Changeling

Changeling had me thinking of an episode of This American Life that I've heard a couple times called "The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar." Both stories are about children taken from their parents and then returned, but maybe not to the correct parents and there are other switch-ups and stuff. I guess this stuff was always happening in the thirties.

Clint Eastwood's movies don't seem to have any thematic elements in common, but they all have a lot in common stylistically. Changeling is a long, well paced and sparse movie, just like every other Eastwood movie that I've ever seen. It is also quite good.

For all of the star power concentrated in Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich, I thought that the most compelling character was the mostly anonymous detective guy who finally cracks the case, allowing Malkovich and Jolie and the lawyer that should have been played by Clint to stick it to the jerks in charge of the Los Angeles Police Department. Jolie never struck me as much of an actor, and she doesn't impress here, despite the cute hats she gets to wear. Similarly, Malkovich wears some really comfy sweaters, although I would prefer them in different colors. A big surprise for me was the girl who played (and probably will again play) Holly on the Office as a patient of the nut house the cops throw Jolie into. Girl's got chops. I knew she could crack a dorky joke with the best of them, but I didn't know that she could disappear into a movie like this so well.

Cost/Benefit analysis: I didn't pay anything to see this movie, but it is well worth a rental. I wanted to see it in the theater, and I don't think I would have been unhappy paying full price. I don't think I'd ever buy the DVD, though.

I don't get why Angelina worried so much about her kid. It's not like Kenya is going to run out of kids for her to adopt.

Atonement

Atonement is an older movie. It came out in 2006 and was nominated for a 2007 Best Picture Academy Award. It is a good movie. Before I saw it, I totally thought it was going to be right up the same alley as Nicholas Sparks' crap-fest The Notebook because I thought they were both love stories that were set around World War II, but luckily I was wrong.

I was initially confused by the way the story was told, with certain scenes being told again and again with additional information coming into play each time. For a movie set in the 30's and 40's it was a surprisingly modern choice, but I think that it worked very well.

The movie drags from time to time, and introduces new story elements without introducing them properly. I don't think these sins are worth condemning the movie, but they're great enough that I don't know how it got the Best Picture nod. It's a slow, relaxing movie that probably works best late at night.

Atonement ends with a twist that I won't mention even though I know no one will read this blog. I can imagine this is the kind of twist that some will hate, but I really liked it. Probably because it played to my English major sensibilities. It

Cost/Benefit analysis: I didn't pay anything to see this movie, but it is worth a rent, fo sho.

Unforgiven

This is an old movie that I saw. It is a good movie. I'm a sucker for movies that are stacked with sweet actors, so when I heard about a western movie starring Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris, I knew I had to see it.

Clint Eastwood plays the classic reluctant western movie hero, a retired killer coming back for one last job, but the movie doesn't rely on many of the western archetypes. Clint isn't the sheriff, he's a killer reformed by his late wife that hasn't touched a drop of liquor in ten years and needs a double-barreled shotgun to hit a tin can from 20 feet. The movie never really says who the good guys and bad guys are, and any of the characters could probably fit into either role.

There's a weird subplot with Richard Harris's character that never seems to go anywhere. I guess it's a chance to show the darker aspects of Hackman's character, but that could have been done without going into a dead end. The other thing I'm a little hung up on is the Jackie Chan-Drunken Master turn the movie takes at the very end, where Clint gets back on the wagon (or is it off?) and becomes a super-cowboy again. It was disappointing and is the kind of ending that I was afraid Gran Torino would have.

Cost/Benefit analysis: I downloaded this movie for free, so it didn't cost me anything. It's totally worth a rent for fans of westerns and suckers for big casts .

Robin Hood: Men in Tights

This is an old movie that I saw. It is horrible. It is a lazy collection of embarrassing, half-baked ideas and jokes that fall flat left and right, each more soul-stealing than the last.

The jokes are mostly Carrot Top-y anachronisms like the tele-fox or old jokes recycled from Mel Brooks' other movies. What makes it all worse is that the actors are constantly breaking the 4th wall, mugging at the camera like they've just dropped a comedy a-bomb.

Cary Elwes, who plays Robin, probably saw his career die upon the release of the movie which is really too bad, because he is a lot of fun in Hot Shots and The Princess Bride, and deserves a resume that isn't littered with anime voice acting. Dave Chappelle made it through with his sanity intact. I wonder if his backwards Robin Hood hat with baseball cap-style size adjuster bothered him as much as it bothered me?

Cost/benefit analysis: I watched this with some friends on DVD, so it was free. You'd have to pay me before I saw it again, but I'd probably need to have a couple drinks first. Seriously, don't watch this movie.

Gran Torino

Gran Torino is a good movie. It is predictable and leans on more than a few cliches and tropes, but still manages to be entertaining. Clint Eastwood's grumbles and sneers are hilarious and make the movie worth seeing. They also make the movie much lighter than I was expecting it to be. Where I thought I would find a dark, gritty movie about race and age and war and stuff, I saw Clint teach his neighbor how to be a man, and learn what a Huh-Mong is. That's not exactly a knock against the movie, I'm just expressing my betrayed expectations.

That's not to say that I don't have a couple of knocks against the movie. The first is maybe more of a personal problem because the ability to suspend disbelief varies from person to person. In my eyes it was far too easy for Clint to go from bitter old grump who can't spare a kind word for his own kids, let alone all of the damn gooks that have taken over the neighborhood to chumming around with a table of Hmong Grandmas.

The movie gives a number of reasons for this change. There's the spunky Hmong girl next door, Clint's declining health, the persistent young priest, the uncanny Hmong shaman and maybe some others. If you've ever seen a movie where an old white guy learns about young colored people, you can probably make them up yourself. It could be that in real life we never have the moments of singularity that change us, but I don't think that's what they're trying to get at here.

Movies that are driven by unbelievable concepts often have solid scripts and actors to back them up. We accept that Batman does all the stuff that he does, because a world has been created that allows those things to happen, and it is presented to us by strong actors. This is where Gran Torino fails. Apart from Clint all of the actors are nobodies. If the playing field was a little more even I might have had a better time with this movie.

The other side of this coin is that the dialogue is a little overwritten, which is an unforgivable sin for me. It's not quite Juno, but there were still many times when I was annoyed by a phrase that was just over the no one would ever say that line.

Cost/benefit analysis: I paid ten dollars to see this movie. I have few complaints about that price, but I would have been happier paying 5 bucks. There's nothing about this movie that needs to be on the big screen in a theater with stadium seating so it would be ok to hold off until it ends up in the second-run theaters or on dvd.

Final note: Some one told me today that Gran Torino is pretty much a Hallmark movie with Clint Eastwood in it. This infuriates me because I wish that I had come up with it first. Ignoring Clint's hugely entertaining performance, this is pretty on the nose.

The Spirit

In the eyes of many, The Spirit is really Sin City 2, instead of a movie adaptation of a comic book that they've never heard of. I'm sure that when the executives at Lionsgate thought this, I know that I did when I saw the trailer and you probably did too. We were all wrong. Even though The Spirit was written and directed by Frank Miller, and has same quasi-black and white, CGI-heavy neo-noir visuals film, the equation The Spirit=Sin City doesn't quite work because the Lionsgate executives forgot to add "make a good movie" when they were putting together a to do list for The Sprit.

The Spirit is already ending up on many "Worst Movies of 2008" lists, and while those critics all have their reasons, I don't think it is quite that bad. I'm sure many of these reviewers were also expecting The Spirit to be just like Sin City.

Luckily, I went into this movie with the lowest-possible expectations, so when much of the movie was actually sort of decent, I was surprised. However, every time Samuel L. Jackson is on screen, the movie suddenly becomes violently stupid. It seems like Sammy J is playing a horrible Dave Chapelle "I'M SAMUEL L. JACKSON, DRINK, BITCH!" impression of himself. From scene to scene his costumes change from Pimp to Samurai to Nazi. This is probably supposed to be one of those so random it's funny things but I thought it was confusing more than anything else. If there had been someone to tell Frank Miller "no, that's a horrible idea" parts of the movie might have been saved. My theory is that they were drowning in the stupid and just gave in when they should have fought it. Case in point: Jackson's legions of bumbling henchmen.

These bald, besneakered bumpkins are so annoying that when Scarlett Johanson starts running them over in her truck I didn't cheer, I sighed in relief. Sadly Miller has them in unlimited supply and throws a couple on screen in each of Jackson's scenes, using them to make lame, cutesy jokes that he probably thinks are so clever that he probably deserves a medal.

When Sam Jackson and the Bumbles aren't on the screen, The Spirit really isn't that bad of a movie. The guy who plays The Spirit isn't terribly charismatic and his narration gets a little repetitive at times. The supporting characters aren't much to write home about, you've got some very attractive women presented beautifully and a fantastically hardboiled old cop who should have been in the movies in the 1940's. In one sequence younger versions of Eva Mendez and the Spirit are played by a couple of kids who generally outshine their older co-stars. That's usually not a good thing.

I guess if you can go into The Spirit with the lowest of all possible opinions, you might sort of enjoy parts of it. I saw it a week ago and the only part of it that I can remember are the really bad ones and when the joyless jerks in front of me shushed me during the previews. The trailer for the Wolverine movie was really good too.

Cost/benefit analysis: I payed a full $10 to see this movie. It wasn't so bad that I'm angry that I payed that much, but I still don't think it was worth it. This is a movie that I would watch when they've got it on cable on Sunday afternoons and you can switch to the football game when Eva Mendez isn't on the screen or something.