The Muppets (2011)

Amy Adams and the Muppets in "The Muppets"

Written by Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller

Directed by James Bobin

Starring Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Rashida Jones and Kermit

Sometimes films transcend genre, judgment and age and can truly appeal to a mass audience. The Muppets is that kind of film. The Muppets will touch those of us old enough to remember their television heyday and will enthrall those of us young enough for the film to be their first exposure to Jim Henson’s creations.

Jason Segel, star of How I Met Your Mother and co-writer of the new Muppet movie has tapped into the old and new of comedy, finding tongue and cheek ways to wink at the adult audiences without ever forgetting that this film is for kids.

Jason Segel’s Gary is a normal well to do small town guy who happens to be brothers with a Muppet named Walter, who worships the ground Kermit the Frog walks on, despite the fact that the Muppets have long since gone off the air and out of the cultural radar. Walter is enchanted with the Muppets and when Gary tells him he’s taking his girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) to Los Angeles on their tenth anniversary, Walter insists he tag along to see the old Muppet studios.

The old Muppet studios have fallen into disarray, open to shoddy tours for nominal upkeep costs. and an evil oil baron named Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) plans to purchase the property and dig for oil on it unless the Muppets, who disbanded years ago, can come back together and raise ten million dollars in order to restore and re-open the Muppet studio.

With Gary and Mary’s help, Walter makes it his mission to round up the old Muppet gang and find a way to save their beloved studio. I won’t spoil the journey they take to the conclusion of this mission, because it’s a treasure to behold, as each surprise, cameo and gag, none of which this film is in short supply of, is unfolded.

Segel has crafted a loving ode to child films and movie musicals of yesteryear, giving every Muppet their proper due and creating indelible new human characters along the way. Chris Cooper steals the film as the evil Tex Richman, with some impressively ego-free comedy. Of the humans he’s the most impressive, both selling his roll and being the most cartoonish at the same time. His version of an evil laugh is sure to be the number one quoted line from the movies this winter.

The old school charm of the Muppets abounds throughout a film that acknowledges the passage of time and changes in pop culture taste while reminding us why the Muppets were so great to begin with.

A truly wondrous, heartfelt melding of modern and classic comedic sensibilities in a family friendly setting, The Muppets seems have magic about it, as it will suck in any and all viewers to their utmost delight.

Red State (2011)

Michael Parks in Kevin Smith's "Red State"

Written and Directed by Kevin Smith

Starring Michael Parks, John Goodman, Melissa Leo, Kyle Gallner, Michael Anganaro, Michael Pollak, Kevin Pollak and Stephen Root

At some point in a successful filmmakers’ career, they move beyond reproach. Criticism might still get to them, they might still be trying to elevate their craft, but they reach a point of commercial, critical and personal success that they’re beyond the watchful eye of all knowing producers and studios and they must live and die by their own vision. Kevin Smith always lived on the edge of that point, from Clerks onward. Cop Out withstanding (Smith’s true experimental film in which he eschews any and all style for the offensively bland), Smith has toppled over the edge, trying to move far beyond his dialogue-centric odes to intellectual slackerdom with Red State, a self-consciously clever, serious genre-trope heavy ode to horror films of old with underlying messages.

Whether it be the classic stand by of no-sex before marriage (because only the virgins survive ala’ Halloween) or something a bit more ambitious such as a statement on race and consumerism (Night of the Living Dead and its sequel Dawn of the Dead). No matter what the final outcome is, horror maestros tend to take their craft rather seriously and want their intellectual message to be heard through the blood, guts, jump scares and gratuitous nudity.

With Red State, Smith is trying to tackle the more vague notions of a right wing conspiracy to force the country to fall in line with its hypocritical Christian-based belief systems, also dropping hints of the political rhetoric of Republican candidates that feeds into an under educated constituency. His primary targets are the highly publicized scapegoat for extremism fodder known as Reverend Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, as well as the notoriously tragic stand off between the Branch Davidians’ and ATF agents in Waco, Texas some years ago. He goes as far as to mention both groups so as to distance his film from any accusations of parody or commentary on real people, lest he be sued for defamation-smart man.

While Smith’s film is ambitious, his lack of proper film school and his self-taught skills are readily apparent in this, what he’s claimed to be his magnum opus, to the detriment of its singularity and his unique vision. The film benefits from a very strong cast, led by the charismatic snake oils salesman performance of prophet, preacher and Fred Phelps knock off Abin Cooper, played by Michael Parks in a tour de force that eschews scenery chewing for an upbeat earnestness that belies his misguided message. The character is a perfectly balanced marriage between Branch-Davidian leader David Koresh’s softer, fatherly persona and Fred Phelps’ more miserly psychobabble. The stubborn escalation of his war against modernity and secular living could be attributed to either, with proper references to both men.

Where ‘Red State’ goes wrong is in the irony of a man known for his blue collar characters’ witty repartee on low brow subjects making a decidedly low brow feature with high brow ambition in its heart. From the low-grade HD cameras to the self-conscious handheld cinematography, everything about Red State screams Direct-to-Video film school novice fare. Perhaps people will read deeper into the thematic elements because they know who is at the helm and what he’s done in the past, but I don’t think Smith’s utilization of such cheap tactics was intentional, beyond the obvious money saving elements for a film that, while certainly cheap at a $4 million production cost (out of Smith’s own pocket, no less) certainly isn’t a bargain basement assembly.

I suppose on some basic level he achieves the goal of presenting the traditional atmosphere of a horror film, with the small town setting, the horny teenagers instigating the events and some psychos out for illogical blood. However, when the trope is combined with the highly ambitious inclusion of topical commentary and dramatizing of historically significant events like Waco and the preaching of Fred Phelps, it’s a stew with too many ingredients. Not even the most skilled chef, or in this case film maker, could pull off each individual element to satisfactory conditions, with one sub-genre suffering at the hands of another throughout the proceedings.

As with all his films, Smith’s saving grace is a colorful, willing cast and whip smart dialogue, but Red State is ultimately what it looks to be: an ill-conceived overly ambitious under-funded project by a director whose ideas were too big for his britches.

Father of Invention (2011)

Heather Graham and Kevin Spacey rock out in "Father of Invention"

Written by John D. Krane and Trent Cooper
Directed by Trent Cooper

Starring Kevin Spacey, Heather Graham, Camilla Belle, Johnny Knoxville, Anna Annisimova, Virginia Madsen, Craig Robinson and John Stamos

Father of Invention is a small comedy about big ideas and even bigger money. It’s fitting that in an economic climate such as ours, a timely comedy about entrepreneurship, business failure and reinventing one’s self would fall on blind eyes and deaf ears for the bulk of the movie going public.

Kevin Spacey stars as Robert Axle, a larger than life, corporatized version of all those infomercial heavyweights we’ve seen come and go, such as Vince Shlomi, the Sham Wow and Slap-Chop guy, as well as King of Pitch Men, Billy Mays (RIP). Spacey is a clean-cut white-collar version of those heavy weights and runs an empire worth billions of dollars. He’s like a soulless Steve Jobs (also RIP) for the kitsch home appliance market.

One day Axle invents an abdominal cruncher-slash remote control chair so one can exercise and watch television at the same time, but it has a flaw, which removes users’ fingers. The ensuing lawsuits and legal quandries puts Axle in jail for a few years and decimates his vast fortune, except for the half of it his wife (Virginia Madsen) took in the divorce, to go with her new husband (Craig Robinson), a friendly park ranger.

Needless to say, when Axle comes out of jail, he’s not a changed man, otherwise we’d have no movie. No, he wants his old life back and he wants it back the only way he knows how; to invent a useless but appealing and cheaply made product that will make him millions of dollars and will probably be forgotten about in someone’s toy bin or garage rather quickly. In order to do this he needs money and an established residence, both of which he turns to his estranged daughter (Camilla Belle) for.

Camilla is of course the antithesis of her father, a non-materialistic free spirit trying to save the world, living in colorful hippie house with a spitfire lesbian (Heather Graham in a scene stealing performance) and an innocent sweet heart (newcomer Anna Annisimova). Will the girls teach him the error of his ways? Will he screw them over because it’s his nature? Stay tuned to find out!

Father of Invention plays all the familiar beats of a dramedy about an ignorant person learning valuable, if patently obvious life lessons. Spacey is his usual droll, delightful self, spinning his conman words while presenting a repressed sugar and syrup father figure yearning to get out and make up for years of neglect and selfishness. Camille Belle plays her part adamantly, but there are no surprises to her character. Johnny Knoxville shows up somewhat randomly as Spacey’s anal-retentive supervisor at his parole appointed job and manages to play the character surprisingly low key and straight for a guy known primarily as a ‘jackass’.

All in all, despite the familiar beats and cookie cutter characters, Father of Invention is an enjoyable way to burn an hour and a half of your life. Thankfully it’s not as cheap or kitschy as the products or tropes the story is based around. This is thanks entirely to the sharp and earnest performances from the actors, who elevate the potentially bland material above sitcom situational comedy into something a little more erudite and clever. Co-writer and director Trent Cooper does not have a clever game changing style of writing or directing, but it’s quite astute in the most economical of ways and he appears to know how to get the best performances out of his actors, the potential weak spots of the material be damned.

Father of Invention is clearly too low key for traditional movie theater distribution, but don’t mistake its dubious lack of marketing or presence at the multiplexes for deficiency of quality, for it’s a treat to anybody who wants to give it a chance. Just know going in it’s as shiny and appealing but equally as disposable as the products it sends up.

Melancholia (2011)

Kirsten Dunst in Lars Von Trier's "Melancholia"

Written and Directed by Lars Von Triers

Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Rampling, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexander Skarsgard, Stellan Skarsgard, John Hurt, Udo Kier and Kiefer Sutherland

Lars Von Triers is a master of combining the surreal and ethereal with the everyday and conventional. With Melancholia, Van Triers has perfected his unique and singular approach to story telling and genre bending. Melancholia is one-part standard wedding drama, something akin to an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, in which a group of close-knit people with long, torrid social histories between each other congregate in an isolated, wealthy estate for what should be a weekend of celebration, for two of the youngest and most beloved family members, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgard) have just been married and are arriving for a grand reception. Obviously things aren’t initially as they appear and the precarious social fabric of polite niceties quickly unravels as old rivalries, disagreements and secrets burst forth to the surface. People act out, proverbially stab each other in the back at every turn and the day rather quickly goes to hell. Michael’s father (Stellan Skarsgard) tries to make a business deal out of the nuptials, Justine’s mother (Charlotte Rampling) puts a damper on the events by declaring her rather anarchistic philosophies about the pointlessness of marriage and ceremony, Justine’s sister in law, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her husband (Kiefer Sutherland) just want things to run smoothly because they are hosting and they’re afraid that their time and money has been wasted on a union that is not as it appears to be, while Justine’s father (John Hurt) hangs out drinking booze and enjoying himself, much to the chagrin of Justine’s mother. In a stroke of genius, the main cast is rounded out by the omnipresent Udo Kier as the party planner, as he weaves in and out of the background, flitting from one little task to the other.

So far it’s a very standard wedding film drama with the type of cast one would expect for such a story and while it’s certainly engaging, thanks in large part to Von Triers’ excellent camera work, lighting, sound design and restraint with his actors, it’s still a farily standard film trope. However, this is Lars Von Triers! No such thing as standard for Von Triers. So of course, this wedding isn’t just a wedding, but a pointless exercise in human existence. A massive planet named Melancholia has been hiding behind the sun for eternity and has now begun a rather swift rotation across earth’s path, putting them on course for a direct collision. Top scientists swear it’ll get really close, look really pretty for a few days and then disappear for enough life cycles to assuage humanities’ greatest fear, but some people aren’t so sure.

Part one of Melancholia is titled Justine, about Kirsten Dunsts’ character grappling with the ramifications of her new marriage to a husband she may not be entirely committed to. Part two is titled Claire, about Justine’s sister, freaking out over the prospect of earth’s complete destruction. As with Justine’s lack of commitment to her husband resulting in a break down of sorts throughout the wedding party, we are now witness to the mental unraveling of Claire, who has no faith in her husband’s friendly assurances that the scientists have convinced him of earth’s survival, that Melancholia will simply pass us by as a visual wonder and nothing more. She can’t be certain that he is correct and not trying to shield her from the horrible, inescapable truth.

Von Triers has crafted something rather brilliant. He’s given us what is ostensibly an art house character piece and fused it in the most logical and subdued way with a standard End of Earth big budget film scenario. Conceptually it’s everything Independence Day, Battle: Los Angeles:, Armageddon, Deep Impact and so on are thoroughly not. This film represents human life as it is, which is an anomaly in the universe, our importance being a construct of our mind to assuage the depressing notion that was are a blip on the radar of time, a radar we ourselves invented and maintain the function of, because in a case like the impending impact of Melancholia, it quickly becomes very clear just how insignificant we are.

If Melancholia passes us by, it becomes a world uniting, historical moment that trumps everything mankind has recorded or experienced before it. If Melancholia hits us and we perish instantaneously, engulfed by this other planet, our atmosphere drained, our sunlight quashed, our ozone layer depleted and our land masses destroyed, then we become just another dead planet in a solar system and universe filled with inanimate objects of massive proportion.

Von Triers’ ability to combine the micro of being human with the macro of our infinitesimal impact of the universe is a stroke of brilliance and his willingness to stare the problem in its face without fanciful heroes or any attempt to assuage the fear of not only death but the end of existence is perhaps something that could only be best expressed in the way he did it in Melancholia, to put our lives in perspective, the kind of perspective that renders anything and everything meaningless, offering our final moments a sense of melancholia.

Shame (2011)

Michael Fassbender and James Badge Dale pick up women in "Shame"

Written by Abi Morgan and Steve McQueen

Directed by Steve McQueen

Starring Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale and Nicole Beharie

Addiction takes many forms, one of which is an addiction to sex. Many people don’t see how one can be addicted to sex, because it’s a natural, zesty enterprise and so for people who appear to have too much sex or show too little discrimination in choosing who they partner up with and how frequently, others can sometimes write it off as many things except classic addiction. Steve McQueen’s latest partnership with rising star Michael Fassbender will definitively quash any and all doubt as to how sex can be as debilitating a habit as heroin or meth.

Fassbender is Brandon, a well paid corporate something or other. Apparently he is quite good at his job, as we’re told by his buffoonish, married womanizing friend and boss, David, played to scene stealing perfection by James Badge Dale as the kind of obliviously brazen cad who would make for the lead if ‘Shame’ was a romantic comedy rather than a serious character study. Dale is the Michael Bay to Fassbender’s Terrence Malick. They actually share the same machine gun strafing pick up tactics, but with a different mindset about their goals. It’s an interesting, obvious contrast that McQueen plays as subtly as possible.

Brandon isn’t a lothario, he isn’t suave or debonair, he’s sex incarnate. It’s all he thinks about it. It doesn’t appear to pleasure him, it’s an impulsive act of self-hatred and indifference. His actions are never presented as dangerous (the film doesn’t address the STD risks of his behavior) but literally a shame. McQueen wants us to see a man who is embarrassed about his problem and debilittated in many other emotional and social ways. He’s a functional addict. It’s a brilliantly subtle depiction, particularly given the substance of choice, as it has no obvious physical traits like syringes or ‘dealers’ to show how far the character has fallen. It’s a non-judgmental portrayal that still acknowledges the unhealthy nature of his actions, particularly by choosing a classically attractive lead, making his addiction that much more tragic and human, since he has no excuses and thus sympathy can only be found in grayer areas by his portrayal.

McQueen’s film is at its most vibrant and memorable during his uninterrupted takes, times we’re not given breaks through cuts or different angles. Fassbender’s abilities as an actor are in rare form as Brandon’s awkward and undeniably alluring nature clash to full effect.

McQueen is able to present Fassbender’s character with a combination of uncomfortable intimacy, expressing no qualms about showing Fassbender’s body in all its naked truth, from his skinny frame to the occasional appearance of his penis as he paces around his apartment naked in a morning ritual of guilt and OCD, playing an old message on his answering machine by his sister, Sissy, (Carey Mulligan) with McQueen acknowledging a concern for the character’s well being as we can see in Fassbender’s eyes a tortured man who wishes to be normal.

As a co-worker (Nicole Beharie) interested in Fassbender, Nicole Beharie makes a star-turning performance in a mature depiction of someone trying to be comfortable with a person they are attracted to but don’t understand. It’s an understated performance that is as naturalistically casual as Fassbender’s performance is awkward.

The other woman throwing a monkey wrench in Brandon’s well constructed façade of professional success and hidden demons is his younger sister Sissy, who shows up unannounced, crashing on Fassbinder’s couch and generally turning a mirror on his problems. She’s there ‘on tour’ getting little singing gigs at clubs, though it’s clear she has no real money or prospects. The one scene showing her at work is magical, expressing the history between the siblings without any dialogue and very little action. McQueen’s film is once again at its strongest when layers of character development and back story are conveyed through their expressions and actions rather than dialogue. McQueen’s brazenly direct approach elevates these scenes beyond exposition into interpretation.

Mulligan once again proves herself to be our greatest rising talent amongst young actresses by shedding any and all of the teenage naïveté displayed in An Education to believably portray a young woman in full control of her sexuality and complicit in her own forms of self-destructive behavior.

As Shame comes to a head, McQueen hints at the character arcs and satisfying catharsis we’ve become accustomed to in most films, without playing us for the fiddle by adding any unnecessary twists or self-congratulatory nuance to a story that is so strong because it’s played in such a straight forward manner.

The ending speaks volumes as to the bravery of the performances and the story, as well as McQueen’s willingness to let logic and time tested human nature trump idealism or melodramatic hyperbole. There are dramatic signposts, things happen that were foreshadowed, but as the final credits role onto the screen and we leave Brandon’s world of tortured pleasures, we’re left with a definitive answer by his character about where his life has been heading and what he can do to change, but not the result of this newfound perspective. It’s a nice question mark that makes the film worth revisiting, particularly with the perspective of an initial viewing and time to reflect, not unlike the act upon which the film is based.

London Boulevard (2010)

Keira Knightley and Colin Farrell in William Monahan's "London Boulevard"

Written and Directed by William Monahan

Starring Colin Farrell, Ray Winston, Ben Chaplin, Keira Knightley and Anne Friel

British gangster films come a dime a dozen. It’s hard to say when the trend began, with British gangster classics being around as far back as the original Get Carter (1971) and continuing on through the present, with stylistic interludes such as Guy Ritchie’s manic trifecta of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), Snatch (2000) and most recently and with the smallest cult following, RockNRolla (2008). In between there have been innumerable films of either less remarkable quality or popular staying power. The latest British Gangster film to come out is London Boulevard, written and directed by William Monahan, Oscar winning screenwriter of the Martin Scorsese new classic gangster flick The Departed (2006), itself a translation of Hong Kong’s most celebrated new classic gangster film series Infernal Affairs.

What Monahan has given us this time around in London Boulevard is something more closely resembling The Long Good Friday, a mature, thoughtful gangster film that isn’t interested in violence for the sake of violence. His characters are down to earth, sensitive and self-aware. There are no true psychopaths to be found in this introspective piece about people trying to find themselves amidst the unwanted chaos of their chosen professions, with Farrell starring as Mitchel, a recent parolee who stumbles into the job of the new bodyguard/man servant to a reclusive model-actress played by Keira Knightley as a thoughtful, down to earth girl who’s psyche has been shattered by the incessant pressures of being famous. Knightley is believable, probably drawing on her own parallel experiences in a somewhat meta performance given her own career. Shes quite sympathetic, eschewing any arrogance or artiness for a character resembling a normal human being ‘cursed’ by her beauty and success. There’s even a very direct allusion, lacking virtually all subtlety, to Mark David Chapman, Lennon’s assassin and supposed rabid fan.

Farrell is very good here, sporting salt and pepper hair that is commensurate with the maturity of the role, a part in which he must not ooze sex appeal or menace, but understated charm and an indecisive personality. A man without direction, but with compassion that can either enrich him, as in the case of a potential romance with Knightley wounded thespian, or perish him, as with his former crime lord boss, played by Ray Winston.

Speaking of Winston, he leads the pack of paint-by-numbers gangster characters; a well dressed, well spoken man who has a way of spinning course language into cockney poetry as he rules his empire with an iron fist, while underlings cower and act befuddled at how brilliant and ruthless he is. One wonders how these cinematic criminal organizations flourish when the drop off in talent from the top of the heap is so precipitous. Ben Chaplin shows up as a shifty, spineless protection collector who’s all bluster and no balls. Again, these are paint by number characters.

The nicest thing about the film is David Thewlis as Knightley’s friend and sometimes lover, an equally reclusive and idiosyncratic actor who has the personality of an air headed hippie, but whom apparently possesses the skills and grit to match London’s most ruthless gangsters if the time calls for it. It’s a curious, uneven character by the writer’s hand, but a fully realized person by the talents of Thewlis.

We also get semi-cameos from the who’s who of British gangster supporting players in Stephen Graham (currently starring as a young Al Capone on Boardwalk Empire), Eddie Marsan as a crooked cop and a few other common ‘faces in the crowd’. Anne Friel shows up in a few brief scenes as Farrell’s loyal but quirky sister who the film tries to play a trick on us with, making their relationship borderline flirtatious.

All in all, London Boulevard is a thoughtful, mature gangster film, but still rather indistinguishable from the rest of the pack, lacking the thematic punch or stylistic gravitas that is required for staying power in the hearts and minds of critics or fans.

The Way (2011)

Martin Sheen and fellow travelers trek along "The Camino"

Written and Directed by Emilio Estevez

Starring Martin Sheen, Deborah Kara Unger, James Nesbitt, Yorick Van Wageningen and Emilio Estevez

Martin Sheen stars in son Emilio Estevez’s latest directorial effort, an intimate and steady-handed road trip dramedy called “The Way”, based upon The Camino De Santiago, or the Path of Saint James. It’s a pilgrimage many people take, not for a religious purpose, but a deeper, personal and spiritual purpose. It’s a path that can start anywhere, but most people the point of origin is the Camino Frances, which crosses the Pyrenees Mountains along the Spanish-French border starting in St. Jean Pied de Port.

The film is based on personal religious experiences and desires of the elder Sheen and his son Emilio, who turned their spiritual yearnings into this family-fest of a film, which Estevez wrote and directed himself. It’s about a man who has no direction in life, played by Estevez, who comes to see the Camino as a path towards self-discovery. Tragically, he immediately perishes barely a day into the trek due to unfortunately bad weather and awkward terrain. After his father, Sheen, comes to collect his son’s body, he is encouraged by fellow travelers, the local officer and so on that the Camino is a worthy journey. Between these urgings and the idea that walking the path himself would be a worthy final tribute to his son and a form of respecting his son’s wishes, he carries his son’s ashes and walks the Camino, sprinkling or placing portions of the ashes along the path as he goes.

The Way starts out pretty slowly, a maudlin tale of a conservative father who didn’t understand his wanderlusting son and the kind of film that screamed “a bit too personal to connect with mass audiences” but the Sheen/Estevez clan hasn’t survived and thrived in Hollywood for multiple generations and forms for no reason! Very quickly the film picks up the pace and shapes itself into a refreshing take on the road trip comedy genre as Sheen meets a string of fellow travelers, eventually forming a mismatched clan including the lovable gentle bear-like Joost (Yorick van Wageningen), a man who aims to lose a considerable amount of weight in time for an upcoming wedding he will be attending; Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger) a middle-aged American woman using the path as an excuse to quit smoking and Jack (James Nesbitt) a travel writer covering the Camino as part of a new book he’s been commissioned to write.

In some respects there are many standard issue tropes at play. Sheen is surly throughout the film, maintaining a surprisingly consistent attitude of disengagement and lack of patience with others. It’s an impressive performance given his far friendlier characters he’s known for, such as President Jeb Bartlett on “the West Wing” or his scenery-chewing turn as the main villain in the early 90′s comic adaptation “Spawn”. Here he’s eerily subdued, playing a man already emotionally stunted who is stricken with grief over the loss of a son he didn’t connect with, but whom he still clearly loved very much.

Yorick van Waginengen steals the film as the gregarious and lovable Joost, the perfect antidote to Sheen’s character’s morose qualities. Joost is a good hearted, intelligent man who loves life in all its aspects and forms, accepting Sheen even as Sheen rejects him. Their paths continue to cross, despite Sheen’s best efforts to maintain a solo effort for his journey and Waginengen displays an impressive ability to be both comic relief and a sensitive kindred spirit who doesn’t understand Sheen’s darkness, but respects it.

Deborah Kara Unger is alright as a neutral female character, the soul woman in the main cast. She isn’t played for romance or as a sex object, merely as a countering voice in the group.

Nesbitt rounds out the cast as the traveling Irishman, very animated, highly opinionated and boisterous, almost theatrical in his demeanor, but still very much a 3-dimensional character who’s sharp reactions to some of Sheen’s more vulnerable, dickish moments hints at the depths this film goes to.

The Way is a gutsy film as it doesn’t stick to any one genre and yet it all works. The ending and individual “adventures” along the path are rather predictable but that’s okay, because the journey the characters take isn’t. Estevez does a few hammy tricks like inserting images of his ghostly self along the way to evoke Sheen’s memory of his deceased son, maintaining a sobering sensibility no matter how light hearted the events get at times throughout the film.

In the end, The Way is your standard issue road trip dramedy that picks and pulls from many genres to give us a broad perspective on a very personal story, but that’s to be expected from film makers with a combined 75 years or so of Hollywood success between them.

50/50 (2011)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen commiserate in the cancer dramedy "50/50"

Written by Will Reiser

Directed by Jonathan Levine

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anna Kendrick, Anjelica Huston and Philip Baker Hall

Cancer is not a universal theme. It is not a funny theme. On screen it can feel hackneyed and used as emotional highway robbery. In Will Reiser’s script “50/50”, originally titled “I’m With Cancer” and based on his own experiences with Reiser’s disease, cancer feels contagiously relatable. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Adam, a 27 year old radio producer who seems to be coasting along comfortably in a job he has a genuine passion for, a gorgeous and loving girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard) and basically the most satisfying best friend and co-worker on earth, Kyle (Seth Rogen). He’s assigned a social worker to help him deal with the emotional difficulties of treatment. She’s a grad student played by Anna Kendrick, in a similar capacity to her role and performance in Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air” from a couple years ago. She’s green, she’s earnest, she’s awkward and eventually gets better at her job.

Adam has been experiencing some lower back discomfort for a few weeks, so he finally goes to a doctor to get himself checked out, assuming he’s been sleeping wrong. He’s told, rather unceremoniously, that he has a spinal tumor (the official name of which I can’t even begin to pronounce) and must immediately begin treatment. The rest of the film is his reaction, the reaction of those around him and what happens to him. 50/50 was written by Will Reiser, a real life cancer survivor, who has found a way to marry the horrible, personal journey of life threatening illness with some genuine comedic flare and an ability to tug at the audience’s heart strings without resorting to melodrama.

The filmmakers originally cast James McAvoy in the lead, but he apparently dropped out after filming his first few scenes, over ‘artistic differences’ and was quickly replaced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who imbues the role with a quiet, reserved sense of shock. Most of the film he plays the roll with a static nature, leaving the bulk of emoting to the people around him, namely Rogen, Bryce Dallas Howard and his mother, played by Angelica Huston as a worry wart. Levitt’s presence as an actor is similar to that of McAvoy, so I can see why the chose each actor. They’re both in their late 20’s-early 30’s, but they both maintain boyishly soft good looks, are both short, adding to their boyish appearance and while both are great actors with range, they both specialize in presenting a more reserved, less proactive kind of character.

A movie like “50/50” needs just that kind of presence to feel as believable as it can. When someone is sick, most of the time they want to get better. They’ll take all the necessary drugs, do all the necessary treatments, see all the proper doctors. However, once they’ve had their treatments, taken their pills, seen the specialists, they go home. They sit. They eat. They watch television. There isn’t much else one can do but wait it out and hope that modern medicine does its job.

Meanwhile, for people who aren’t sick but care about the sick person, their entire lives are turned upside down and they constantly feel like they need to be proactive in order to help their loved one- there’s nothing specific they can do, so they try to do too much in the hopes of getting something right along the way. Levitt wonderfully conveys the numbness that comes with a life threatening illness. He sees humor in some of his darker moments, he grows immune to people’s emotions, as he tries to decipher his own path through the illness and above all, the guy looks sick. Normally an abstainer of all substances, Levitt’s Adam begins chemo therapy alongside a couple of elderly fellow cancer patients, one of whom is played by veteran thespian and P.T. Anderson favorite Phillip Baker Hall as a wily elder statesman of cancer who seems to take his illness in stride, teaching Adam the joys of marijuana to help with the chemo. Levitt is very convincing and very relatable- but more so are his friends and family members. Bryce Howard dotes on him perfectly, but cracks begin to surface in her commitment early on and, well, dramas weren’t made out of open and honest, healthy relationships playing out on screen.

Seth Rogen plays his best friend and gets the bulk of screen time outside of Levitt. In many ways, Rogen once again plays the same character he has always played; a loveably sex obsessed pothead. Rogen had a strong hand in getting the film made, as the script was written by his friend. I give Rogen credit that even though he might be playing virtually the same character he always plays, albeit facing a new crises, he’s at least lending his unique talents and marquee status to a subject matter that is either wildly taboo in comedy or is treated with a kind of heavy hand the can alienate mass audiences and relegate the subject matter to Lifetime Original MOW’s. He’s also very believable as a friend who isn’t sure precisely how to help, but will do anything he can if he knew it would. There are moments in the film where Rogen strikes the perfect tone of someone goofy doing their best to be serious, much like real life.

Rogen is aided in his quest by Angelica Huston as Adam’s lonesome and overbearing mother, shackled by a husband suffering from Alzheimers and a son who wants to be left alone. Anna Kendrick rounds out his support system in her aforementioned role as a newbie hospital therapist. She’s charming and sweet but once again the movies lead us to believe that if you’re an interesting enough case, your therapist will take a very personal interest in you. The contrivance is a little weak- she has her own issues, she mentions Facebook status issues with an ex-boyfriend to show that she’s normal, gives Levitt a ride home- but the relationship is built in interesting enough ways that it’s forgivable. In movies, a character has to have something else to look forward to besides surviving. There needs to be a reward. They either get the money or they get the girl. Even in a film about cancer, it’s not enough to get your health.
Perhaps the brilliance in attacking a film about cancer as a dramedy is that it’s truer to life. Even in our darkest hours there are people and moments in which we can’t help but laugh, either because of the extreme and unbelievable nature of our circumstances or because, well, something is so funny it breaks through our outer layer of grief and depression. Likewise, the horrible nature of illness and disappointment in life can leave us cold and immune to empathy. “50/50” captures these moments with a delicate hand. I will admit that I cried at one particular segment in the film, but that is because I, too, have faced life-threatening illness. The film captures some of the procedural elements of being sick and being treated that are all too visceral no matter what angle you approach it from.

“50/50”’s heart and mind is in the right place, striking a perfectly balanced tone, exploring all the social elements of a grave illness while not skimping too hard on the medical procedural stuff- Time passes faster in the movie, but what film can afford to express months of recovery when you’ve got emotions and relationships to develop and storylines to wrap up?

We watch Adam discover he has cancer, we watch how it affects the people around him and we see and inkling of his recovery process. The odds were 50/50 and given that the writer based the script off his own experiences, it’s not hard to guess the outcome of the story. The beauty in the journey is how the filmmakers and actors captured the real tone of illness and survival. The chances of the main character may have been 50/50, but the likelihood that this film will warm your heart and give you a belly laugh is approximate certainty.

Machine Gun Preacher (2011)

Gerard Butler as missionary Sam Childers in "Machine Gun Preacher"

Written by Jason Keller

Directed by Marc Forster

Starring Gerard Butler, Michelle Monaghan and Michael Shannon

Machine Gun Preacher is quite an epic title for quite an epic movie. It manages to spell out the crux of the story in big bold letters without giving away what you’re going to see going into the film, because there’s nothing else quite like it. That’s not to say Preacher is a perfect film (far from it) but its heart, like its real life hero, is in the right place and though its tactics (ham fisted dialogue and heart string highway robbery) might sometimes come off as a little cheap, also like true life hero, the film’s less than honorable style is nonetheless effective in achieving its goal.

Sam Childers is a biker with a horrible past. Hardcore drug addiction, rampant acts of violence and robbery, including a nice pile of bodies in his wake, but he one day he finds God and gives all that up. The next day he finds the plight of the Sudanese people in the form of a guest speaker at his church, looking for handouts. Before we know it, Sam is in the Sudan, building new structures for local villages. While other Christian missionaries and volunteers go North to the major cities looking for parties during their weekends off, Sam goes south with soldiers, to bear witness to refugee tent camps and rebel army horrors, ranging from piles of dead bodies to a child who has his legs blown off by a mine right in front of Sam.

This changes Sam completely, gives him a purpose in life. He returns home, builds his own church, designed to accommodate wayward souls like himself, starts his own construction company, saves some money and returns back to Sudan to build an orphanage.

What follows afterwards is a series of very similar sequences of Sam killing rebels and collecting dozens of child soldiers to save and protect them, coming home to a strained marriage and unresponsive rich people who’s money he needs to fund his missions in Sudan. Sam goes from being a good Christian to being something else entirely beyond religion. He’s a one man army, a rebel General on a mission to save the children and kill anybody who gets in his way. He gives up everything for his cause, nearly giving up his sanity as well in the process.

What writer Jason Keller, director Marc Forster and star and executive producer Gerard Butler have crafted here is a finely tuned b-action movie coupled with an art house international message film. Neither side of the production is top notch in regards to subtlety- the early scenes in the film are mind-numbingly self-conscious, trying to hammer home an entire lifetime of bad behavior on Sam’s part in a few short scenes in order to get him Saved by God and soul searching in Africa by the 25 minute mark.

After that, however, the film finds itself and presents a reasonably engaging series of sequences that offer up plenty of bravura acting from Gerard Butler, who is magnificent here, given the genre and gives Michelle Monaghan a fun tough chick performance that won’t garner Awards favor but is a respectable notch on her career’s belt. Michael Shannon shows up as Butler’s partner in crime and fellow lost soul whom Sam Childers tries to save. Shannon once again steals the scenes he is in, bringing a quiet intensity while offering some wry comedic twang to his delivery to keep his character human and likeable.

This is Gerard Butler’s film all the way, however. He dominates the film, appearing in nearly every scene and showing a fairly believable transformation from criminal to modern day saint- with a machine gun. Butler has an ability to emote quite intensely with his facial expressions, going from happy to pissed off to sad without much effort. There’s a depth to this performance that will be overlooked come awards time because the script for the film is quite heavy handed, moralistic and wants a little too badly to be important.
This film was certainly made for entertainment first, but there’s clearly a message here and a purpose behind the film. The film makers want the message of Sam Childers to be heard, aside from the fact that his story is quite extraordinary and larger than life.

This is a good film but Forster is not a very subtle director. Go back and watch Monster’s Ball or Quantum of Solace. With heavy handed material he has a penchant for beating his audience over the head with his theme or the overarching style of the piece until you’re going in circles from the unrelenting nature of his storytelling. The bleak repression of Monster’s Ball, the balls-to-the-wall emotionally charged violence of Quantum of Solace or the endless nature of Sam Childer’s efforts in Machine Gun Preacher. He’s showing a more and more deft control of his action scenes in each progressive film, portraying chaotic gun battles in more understandable ways, but he could take his acting direction down a notch, perhaps reigning in his actors’ scenery chewing.

Sam Childers is a very interesting man and I’m glad he turned his life around in such a profound and unusual manner. Gerard Butler showed some impressive range in this while sticking closely to the genre- historic action- that launched his career in the first place and Machine Gun Preacher is the kind of pulpy message film the world hasn’t been waiting for, but deserves.

Imagine the goal Steven Segal set out to achieve with On Deadly Ground, his environmentalist movie about oil drilling that included lots of bad guys being shot or round house kicked to death, then class it up a little bit with better acting, better direction and better writing and Machine Gun Preacher is what you get. Nothing wrong with that, but even message films can have too much gouda for their own good.

Higher Ground (2011)

Vera Farmiga struggles with the word of God in her directorial debut "Higher Ground"

Written by Carolyn S. Briggs and Tim Matcalfe, based on the memoir by Carolyn S. Briggs

Directed by Vera Farmiga

Starring Vera Farmiga, Dagmara Domicczyk, Donna Murphy, John Hawkes, Taissa Farmiga, Joshua Leonard, Bill Irwin, Norbert Leo Butz, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Sean Mahon, Michael Chernus

Higher Ground is a deeply personal, unbiased and non-judgmental look inside the personal spiritual journey of one Born Again Christian whose had faith all her life, but who struggles with the stringent lifestyles of her peers in contrast to her natural personality and sense of wonder for the world around her. Her logical and intellectual side, which encourages her individualism and self-exploration wrestles with the paternal and dogmatic society (read: pseudo cult) that she’s enmeshed herself in.

Vera Farmiga is nothing short of spellbinding as star and director of ‘Higher Ground’, based on the memoirs of a real life former Born Again Christian named Carolyn S. Briggs, who left Christianity and converted to Judaism in her 30’s, also getting an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas.

Higher Ground breathes new, unbiased life into religious drama; These aren’t zombies of God, they’re products of their environment and people who have chosen this life through careful consideration and personal experience. The film is smart enough to acknowledge their humanity, particularly with fantasy sequences for Farmiga’s character Corinne, visualizing her inner thoughts of sexuality, humor and grace.

Farmiga never lets us get comfortable amongst the small congregation she depicts, nor does she portray them as ignorant or anything to laugh at. There are sequences of genuine humor which come out of the limits their faith places on these all too human individuals, sequences of such ridiculousness that they can’t help but laugh at themselves, though their faith is no less genuine and their lives no less devoted to their faith.
As Corinne, Farmiga presents us with someone who is neither sheep nor heretic. She shows us the life of someone born into the Christian faith who organically grows away from it through her own intellectual awakenings as she begins to question the logic of her fellow parishioners in the wake of illogical choices they make in straightforward situations.

Farmiga’s character is as in love with Christianity as they are, but she responds to it differently. She was born into a Christian but mostly secular household (John Hawkes shows up as her normal blue collar father) and finds religion later in life through sheer happenstance of a reaction to personal strife. She has sermons that boil up from deep within her heart and when she’s asked to speak to her fellow congregants she can’t help but preach. She’s reminded that it is not the place of the women to preach. The women in their modest flower pattern dresses, ceding power and intellectual propriety to the men of the congregation, all nice men to be certain, but the sexism is palpable and most participants are willing, though Corinne can’t help but be herself, a woman who read historically significant, intellectual challenging and very secular literature, who finds friendship in people outside the church, who questions the path she is on, a question that will be her religious downfall and personal triumph.

An example of this is her friend Annika (Dagmara Domicczyk), a fellow congregant who speaks in tongues when praying and claims to have an intense connection to God, but who also expresses her humanity through healthy activities like an obsession with the dimensions of her husband’s penis and a clever trick to get out of traffic tickets. She makes Corinne feel like a normal woman with a normal friendship, giving them breathing room to be their natural selves, independent of their faith. When a tragedy rips Annika’s friendship from Corinne and Corinne must watch in horror as the congregation chalks bad fortune up to God’s will, it pushes her over the edge of merely questioning her faith, straight into a desire to change her life.

Farmiga’s casting is exceptional, using her younger sister as the teenage version of her character and filling the cast with non-traditional personality types, none of whom would immediately strike you as being particularly religious. They’re all quite young, for the most part, and very congenial without seeming preachy. Their lives revolve around their love of God, but it comes out mostly in the privacy of their own home or in the comfort of their church. There isn’t a character singled out to function as a villain or a true adversary, there are no big showdowns and the film isn’t tantamount to heresy. It’s merely one person’s journey through the trials and tribulations of faith. Her husband, played by Joshua Leonard, is phenomenally relatable as a man who finds comfort in Christianity, but is not ruled by it. It’s his blanket of safety in the face of all of life’s problems and disappointments and her congregation is full of very normal people who have simply found their safety net in faith. Many of the other characters share his traits of self-doubt and comfort in Christ.

The point of Higher Ground is that Corinne fell through that safety net and had to find another path for herself, which is as legitimate as life choice as anyone who would choose faith.
The film’s brilliance is in the subtlety of its story structure. When the film starts it isn’t clear where it’s heading or how it will get there, we never see any significant dramatic signposts; this is a gradual and subtle journey of self-discovery of one woman.

Farmiga has established herself with Higher Ground as a directorial force to be reckoned with, showing restraint in keeping her characters and scenes grounded, while showing equal control and willingness speak some fearless and soul baring dialogue, showing the discrepancy between striving for perfection in belief and the realities of being humanly imperfect.

She has crafted the most personal, fully realized and well rounded drama of 2011 thus far and my choice for this year’s best picture so far.