, wearing the emotional and psychological strain of being cursed all over his face. Blunt holds her own pretty well in an unfortunately underwritten love story and Hopkins is as sly as ever as Sir John Talbot. Flawed, but a howlingly good re-boot.

MOVIE NEWS

By CRAIG YOUNKIN -February 8, 2010

The Saints completed their inspiring run this season with a Super Bowl win (glad I didn’t go through with my original bet), and congrats of course go to the city of New Orleans. The game was a close one all the way to the last couple minutes when Peyton Manning threw a very uncharacteristic interception which sealed the deal. But you know this already. However, I bring it up again because, with the exception of the performance by “The Who” at half-time and the game itself, this was one of the most underwhelming Super Bowls in recent memory.

Of course I’m talking about the commercials, which in the past have been funny, clever, and memorable. This year, not so much. We had Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo reprising their Clark and Ellen Griswold characters, Betty White, The Simpsons and a guy getting buried in a coffin full of Doritos and yet very few of them were funny or even clever enough to remember. Even the beer commercials were forgettable which is really rare for any beer commercial during a football game. Whether it had to do with the recession or something else entirely, it looked like nobody really wanted to put their best foot forward this year. Even the movie ads were pulled back a little too.

There were a total of seven movie ads during the super bowl, a surprisingly few number compared to past years. Even more surprising was the absence of some of this summer’s biggest films like “Iron Man 2,” “Inception,” and “The A-Team.” And yet, there were some good ones, some not so good ones, and one really dreadful looking one, so I thought I’d devote today’s Good, Bad, and Ugly movie news to breaking down the movie ads of the super bowl. Enjoy!

DOES 'FROM PARIS WITH LOVE' EVER STOP?

By KEVIN BOWEN - February 7, 2010

Nah, this French-flavored actioner romps through its steps as if its success depends on outrunning logic. For the most part, it succeeds.

It’s hard to know what a fussy Frenchman would think, the City of Light transformed from film’s most romantic locale, suddenly vulgarized by an American action film mentality. Sprouting wild-ass shoot-outs like vineyard grapes, unleashing a damn exciting highway chase with weaving cars and a bazooka, 'From Paris With Lov'e is the movie equivalent of EuroDisney – Americanizing Paris, both spectacular and distracting, with zero attention span and ….. hey look, a balloon!

Jonathan Rhys-Myers is a civilian security officer at the American embassy in France. On the night of his wedding proposal, he’s dispatched to assist a visiting agent on a mysterious and dangerous mission. Enter John Travolta as Charles Wax, a maniacal assassin dispatched to chase a terrorist syndicate.

Travolta anchors the film down deep with his sudden hulkiness, bald pate, and the weight of his screen ego. His forehead seems to be gaining mass and could go supernova any second. You wonder if he should be the first movie star tested for steroids. Roid rage would explain his foul mouthed, shoot-first ass-kicking through the seedy side of Paris. Perhaps torn apart by the gravitational pull of Travolta’s forehead, the film completely loses sense of reality. And don’t you just love it for it?

'From Paris With Love' is the product of Pierre Morel (joined by producer Luc Besson), responsible for the respected 'District B13' and last year’s big hit 'Taken.' It is carnivorous cinema, digesting recent action films and sharply regurgitating them. We might be regurgitating, too, if the film didn’t know how to intelligently and amusingly smother the whole thing in tasty action gravy. You can’t put Travolta in Paris without handing him a Royale with Cheese. At least the film has the good graces to decorate it with a hint of cleverness.

If 'From Paris with Love' changes your life, it will only be by awakening your long latent epilepsy. Yet its pleasures are undeniable– superbly staged and edited, pasted together by a wink and nod, washed down with a hint of genre satire.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

By CRAIG YOUNKIN - February 5, 2010

The Good: “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” should be sending a bouquet of thank you roses this Valentines Day to the people behind the “Spider-Man” reboot. Why? Many more Spidey fans will probably be heading to the theater to take a look at Logan Lerman, who supposedly is in talks to play Peter Parker during the High School years. Suddenly what looked like a low-rent Harry Potter flick will probably have a much bigger buzz surrounding it leading up to its February 12 release date. Stay tuned for a review.

The Bad: There will be a “Fast and the Furious 5”. Quite a feat for a series of movies that never even came close to having a semblance of a modicum of a story. There is some good news here. Vinnie D will be back as Dom.

The Ugly: You knew it was coming. Dan Brown’s third book in the “Davinci Code” franchise, i.e “The Lost Symbol”, will get its day on the big screen. Again Ron Howard will waste his talents. Again Tom Hanks will slum for a big paycheck. And again people will have a movie to put on their yearly worst lists. Good goin Columbia Pictures!

By CRAIG YOUNKIN - February 4, 2010

The Good: Sexy “House” star Olivia Wilde will be joining the Daniel Craig film “Cowboys and Aliens,” not a sequel of “Monsters Vs. Aliens” but a cool mash-up of a sci-fi alien flick and a western. The film has some very cool people behind it, screenwriters Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman (“Star Trek”) are writing the script along with Lost producer Damon Lindeloff and Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, and Brian Grazer are producing. Sounds like an awesome flick. Can’t wait!

The Bad: Just like Hollywood. Avatar isn’t even dead and cold yet and we’re already talking about an unnecessary, piggy-backing sequel to the highest grossing film of all time (Congrats again Mr. Cameron). Twentieth Century Fox wants a sequel, James Cameron is going over ideas, but is copying the same world all over again the best way to use this exquisite technology?

The Ugly: Watchmen 2? It could happen. DC Comics Senior Vice President Dan Didio is looking to make sequels, prequels, and the like out of Watchmen characters and now that President Paul Levitz has left DC comics and author Alan Moore has dissociated himself from the graphic novel it appears that Didio is in charge and characters may wind up appearing in other films. I know Hollywood is desperate for superheroes to turn into movies but this is like taking a shit on a work of art, by which I mean Didio taking a shit on the graphic novel. They already screwed up the first movie as is (illustration by Brent Brown)

THE OSCARS ON THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

By CRAIG YOUNKIN - February 3, 2010

The Oscar nominations were announced and so I felt it only best to make the GOOD, BAD AND UGLY news all about that. An article with predictions will be coming soon but today it’s all about congratulations and bitching about the snubs. So without further ado, here are the 2010 Oscar nominations, but first a little more ado.

The Good- ‘Avatar’ and ‘The Hurt Locker’ lead the way with nine nominations. I’m glad that Tarantino is getting the credit he deserves for both writing and directing (he definitely deserves the writing one). Jeff Bridges versus Morgan Freeman is a homerun best actor showdown in my book. Christoph Waltz (‘Inglorious Basterds’) should walk away with the supporting actor Oscar in maybe the best performance I saw all year long. ‘Coraline’ is one of five best animated picture noms and despite the strong competition from ‘Up’ and ‘Fantastic Mr. Fox,’ I hope Henry Selick (who also made ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’) gets his due here. The directing Oscar creates a very interesting showdown between Quentin Tarantino, Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron. And I'm glad “The Weary Kind” got the nomination (and I can call the win right now) for best song. What’s interesting about this year is that everyone who got the least bit of buzz around them got a nomination. You can chalk that up to it being a subpar year but nonetheless, everyone who deserved it got in except…

The Bad- I’m confused by the lack of love for Michael Moore’s ‘Capitalism.’ This movie had some fantastic investigating yet not even a best documentary nomination. I also don’t understand the inclusion of any nominations for ‘Precious’ or ‘The Blind Side,’ both Lifetime-movie-of-the-weeks that don’t deserve to be placed in the same categories with ‘Avatar’ and ‘Inglorious Basterds.’ The lack of ‘Star Trek’ is disapointing but less than shocking. It's not usually the kind of movie that gets nominated. But overall the nominations basically reflect on the year pretty well (it wasn't a great year) and I can't complain too much with the way things turned out except….

The Ugly- Again, I have to stress the fact that ten best picture nominees is a terrible idea. This will only make the show longer and it still won’t detract from the cold hard fact that the Academy is and always will be about the movies that have the most buzz. ‘Avatar,’ ‘Hurt Locker,’ ‘Up in the Air,’ and as a wild card, ‘Inglorious Basterds.’ There, I did it in four. ‘Precious,’ ‘An Education,’ ‘A Serious Man,’ and ‘Blind Side’ got mixed receptions and ‘District 9’ just ain’t the kind of movie voters usually go for and I don’t think it had the buzz to stay on many people’s minds all the way to the end of the year. Even ‘Up,’ good as it was, just doesn’t strike me as one of the better animated movies to possibly throw a wrench into the mix. So again, this ten nominations is a waste. You could put in twenty nominations in there but it still would not detract from the fact that only few movies really keep their buzz up all the way to the end. But take a look and maybe you’ll see it differently. Here are the 2010 Oscar noms:

BEST PICTURE AVATAR THE HURT LOCKER INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS PRECIOUS UP IN THE AIR UP AN EDUCATION A SERIOUS MAN DISTRICT 9 THE BLIND SIDE BEST ACTOR Jeff Bridges - CRAZY HEART George Clooney - UP IN THE AIR Colin Firth - A SINGLE MAN Morgan Freeman - INVICTUS Jeremy Renner - THE HURT LOCKER BEST ACTRESS Meryl Streep - JULIE & JULIA Carey Mulligan - AN EDUCATION Gabourey Sidibe - PRECIOUS Sandra Bullock - THE BLIND SIDE Helen Mirren - THE LAST STATION BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Christoph Waltz - INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Woody Harrelson - THE MESSENGER Christopher Plummer - THE LAST STATION Stanley Tucci - THE LOVELY BONES Matt Damon - INVICTUS BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Vera Farmiga - UP IN THE AIR Anna Kendrick - UP IN THE AIR Mo'nique - PRECIOUS Penelope Cruz - NINE Maggie Gyllenhaal - CRAZY HEART BEST ANIMATED FILM UP CORALINE THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG THE SECRET OF KELLS THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX BEST DIRECTOR Kathryn Bigelow - THE HURT LOCKER James Cameron - AVATAR Quentin Tarantino - INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Jason Reitman - UP IN THE AIR Lee Daniels - PRECIOUS BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Nick Hornby - AN EDUCATION Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell - DISTRICT 9 Jesse Armstrong and Armando Iannucci - IN THE LOOP Geoffrey Fletcher - PRECIOUS Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner - UP IN THE AIR BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Quentin Tarantino - INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Mark Boal - THE HURT LOCKER Pete Docter and Bob Peterson - UP Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon - THE MESSENGER Joel and Ethan Coen - A SERIOUS MAN BEST ART DIRECTION AVATAR THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS SHERLOCK HOLMES THE YOUNG VICTORIA NINE BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY THE HURT LOCKER HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE THE WHITE RIBBON AVATAR INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS BEST COSTUME DESIGN THE YOUNG VICTORIA THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSSUS BRIGHT STAR NINE COCO BEFORE CHANEL BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FOOD, INC. THE COVE BURMA VJ THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA WHICH WAY HOME BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT "China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province" "Music by Prudence" "Rabbit a la Berlin" "The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner" "The Last Truck: The Closing of a GM Plant" BEST EDITING AVATAR THE HURT LOCKER DISTRICT 9 INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS PRECIOUS BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM A PROPHET THE WHITE RIBBON AJAMI EL SECRETO DE SUS OJOS THE MILK OF SORROW BEST MAKEUP STAR TREK THE YOUNG VICTORIA IL DIVO BEST ORIGINAL SCORE AVATAR FANTASTIC MR. FOX THE HURT LOCKER SHERLOCK HOLMES UP BEST ORIGINAL SONG "Almost There" - THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG "Down in New Orleans" - THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG "Loin de Panama" - PARIS 36 "Take It All" - NINE "The Weary Kind" - CRAZY HEART BEST ANIMATED SHORT "French Roast "Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty" "The Lady and the Reaper" "Logorama" "A Matter of Loaf or Death BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT "The Door" "Instead of Abracadabra" "Kavi" "Miracle Fish" "The New Tenants" BEST SOUND EDITING AVATAR DISTRICT 9 STAR TREK INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS UP BEST SOUND MIXING AVATAR THE HURT LOCKER INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS STAR TREK TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN BEST VISUAL EFFECTS AVATAR DISTRICT 9 STAR TREK

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

By CRAIG YOUNKIN - February 2, 2010

The Good: Zachary Quinto made a comment last week that he was stepping away from “Star Trek” for the next two years, prompting many questions about whether he would be a part of the sequel. Well, it sounds like that was all a big misunderstanding and he meant he was not going to be doing any more promotion now but in two years, when the sequel comes out, he’ll be all aboard the enterprise. Whew!

The Bad: 'Joe Dirt: The Animated Years' is coming to TBS. Did anyone even care about this character when the movie came out nine years ago (pictured)?

The Ugly: It’s not always easy to find real “ugly” movie news but Joblo.com found this very funny and unbelievably offensive clip from comedian Louis CK from the Sundance Film Fest. Enjoy the ugliness.

TERRIBLY HAPPY

By SAM WEISBERG - January 31, 2010

Like the Coen Brothers' 1984 film noir debut “Blood Simple,” Henrik Ruben Genz's “Terribly Happy” begins with lingering shots of sparse roads, amid ominous narration about the sterile, unfriendly nature of the locale in question. And while the setting may not be humid, oily Texas wasteland, it's just as alienating—a muddy, snowy, one-street town in rural South Jutland, Denmark.

It's the type of farmland environment you might escape from the city to for a seemingly idyllic few days, only to find that what you've escaped from is sanity. The drive there is picturesque, but the town itself doesn't ooze with quaint, down-home appeal; the townfolk are quietly hostile, self-governing, unwelcoming of newcomers.

That's the world that Robert (Jakob Cedergren), a Copenhagen police officer, is forced into, after a breakdown leads to his estrangement from wife and daughter and his transfer from the big city force. He assumes the title of Marshall in his new surroundings, but quickly finds that the citizens have little to no respect for him, or his authority. When a child is arrested for petty theft, for instance, Robert tries to hold him at the station, but his underlings instruct him to wallop the kid and let him go. The local bar patrons menacingly scoff at his shunning of beer, in a fish-out-of-water scene reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman's stuffy professor clashing with the British countryside drunkards in Sam Peckinpah's “Straw Dogs.”

Genz's story also brings to mind “Body Heat,” as Robert, a rather dense-looking, vacantly handsome figure, becomes increasingly smitten with Ingerlise (Lene Maria Christensen), the femme fatale abused by her outwardly brutish husband (Kim Bodnia) who seeks Robert's protection. For awhile, the film threatens to fall into standard film noir traps, to set up a lurid, wildly complex series of double crossings that would not mesh well with the simplicity of the characters nor the setting.

But even after the murder that triggers the central plot, Genz wisely keeps the pace just as eerily sleepy as the town itself. Robert's sturdy facade is broken down slowly, as we gradually learn more about his dark past. Certain townsfolk steadily emerge as smarter than they seemed, slyly leading people into their own web of lies. And instead of the tired, nerve-racking device of the innocent man framed unjustly, Genz opts for the juicier twist of the guilty man torn between surrendering himself and maintaining serenity.

Genz often toys subversively with certain staples of dark humor, as in the scene where Robert's head is not shoved into a toilet bowl but rather scraped along a wall-length urinal. At a wake, the mourners fight greedily over a plate brimming with pastries. A group of elderly poker players hears a gunshot in the next room, followed by maniacal laughter; instead of showing alarm, they join in on the laughter.

Unfortunately, these dark touches don't culminate in a particularly satisfying ending—in fact, the climactic twist makes little to no sense. And Cedergren's performance shifts, depending on the tone of the scene, from aptly blank to incongruously so; with his slightly agape mouth, distant stare and dim eyes, he's only convincing as a naïve outsider, less so as a calculating, complex soul.

A WELL-WORN CONCEIT: EDGE OF DARKNESS

By CRAIG YOUNKIN - January 29, 2010

“Edge of Darkness” is a crowd-pleaser much like “Taken,” in that your definition of pleasing has to involve a long list of bad-guys that need to be shot by the end. This is the kind of movie Mel Gibson used to make every other time before he went all seriously religious, verbally-attacked a (jewish?) cop and became known in certain circles as “Da Fuhrer.”

He returns here after eight years (his last acting role was “Signs”) looking flabbier and wearier. He’s not the action hero we’ve come to know, which is fine because “Darkness” is less about action (take out a car hitting a woman and people getting shot at point-blank range and there would be none here at all) and more about the drama.

And unfortunately dramatically it’s not the comeback we’d hope for from good ole Mel. He plays Craven, a veteran cop welcoming his visiting, estranged daughter (Bojana Novakovic), only before he can even say “how ya been?” she is gunned down in brutal fashion in a hit that, at first, looks to be intended for him.

Of course things are not what they seem. His findings take him to the office of Jack Bennett (Danny Huston), the head of a nuclear energy company that employed Craven’s daughter. Craven is also confronted by Jedburgh (Ray Winstone), a security consultant usually brought in to clean up messes.

Gibson turns in a good performance, angry and distraught, brought to justice but the constant dreams and flashbacks of the daughter alive are sentimental, forced, and unmoving. More gimmick to move the plot along than to feel anything for.

The more interesting role is played by Ray Winstone, whose objective in all this remains the movie’s only real mysterious part. And being that he isn’t really called upon to do much until the very end, you have a long time to try and guess what that might be.

And there lies the problem. In addition to being long, dull, and nearly action-less, it’s high on talky Q and A scenes but low on any kind of surprise. Director Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale”) can’t do much with the predictable screenplay by William Monohan and Andrew Bovell (based on some BBC series). It’s easy to tell who the villains are, who is going to get killed next, and what big bad corporation will have seedy secrets. And it feels like it takes forever to get to the final shoot-out.

The lack of emotional pull and surprises just leaves us with a lot of people getting shot, and with “Darkness” not being nearly as edgy as advertised.

THE ART OF THE STEAL DOC

January 28, 2010- In 1922, rags-to-riches industrialist and visionary art collector Albert C. Barnes created an educational institution—which he located in Merion, Pennsylvania—based on his unparalleled collection of masterworks by the likes of Van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne, and Matisse. When he died, the Barnes Foundation carried on as his will stipulated for fifty years—until a powerful group of moneyed interests plotted to relocate the art to a new museum in Philadelphia. With the Governor, the Mayor, and several of the country’s most powerful charitable organizations on the verge of moving the Barnes, a loyal group of former students has gone to court to stop them. Will the students succeed in their David vs. Goliath campaign, or will a man’s will be broken and one of America’s greatest cultural monuments be destroyed? 'The art of the steal' weaves together archival and dramatic new footage with candid interviews from all sides of the hotly contested debate. Philadelphia-based Argott ('Rock School') takes the viewer into the back rooms of corporations and government, where decisions over the fate of our cultural institutions are enshrouded in secrecy and tangled in strategic red tape, and into the still-standing institute, whose days as a one-of-a-kind art haven may be numbered. 'The art of the steal' is a bold, impassioned film that is destined to court controversy and inspire vital, timely discussions about the fate of our cultural legacy. Whose art is it anyway?

'The art of the steal' opens February 26th.