The Third Stringer

O.K., temperatures may only sporadically hitting the 70s, but summer blockbuster season is officially here. Iron Man opened last weekend with a whopping $104.2 million stateside and another 96.8 million overseas ($201 million all together in its first five days). That beats even what the studio was hoping for (a mere $90 million domestically) and out there in Hollywoodland, executive types are thrilled that all the bemoaning and hand-wringing over the death of the box office was premature. Iron Man came in right behind Spider-Man in the top-ten best openings of all time. For irresistible star Robert Downey Jr., and the newly short-skirted (and likable!) Gwyneth Paltrow, this is a whole new world, as we’re guessing you could add up the grosses of their last four or five movies and not come near Iron Man’s one-weekend haul. Hey, Batman, are you ready for this jelly?

 

ANOTHER BIGGIE COMES our way this weekend: Speed Racer. This is the first directorial outing for the Wachowski brothers since the Matrix trilogy (though they wrote the screenplay for V for Vendetta) and we’ve been eager to see if Speed Racer could blow our minds the way Neo/Keanu did back in ’99. The answer is … sorta? But not necessarily in the way you might want your mind blown. It’s true that Speed Racer looks like nothing you’ve ever seen before—insane (insane!) colors, a wholly imagined universe of loop-de-loop race tracks, flying machines and Crayola-blue skies. Emile Hirsch stars as Speed Racer, a boy who idolizes older brother Rex Racer and is devastated when the object of his hero worship dies in a car crash. We could go on and lay out what the rest of the plot is about, but in truth, halfway through this movie we were rubbing our eyes and looking around to see if anyone else was as confused as we were. Because we were lost somewhere around the time we were trying to understand the role of the monkey (yes, we know it’s from the cartoon, but whatever), and wondering what it was Susan Sarandon, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Matthew Fox and Mr. Hirsch—all talented actors—were thinking about as they delivered lines of dialogue that never went quite far enough to be camp, so instead ended up just sounding … flat. And bad, actually. (It’s never good when snickers arise over things that aren’t supposed to be funny.) We’d like to give this movie the benefit of the doubt—we get that it is geared toward preadolescent boys who will be delighted by the colors and the speed and won’t miss anything like characters or plot. But can’t we have both? And if so, can we request one that doesn’t induce a headache and vertigo?

Speed Racer opens Friday at Regal Union Square, Regal E-Walk 42nd Street and AMC Loews Lincoln Square IMAX.

All hail Tina Fey! The lady we are forever indebted to for making smarts, sass and eyeglasses sexy propelled Baby Mama to the No. 1 spot last weekend with over 18 million smackeroos, beating the stoner set who chose Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. What does this mean for you? That between this and last year’s Knocked Up and Juno, expect Hollywood to start spawning (hee!) tons of pregnant-y flicks, which will get less funny with each trimester.

 

MEANWHILE, FOR PEOPLE who care about such things, this weekend is an anxious one, as the industry waits to see what happens when summer officially kicks off with the first of the season’s Big! Ass! Blockbuster! Iron Man. Comic-book geeks have been all frothed up over this one for ages, and the movie did the smartest thing possible by casting Robert Downey Jr. in the lead as Tony Stark. Mr. Downey is one of those actors who is impossible not to like, both through his sheer talent and the fact that not too long ago he seemed destined to be a True Hollywood Story casualty. The first 30 to 40 minutes of the film are the most enjoyable, as we’re introduced to Tony Stark, the brain behind the most advanced weaponry used by our government, and a Howard Hughesy, cocktail-swigging, womanizing wit. While in Afghanistan to demonstrate his latest shock-and-awe weapon, he’s captured and forced to invent himself a way out of danger. Thanks to some high-tech body armor, he escapes. Once home, the appeal of blowing things up has lessened, and with the origins story firmly in place, the action becomes about his quest to create the Iron Man persona fans know, and fight the objections of his business partner (a delightfully devious Jeff Bridges), and the U.S. Army, which doesn’t appreciate the helping hand. Our only small issue with the picture is that once Mr. Downey is encased within the Iron Man suit, the actor’s impeccably expressive face is lost and we’re left with, well, a robot. In an odd bit of casting, Gwyneth Paltrow plays Stark’s long-suffering assistant, Pepper Pots, and it appears to be a smart move on both the actress’s part and director Jon Favreau (who has gone way beyond his work in Elf ): The quality of the acting elevates this action film into something that’s more interesting than just cool special effects—which the film has plenty of. Oh, and on the next inevitable go-round, we hope that Terrence Howard gets more to do.

 

HOPING TO PICK up the ladies out there, or those shut out of Iron Man, is the romantic comedy Made of Honor. A few things to get out of the way: We love ourselves a rom-com, and while most of them follow a fairly standard formula, when done right even the predictability of the plot can be pleasurable. Not so in this one (starting with the title!), which is odd since the two leads, Patrick “McDreamy” Dempsey (attempting to play a character at least 10 years younger) and Michelle Monaghan, are both sparkly and charming. But the obvious twists and turns and gags deaden their charisma, and the true laughs are few and far between, as one waits for the movie’s inevitable conclusion.

We woke up Monday morning to a pretty big surprise: the funniest-naked-breakup-scene movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall did not take top box office honors last weekend. That spot went to The Forbidden Kingdom (Tag line: “The path is unsafe. The place is unknown. The journey is unbelievable.” Read: boy movie), which features Jet Li and Jackie Chan co-starring for the first time. Kung fu kicked Apatow ass! This weekend brings a couple other yuckfests—Baby Mama, the of-the-moment Tina Fey-Amy Poehler surrogate mom comedy and, for the lava-lamp lovers, Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay. But how can we laugh when another movie gives us so much to cry about?

Errol Morris’s latest, Standard Operating Procedure, quite frankly freaked us out. The documentary is an in-depth investigation into those infamous 2003 photographs that depicted American soldiers abusing and torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. In past films like The Thin Blue Line (about the 1976 murder of a Dallas policeman, and which resulted in helping get a man off death row) and The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara, Mr. Morris has shown a great capacity for detailed and surprising research, and a compellingly simple, equitable and unblinking approach to filming his subjects. This time around, the filmmaker was able to coax into telling their sides of the story most of the soldiers featured in the photographs, including the much-loathed Lynndie England—of leash-holding, thumbs-up fame (who, interestingly, was caught up in a romantic triangle within the prison; “I was blinded by being in love with a man,” she bitterly eye-rolls)—as well as investigators and witnesses.

It’s the context of what happened outside the pictures that clearly interests Mr. Morris—and just think, what if the images we saw weren’t the worst of it? As Mr. Morris deftly illustrates (and considering the subject matter, rather beautifully), there’s something even more terrifying than the fact that these young kids—going stir-crazy and scared out of their own minds in a war zone—were left to abuse and torture without supervision: They might have been merely a link in the chain of command of a corrupt and power-hungry post-9/11 U.S. military. By the end of this deeply unsettling film, you’ll realize you have more questions than answers about what really happened at Abu Ghraib. Mr. Morris himself describes Standard Operating Procedure as a “nonfiction horror movie.” We couldn’t agree more.

Standard Operating Procedure opens Friday at the Angelika Film Center.

We could go into an oh-so-increasingly-familiar rant about the fact that Prom Night—a movie whose tag line is “It’s midnight. Everyone’s ready to go home … but someone has other plans”—was the most popular amongst audiences last weekend (lesson learned: people cannot resist the horror flicks) … but what’s the point? We’ll skip it. Besides, we’ve got more interesting news! We know what’s going to take the top spot this weekend: Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

This movie (directed by Nicholas Stoller) is yet another from the unofficial Judd Apatow Company Players: Jason Segel, that tall drink of water from Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared and Knocked Up, is the captain of this one, writing the screenplay and starring as Peter Bretter. At the start of the film, Peter, completely in the nude, gets dumped—in a scene destined for canonization—by longtime girlfriend, TV star Sarah Marshall (played with blue-eyed bitchy perfection by Kristin Bell). As he goes deeper into the bell jar (the crying, the obsessing, the anger—why is it funnier when it’s a man in pain?), he’s advised by his stepbrother/best friend (played by SNL player and Apatow cohort, Bill Hader) to take a trip and get away from all things Sarah Marshall. Peter jets to Hawaii and ends up running smack into his ex and her new beau, bad-boy rocker Aldous Snow (Russell Brand, who steals every scene he’s in). Mila Kunis plays a doe-eyed concierge, and from Mr. Segel and Ms. Kunis’ first exchange, it’s pretty easy to see the romantic comedy boy-meets-girl-loses-girl-discovers-things-about-himself-finds-girl train coming down the track. However, there are still some goofy surprises along the way (like, Dracula: the puppet musical …). Mr. Segel is a deeply sympathetic and likable leading man, and his script has more then a couple laugh-out-loud moments; it’s not everyone who can make good jokes about both Flavor of Love and Sex and the City.

There’s been a backlash against Judd Apatow building for a while now; it starting during last summer’s Knocked Up and Superbad hype and kicked into full gear around the releases of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Drillbit Taylor, both of which flopped. But is it right to turn on Team Apatow? One could make the argument that as a producer he’s spreading himself a bit thin—he has another two projects (including August’s Pineapple Express, written by Seth Rogen) coming out this year. And we’re getting a little tired of seeing the same faces pop up over and over again (Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd are cute, charming and totally unsurprising here). Still, Mr. Apatow certainly produces a very funny movie for every couple of duds, and this is one of them. Not quite sold? Forgetting Sarah Marshall is worth it for the Stephen Baldwin and Jason Bateman cameos alone. Trust us.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall opens Friday at Clearview Cinema at First and 62nd.

Hollywood types are scratching their heads over George Clooney’s Leatherheads, which only brought in $13.5 million when Universal reportedly had been hoping for something closer to $20 million. How could this be? Didn’t the moviegoing public realize this was George Clooney? Folks are wondering how it is that one of the most likable movie stars around continues to be in movies that people ignore (ahem: One Fine Day, which we love, by the way; Solaris; Intolerable Cruelty; etc). It just doesn’t seem right considering that 21—soundly batted around by critics—took top honors for the second week running. Come on people, stay strong … we only have a few more weeks till Iron Man comes out.

 

SPEAKING OF IRON Men (ba-dump), Keanu Reeves returns to the big screen this weekend with Street Kings, and oh, how we’ve missed The Keanu. Here’s the thing about Mr. Reeves: He’s consistently sort of flat, and weird in his delivery (has he ever been more believable than as sweet-but-daft Todd in Parenthood?). But somehow, over the course of his career—Point Break years, The Matrix ones, hell, even the Constantine and The Lake House days—he’s become someone we feel genuinely fond of. A Keanu Reeves performance is a comforting thing, like reading a book a second or third time. Which is perfect for Street Kings, a movie we swear we’ve seen at least three other times before. It’s based on a James Ellroy book, directed by David Ayer (who wrote Training Day), about an LAPD cop who is forced to question his loyalties to his team and his captain after a fellow officer is murdered. Can you guess, in a secret-super-twist, who turns out to be the villain? If you can’t, just watch the preview, as it’s clearly revealed! Mr. Reeves is surrounded by a stellar cast—hi, Jay Mohr!—that includes Forrest Whitaker, who seems to be having a lot of fun, and unlikely hot man Hugh Laurie. The movie may be predictable, but somehow, perversely, it’s still pretty entertaining.

Street Kings opens Friday at AMC Magic Johnson.

 

WE FULLY EXPECTED to love Smart People. It had everything that we like in a movie: a smart cast (Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page, Thomas Haden Church) and a funny premise (crotchety professor tries to find love), and seemed right in that Juno-Little Miss Sunshine-The Family Stone-The Squid and the Whale-Wonder Boys-Nobody’s Fool wheelhouse. Which was maybe the problem. For when you take apart the film, directed by first timer Noam Murro, everything at first glance seems to work—funny dialogue, good music, chemistry within the cast—and yet somehow nothing ever seemed to click into place. We couldn’t put our finger on what the precise problem was—maybe Dennis Quaid’s odd choice in his character’s speaking voice?—and, it’s not Ellen Page’s fault that she has been cast again as a sassy, fast-talking, preternaturally smart teen (this time, she’s not pregnant, she’s a young republican). The standout was Thomas Haden Church who livened things up every time he was onscreen … which wasn’t, sadly, enough.

Smart People opens Friday at the Angelika Film Center and City Cinemas Third Avenue.

Every time we think the weekend box office can’t surprise us, something comes along to make us say … really? Last weekend, the surprise prize went to 21, the blackjack movie we know, logically, we can’t truly judge without seeing, but yet we still feel like we kind of can. Doesn’t the preview tell us all we need to know? Kevin Spacey is doing Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth pouts prettily, and that cute guy from Across the Universe picks up where Edward Norton left off in Rounders. Meanwhile, like the other, less interesting Iraq movies that came before it, Stop-Loss was kinda ignored (and did less business than Superhero Movie). Hey, let’s all pretend the war isn’t happening together!

 

THIS WEEKEND WILL bring what feels like an unbeatable combination: Martin Scorsese and the Rolling Stones in Shine a Light. Mr. Scorsese has made great use of Stones music throughout his career, and here he pays back the ultimate fan favor with this lush and shockingly engrossing concert movie, which took place in 2006 at the Beacon Theater as part of Bill Clinton’s 60th birthday celebration. We’ll be perfectly honest: while we’ve always enjoyed the Rolling Stones, we were never what one might consider a superfan. And as for Mick Jagger, our first memory of being aware of him coincides with the unfortunate 1985 video for “Dancing In The Streets” with David Bowie (yeouch!). So while we recognized that Mr. Jagger and the gang were once considered supercrazy sex gods back in the day, we thought of him as the older, big-lipped guy in the blousy green shirt and tight-belted trousers. However, about halfway through the second song performed in Shine a Light, when Mr. Jagger—in his mid 60s—strutted like an alley cat across the stage, swiveled his hips and raised his hands above his head (revealing an impressively taut torso) everything changed. We were fantasizing about sex with Mick Jagger. Good gravy, what sort of black magic does this man possess? But perhaps this is both a credit to the man himself—who expends a charismatic energy onstage that should make Justin Timberlake weep—and to Mr. Scorsese, who managed to bottle it, and do the impossible: translate the thrill and exhilaration of a live performance to a movie screen. The film allows the band to do what it does best—perform. Particularly fascinating, too, is the black-and-white archival footage Mr. Scorsese weaves in of the baby-face gents wearily trying to adjust to fame. And in case anyone was wondering, Keith Richards is freakin’ hilarious (we finally understand Johnny Depp’s homage to him in Pirates of the Caribbean), and we could watch him smoke, cough, sing and woozily grin all day.

Shine a Light opens Friday at the Clearview Ziegfeld theater.

 

SPEAKING OF IRRESISTIBLE, we have to raise the white flag on George Clooney, too. He’s so—yes!—charming and likable we want not to fall prey to his silver fox allure! Same goes with Leatherheads, a movie that would have been a hard sell if anyone besides Mr. Wonderful was behind the camera and onscreen. The movie takes place in 1925, when professional football was becoming a legitimate sport. Mr. Clooney has given his film luscious 20’s costuming and music—in fact, a golden hue of nostalgia hangs over this picture, which pays homage to screwball romances, Frank Capra-esque storytelling and period sports flicks. Renée Zellweger is charged with playing super-sassy Chicago Tribune reporter Lexie Littleton, and the actress looks fab in pencil skirts and little hats and red lipstick. Ms. Zellweger manages to get around the rat-a-tat dialogue competently enough, but it’s Mr. Clooney who seems the most at ease. If ever a man was made to drink scotch in a speakeasy, sport a newsboy cap and toss off clever quips, it’s The Clooney. The movie suffers from a lack of identity (Is it a wink-wink old-fashioned romance? A nod to The Natural? A comment on the greed and capitalism that are regular parts of professional sports?), and misses the elegance of Mr. Clooney’s previous directorial work, Good Night, and Good Luck. It’s also about 25 minutes too long. That said, it’s possible to relax into the pleasures of art direction, score, and watching a real movie star at work.

Leatherheads opens Friday at the Regal E-Walk and Battery Park Theaters.

Guess who (yuk-yuk) cleaned up again at the box office this weekend? That giant animated elephant star of Horton Hears a Who! earned another $25 million, staying at the top of the heap for another week. We were sort of surprised that it beat out both the previously unstoppable Tyler Perry—Meet the Browns came in at No. 2—and Judd Apatow-produced/Owen Wilson-starring Drillbit Taylor. But apparently America wants its stories G-rated and animated! If this is true, the following movies might be in a wee bit of trouble, as they are both deeply unsettling in entirely different ways.

 

STOP-LOSS HOPES to buck the trend of Iraq war movies going bust at the box office. (Remember Rendition? The Kingdom? Lions for Lambs? We didn’t think so.) This one has the über-talented Kimberly Peirce as director, producer and co-writer (along with Mark Richard)—it’s her first feature film project since 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry—along with a scarily photogenic cast that includes Ryan Phillippe, Abbie Cornish, Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Timothy Olyphant. The term “stop-loss” (coming from the financial world) describes an unfortunate loophole that allows the army to retain soldiers who would otherwise be allowed to retire after their contracted tour of duty. Mr. Phillippe plays (with great poise) Sgt. Brandon King, a patriotic soldier from Texas who believes in the war and serving his country, but is disillusioned with the army after getting stop-loss’d. Here’s the thing about this movie: There are plenty of details to pick apart (What kind of accent are Channing Tatum and Abbie Cornish attempting? What the heck happened to all those scenes from the previews that are mysteriously absent from the final print?), but the power and emotion of the overall picture is undeniable. More than 80,000 soldiers have been affected by stop-loss orders, and that chilling statistic will stay with you far longer than anything else—though we would be remiss if we didn’t point out that we always want more Timothy Olyphant (and we could have done with some more Ciáran Hinds and Witness bad guy Josef Sommer, too).

Stop-Loss opens Friday at Regal E-Walk and Battery Park theaters and Chelsea Clearview Cinema.

 

SHOTGUN STORIES IS written and directed by Jeff Nichols and produced by David Gordon Green, of All the Real Girls, Undertow and, most recently, Snow Angels fame. And it shows: the languorous camera shots, the sparse dialogue, the beautiful cinematography—it’s all reminiscent of Mr. Green’s work. The movie, which takes place in cotton-field-dotted Arkansas, is about two sets of half-brothers. They share a father, who’s a different man for each family—an alcoholic who named his sons Son, Kid and Boy before changing his life, finding God, marrying a new woman and having four more sons (with proper names). After their father’s funeral, a feud breaks out among the two families (Greaser-Soc style!) and, as always, violence tends to beget more violence. Mr. Nichols shot the film in 35mm in what he describes as “anamorphic 2:35 aspect ratio,” after being influenced by a re-released print of Lawrence of Arabia at age 15. None of the lead actors have the physical beauty of our would-be husband, Peter O’Toole, but they look authentic and are every bit as sympathetic and compelling.

Shotgun Stories opens Wednesday at IFC Film Center.

Get ready for lots more animated films to head our way thanks to the gigantic opening of Horton Hears a Who! last weekend, which pulled an amazing $45 million-plus at the box office, making it the biggest opening thus far of 2008 (beating Cloverfield, for which we are thankful). Prepare yourself for all sorts of puns. (Don’t believe us? “It’s a who-mongous opening,” said Fox senior VP of distribution Chris Aronson). Whoo-ray! And it should be interesting to see what will happen this weekend, as Tyler Perry, a man who directs, writes, produces and stars in über-successful movies—Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea’s Family Reunion, and Why Did I Get Married—has Meet the Browns in theaters nationwide. We’d love to tell you how it is, but they weren’t screening it. Huh! Shutter, a horror movie starring Joshua Jackson (hi, Pacey!), and Owen Wilson’s big comeback Drillbit Taylor (written by Seth Rogen, yet another member of the Judd Apatow universe) also weren’t available for perusal before press time. Hmmmm. We’re suspicious.

 

LUCKILY, WE DID get to see Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna), a warm and very bighearted film from first-time feature director Patricia Riggen. The movie (which got a standing ovation after it’s premiere at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival) is about a 9-year-old boy, Carlitos (Adrian Alonso), who has been left behind in Mexico while his mother works two jobs in Los Angeles. After his grandmother dies, Carlitos decides to make the journey solo across the border with the help of some inexperienced college students (one of whom is played by America Ferrera). The movie skillfully splits into two parts: Carlitos’ journey—one that involves terror and peril in unexpected places—and that of his mother, who’s played by the luminously beautiful Kate del Castillo. The performances are great across the board, particularly the charmingly grumpy Eugenio Derbez, who begrudgingly comes to Carlitos’ aid. Believe us when we say there wasn’t a dry eye in the theater when the credits rolled.

Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna) opens Wednesday at Clearview Chelsea Cinemas and BAM Rose Cinemas.

 

MEANWHILE, ADAM CAROLLA continues to confound us. We kind of ignored him back in the days of Loveline (who could concentrate on him when Dr. Drew was around?) and were slightly annoyed by him on the The Man Show. So when we heard about The Hammer, based on a screenplay co-written by Mr. Corolla and starring him, about a once-promising amateur boxer who, at 40, loses his job and his girlfriend in quick succession and decides to get back in the ring for a shot at the Olympics, we sighed. Deeply. We imagined a Rocky/Cinderella Man/Big Daddy/Slackers-type mess. And we were kind of right! The movie is certainly silly and at times makes no sense whatsoever, but yet we still sort of liked it? We can’t really put our finger on why, except that Mr. Carolla is actually quite charming, and the movie has a few standout scenes that made us laugh out loud. Not quite a knockout, but close enough.

The Hammer opens Friday.

Golly, is it summer blockbuster season already? Last weekend, 10,000 BC—which is, from what we understand, a movie with good-looking prehistoric types sporting crazy hair and scrambling around rocks with saber-toothed tigers—took over the top spot by earning over $35 million. This weekend, while some will allow themselves to get freaked into the next millennium with the terrifying and bad-dream evoking Funny Games, others can escape with the kiddies to Horton Hears a Who! We must confess we weren’t one of those kids raised on those wacky Dr. Seuss books, so we didn’t know the plot going in: an elephant named Horton hears a cry for help coming from a speck of dust floating through the air. Turns out this speck contains an entire civilization (cue stoner whoa), Who-ville, whose mayor needs Horton’s help getting their tiny world to a safe place. The cast assembled is impressive: Jim Carrey—a man whose entire career is thanks to his cartoon face—provides the voice (and over-gesticulating) of Horton; Steve Carell (who steals the movie) voices the mayor of Who-ville; Carol Burnett (!) plays the mean, naysaying (and suspiciously soccer-mom-like) kangaroo; Will Arnett is a baddie vulture; and Isla Fisher, Amy Poehler and Seth Rogan have supporting roles. There are enough fun sight gags for the young ones in the audience, and more sophisticated jokes for their parents (it’s the same production gang that did Ice Age, one of our most favorite recent kid movies). The movie’s motto—“A person’s a person, no matter how small”—is, after all, a great one to impart (though unfortunately adopted by pro-life groups against the author’s wishes). However, one can’t help but wonder, particularly during one climatic scene when all the frustrated and scared subjects of Who-Ville raise their voices together to cry out “We are Here!” just what exactly is going on—and how long it will be till one of the democratic candidates references the flick.

Horton Hears a Who! opens Friday at United Artists 64th Street and Second Avenue theater, Regal Battery Park

 

MEANWHILE, IT'S COMMON knowledge around here how freaked out we are by outer space … and yet we still keep getting assigned movies that terrorize us! This time it’s Sputnik Mania, a fascinating documentary about the 1957 U.S.S.R.-launched satellite, the first to orbit the earth, which made our country go bananas with awe and fear. Liev Schreiber narrates the amazing archival footage of the events that followed the launch of Sputnik, ones that brought the United States and Russia so freakin’ close to the brink of nuclear war, it’s dizzying. Director David Hoffman used the best-selling book Sputnik: The Shock of the Century, by Paul Dickson, as his source material, and draws unsettling parallels to the world 50 years ago and the one today. Let’s just say that watching President Eisenhower handling a terrifying crisis with goodwill toward all mankind makes us sort of sad about the current leadership. Also, on a slightly different note, the press material for this film states that NASA wants to build a moon base by 2024. Oh, future … will you ever stop?

Sputnik Mania opens Friday at IFC Film Center.

Do you ever get the feeling that a good majority of the country would line up just to watch Will Ferrell eat beef jerky and read the phone book (probably in his underpants)? Semi-Pro took the No. 1 spot this past weekend—though with only $15 million in sales; we’re wondering if people are choosing to stay home and catch up on Lost (which is currently short-circuiting our brain) or watching movies on demand. And speaking of ... Now for a public service announcement: If you, for any reason at all, think you should rent Good Luck Chuck, please heed our warning and set yourself on fire instead. (Dane Cook, no más! That goes double for you, Alba.) O.K.!

 

THIS WEEKEND, PARANOID Park, the latest from Gus Van Sant—moody auteur behind My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting and Elephant—hits theaters. Adapted from the Blake Nelson novel of the same name, the Portland, Ore.-set film is about a high school skateboarder who accidentally kills a man and decides to say nothing. What follows is a Dostoevsky-esque meditation on guilt and consequences … through the eyes of a teenage boy, which means not a lot is said and one has to trust visual evidence. And what visuals! As in his past films, Mr. Van Sant plays with his story’s narrative, and employs dreamy, beautifully long shots, lavishing attention on his young stars. He cast many of his actors through MySpace, and with their awkward limbs, bad skin and fidgety feet, these kids feel almost uncomfortably authentic (except Taylor Momsen—little Jenny Humphrey from Gossip Girl—who shows up in a supporting role). Like in Good Will Hunting, Mr. Van Sant puts singer-songwriter Elliot Smith’s music to great use, with the shadow of Mr. Smith’s suicide five years ago adding an extra layer of poignancy.

Paranoid Park opens Friday at Angelika Film Center.

 

THERE ARE MANY things in this life we have no desire to do. Right up at the top would be to climb Mount Everest. We’re not sure what drives people to undertake the journey, and we really, really don’t understand why someone blind would attempt it. In the documentary Blindsight, six sightless Tibetan teenagers set out to get up the 23,000-foot peek on the north side of that big-ass mountain, guided by famous blind Everest climber Erik Weihenmayer. The hardest thing about this movie was trying to resist the urge to scream “Don’t do it! Turn back!” at the screen. However, in addition to the suspense of possibly seeing a blind Tibetan child fall to his death (we’re not telling!), director Lucy Walker does an excellent job of making each member of the expedition team a fully drawn character, and the children and their individual stories are all respectfully presented. (There’s also a hot American “seeing” doctor who goes along to help. Hellooo, doctor!) Still, we feel the need to ask again, why, why, why?!

Blindsight opens today at IFC Film Center.

Hey, how about those Oscars? We doubt it was just the DayQuil that had us thinking this was one of the best shows in ages … it had more to do with the fact that this year the movies were just so darn good and deserving (all those sweet foreigner acceptance speeches really helped, too). Isn’t it hard to come back to reality and realize that it’s still just February and we’ve got some time to kill before we see anything new that will be worthy of an Oscar? (And, ahem, here you go: Vantage Point, about the attempted assassination of the president told from five different perspectives, took over the box office this weekend—smell you, Jumper!)

Continuing with this weird cinematic limbo-land is a film that’s been batted about since it premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, Penelope. Directed by Mark Palansky, the movie is a modern fairy tale about a rich heiress cursed with the snout of a pig. Seriously. Only true love will free her blah-blah-blah, but most of the men sent her way by her parents—who have kept her locked away—tend to go screaming for the door.

Let’s start with the good: The film stars Christina Ricci as Penelope and James McAvoy (cast in this before his Atonement stardom, clearly) as a roguish down-on-his-luck lad. The two actors are each so naturally charming that they manage to bring some grace to this muddled picture, which never seems to be sure what it is. Even with a pig snout Christina Ricci is adorable, and Mr. McAvoy’s wobbly American accent can’t mask his leading-man charisma, but the film never seems to find it’s footing. There are moments with the whimsical sets, all lush, jeweled colors for a fairly-tale feel, create an atmosphere of Tim Burton-lite, but Penelope teeters uncomfortably between campy romantic comedy and love-yourself-for-yourself-you-go-girlfriend message. For instance, when Penelope tires of being cooped up in her fancy house and runs away to see the real world—yes!—she keeps a scarf wrapped around her face the whole time, and just looks like someone who just popped in from the cold. During her travels she meets a new friend, played by first-time producer Reese Witherspoon—and hey, we think Ms. Witherspoon is a fine actress but trying to believe her as a Vespa-driving toughie is a stretch. The cameos are fun; Catherine O’Hara and Richard E. Grant play Penelope’s overprotective parents, and Peter Dinklage shows up as a reporter intent on unmasking Penelope’s secret (oh yeah, we think there is some message about media and fame and tabloid-ism in there somewhere, too). But mostly, we came away wondering what the movie could have been like if it had been directed by, well, Tim Burton. We’re guessing … better.

Penelope opens Friday at United Artists theater at 64th and 2nd Avenue.

Just as we feared it would, Jumper ruled the box office this weekend, demonstrating either the fact that no one reads reviews, people inexplicably want to see Hayden Christensen’s work or there really is nothing else around in this inter-season dredge of studio pictures out there. Sigh. Prepare yourselves for Jumper 2, and you guys have no one to blame but yourselves. So! We were delighted to tuck in to The Duchess of Langeais (or Ne Touchez Pas la Hache for all you smarty-pants), which will be opening at the art houses this Friday. The film comes from French New Wave director Jacques Rivette (whom we’re happy to see still working, at just shy of 80). Mr. Rivette is famous for his experimental style and somewhat insane running times (one cut of Out 1 was 13 hours long in its original form), and best known here for his films Celine et Julie vont en Bateau and L’Amour fou.

 

THE SCREENPLAY FOR The Duchess of Langeais is based on the Balzac story (and we trust our much more literate colleague, Andrew Sarris, when he says the film abides faithfully by the novella). The movie concentrates on the cat-and-mouse game of seduction between Antoinette (the alluring Jeanne Balibar), the Duchess of Langeais in question—a married but still very flirty fixture at the lavish balls of Paris during the Restoration—and the broody and grizzledly handsome general, Armand de Montriveau, played by Guillaume Depardieu. First, an aside on Mr. Depardieu: We’ve had a soft spot for the son of Gerard since back in the early 90’s, when he starred in Tous le Matin du Monde (and a photo of the actor looking devastatingly French and full of ennui—in a beret—somehow found its way to our bedroom wall). The years, they have changed him, and the once scarily pretty actor has, at age 37, taken on a full load of world-weary charm. (Our nostalgia led us to some research, discovering Mr. Depardieu had his leg amputated in 1995. Ouch!) The movie cuts between the present day (which involves war and cloisters and a nunnery) and five years earlier, when the seemingly-destined-for-unhappiness pair first meet. The movie moves along at a measured, darkly ironic and lusciously costumed pace, the chemistry between the two principles is palpable, and after a long run of films populated by bright shiny young things (Cloverfield, we’re talking to you!), it was a relief to the eyeballs and soul to see two people in a different demographic box of life wrestle with love, intimacy and humiliation. Get to it, tout de suite!

 

The Duchess of Langeais opens Friday at the IFC Film Center and Lincoln Plaza Theaters.

And it will be—those slick Super Bowl commercials looked pretty irresistible, right? Except the problem with Jumper is that the film never goes into any deeper territory than those 30-second glossy spots. But that’s not the only problem; there’s also the film’s star, Hayden Christensen. We have always been mystified by certain actors’ careers, and Mr. Christensen has one of them. He was great when he was playing a liar, or at least someone suspiciously unconvincing, in Shattered Glass. But then, around the time he was Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels, we started to realize that Mr. Christensen is just a naturally unconvincing actor who once lucked into the perfect role. In Jumper, based on the 1992 book by Steven Gould, Mr. Christensen plays David Rice, a man who discovers he has the ability to teleport anywhere in the world he can imagine. The possibilities are endless: surfing in the Maldives, cocktails in London and maybe a swing through a bank vault for some cash … all before lunch. There is the obligatory back story appropriate to mythic tales and comic books: an unhappy childhood, a mother who left when Rice was 5-years-old, the childhood romance with an apple-cheeked girl who grows up to be the apple-headed Rachel Bilson (a.k.a. Summer from The O.C.), etc. Through it all, Mr. Christensen’s face remains impressively impassive, and his delivery is breathtakingly flat. The most frustrating thing about the movie is seeing what it could have been, for the idea and special effects are actually pretty cool. Samuel L. Jackson (can he not just say no, or what?) is pretty f’n scary as the baddie, and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliott all grown up!) is so much better than Mr. Christensen as the sidekick that we found ourselves wishing for a casting teleport-switcheroo. Don’t even get us started on the random appearance of the lovely Diane Lane. Director Doug Liman has done so much better in the past (Mr and Mrs. Smith, The Bourne Identity) that we’re guessing all the behind-the-scenes problems that plagued Jumper’s production, including all the last-minute casting changes, got the best of him this time.

Jumper opens Thursday at AMC Loews 19th Street East 6, Regal Battery Park Stadium 11 and Clearview First and 62nd.

 

GEORGE A. ROMERO sure does love himself some zombies. The legendary writer-director behind Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead is back with Diary of the Dead. And apparently this time the only thing scarier than dead people coming to life and lurching about trying to eat human flesh is the Internet (thank you!). Or so it goes in this low-budget horror film, which is either a deliberately campy commentary on the current need to document everything (the main characters, while being chased by zombies, record everything and upload to a Web site) or just plain off. But it did make us realize that between Cloverfield and this film, young pretty people sure are dumb.

George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead opens Friday in select theaters.

Okay … so we had the weirdest dream this weekend. Some movie we had never heard of, something that rhymed “Hannah” with “Montana,” came out of nowhere and broke all sorts of records. Oh, wait, that actually happened? Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour (featuring a young lady born in the early 90’s, sigh), which plays in 3-D (augh!), made $29 million even though it only played in 683 theaters. This means it did better than any other movie playing over the Super Bowl weekend. Ever. It even did better than Titanic. O.K.? We think you know what this means … RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

 

ANYWAY! THIS WEEK brings us the reteaming of Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson in Fool’s Gold (remember them back in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days?). This movie has the genetically gifted pair (named “Tess” and “Finn,” which, alas, made us think there might be a chance this film would have some literary aspirations) as a couple on the verge of divorce but thrown back together in search of a legendary treasure lost at sea in 1715. (Watch out for the giant squid!) This movie reminded us strongly of a time in our formative years (yes, the 80’s) when there was a genre of film that was some mad caper featuring slightly dizzy but ultimately spunky heroines. Like, Outrageous Fortune and Ruthless People, movies that made stars like Bette Midler, Shelley Long, or—yes!—Goldie Hawn shine. Strangely, Fool’s Gold reversed the premise a bit, as it’s Matthew McConaughey who is cast as the dizzy, easy-on-the-eyes screen candy (seriously, the man is topless, flashing his muscled man-boobies, practically the entire picture). But aside from that flip, Fool’s Gold felt like a retread of all those movies from yester-decade but … not nearly as good. Could that be because we’re no longer 12? Perhaps. Mr. McConaughey and Ms. Hudson are certainly charming enough to do a lot better—though maybe it was the gorgeous location, more than the script, that convinced them to sign on?—and Donald Sutherland manages to bring (as always) a nice bit of gravitas. We were sort of sad to see Malcolm Jamal Warner, a.k.a. Theo from The Cosby Show, turn up in a small part with an unidentifiable island accent. Bring back Shelley Long!

Fool’s Gold opens Friday at Clearview Chelsea Cinemas, City Cinemas Third Avenue and Regal Battery Park.

 

AND THEN THERE’S Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, which also covers some of the well-worn ground of films like Home for the Holidays or The Family Stone. However, this film is a bit more successful in putting its own spin on that eternal truth: No matter how far you go, or how successful you become, you’ll always be that kid you used to be when you go home. Martin Lawrence stars as a slickster L.A. talk-show host who takes his new fiancée home to reunite with his family somewhere down in the Deep South. The supporting cast of characters—Mike Epps, Michael Clarke Duncan and Cedric the Entertainer—are ultimately given more to do than Mr. Lawrence, but he plays the straight man with aplomb. Joy Bryant puts her ridiculous prettiness to good use as a former Survivor winner who seems to be suffering from post-traumatic stress as she sees alliances against her everywhere.

Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins opens Friday at Regal E-Walk and Regal Battery Park.

Oh, America … what are you doing to us? Meet the Spartans, the latest spoofy, goofy film from the Scary Movie franchise, was tops at the box office this weekend. Beating … Rambo! Really? Interesting to see what will happen this week … and we wish we could give a more informed opinion on things, except that none of the movies were screening for critics before press time. Hmmmm! Suspicious? We kind of thought so. So instead, we bring you our thoughts on two of this week’s movie trailers—which, let’s face it, are sometimes better than the movies themselves and usually a pretty good indicator of things to come.

 

FIRST UP IS Over Her Dead Body, which is brought to you by writer and first-time director Jeff Lowell. (Who previously gave the world John Tucker Must Die. Thank you! ) The always-charming Paul Rudd plays a man whose fiancée (played by Eva Longoria Parker) was tragically killed on his wedding day—she was crushed by an ice sculpture of an angel. Stay with us. A year later, and still depressed, he’s pushed into seeing a psychic (Lake Bell). A few twists and a couple of white lies later, the two fall for each another, with the psychic convincing Mr. Rudd that his dead wife wants him to be happy. Wrong! Ms. Parker (way to use the married name!) is mad as only a dead, jealous almost-wife could be and sets out to derail the new romance. Do we really even need to go on here? This film seems to take a little bit of everything from Ghost, All of Me, She-Devil and probably a dozen more movies we might rather forget. The only thing we see really going for it is Mr. Rudd (whom we’ve loved since the days of Clueless), though we’re worried something weird happened behind the scenes to get him in on this one.

Over Her Dead Body opens Friday at Regal E-Walk Times Square and City Cinemas E. 86th Street.

 

OH BOY, AND then there’s The Eye. This movie’s ad campaign has been grossing us out for a while now, since the main image is of an eye with a hand coming out of it. Yuck! The film is a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Gin gwai, and is about a blind woman who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world (and not a pretty flying unicorn one either). It’s high time someone made a movie to freak out the organ donors! Jessica Alba stars, and—pretty excitingly—so does Parker Posey (!) and Alessandro Nivola, who played the evil brother of Nic Cage in Face/Off. Not for nothing, but eyeballs are pretty gross, though we suppose this flick leaves tons of room for sequels: The Ear … The Tongue … etc.

The Eye opens Friday at Regal E-Walk Times Square and Regal Battery Park.

So those Golden Globes were kind of a bust, right? We’re still so furious with NBC for the faux-show put-on by creepy Billy Bush (Why is he on TV? Why?) and Nancy O’Dell, as opposed to just letting the Hollywood Foreign Press Association do their press conference (yay, Jorge Camara!), that we’re going to continue not to watch American Gladiators. So there. More disturbing news from movieland: The Bucket List, which sort of made us feel bad just from watching the trailer, was No. 1 this weekend. Et tu, America? Sigh.

 

THIS WEEKEND BRINGS Woody Allen back to theaters, if not to New York City, with Cassandra’s Dream. The film stars great Scot Ewan McGregor and Irishman Colin Farrell as English working-class brothers (strangely enough, they’re convincing, even though just by the eyebrows alone it’s kind of a stretch). Mr. McGregor’s character is striving for a better life, one that’s been shown to the family by a millionaire uncle (played by the consistently fantastic Tom Wilkinson) whereas Farrell struggles with gambling and pills. After a brief streak of good luck (thanks to the dog races, and a pup named Cassandra’s Dream), the brothers find themselves with their backs against the walls, agreeing to commit murder in order to get out of the hole they’ve collectively dug themselves into. There are all sorts of Greek tragedy overtones, as well as the class consciousness, lust, greed and social striving that infused Mr. Allen’s Match Point. Mr. Farrell is shockingly good (between this and his star turn in the Sundance Film Festival opener, In Bruges, he’s having a very good week), and he and the consistently charming Mr. McGregor carry the film well. It’s hard to judge a Woody Allen movie (because it’s, you know, Woody Allen) without comparing it to the director’s previous works, which may or may not be fair. Cassandra’s Dream doesn’t have the same natural spark as some of his earlier films, and occasionally the dialogue sounds more suited to the stage than the screen, plus there’s an abrupt what-the-hell ending. This is the third movie Mr. Allen has set in London (not a town that pulsates to the great tunes of George Gershwin, which may be why Philip Glass provides the rousing score), and while we too remain fans of all things British, we’re ready for him to come back to New York where he belongs.

Cassandra’s Dream opens Friday at Landmark’s Sunshine Cinema.

 

MORALITY, IN A much more visual (and chompy) way comes courtesy of Teeth. The movie was a big hitter at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and it has taken over a year of getting bounced around before finally arriving in theaters. No surprise, really, as the film is all about a young woman afflicted with the mythological condition of vagina dentata, or a vagina with teeth. Jess Weixler stars as Dawn (for more on Ms. Weixler, see page C3), a young woman who is so chaste that she wears a chastity ring on her finger and leads youth groups in celebratory celibacy. That is, until she is forced to confront her, um, condition when she is assaulted. The movie trips delicately on the line between dark comedy and camp horror film, and you gotta admire director Mitchell Lichenstein’s yeah-we’re-going-there attitude. ’Cause he does. The creepy kid from Nip/Tuck (John Hensley) shows up, too, and is even creepier than usual.

Teeth opens Friday at Village East Cinema.

Going to the movies in January means suffering through an annual Hollywood holiday hangover; all the good stuff—the Daniel Day-Lewis performances, the sweeping period love stories, the Coen brothers—gets shoved to the side for flicks like National Treasure 2, and Alvin and the Chipmunks (both in the top five this past weekend). It’s grim out there (for example, while sitting through a packed AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator Requiem showing last week, the biggest laughs came from a pizza joke—“I guess we know who ordered the sausage lover’s”—and when one character said we could always trust in our government. Yup, it’s like that.)

Gunning for the soft romantic comedy audience this month is 27 Dresses. The film is billed as being from the screenwriter of The Devil Wears Prada (Aline Brosh McKenna), and stars Katherine Heigl of Grey’s Anatomy and Knocked Up fame. The movie treads along the well-worn path of the rom-com formula: people-pleasing girl is the literal bridesmaid-never-the-bride, in unrequited love with her boss (Edward Burns), who falls for her sexpot younger sister (Malin Ackerman), and she’s forced to help plan their nuptials while meeting cynical marriage-hating “New York Journal” ‘Commitments’ reporter (a sparkly-eyed James Marsden). There’s the obligatory montage of Ms. Heigl trying on various bridesmaids monstrosities, a misunderstanding, a misrepresentation, a boozy (and super-fun-looking) night out involving singing Elton John, and yes, of course, a wedding at the end. If you’re a fan of the genre, the movie is a pleasant if unsurprising coast to the finish, elevated by the charm of Ms. Heigl. Like with Knocked Up, there’s a leap of audience belief in imagining the gorgeous and charismatic actress being the girl not chosen, but Ms. Heigl manages to bring real charm and humor to the part, positioning her nicely for future leading-lady glory (look out, Sandra Bullock!). And while there’s plenty of stuff any sane woman might take issue with where the worshiping-at-the-wedding-industry-alter is concerned (Ms. Heigl’s character goes so far as to clip particularly well-written ‘Commitments’ columns … written by guess who!), there are plenty of winning scenes to counteract the premise, and Ms. Heigl and Mr. Marsden have crackling onscreen chemistry to boot. (Does this guy just get hotter or what?) The two adolescent girls sitting in front of The Observer seemed particularly enthralled, which may be a good indication of the movie’s intended audience and success.

27 Dresses opens on Friday, January 18.

 

FIRST SUNDAY, STARRING Ice Cube and Tracy Morgan, is a movie that wants to be a screwball comedy, a caper and a feel-good inspirational tale all at once but feels fairly predictable (but not in a comforting rom-com way) and, more often than not, is not so funny. The two men play best friends down on their luck and needing cash fast to pay off a debt (something to do with Jamaicans and tricked out wheelchairs—don’t ask), so somehow they decide to rob their neighborhood church. Unfortunately, after breaking in, they discover that someone has beaten them to it, and they’re unwittingly left holding hostages. We have one friend who has sworn for years that Ice Cube is the actor of our generation, and while we won’t go that far, we will admit that he does manage to emerge from this one fairly unscathed (though we’re guessing he can play a toughie-with-a-soft-center in his sleep). Not so much for Tracy Morgan, who has a couple of good laughs but even more clunkers, and seems to be doing a retread of his 30 Rock character, Tracy Jordan. Though maybe Tracy Morgan really is his 30 Rock character, in which case he’s always just playing himself, which is really just as terrifying. (See last Sunday’s New York Times “Night Out With.” Yikes). The supporting cast of characters, including Loretta Devine, Michael Beach, Keith David, Regina Hall, Katt Williams (stuck playing a flamboyant choir director and therefore must deliver easy-mark homosexual jokes) and Chi McBride, do their best, but ultimately the movie feels slightly off-tempo. The film is written and directed by David E. Talbert, who comes from the world of theater, and produced by Tim Story of Barbershop fame. Save your money and wait for it to air on USA.

First Sunday opens this Friday at Regal E-Walk Times Square.

It’s the end of 2007 as we know it (and can we just say in all seriousness … thank heavens!). It was a good year, at least, for the movies … mostly. The early sludge months of Ghost Rider (oh, Oscar winner Nic Cage … your head was a skull and on fire) and Blood and Chocolate were quickly forgotten after Labor Day, when the studios trotted out their precious, gleaming, Oscar-hopeful offerings. And who are we to argue to with conventional wisdom? Atonement is about as gorgeous as a movie can be to look at—epic and heartbreaking. (Not to mention that it’s increased the sex appeal of bookshelves. Thank you!) Though we can’t pretend we understood absolutely everything there is to be understood about There Will Be Blood (is it just us, or does it seem like film critics are using their reviews for this one as an excuse to flaunt how smarty-pantsy they are?), the majestic power and sheer brilliance of Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance cannot be denied. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is an example of a perfect marriage between material and director. The film is sleek, dark and wonderfully twisted.

But! We wanted to take the time to recognize some other, less lauded films that for better or worse made 2007 the cinematic year it was. Release the flying monkeys!

Too Good To Be Overlooked:

The Bourne Ultimatum: In a long, hot summer of robots-in-disguise, pirates and Spidey, this third installment of the Bourne franchise was as elegantly executed as it was thrilling. Forget fancy special effects. We’ll take director Paul Greengrass’ complicated car chases and rooftop leaping with Matt Damon anytime.

Eastern Promises: We’ll go where Viggo. Mr. Mortensen and director David Cronenberg picked up where A History of Violence left off to deliver one of the year’s finest and most complex performances.

Away From Her: Way back in May, the young Sarah Polley sent out this small and beautiful adaptation of one of Alice Munro’s most devastating short stories. Welcome back, Julie Christie!

Movies We Wish We Could Forget:

Reign Over Me: Where to start with this movie? We don’t want to blame Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle, as we know that they’re both much, much better than this, but the movie—about a man who lost his whole family on one of the 9/11 planes and is reduced to roaming the streets on a scooter and redoing his kitchen—felt cheaply manipulative and downright exploitative. Too soon, Hollywood.

Because I Said So: We love Diane Keaton, truly and always. So it was a bummer to see her playing a caricature of herself in this one with Mandy Moore (not at her best).

P.S. I Love You: Get Hillary Swank out of romantic comedies and back to cross-dressing in a boxing ring, quick!

Guilty Pleasures:

Fred Claus: We don’t care what anybody says—this movie is funny! Sure, there were some eye-rolling moments (Ludacris, elves, etc.), but what can bring pure joy like the sight of a dead-in-the-eyes Vince Vaughn shoving his face full of cookies?

Becoming Jane: Like most girls, we kinda have a thing about Jane Austen (we could watch the Colin Firth version of Pride & Prejudice on loop). So, this somewhat dreamy film that theorizes about the love that Austen once had and lost was strangely satisfying.

Catch and Release: We know this one actually isn’t a good movie—but we still can’t resist watching it every time it’s on TV. Jennifer Garner is winsome and charming and he-llo, Timothy Olyphant, your “wood” will never be “dead” to us!

Last week, The Third Stringer had the opportunity to sit down with Daniel Day-Lewis and have a chat. How could she say no?

“For the most part I try to hear the voice, which is one of the most deep and personal ways we present our very selves. It’s like a fingerprint of the soul,” said Daniel Day-Lewis. Last week, the 50-year-old actor was discussing his character, Daniel Plainview, in Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, There Will Be Blood, based upon Upton Sinclair’s turn-of-the-century novel Oil! “Little by little a voice started to talk in my head, and then the problem becomes how to make those sounds—to get it out of your head.”

Plainview is a complicated, shadowy character: darkly misanthropic with fleeting flashes of kindness, and singularly obsessive in his quest for oil, driven by demons never fully revealed to the audience. Plainview’s speech is elegant and formal, words both clipped and rounded, and when the fury that’s never too far below the surface rises, it grows quieter, becoming more menacing. Mr. Day-Lewis’s natural speaking voice—rich, refined and deep in timbre—is a bit of a surprise to hear after decades of the actor and his voice disappearing into characters. But then again, there’s a lot that’s surprising about meeting Daniel Day-Lewis in person. The famously elusive and revered actor chooses to make fewer movies than his contemporaries (only four in the past decade), and when he’s not working drops out of the public eye. Hence the mystique that’s cropped up around him, particularly about his awesomely intense Methody prowess. (He never breaks character! He learned how to make a canoe during The Last of the Mohicans!) But Daniel Day-Lewis the man—at least on this cold December day—was relaxed, charming and quick to laugh, with long graying hair and sharp green eyes that, combined with his beakish nose, gave him the look of some exotically handsome bird of prey.

“Paul thought we were making a blockbuster,” he said of his director. “I thought we were making a film that would have us sort of drummed out of town with bell, book and candle. … So I feel we’re going to achieve some kind of middle ground.” A blockbuster? The 158-minute film is slow, detailed to the extreme and has almost no dialogue for the first 20 minutes. Mr. Day-Lewis laughed heartily and shook his head. “It’s just so great Paul thought that. I just love it: There’s no woman, no romance, no nothing—just fucking filthy guys digging holes in the ground.”

He was familiar with, and a fan of, the director’s past work, particularly Punch Drunk Love and Adam Sandler’s performance in it. “[Anderson]’s a writer. He’s a writer, simple as that. What interested me so much was the understanding that he had already entered into that world. He wasn’t observing it—he’d entered into it—and indeed he’d populated it with characters who I felt had a life of their own. Almost as if he was a secretary taking it down and putting it on paper. That is always where the best creative work is done—as if you have absolutely nothing to do with it whatsoever. That’s the way you have a chance of revealing something meaningful about yourself. Through losing yourself.”

There Will Be Blood is one of those movies that will likely draw wildly different reactions among audiences (much in the way of the eternally debated raining-frog scenes from Magnolia). Some have compared it in majesty and scope to Citizen Kane (TWBB has already been chosen as the best film of 2007 by L.A. critics), while others are confounded by the film’s final 30 minutes and shocking last scene. “To me, the symmetry was absolutely right. It may be outrageous, that last scene, but to me it seemed absolutely right. I love that there’s an exuberance to it,” Mr. Day-Lewis said of the ending. He chooses not to watch his own work: “It reminds me of how daft the whole experience is. And the older you get, the more you have to protect yourself from that awareness. I dare say the reason one ends up taking things too seriously is some feeble attempt to obliterate the sense of absurdity.” At the film’s premiere party a few days earlier, he had been besieged by reporters, an experience that made him cover his face as he remembered it. “That was an awkward time to be doing interviews. That was their assignment, God help them. When it’s feeding time at the zoo … It’s a chimpanzee’s tea party. I should not be the person wishing to be the one hiding behind the potted plant, but that’s who I am.”

Mr. Day-Lewis, married to writer-director Rebecca Miller, with whom he has two sons, spends the majority of his time in Ireland. But he still has some press responsibilities—junkets, award season red-carpet trotting—ahead of him. “There’s tomorrow, then there’s January, February and so forth. It’s relentless, never ending it seems.” He laughed good-naturedly. “And then there’s Europe to conquer.”

There Will Be Blood opens Dec. 26.

THIS WEEKEND, I Am Legend, the movie that thoroughly freaked us into the next horizon, made a gazillion trillion dollars (read: $77 million), setting records and confirming our belief that people just want to see New York City obliterated. Or Will Smith doing shirtless chin-ups—hard to say! This week, amid the Oscar bait of Sweeney Todd and Charlie Wilson’s War, come some other more modestly intentioned films. First up is P.S. I Love You, starring Hilary Swank as a young widow who discovers her late husband has left her a series of love letters instructing her on how to live her new life. There’s a few problems right off the bat with this one: Firstly, and this might be slightly unfair, but … Hilary Swank in a romantic comedy doesn’t quite work as well as Hilary Swank in the boxing ring (much more suited to the genre is co-star Lisa Kudrow, who manages to grab the funniest lines in the film). Ms. Swank gamely tries to be an everywoman (a quality she should be thankful she doesn’t have) and acts the hell out of her part, trying physical comedy and a couple of embarrassing singing scenes (not for nothing, her resemblance to Matt Damon is getting downright eerie). Gerard Butler of 300 plays the dead Irish husband, and he is requisitely charming. But again, it’s confusing why filmmakers would transport an Irish novel to the U.S. but still insist on keeping Irish elements in it. Also, why make Jeffrey Dean Morgan (a.k.a. Denny from Grey’s Anatomy), an Irishman? Why? Are there really no cute Irish actors around? (What about Carcetti from The Wire? Yep, he’s Irish! Kiss him!) Confession: We sobbed throughout the movie but resented the manipulation.

P.S. I Love You opens Friday at Regal E-Walk Times Square.

So here’s something we don’t understand: There’s not a whole lot going on in TV-land (though we still support you, writers!), and yet people still aren’t going to the movies in the money-spending holiday-season droves that studios would like. The budget-busting Golden Compass was No. 1 this weekend, but its $26 million is not considered a good haul for what New Line spent on those fightin’ Polar Bears. (It’s doing much better overseas. … Take from that what you will.) This weekend Hollywood and the world’s hopes rest on the muscular (very, very muscular) shoulders of Will Smith and I Am Legend. (A.k.a. the most stressful movie of all time … two words: bird flu. Okay?)

However, if you love life (and German Shepherds), here are some smaller pictures opening this weekend to see instead.

 

ANDY WARHOL AND the Factory have provided fertile ground for filmmakers; from I Shot Andy Warhol to last year’s Factory Girl, that era and those wackadoo characters remain a subject of intense intrigue. Filmmaker Esther B. Robinson had a personal reason for making her documentary A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory, about the 1966 disappearance of Danny Williams, onetime Warhol lover and Factory member; he was her uncle, and his absence had haunted his family ever since. When MoMa curator Callie Angell (trivia: daughter of Roger) discovered 20 never-before-seen experimental silent films featuring Edie Sedgwick, the Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol apparently made by Danny Williams, Ms. Robinson set off on a quest to find out more about her uncle’s relationship to the Factory as well as his place in her family’s history. The resulting documentary, filled with interviews with Factory members like Paul Morrissey, the Velvet Underground’s John Cale and Brigid Berlin, and with pieces of Williams’ startling films interspersed, feels deeply personal. Seeing the images of laughi ng, giddy and glamorously decadent Warholians compared to how they look in the unblinking bright light of today is rather sobering. (Read: Yikes!) The real question is, who will be the next random Factory member to get the movie treatment? Our vote goes for Ms. Berlin—her nuttiness makes for some solid-gold good times (and a simultaneous PSA for drug use).

A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory opens Friday at Cinema Village.

 

LOOK, BY ADAM Rifkin, will make you reevaluate your behavior the next time you’re alone in an elevator. The entire movie’s premise and execution takes place on multitudes of surveillance cameras. As the film points out in the opening scene, the average American is captured on these cameras over 200 times a day. Eeek! The film interweaves a wild array of overlapping story lines: A department store floor manager who uses his inventory room to bang shop girls, snort coke and masturbate; a mini-mart clerk who loves his keyboard and bitchy girlfriend; a married-with-kids lawyer cheating on his wife with a man; two Lolita-like girls, one of whom is determined to seduce her high-school English teacher; a pedophile; and two sociopaths on a crime spree. Got all that? Weirdly enough, the movie is compelling, tapping into our basic human curiosity: What do people do when they think they’re alone? According to this movie, act horribly, as it seems that the cameras only capture the very worst of human behavior. The good news is that Rhys Coiro (a.k.a. Billy Walsh from Entourage) is in it (as one of the sociopaths) … the bad news is, not nearly enough.

Look opens Friday at the Angelika Film Center.

Last weekend, family fun ruled the box office as Enchanted, that Amy Adams-Patrick Dempsey Disney fairy-tale romp, was again No. 1, bringing in another $17 million, totalling more than $70 million overall (that’s a lot of Mcdollars). This might be good news for New Line, ready to unveil its big hitter for the season, the ambitious The Golden Compass. The epic film is based on the popular trilogy His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, and if this movie does as well as the studio is hoping (New Line was also responsible for The Lord of the Rings franchise) get ready for years of this stuff. And by stuff we’re talking about whole other fantastical worlds and rules to learn, including that of our heroine’s, 12-year-old Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards), where everyone gets a talking spirit animal, or daemon, to travel beside them. (Which would really be kind of awesome … depending on what your animal is. Most people seem to get really cool, ones like snow leopards, but you know someone’s stuck with a squirrel.)  read more »

Protagonist, at the IFC Film Center, is about the extreme personal odysseys undertaken by four men: a German terrorist, a bank robber, a martial-arts enthusiast, and an ex-gay evangelical preacher.  read more »

If you’re looking for a movie that we can confidently declare is the most, shall we say unusual thing around, then look to the man playing Grendel in Beowulf, Crispin Hellion Glover, and his new film It Is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.  read more »

Last weekend proved that the box office is still pretty sweet on kiddie films, as Bee Movie overtook American Gangster for the No. 1 spot. (Fred Claus came in third. Sigh.)  read more »

Sara Vilkomerson's guide to this week's movies: Fred Claus, P2, and Choking Man.  read more »