The Other Woman

* out of ****

The Other Woman opens with a sexually-charged, yet PG-13 commencement of a relationship between Carly, played by Cameron Diaz and Mark, played by Game of Thrones’ Nikolaj Coster-Waldau –one of those super-Danes who can speak English in any accent pretty well. She is a high-powered attorney and he is some kind of New York businessman. This relationship is shown in the form of a montage like many things in the movie, which is always a Hollywood-friendly alternative to actually developing justification for how something forms.

In this case, the montage is supposed to show us that Carly has found the right man. What we are shown, however, is that he is a good-looking rich guy who takes her to nice places and satisfies her in bed. Not much else. We then discover that Mark hasn’t told Carly about his wife named Kate, played by Leslie Mann, who is needy for attention and oblivious to Mark’s deceptions.

When Carly finds out where Mark lives, she drops by one night only to have Kate open the door. Mark is out and Carly unsuccessfully attempts to play off the visit as a simple case of a mistaken address. Carly is soon stalked by Kate -on the grounds that she feels a kinship through their being duped by the same man. Carly is resistant to this naïve and manic woman, but they soon bond.

After discovering Mark to be out of town on “business” they embark on a mission (because a big New York attorney like Carly has a lot of time on her hands) to spy on him. They discover him to be dating two gigantic breasts, played by swimsuit model Kate Upton. Her character’s name is Amber and after secretly informing her of Mark’s serial deception of women, the three ladies plot revenge.

Some of the music choices in the movie are pitiful. There’s a sequence where the girls are all having fun and they play Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Not kidding. There’s also a part where Kate is so excited at the prospect of spying on Mark that she wears all-black and brings a grappling hook with a rope as the theme to Mission: Impossible plays. I was under the impression that this music cue lost its comic potency after the nineties.

But I digress. I’m losing touch with the meaning of the film. Mark’s presence throughout most of this movie is meaningless. He’s no Don Draper when it comes to the character depth of a cheating husband and the turmoil these women eventually put him though doesn’t feel rewarding. Putting a face to the wrongdoer who affected these women early in the film is a distracting mistake because the story is about the sisterhood formed by three females based on the typical (although outdated) manipulations of a man. There’s just about no need to see who this man is.

Maybe I’m missing the point entirely. This movie is supposed to be funny… right? Well it really isn’t. It’s pretty lame. The comic potential of Diaz and Mann is diminished pretty early when the shallow dialogue and pitifully contrived comic set-pieces seem outrageous for the sake of being outrageous. There are also quite a few scatological gags in this film, which belong in a Farrelly Brothers movie and break its chances in having the respectability of a traditional farce.

It must be a real burden for director Nick Cassavetes to be the son of John, who brought realism to US cinema through independent simplicity and raw emotion. Nick seems to have formed a career of cheap laughs and manipulative drama in spite of his father's work. The Other Woman is condescending and barely triggers a gut reaction in terms of its comedy. It met all my cynical expectations associated with chick-flicks when all I wanted was a little redeeming surprise here and there. 

I only hope that its first-time screenwriter, Melissa Stack, can grow from the success of this film and write another story about female empowerment that actually has some real social commentary and hilarity. It wouldn’t be a major achievement though. Someone did that thirty-four years ago with 9 to 5, a movie that feels years ahead of this one.

Ernest & Celestine

**** out of ****

The American release of France’s Ernest & Celestine is currently in theaters somewhere in this country. This Oscar-nominated hand-drawn animated film from last year is about a friendship between a bear and a mouse. It is creative, silly, heart-warming and it must sound appalling to most families because when it played at Baxter in Louisville KY, Rio 2 buried it. 

The color scheme is wonderful. It's filled with the energy and life of a nearly-dead animation style which seems like the best option for replicating the illustration-style of its original children's book source. I understand that Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was supposed to be a funny movie but I was very irritated when its trailer debut revealed run-of-the-mill computer rendering with zero resemblance to the beautiful etchings of the original book.

Ernest & Celestine has a flawless English dub and was also made available in original french at a special showtime. I was genuinely delighted by this movie and its alternate storybook universe. Maybe I could say more but I'm too peeved by the lack of support this movie saw in the American Box Office. Just thinking about something sweet, entertaining and positive being given a cold shoulder leaves me in a state of cynicism that is totally compatible with seeing Under the Skin again.   

Transcendence

** out of ****

Christopher Nolan’s regular cinematographer, Wally Pfister, makes his directorial debut with Transcendence. It is about a dying technological genius played by Johnny Depp, who has his mind uploaded to a computer in an attempt to preserve his soul and continue his work. The program he becomes is an infectious superpower accumulating endless knowledge, which leads to the creation of advanced nanotech cells that can cure people of illnesses. The program quickly becomes regarded as a deity inspiring followers and an already-active anti-technology militia to act against the movement.

   

Pfister sticks to his guns when it comes to preserving the beauty of a movie shot on film, so it looks good. The movie, however, is an unsuccessful blend of high-concept sci-fi with mindless obligatory conflict that generates action scenes. It has great ideas, which are cheapened by conventional formulas and technophobic attitudes. The constant amount of expositional dialog is also a condescending aspect of the film. Morgan Freeman contributes to this. It’s his job after all.

Transcendence has a lot of famous talented people with Johnny Depp as the top billed star. His name is bigger than his contribution to the character he plays. I can imagine so many other actors who may have elevated this material. Depp is a good actor who doesn’t seem in the mood lately, to take on roles that offer the challenges he’s suited for.

The film held my attention with bold concepts but just kept embarrassing itself. After last year's Her offered such an original take on the subject of artificial intelligence, this movie feels kind of like a lame step backwards. 

Under the Skin

***1/2 out of ****

Under the Skin is a return to thought-provoking art-house science fiction that is so bold, it will make a small amount of people fall under its dark spell while most people will just want to get up and leave. Here is a film with unforgettable sound and imagery, yet almost no story exposition. It baffles you with terrifying thoughts and upsetting scenarios which, to be corny, got under my skin. I’m not sure what the function of these happenings was supposed to be but I don’t think the movie is interested in explaining anything. After seeing the big budget sci-fi, Transcendence, which made the fatal mistake of trying to explain too much, this film's refusal to justify its dark weirdness felt refreshing. The movie is as alienating as it is about an alien.

Under the Skin follows Scarlett Johansson as an alien, taking the form of a human as it drives around Scotland in a van seducing men. She mostly stares and rarely speaks but her presence is hypnotizing.

The film’s director, Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast and Birth) has crafted something perfectly mysterious, in the tradition of Kubrick or Tarkovsky, which deserves the kind of conversation a nightmarish painting could inspire. What it may be saying about gender, sexuality or just plain human identity is worth too much time and thought to play a role in this review.

The Unknown Known

*** out of ****

Errol Morris’ new documentary, The Unknown Known is about questions that deserve answers and a subject who has a talent for temporarily convincing people he is providing those answers. The grin of Donald Rumsfeld dominates the screen in a movie, which continues Morris’ influential methods of putting the audience in a room with a person, whether we like them or not.

This is easily a companion piece to his 2003 film, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, in which he interviewed another former Secretary of Defense about his experience with the Vietnam War as well as his early days in statistical bombing analysis during the World War II.

In this film, Rumsfeld doesn’t have the same amount of reflection time between himself and Iraq as McNamara did with Vietnam. His reflections of involvement in the Nixon and Ford administrations and the last years of the Vietnam War are very telling of his character. He’s a salesman.

As I said, Morris makes documentaries that force us to confront our perception of a person and experience what it’s like to sit down with them. He is credited with inventing a method of documentary filmmaking, which forces the interviewee to look in the direction of the camera lens. Morris’ face is fed to a small monitor below the lens as his loud voice from the back of the studio asks the most natural questions that his subject could inspire. The final effect is of a person looking directly at the audience, answering questions that Morris is asking in our place.

The frustration to be found in the film is in Rumsfeld’s undeniably big contradictions. Some of these contradictions are to statements he’s made in the past and some are within the interview itself. Discussions of Iraq, from the choice to go in to the treatment of prisoners of war, are given a good amount of attention. Rumsfeld justifies a lot of his decisions with an intelligence philosophy that inspires the title of the movie.

I am grateful for his willing participation in this project. His public personality is forever captured in this nearly two-hour movie. Without satisfying answers or definitive judgments we get an old man with a long career behind him, who dealt with difficult times. It is his account of those times that leaves us scratching our heads.

Morris has made some of the most involving interview-based documentaries I’ve seen. More than any of the theatrical releases, I would recommend checking out the television series he did in 2000, called First Person, which had a similar essence to the radio series, This American Life.

Morris dedicated The Unknown Known to Roger Ebert who encouraged this filmmaker and championed his work more than any other critic.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

**1/2 out of ****

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is pretty enjoyable and continues Marvel’s lineup of films that fall short of superhero movie greatness until we get another Avengers movie. This movie is what it is and I enjoyed myself when watching it, but do we really have to wait for Joss Whedon every time a character needs closure to an internal struggle?

In this film, we get to catch up with Chris Evans playing Steve Rogers (a.k.a. Captain America) again, staying busy with S.H.I.E.L.D. operations as he continues in his adjustment with the modern world. A big chunk of material featuring this hero from the forties trying to find his place in the twenty-first century, was cut from The Avengers for time. Writers Ed Brubaker, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely were smart enough to re-create that kind of content in this movie, catching up on the Cap’s personal life and his struggle to get behind today’s America.

It starts off great, as Rogers takes a morning super-run in scenic DC, passing joggers multiple times with his unending energy and strength. He befriends Sam Wilson, played by Anthony Mackie (good casting), a fellow soldier who bonds with Rodgers on the difficulties of coming home from a war. Later he will be an important ally to our hero.

After a mission with mysterious results and the revelation of a new spy aircraft weaponry program, Rogers’ distrust of his fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. members grows. Even Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) seem questionable. Meanwhile, Fury is ambushed by a mysterious assassin and leaves behind a clue for Rogers, who suspecting corruption in the organization goes on the run to find answers. The film essentially becomes a comic book espionage thriller. It is only fitting that Robert Redford is in the movie as a high-ranking official.

The film’s setup and character development follow all the responsibilities of a good sequel. It is only when the story and obstacles develop that it starts to feel unfocused and uninteresting. The main antagonists of the story are pretty bland. I also think that it’s corny whenever a villain – yes even a villain to Captain America- is creating mayhem because they intend to “destroy freedom.”

Brothers, Anthony and Joe Russo who have directed episodes of Community and 30 Rock may be unlikely choices to have made this film, but their work is decent. Still, this is a movie made by committee. The action is very expensive looking. Some of it is exciting and some is headache inducing. Regardless, there’s a little too much of it. Every time I review a new action movie, I feel self-conscious. I don’t want to give the impression that I’m the wrong person to be talking about this stuff. Yes, an action movie without much action… wouldn’t be an action movie. It just seems as though only a few talented filmmakers out there know how to marry the action with the drama …or comedy –or whatever kind of action hybrid you’re dealing with.

Captain America will return and I guess that excuses these filmmakers of being responsible for what they’ve established, including tough questions about our country’s lack of innocence and the illusion of freedom. This review feels so incomplete but I really can’t go further into it without divulging spoilers. It’s certainly better than Thor: The Dark World and just about as good as Iron Man 3 but we all know that Age of Ultron is where the goods are. Unfortunately we won’t get that for another year.

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