Did I Mention...

...that I see more movies that I can work up the time and energy to review. Perhaps a paycheck could convince me otherwise. Come on. Who's paying?

Very Short Notes on: The 40 Year Old Virgin, Breakfast on Pluto, Cinderella Man, C.R.A.Z.Y., Head On, Jarhead, The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio, and Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic

	Plutonians Pranksters & Proud Papas

 

The 40 Year Old Virgin
Surprisingly sweet, blessedly raunchy (hey, if you're going to make a sex comedy -make a sex comedy. Don't pull your punches), and refreshingly well-acted from top to bottom. Steve Carrell looks like he might be a real actor. His supporting cast includes Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd, Jane Lynch, and Elizabeth Banks and not one of them disappoints. It could be a little tighter, but this Virgin is peppered with so many sharp and silly moments that you won't feel like complaining. It's a fun ride.
B

Breakfast on Pluto
Cillian Murphy works hard in the central role of Patrick "Kitten" Brady but the effort shows. Awkward whimsy rules the day in the form of fantasy sequences, subtitled birds, and 35+ cutely titled chapter marks (presumably lifted from the memoirs on which this is based). The short skit structure and the titles which draw attention to this peculiar narrative threading make the excessive running time feel even more bloated than it is.
C -

Cinderella Man
Ron Howard's boxing drama is another in a long line of depression era 'triumph of the human spirit' tales. Everything about it from the convincing production design through to the individual performances is well done, tasteful, and engineered to move you. But there's no true spark. The 'been there done that a million times' feeling is so overwhelming that it's almost impossible to shake. Unusually good chemistry between the three principals (and Crowe and Giamatti in particular) does help considerably in making the journeyman tale intermittently involving, despite its utter familiarity. C+

C.R.A.Z.Y.
This year's Canadian submission for the Oscars follows one middle child, Zachary Beaulieu, in a family of boys from birth to adulthood as he struggles to understand himself. His family can't understand him either. His dad worries that he might be gay. His mom thinks he has the gift of spiritual healing. His brothers annoy him. This Quebec feature starts out comedic and gradually deepens. Michel Cote and Danielle Prouulx are aces as the parents of this rowdy clan of boys. Director Jean-Marc Valleé does fine work with all the actors but the real find is his own child Émile Vallée cast as the young Zachary. It's one of the very best performance by a child actor in recent years.

C.R.A.Z.Y. is endearing and involving but it unfortunately overextends its welcome by at least a good 20 minutes, with several repetitive scenes of personal struggles. This is rooted in reality of course. Drug addictions and coming of age sexuality issues are not dealth with quickly in real life. But a film needs to pick specific moments to embody large struggles and move on. It times C.R.A.Z.Y. feels more like a particularly good TV miniseries than a feature. But this is a family you'll enjoy spending time with nonetheless. B

Head On (Gegen Die Wand)
Faith Akin's chilling visceral story of a middle-age punk widower's relationship to a wild young girl has a perfect title. It's all collision; family strife, self-destructive addictions, and explosive love. Misery aside it's quite involving thanks to fine lead performances from Birol Ünel (King of Thieves, Enemy at the Gates) and Sibel Kekilli. Ms. Kekilli was reportedly upset upon this films release (her feature debut) that the press uncovered her porn background. She's mesmerizing in Head On so it's safe to say she won't ever have to consider that particular brand of filmmaking again. B

Jarhead
Sam Mendes Gulf War film, based on the best-selling memoirs of former marine Anthony Swofford, confounds easy description. It is not a "war film." Because there is, for the assembled young marines, no war in which they may fight. But it is an interesting sideways drama. The issues that war films typically deal with: insanity, soul deadening violence, blind patriotism, humans as pawns in larger struggles are all present though they feel more abstractand peripheral than usual.

On the surface Jarhead frustrates. It appears, like its ignorant participants, to be a blank slate; all chest beating machismo in the face of complex and troubling modern politics. Those same issues are getting directly wrestled with in other contemporary films like Syriana. But underneath its young and rowdy surface it seems to have bigger things on its mind. That it fails to explicity articulate them is certain and a shame. But the movie is not without merit. The technical contributions, particular in the sound and cinematography, heighten the proceedings and the acting is, if unspectacular, very solid across the board.

Though I won't pretend to know how Jarhead will be viewed in 20 years time, I feel 100% confident in prophesying that it will be reexamined in the future. It's a tricky movie. As a portrait of indiscrimate male aggression, it has incisive and killer moments. As a memoir it also feels right with visceral moments springing up to spike the daily dead spaces. But as a drama its dead. The film unfortunately apes its own soul to numbing effect: Jarhead, the movie at least, is intermittently fascinating but ultimately directionless. B-

The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio
Breaking the fourth wall by addressing the audience directly is a technique that should never be used in a film. Prize Winner practially sits itself in your lap from the get go with this off-putting gimmick. This story-telling trick can work like magic in the live theater but in the cinema it's a surefire way to bomb. Unless the film is directed by a genius (Scorsese's Age of Innocence comes to mind ...and even then the actors weren't directly speaking to us --just looking at us as they spoke to one another) or the actor doing the talking is a gifted comedian and the film is a straight up silly comedy (like, oh, Ferris Bueller's Day Off) it just doesn't work. Ever.

Poor Julianne Moore sweats away, doing everything she can to make the film work. She doesn't have the lightness of touch for the film's comedic bent. But she strengthens its dramatic flabbiness. She offers up her trademark crying jag (now getting old after dozens of lazy uses by filmmakers) and her line readings go much deeper than the material deserves or can even support narratively speaking. The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio is as fussily directed as its title foretells and its filled with cartoonish characters. The only carbon based life form seems to be Ms. Moore. She can't save the film from itself. C-

Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic
This comedy concert is often laugh-out-loud funny but the scope of Silverman's focus is very narrow. Consquently Jesus is Magic couldn't even be a minute longer at a wee 72 . Still, there are enough moments of pure inspiration and hilarious offense that you wish this were as better. Silverman clearly has a large gift. If she can deepen it her next film might be on par with classics of the form like Margaret Cho's I'm the One That I Want or Sandra Bernhard's Without You I'm Nothing.
B-/C+

-Nathaniel R