The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

In development for years from a director that is shrouded in controversy and frustration, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button stumbled out from behind the curtain during the holiday season. Sadly, it just could not compete with the box-office draw of a yellow-lab puppy (if that's in fact the correct breed...) and was welcomed with lukewarm reception. Regardless, Benny Buttons managed to eke its way into my list of top films of the year on principle alone. Of everything I've seen in 2008 only this film and two others (Slumdog Millionaire, previously reviewed and Milk, review coming soon) evoked a purely visceral emotional response from me.

Using more of the lengthy narrative structure used in his 2006 sleeper hit Zodiac (a frustratingly brilliant film, I might add) Fincher captures the tragic futility and inherent beauty of the human lifespan, skewed from the eyes of a man who experiences it all backwards, and in a lot of ways more forward than anyone ever has. Drawing comparisons from screenwriter Eric Roth's previous work on Forrest Gump, which told the extraordinary story of a simple man, Button tells a similarly parallel tale of an extraordinary man who led a, more or less, simple life. The events in his life aren't groundbreaking moments in American history, but significant moments that make a person who they are, and Fincher captures it with heartbreakingly detailed precision. Drawing the parallels between childhood and old age, the similarities in mentality and the tragic contrast in seeing an old man with the curiousity and wonderment of a 6 year old and the sorrowful depiction of a small child grappling with all the fading memories that once made up who he once was.

A plethora of characters weave their way through Button's life. Benjamin's adoptive black mother, Queenie and her lover (though never husband) Tizzy. The swarthy tattooed sailor Captain Mike (executed brilliantly by Jared Harris, seen on recent episodes of FOX's sci-fi drama Fringe and 2002's Igby Goes Down) and the first person to take hold of Benjamin's heart, Elizabeth Abbott (his Burn After Reading co-star Tilda Swinton) to name a few.

Most notably in the film is Brad Pitt's transformation from a crippled and broken "old" man to the Pitt we've seen in such early 90's films as Thelma and Louise and Cool World (avoid the latter, for your own sake.) The early portion of the film achieving it's effects through the use of body actors and superimposing Pitt's face onto it (there may have been some CG tweaking to make him look extra geriatric.) After the CG scenes had run their course, the makeup for his 70's to late 30's was very well done. However, less talked about is the aging makeup and effects used on Cate Blanchett, who plays Button's lifelong love. Cast as Dakota Fanning's younger sister Elle in the first act, my only major complaint came from the fact that Blanchett's voice was used to overdub Elle's lines. Probably only executed to maintain some sort of familiarity with her later self, it came off as more distracting than anything else.

It's hard to tell what sort of moral Fincher (or adapted author F. Scott Fitzgerald) is trying to convey with this film. It can be taken a series of different ways. Most prominent are these two (a friend of mine read this somewhere, told me and I'm going to rehash it here.) This is a portrait of how beautiful life is when viewed from a different angle, or it is a testament to how tragic life can be, no matter which direction you live it.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Kevin Smith is one of those directors that I'm so mindlessly faithful to he could put out a movie like Jersey Girl and I'd still pay to see it, and even kind of like it. While he's had trouble distancing himself from his roots in Jersey post-Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, the summer vacation of a movie that was supposed to "tie off" the loose ends of the original series of preceding films (Clerks, MallRats, Chasing Amy and Dogma,) Jersey Girl rang a bit too sappy and sentimental for die-hard Smith fans and everyone else just plain hates Ben Affleck. So it was back to the watering hole for a final farewell to Red Bank with Clerks II (which underwent about 3 or 4 subtitles ranging from "Hardly Clerkin'" to "Passion of the Clerks.") This time, he's finally put these characters to rest, peacefully and respectfully with his new film Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

Zack and Miri puts Kevin back in the seat where he's best. Writing for twenty-somethings. His eloquence and predilection for ten dollar words combined with lewd humor and sex jokes have and always will be his strongest suit and it is back in full force with this outing. Now, Smith is no stranger to controversy. Having previously fended off GLAAD and the Christian Coalition (receiving actual death threats from the latter...) he had to take on the industry's own MPAA this time around. Now it is literally impossible to make a movie entitled "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" without a moderate amount of onscreen sex, whether there's any nudity to go with it or not and while there IS full frontal on both male and female (in a brief comedic context and never onscreen together at the same time) the MPAA saw fit to slap an NC-17 rating across the little film. This is what could be the cinematic equivalent of the Motaba virus and Smith was not about to stand for it. Luckily, through several cuts and pleading his case to the board, he was able to squeeze an R rating before release.

Prerelease drama aside, Zack and Miri is a thoroughly enjoyable film if not a bit uneven at times. A staple of Smith's writing is one or two extended monologues purveying the thematic weight of the piece. Jeff Anderson as Randal Graves did this in Clerks, Jeremy London's T.S. Quint was responsible in MallRats, Ben Affleck's Holden McNeil piggybacked by an opposing Joey Lauren Adams as Alyssa Jones followed in Chasing Amy and so on. Seth Rogen's Zack Brown pulls it off well in this outing, unfortunately it's at this point where the movie loses focus. Now, I'm all about emotional depth and building believable characters, but this should not come at the expense of the narrative story-arc. Without spoiling too much, if the title of the movie states that two people are setting out to do a particular thing, it's probably a good idea to ensure that A) they do just that and B) if said objective is not completed, give us a plausible explanation why. While it's definitely not my least favorite of Smith's filmography, it is far from the best. In truth, it almost seems like a less genuine younger brother to '96's Chasing Amy.

Casting-wise, the only returning Jersey Alums are Jeff Anderson (Randal Graves of Clerks fame) and Jason Mewes (actually NOT playing Jay) who do their thing passably, Mewes actually coming off slightly nerdier than his previous alter ego. Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks (having worked together on Judd Apatow's 40 Year-Old Virgin) have a chemistry that is both obviously awkward and sweetly endearing. Rogen, apt at playing the stocky blockhead since his debut in Judd's one-season series Freaks & Geeks is pretty much perfect for Smith's brash loudmouth character (he's always got at least one of them, except it's usually Jason Lee.) Though this time, the sensitive guy and the loudmouth are rolled into one person which added a strange sense of inner conflict that seemed like relatively new territory, though it was left mostly unexplored by the film's end. Elizabeth Banks' Miriam Linky is just plain adorable, as most of her characters are. The Office warehouse worker Craig Robinson steps in as Zack's coffee shop work-buddy (we get the idea they would be closer friends if he weren't married) and makes for some particularly funny exchanges. Porn-heir Tracy Lords also makes an appearance (after all, you can't make a movie about porn without a veteran, thankfully this time it wasn't Ron Jeremy) and shows some actual acting chops. However, the show stealer comes and goes within the first 20 minutes. Justin Long (Jeepers Creepers and last summer's Die Hard 4, possibly cast due to his on set friendship with Kevin) displays some character acting beyond compare in a Kevin Smith film as a west-coast gay porn actor with a ironic connection to Zack and Miri's graduating class. Complete with gravelly voice, slicked back hair and what just might have been some well placed ad libs, I was in stitches for the depressingly short duration of his presence on-screen.

While not quite as funny as some of the other comedies of '08 (more laughs per capita are present in Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express) it's still well worth a trip to the theater now that we can all put gas in our cars without breaking the bank. And though it gets a little lost in the message, it is a message that we can all aspire to in one way or another. I'm interested to see where Kevin Smith goes from here, having recently announced a horror film (Red State) and a yet untitled sci-fi picture.

The Strangers

It's the end of October and Halloween is in the air again. The temperature drops, the leaves start to fall and it's the perfect time to shut off the lights, curl up on the couch with a plate full of pumpkin seeds and hot cider and settle in for a marathon of good old fashioned horror movies. Sadly, "good old fashioned horror movies" are in short order these days, as the industry seems to have forgotten what truly makes a movie scary anymore. Then I watched The Strangers.

On the surface, it's easy to pass this movie off as "just another horror movie," but upon closer inspection, it's so much more than that. Produced on what looks like a shoestring budget with only six characters to speak of, The Strangers relies almost solely on mood and atmosphere as opposed to flashy special effects and excessively gory deaths. From the outset, the movie is an uncomfortable journey into fear. The main characters Jamie (Scott Speedman) and Kristen (Liv Tyler) share an inordinate amount of uncomfortable silences before the story actually begins to unfold, setting a sort of base coat of tension in preparation for what's to come.

High marks go to first time writer/director Bryan Bertino on a number of levels. The actors (especially Liv Tyler, who spends a large portion of the movie in front of the camera by herself) handle themselves admirably, reining in more than believable performances. Tactfully placed reveal shots combined with sparse lighting and a very red heavy color palette add to the mood. The fluid narrative and depth of character help to raise The Strangers above typical "torture porn" and transcend the horror genre to an almost psychological level. The violence is sparse and blood kept to a minimum and yet, the film pulls off what gorier incarnations have failed to achieve.

It's obvious that Bertino understands the basic principles of genre film-making (or any kind, for that matter.) In order to create a truly visceral, real and terrifying experience you have to place to viewer in the mindset of the characters, make them feel the tension of the moment as if it were happening to them. This is something that's been missing from horror movies for as long as I've been watching them, and that's the problem. I've only been watching them and not experiencing them as the genre begs them to be. The Strangers is as effective today as John Carpenter's Halloween was in 1978, all the while never bothering itself with cliched serial killer stereotypes. So I welcome the fall season with a shiver in my spine and and a paranoid glance over my shoulder. The Strangers has succeeded where so many others have failed.

Burn After Reading

If you've ever seen a Coen Brothers film, you know just how abstract and disjointed a cohesive narrative can get, in fact, I've come to expect it from them. Even their more mainstream films like Intolerable Cruelty displayed wildly erratic behaviour and character traits commonplace to any typical psyche ward. If this is what you're expecting, Burn After Reading will not disappoint by any means.

Burn combines the more ridiculous aspects of the CIA, online dating, paranoia and the workout culture into a mystery of absurd proportions (in the same narrative confusion that made The Big Lebowski such a cult phenomenon.) Everything about the story is closely hinged on the idea that nobody has a clue what anyone else is really up to causing a ripple effect of idiocy and overreaction that ends up having some very entertaining (if not morbidly violent) repercussions.

The show stealer this time around is Brad Pitt (tactfully credited last) as the flamboyantly energetic and charmingly dim gym instructor. His interplay with co-worker Frances McDormand (who, unfortunately hasn't had a notable role since 2001's Cameron Crowe film Almost Famous) is brilliantly hilarious. Coming in second is George Clooney as the paranoid, womanizing, sexual deviant. John Malkovich drops almost as many eff-bombs as John Goodman in Lebowski. Richard Jenkins takes a turn for the morose (opposite his excitable and furious role in Step Brothers.) Tilda Swinton is a smarmy bitch and J.K. Simmons provides a confused objective commentary from his office in the CIA.

The culmination of the film is a whirlwind of bizarre incidents that would be classified as "wacky" if it weren't a Coen Brothers film, instead they can be chalked up as poignant absurdity. While not their best film of late, it is a fun ride that rises out of the shadows of last years dark award winner No Country for Old Men.

Baby Mama

I'll be the first to say that 30 Rock is one of the best sitcoms on TV right now. I'll also be the first to say that Amy Poehler is still one of the funniest members of SNL (a torch that's soon to be passed to newcomer Kristen Wiig, but that's another story.) The casting decision to put both Tina Fey and Amy Poehler opposite each other is always a smart one since they work so well together. Unfortunately, this was probably the only smart decision encompassing the entirety of production on the film Baby Mama.

Though not without it's charm, Baby Mama can be summed up as the uglier younger sister to last year's Knocked Up. Written and directed by SNL writing alum Michael McCullers, this outing's disappointment doesn't come as a surprise when his resume includes such "hits" as Undercover Brother and the second and third Austin Powers films. The plot is pretty formulaic and the gags are moderately underwhelming, though it's impossible to hate the movie for its shortcomings when the two main characters are as damned cute as Tina and Amy.

The final ace up Baby Mama's respective sleeve is the supporting cast. I found myself saying "Holy crap, *insert celebrity name here* is in this?" at least four times, and these aren't mild mannered cameos either. Among the star studded day players are Sigourney Weaver, Greg Kinnear, Maura Tierney and (most surprising of all) Steve Martin all providing a handful of laughs a piece to prevent any unnecessary gut-busting.

Overall is was considerably endearing and pretty funny for the most part, though I'm glad I didn't end up paying $9 to see it in a theater. Worth at least a rental if all your other options have been exhausted.