michael bay's BAD BOYS II (2003)

i was suitably impressed the first time i saw it, on an empty afternoon's whim at the dollar theater, but watching it again solidifies a firm opinion that Bad Boys II is nothing less than the exemplary action film of this decade. (i'm troubled to think of anything that comes close.) it's also the reason i've found myself defending Michael Bay in the ensuing years, despite turning an eager, easy blind eye to Pearl Harbor and The Island: the bravado here, the complete command of an oft-obnoxious but quizzically sincere style, is a nutzoid textbook on 21st century montage. no film is bigger, no film is louder, no film more hyperactive.

terrence malick's BADLANDS (1973)

this is another one i'm hard-pressed to put my finger on, but during this viewing i did my damnedest to let Malick instruct me. his visuals aren't quite as far removed from the norm here as in the pure naturalism of his later films, but the writing ("what if i shot you? how'd that be?"), and Spacek's narration in particular, are every bit as focused on where he wanted to be; if you're wanting to make a filmic poem, i suppose, it's a good idea to fill it with such heart-rending poetry.

steven spielberg's INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008)

what is it that we expect from another Indiana Jones film, 27 years after the first one and nearly 20 since the last? what is it that we want? an effortless bridge between Old and New Hollywood, Raiders of the Lost Ark is without question one of the cinema’s grandest adventures, and the very nature of Messrs. Spielberg and Lucas’ stubbornly iconic character is one of wondrous, nonstop exploits that have spread from the big screen to books, video games and a television series, so it’s only natural that the thought of a fourth film would make our collective mouths water with the lingering taste of uncompromised escapism.

deep down, though, could anyone conscious of Hollywood's current culture of branding-obsessed shamelessness have possibly expected Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to live up to the legacy? (depending on whom you ask, not even Temple of Doom and Last Crusade manage such a feat.) more pointedly, how confident were we that it wouldn’t be kind of an embarrassment? judging from the reviews, the answer is “not particularly”: both audiences and critics alike seem to be appraising the film kindly based as much on lowered expectations as its own merit.

this is a fitting reception for the film, which is indeed perfectly alright: Spielberg throws us plenty of inspired, well-constructed action setpieces to ooh and aah at, and the series gets a welcome infusion of distinctly American mythology from plot elements involving Area 51 and the Cold War. but the notion of lowered expectations persists, as an excess of focus on the filmmakers' part to give the people exactly what they want ends up depriving Crystal Skull of the subtle magic that makes the other three films so special. Spielberg has built a storied career on the line between art and pure entertainment, but here he errs on the side of caution, and ends up appeasing rather than pleasing. the most important question: is that his fault, or ours?

sam raimi's EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN (1987)

two things stick out returning to Raimi's rough masterpiece, which i've been on hiatus from after wearing out my VHS copy in high school. first, Evil Dead 2 is still every bit as inspiring to me as a filmmaker as it was the first, second, and twentieth time i saw it; there's a freshness, wit and ingenuity to nearly every element that does an astounding job of obscuring the production's limitations, and it's no exaggeration to suggest it as the Citizen Kane of low-budget horror. secondly, and more specifically, the film's pacing is very nearly flawless; one of the curses of extreme familiarity with a work (even after several years i found myself anticipating favorite edits and minute sound cues) is that wasted scenes and poor sequence choices can become downright interminable, but Evil Dead 2 sails along briskly from the first frame to the last, never faltering in tone or energy.

alberti lattuada's MAFIOSO (1962)

paul mcguigan's LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN (2006)

this is another movie i wouldn't have ever given a second thought but for offhand recommendations from friends, and once again i was fairly pleasantly surprised. there are plenty of flaws, the most critical being the general lack of inspiration; both McGuigan and screenwriter Jason Smilovic seem to be perfectly satisfied with "good enough" in their respective capacities, so what could obviously have been a superior contemporary noir emerges instead as an indifferently slick twist picture, snappy but lazy in its scripting and handsome but bland in its aesthetics. but it's engaging nonetheless, and it's fun to imagine what could have been if the film weren't so determinedly middle-of-the-road.

the wachowski brothers' SPEED RACER (2008)

garth jennings' SON OF RAMBOW (2008)

what is it about a child's mind that turns the countryside into a rolling symphony of righteous, invisible explosions when viewed through the window of a moving car? that turns a scarecrow at midday into a conniving foe, or a red necktie into a triumphant, bloody sweatband? Son Of Rambow is the rare sort of film about children that manages to mine these details convincingly, and put them to consistent use. because its protagonists lives are at times uncomfortably real, imagination isn't anything so simple as a momentary escape; it colors their behavior, and emboldens them.

soon after we first meet Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner), his teacher dismisses him from class as they prepare to watch a documentary film. a member of the culture-resistant Christian Brethren sect, he is forbidden from watching television, and instead sits in the hall filling a notebook with colorful sketches until a well-thrown tennis ball introduces him to the school's resident ne'er-do-well Lee Carter (Will Poulter). the two tenuously hit it off -- Will enticed by the novelties of secular childhood, Lee fumbling with the prospect of much-needed friendship. later that afternoon, a bootleg of Sylvester Stallone's First Blood becomes Will's first and only taste of popular culture.

the bootleg is Lee's own work (on behalf of his brother/erstwhile guardian), shot with a spanking, bulky new VHS camcorder. (among other things Rambow is, from its music and fashions to its style and sensibility, a graceful re-creation of mid-80s Britain.) but the camera serves another purpose in Lee's life, as he occupies his free time aspiring to a BBC contest for young filmmakers, and soon forces Will to be his star. (such is the dynamic of their friendship, even as it evolves; Will himself is heartbreakingly eager to forsake his upbringing, but Lee's Nelson Muntz complex keeps their relationship straddling a line between earnest affection and instinctive bullying.) and thus the fantasy-laden "Son Of Rambow" is born, first on Will's page and then through Lee Carter's lens. then, as one might expect, things begin to get in the way.

high concept aside, Jennings and filmmaking partner Nick Goldsmith don't seek to do too much more than celebrate the dramatic family comedy, and their smart script gets them most of the way there by itself; it's alternately fanciful and melancholy, both dignified and freewheeling, never acknowledging that these qualities too often stand at odds with each other. but it's also fascinating in the ways it chooses to augment and undermine genre conventions: though it's clear, for instance, that the traditionalist Brethren are obstructing Will's happiness, the film deigns to neither contrived malevolence nor apologism. why? because that's character, not plot. the same goes for Lee's nascent kleptomania, and the bad influence it casts on Will. as they leave a store, ill-gotten wares nearly spilling from their coats, we cringe for the impending reprisal, but none comes; why, after all, bend events for the sake of judgment?

the film's style is impressive in the same subdued way. there are scattered sequences animated to complement Will's wandering imagination, and the bulk of the filmmaking scenes are tinged with gloriously cartoony physical humor. but despite their music video background and their cluttered, well-meant debut The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Jennings and Goldsmith (together known as Hammer & Tongs) generally imbue the rest of Son Of Rambow with a handsome, patient tone that persists even through a goofy French exchange student subplot and glorious bits of throwaway wit, turning what could have been merely cutesy and indulgent into something far more accomplished.

as for the boys' movie? it's to Hammer & Tongs' further credit that the novelty of their film-within-a-film settles comfortably into the backseat once the story draws us in, and it's in this sense in particular that Rambow tops fellow MTV escapee Michel Gondry's vexing but similarly conceived Be Kind Rewind. both are about friendship, fictions, collaboration and democratized expression, but Rewind was all concept, blindsiding its audience with a careless, inept frame for VHS shenanigans; with Rambow the delicately gangly British boy playing "Rambow" might put people in the seats, but what'll keep them there is one of most charming, worthy family films in recent memory.

mitchell lichtenstein's TEETH (2007)

jon favreau's IRON MAN (2008)

nick stoller's FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL and michael mccullers' BABY MAMA (2008)

to the relief of moviegoers everywhere, May is finally here: that magical time of year at the cineplex where spring's tepid garbage gives way to summer's really awesome garbage. that said, the end of 2008's Cinematic Dumping Ground season did have a surprising ace up its sleeve in the form of reasonably credible comedies, two of which at the very least cleared the low bar set by a PG-13 Prom Night remake and Al Pacino Cashes A Paycheck: The Motion Picture.

Nick Stoller's Forgetting Sarah Marshall (co-scripted by star Jason Segel and produced by Judd "Please Stop Talking About Me" Apatow) is the better of the two, but still merits more of a discussion of what doesn’t work than what does. it’s every bit as amiably ribald as the Apatow crew’s previous work (and a decided step up from the disappointing Walk Hard) but here and there it’s hard to deny the smell of diminishing returns, as their emphasis on character humor and loose pacing over plot-driven gags (and gag-driven plots) has finally resulted in a film that is constantly on the verge of unraveling altogether. Segel and his supporting players all do strong work, and there are scattered moments of surprising emotional intelligence, but Forgetting Sarah Marshall still feels more like a paid Hawaiian vacation for a group of very funny people than a real movie.

Michael McCullers’ Baby Mama, on the other hand, feels very much like a movie. very much, in fact, like many, many other movies. it's not that the premise (a surrogate pregnancy turns into The Odd Couple) isn't worthy, or that stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler aren't long overdue for a big-screen showcase; the problem is that McCullers seems to put both of those can't-lose elements directly at odds with a half-baked second draft of a script heavy on plot mechanics and astonishingly light on laughs. sure, there's plenty of what could technically be called jokes -- we hear them, placidly acknowledge them, and continue watching -- but the whole affair is determinedly shallow and mediocre, which is especially painful in the hands of the women behind 30 Rock and Upright Citizens Brigade. to their estimable credit, Fey's confident leading lady debut and Poehler's irrepressible comic instincts ("It feels like I'm shitting a knife" may be history's most succinct description of the miracle of childbirth) make the film perfectly watchable, and occasionally pull a big laugh out of the blue. but comedy fans in search of a worthy feminine alternative to the Apatow Boy's Club will have to search a bit longer, as Baby Mama goes no deeper into the female mind, and doesn't seem to have anywhere near as much fun trying.

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)

wes anderson's THE DARJEELING LIMITED (2007)

stefan ruzowitzky’s THE COUNTERFEITERS (2007)

it’s not particularly hard to see why Stefan Ruzowitzky’s Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters) walked away with 2007’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. even if the Academy hadn’t so typically snubbed more notable films like Persepolis and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, Ruzowitzky’s handsome, inessential tale of the Third Reich’s counterfeiting efforts is still just the kind of flick that usually grabs the award: palatable, prestigious, and neutered by bland, Americanized cinematic traditions.

that’s not all bad, of course, and The Counterfeiters is, if nothing else, evidence of that. based on a memoir by its lone non-amalgamated character, the film is a necessarily fictionalized account of Operation Bernhard, which saw the Nazis recruiting bankers and printmakers from prison camps into an operation to faithfully reproduce British and American currency, first in hopes of economic sabotage and later with the loftier goal of continuing to finance their doomed military struggle. the audience’s window into this rich subject is fictional master counterfeiter Solomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics, showcasing a DeNiro-like intensity), who is imprisoned in 1936 and eventually recruited for Bernhard by the same detective (now a Major in the SS) who busted him years earlier. heading the counterfeiting operation, Sorowitsch sympathetically butts heads with “coworker” Adolf Burger (August Diehl), a printer and political agitator preoccupied with sabotaging Operation Bernhard, no matter the cost to him or his fellow prisoners.

The Counterfeiters uses this testy, philosophically-charged relationship between Sorowitsch and Burger as a jumping off point to address some compelling ethical questions, made all the more immediate by the backdrop of the Holocaust. are Bernhard’s participants morally obligated to undermine the force that has so harshly imprisoned them, yet now given them meager creature comforts and a chance at survival? would their sabotage and subsequent martyrdom mean anything when a new group of prisoners came in to replace them? and if they continue to cooperate, are they anything less than Nazi collaborators?

it's a credit to Ruzowitsky’s talents that these questions very rarely bog down the film’s smart pacing or considerable dramatic intrigue, and that most of them are explored with surprising, thoughtful depth. but the focus afforded these quandaries also makes the lesser among them seem labored and overcooked, and thus undermines them in the end. it’s unfair, perhaps, to ask true profundity of a film like The Counterfeiters, but it’s equally unfair that it should get our hopes up.

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)

stephen chow's CJ7 (2007)

it's hard to resist comparing Stephen Chow's new family-ish sci-fi comedy to its most obvious American touchstone, the also-acronymic E.T.; both are works of accomplished wonder, attuned to the fragile coexistence of childhood imagination and bittersweet reality. more concretely, there's the story: a boy befriends a mysterious creature from another world, and each ends up having a profound effect on the other's life.

beyond those broad similarities, however, there's no mistaking CJ7 for Spielberg's slow, spiritually thoughtful classic; much like his Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, Chow’s latest is an explosion of cartoonish fantasticism, rich with sight gags, physical humor, and impromptu kung fu battles. the story centers on young Dicky (the adorable Jiao Xu, who happens to be a girl) and his father Ti (Chow), a poor laborer who works long hours to keep Dicky at a snobbish private school where even his teacher outwardly reviles his poverty. after one of his popular schoolmates (played to delightful effect as a lil’ corporate supervillain) shows off his new robot dog, Dicky throws a fit in a toy store when his father, brokenhearted, tells him they cannot afford it. rooting around the junkyard where he gets Dicky’s shoes, however, Ti finds a strange, rubbery green ball (deposited by an enormous flying saucer he quite comically fails to notice) and brings it home under the guise of a brand new toy.

before long, of course, Dicky and his father come to find out that the ball is much more: it is indeed an extraterrestrial, and a sickeningly cute one at that. (Chow’s penchant for goofy, passable CG is unabated here, and the creature is such a joy to watch that its weaker technical moments go practically unnoticed.) from there the film takes a wonderful structural detour dividing hopes from disappointments, and then on to a predictable, manipulative finale that’s nonetheless as joyous and whimsical as what’s come before it.

part of what makes CJ7 such a refreshing family entertainment, though, may also be worth mentioning as a warning to some parents: there’s a certain darkness to the story that makes it honest beyond its wackiness. (in a lot of regards the film bears less resemblance to E.T. than to Amblin peers like Joe Dante’s Gremlins.) the class issues are drawn with a sharper crayon here than in most kid-friendly films, and it’s worth noting that Dicky’s teachers and schoolmates don’t take particular notice when he shows up to school black-eyed and bruised. but mixing these serious elements in with the rest of CJ7’s madcap concoction only strengthens the film, and kids are more likely to be bothered by the subtitles than the themes.

(from the KNOXVILLE VOICE)

akira kurosawa's RASHOMON (1950)

guillermo del toro's HELLBOY (2004)