Reviews of The Spirit, The Reader and American Swing

The Spirit
Lionsgate
$29.95
2-Disc Edition: $34.98
Blu-ray: $39.99

Plot: A do-gooder cop (Gabriel Macht) is brought back from the dead to keep the streets of Central City safe as the super-strong, super-stylish hero The Spirit.

Opinion: The best thing about The Spirit is that it was directed by Frank Miller.  We’ve seen dozens of comic-book films recently, but this is the first one to be helmed by an actual comics artist and the difference is apparent right away.  Watching the film is like reading one of Miller’s comic books, from the framing of shots to the rhythm of the editing to the beautiful backgrounds that threaten divert your eye away from the action during certain scenes.  Unfortunately, the worst thing about The Spirit is that it was also written by Frank Miller, who hasn’t penned a script worth a damn since Batman: Year One.  As with much of his recent output, the film has no story to speak of and the tone is all over the place.  Still, as much as I rolled my eyes at the dialogue, I have to admit that the film itself never bored me.  Its visual beauty and sheer strangeness held my attention throughout.  I also can’t help but admire Miller’s passionate commitment to his peculiar vision.  For better or worse, you can feel his fingerprints all over the movie.

Bonus Features: A 20-minute making-of featurette and a 15-minute Q&A with Miller, both of which studiously avoid mentioning the film’s poor critical and commercial reception, but do offer some interesting insights into the movie’s production and the artist/filmmaker’s past works.  (Best quote: “I think the crudest possible way to [describe] my career is that I’ve been led by my dick.”  Nailed it Frank!)  Miller also contributes a commentary track along with producer Deborah Del Prete and offers a peek at his storyboards for the movie’s alternate ending.

Verdict: Rent It

Click here to see an exclusive clip from the making-of documentary on The Spirit DVD

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The Reader
The Weinstein Company
$29.95
Blu-ray: $34.99

Plot: A German teenager (David Kross) enjoys a summer fling with an older woman (Kate Winslet) who he later discovers was a Nazi during World War II.

Opinion: I love Kate Winslet, really I do, but I wasn’t a fan of either her 2008 vehicles Revolutionary Road and The Reader, the movie that finally nabbed her that long-delayed Oscar.  The problem with the picture is that it treats the Holocaust as fodder for an oh-so-tony art-house film, where the true horrors of that tragedy are never really grappled with in any kind of detail.  Instead, the emotional crux of the story turns on one man’s anger over the fact that the woman that introduced him to sex was a former Nazi.  It almost sounds like the premise for a comedy…except that the movie actually us to take it seriously.

Bonus Features: 12 deleted and extended scenes, a 20-minute making-of documentary and four additional featurettes, including one devoted to Kate Winslet’s makeup regimin to play her character as an old woman.

Verdict: Skip It

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American Swing
Magnolia
$26.98

Plot: A chronicle of the rise and fall of Plato’s Retreat, New York City’s number-one destination for swingers during the ’70s and early ’80s.

Opinion: I’m a sucker for movies about ’70s-era New York, probably because I never got to experience that period in the Big Apple’s lengthy history firsthand.  Although even if I had, I’m pretty sure I never would have had the guts to go to a place like Plato’s Retreat anyway.  Based on the glimpses of the club we see here via grainy amateur movies and vintage news footage, the décor was tacky, the buffet unappetizing and the conversation not particularly stimulating.  Then again, nobody was going to Plato’s to talk much anyway.  Clocking in a swift 80-minutes, this documentary offers an entertaining overview of the club’s history, but it also breezes past exploring a number of interesting subjects that would have given the film more dramatic heft.  I can’t be the only viewer left wondering how closely Plato’s owner was tied to the mob and whether more patrons didn’t go home nursing feelings of jealousy after watching their significant others having sex with total strangers.  A better documentary would have pursued these questions, but I do give credit to American Swing for revealing another side of a New York that no longer exists.

Bonus Features: Dozens of deleted scenes packed with hilarious details about the club in its heyday, some of which come courtesy of porn star (and Plator’s patron) Ron Jeremy.

Verdict: Rent It

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Also on DVD

A hit on the festival circuit since it premiered in 2005, the award-winning Israeli drama Live and Become (Menemsha Films, $29.95) follows the experiences of a young Ethiopian refugee who is sent to live in Israel by his mother in the hopes that he’ll be able to find a better life abroad.  If you’re more in the mood for scares than tears, check out Splinter (Mangolia, $26.98), an indie Evil Dead-style chiller that provides twice the scares of most Hollywood productions on half the budget.  If you’re hooked on the British teen soap opera Skins (and all of you should be) than you’ve undoubtedly been counting the hours until the show’s second series was released stateside.  Well, the wait is finally over: Skins Volume 2 (BBC, $39.98) hits stores today with another six episodes to feed your addiction.  Finally, Lionsgate takes us back to the ’80s courtesy of The Lost Collection (Lionsgate, $14.98 each), a collection of eight of that decade’s cult hits, from the comedies Irreconcilable Differences (starring a still-cheuribic Drew Barrymore) and Morgan Stewart’s Coming Home to the horror entry Slaughter High.

Beyonce and Hugh may have flopped big time, but last night’s Oscar ceremony wasn’t a total wash.

With so many of the big awards decided before the telecast even started, there wasn’t too much in the way of suspense at last night’s 2009 Academy Awards.  As expected, Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture, along with seven other Oscars; Kate Winslet finally got her Best Actress trophy; and the show once again ran past its scheduled 11:30 curtain by about 20 minutes.  The biggest question mark was how the telecast’s new producing team–which included Dreamgirls director Bill Condon–would reinvent the tired Oscar format.  For the most part, they ran a smooth ship, without too many dead spots or snooze-inducing montages.  That said, some of their choices–most notably the way the acting awards were presented–fell completely flat and that Beyonce/Hugh Jackman musical number…well, we’ll get to that later.

Now that all of the Academy’s envelopes have been opened, it’s my turn to hand out awards for the 2009 Oscars.  Oh and by the way, I went 17-for-24 in my predictions this year, which is up from last year.  My biggest mistake was picking the two underdogs in the lead acting categories–I went for Rourke and Leo and Penn and Winslet wound up winning as everyone else in the world but me predicted.  Just goes to show you that sometimes it’s better to play it safe…

Best Success Story: Slumdog Millionaire won seven out of the eight trophies it was nominated for, losing the Sound Editing category to The Dark Knight.  I’ve said before that I’m not a huge fan of the movie, but everyone involved in Slumdog–from director Danny Boyle to composer A.R. Rahman to cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle–delivered humble and appealing acceptance speeches and there is something cool about the fact that a film that was essentially disowned by its original studio (Warner Brothers) wound up striking Oscar gold.  And how cute were those little kid actors too?

Biggest Flop: Once seen as a major contender, Frost/Nixon went home empty-handed last night, failing to pick up a single award.  Director Ron Howard managed to smile through it all, but you could tell that his producer Brian Grazer was pissed off.

Sorest Loser: Was it just me or did David Fincher look like he wanted to go all Zodiac on Danny Boyle when the latter won the Best Director prize?  Don’t worry man, you’ll be back someday.  Hopefully with a better movie than Benjamin Button.

Most Gracious Winner: Sean Penn’s shout-out to old pal Mickey Rourke was the highlight of a classy acceptance speech, that also included a pointed message to anti-gay rights protesters who were apparently picketing outside the Kodak Theater.  As he himself joked, Penn isn’t the easiest guy to get along with, but he’s clearly as committed to his craft as he is to his politics.

Biggest Upset: The Japanese film Departures beat out favorites The Class and Waltz with Bashir for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.  This might have been easier to predict, of course, had the general public actually been able to see Departures, but as of now, it still hasn’t played in wide or even limited release.  But hey, the Oscar win should be a great thing to advertise on the DVD packaging.

Best Presenter: Ben Stiller graciously allowed Robert Downey Jr. to steal Tropic Thunder away from him, but he scored last night’s biggest laughs when he showed up with Joaquin Phoenix’s gigantic beard and drugged-out demeanor.  Natalie Portman played a delightful straight girl as well.  Someone cast them together in a comedy, stat!

Worst Presenter: So this is what being Justin Timberlake’s girlfriend does to you–you dress up in a curtain and forget the ability to read.  And she wonders why she fights against prejudice every day.

Biggest Waste of Time: It’s nice that the musical is back and everything, but surely the Academy could have found a better way to honor this genre than a slapdash production number that crammed the Mamma Mia! and High School Musical kids onstage opposite a slumming Beyonce and an overly earnest Hugh Jackman.  Badly choreographed and awkwardly sung, this clumsy stage show would have been laughed out of any Broadway theater.  Jackman’s opening song-and-dance routine wasn’t any better.  The guy’s a natural born showman, but this material didn’t put his skills to great use.  Oh and Beyonce, please stop singing “At Last.”  You’re just begging Etta James to come after you at his point.

Best Telecast Change: Convincing Academy head Sid Ganis not to deliver another boring speech.  The wave and smile was all we needed.

Worst Telecast Change: Dragging five previous award winners onstage to talk directly to each of the five nominees in the acting categories.  Not only did these monologues all sound the same (“You’re great!  I mean really, really great!”), there were also a number of weird match-ups.  Even Frank Langella looked confused about why Michael Douglas was praising him and Marion Cotillard seemed like she wanted to leap into Kate Winslet’s arms and start making out with her.  Now that would have been good television.

Most Deserving Winners: Wall-E for Animated Feature; Sean Penn for Best Actor; Heath Ledger for Supporting Actor; Penelope Cruz for Supporting Actress; Slumdog Millionaire for Original Score and Song; Benjamin Button for Art Direction.

Golden Globe Nominations are announced.  Check out what’s in store for the year’s first big awards ceremony.

Those crazy kids at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced the nominations for the 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards, set to be broadcast on January 11, 2009 on NBC.  In the film categories, the big winners were as follow:

*David Fincher’s beautiful life-in-reverse love story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (5 nominations, including Best Drama, Best Actor in a Drama and Best Director)

*John Patrick Shanley’s effective adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play Doubt (5 nominations, including Best Actress in a Drama, Best Supporting Actor in a Drama and Best Screenplay)

*Ron Howard’s mediocre version of the Broadway hit Frost/Nixon (5 nominations, including Best Drama, Best Actor and Best Original score)

Elsewhere, early Oscar favorite Slumdog Millionaire also made a mark, scoring 4 nods and Kate Winslet earned two acting nominations, Best Actress for Revolutionary Road and Best Supporting Actress for The Reader.  (It’s worth noting that the latter nod is absolute crap—she’s the female lead in The Reader, no matter what the HFPA says.)

Interestingly, 2008′s biggest movie, The Dark Knight, was almost completely shut out, picking up a single nod for Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker.  As of now, it still seems like a shoo-in to be one of the five Best Picture finalists when Oscar nominations are announced at the end of January, but this does indicate that there’s still a reluctance amongst a certain segment of the industry to lavishing attention on comic book movies.

Over on the TV side, I’m happy to see last year’s Best Drama Series Mad Men receive another nomination for its stellar second season and have my fingers crossed that the show’s Jon Hamm will be recognized for his excellent work as Don “The Man” Draper.  Of course, I may not be able to see Hamm accept his Golden Globe if Jeremy Piven wins yet another Best Supporting Actor statue for the long past-its-prime Entourage, as I’ll have thrown my TV out the window.  Expect 30 Rock to dominate the Best Comedy category again unless Tina Fey backlash suddenly rears its head in the next three weeks.

For a full list of the nominations, go here.  And tune in on January 11 to laugh at all the celebrities getting sloshed on the free booze.

Kate Winslet made the press rounds this week for her two Oscar-bound flicks and we were there to hear what she had to say.

Kate Winslet made the record books in 2007 when she became the youngest actress in Hollywood history to receive five Oscar nominations.  Not a bad honor to have, but it’s understandable that she’d rather have a little gold man on her shelf instead.  She’s got two chances to finally snag her long-awaited statue this year, with lead roles in Revolutionary Road and The Reader, which are both in the thick of this season’s Oscar race.  In Road, the 33-year-old actress plays a disaffected suburban housewife in ’50s-era America, whose relationship with her boyish husband (played by Leonardo DiCaprio, making this their first onscreen pairing since Titanic) is quickly hitting the skids.  The Reader, meanwhile, casts her as a working-class woman in post-World War II era Germany who enters into a brief, torrid affair with a teenage boy.  Years later, long after their relationship has ended, the kid learns that his lover worked for the SS during the Holocaust.  Part of playing the Oscar game is making yourself available to the press 24/7 and Winslet worked it like a pro this past week, appearing in almost back-to-back press days for both films.  Some select comments from the Revolutionary Road and Reader roundtables are included below.  Coolest thing about Kate?  She rolls her own cigarettes with real tobacco.  In front of a roomful of non-smoking journos.  Now that’s hot.

On her Revolutionary Road character
“For April, it’s very clear this isn’t the life she expected for herself and her husband is then forced to question it to and its at that point that they realize they maybe they aren’t the people they were when they first met.  And she ultimately is so determined to find happiness, to feel something again other than what she has, she’s prepared to risk everything in order to get that.  To me, that’s a very heroic act.”

On her former Titanic star
“Leo is nicer than he was, if that’s possible; he’s funnier than he was, if that’s possible; and he’s a better actor than he was, if that’s possible.  Quiet honestly, playing these characters there was a surprise everyday.  I loved playing some of the difficult scenes with Leo, knowing that because of the trust we have, there were no boundaries.  That was a real gift for us as actors.  I had to stop myself from crying because I was seeing someone for whom I have so much respect doing things as an actor I have never seen him do before.”

On getting into the mind of her Reader character
“With Hanna I started off thinking there were so many ways I could research the role.  The thing that was most important to me alongside memorizing the book was that I wanted to understand what it felt like to be illiterate.  I needed to really explore that level of shame that Hanna felt.  I worked alongside a literacy program in New York City and sat in on literacy groups.  In one of those groups, the youngest member was 5 and the oldest member was 73.”

On performing The Reader’s sex scenes with her younger co-star
“In the story, the character is 15 years old, Hanna thinks he’s 17 and the actor playing him is 18.  He’s a young man.  He’s older than I was when I went to New Zealand and shot Heavenly Creatures for god’s sake.  Someone said to me yesterday ‘Were his parents around?’  And I was like ‘For fuck’s sake–he’s not a baby!’  I don’t know what his history with relationships is, because it’s none of my business.  But he knows what he’s doing!”

On her own introduction to onscreen sex
“I was 19 when I appeared in Michael Winterbottom’s Jude and I had a full-on love scene with Christopher Eccleston.  I was absolutely terrified and had no idea.  When I walked onto set and had to shoot that scene and realized no one was there, I thought they shut down production for the day!  They even put a female boom operator on set that day to make it less ‘male’ for me.  People really care about an actor’s comfort level so that you are still able to play your part.”

On having two competing lead roles in this year’s Oscar race
“I feel very proud to be a part of both of these films.  It’s incredible to be talked about [as an Oscar nominee] and I hope I live up to expectations.  It’s my job to make myself available to support both of these films equally.  It’s a juggle because I support both of these films in equal measure.  So it’s a lot packed into everyday at the moment, but it’s okay.  That’s the way its going to be so just get through it.”

The Reader and Revolutionary Road open in limited release in December (December 10 for Reader; December 26 for Road) before going wide in January.  Trailers below.