The Critics Speak

De-Lovely

Critic: Steph Lewis
On a scale of 0 to Awesome, I rate this: "CREATIVE" or "UNIQUE"
Released: July 2, 2004
Director: Irwin Winkler
MPAA RATING: PG-13, sexual content

It's Pretentious! It's Obnoxious! It's De-Crappy!

Okay, that may have been a bit over the top. Sorry.

This movie tells the story of Cole Porter's life (Kevin Kline) and his journey to find love through those around him and his music. Porter is known for writing songs such as "It's De-Lovely," "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love," "Let's Misbehave," and "Anything Goes," and the musical "Kiss Me Kate."

This movie is told in a creepy ghost-of-Christmas-past kind of way. Porter, aged and grumbly, watches the musical of his life. He makes comments throughout the scenes, which are woven with his music and scenes from the past. He watches himself write songs, meet inspirations, move to America, and live out his life. His wife, Linda Lee (Ashley Judd), is amazingly loyal to him, despite his obvious preference for men and their sexless marriage. Modern-day singers such as Elvis Costello, Robbie Williams, Alanis Morissette, Natalie Cole, and Sheryl Crow sing his music throughout...but are sadly not on the screen as much as we'd like.

I've seen lots of debate regarding the historical accuracy of this movie. It's difficult to watch a movie of a real-life person that is neither historical nor accurate. Obviously, some artistic decisions need to be made, but this one may have gone too far. I wonder what the real Cole Porter would say if he could critique the movie of him critiquing the musical of his life.

The entire movie came off as very pretentious to me. Porter seemed shallowly acted and the aging make-up was irritating. Thank goodness for Ashley Judd, the lone spotlight deserver in the entire movie. She is beautiful and graceful and plays her role quite well...but the aging make-up was really annoying.

The End of Innocence

Critic: Steph Lewis
On a scale of 0 to Awesome, I rate this: I'd Rather Have Lyme's Disease
Released: 1990
Director: Dyan Cannon
MPAA RATING: R

Synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes: Since childhood, Stephanie has been searching for her prince charming to give her life a meaning and her self, an identity. When she thinks she's found him, she marries him, and soon realizes that he's as patronizing as the rest by utterly disregarding her internal suffering. Stephanie suffers a nervous breakdown, and soon is committed to a rehabilitation center. There, Stephanie learns to trust herself as an avenue towards fulfillment, and, once back in the world, the only one who can stop her from growing is herself.

I didn't write my own synopsis because it's just not worth any moment of my life to write more than I have to. I didn't finish watching this; it's one of the crappiest movies I've ever seen. The only reason I started watching it is because Josh discovered that the main character's name was Stephanie Lewis. So, the intrigue of seeing "myself" on film was pretty decent. We checked it out and found out why we've never heard of it before. The director tries really hard to make it all artsy with this stupid carousel metaphor and some really crappy hand-held videography. Ick. Shut it off. Don't spend money. Vomit. Blech.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Critic: Steph Lewis
On a scale of 0 to Awesome, I rate this: Tolerable
Released: December 17, 2004
Director: Brad Siberling
MPAA RATING: PG, or thematic elements, scary situations and brief language.

Violet (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken), and Sunny (Kara & Shelby Hoffman) are orphaned when their parents are mysteriously killed in a bizarre fire. They are sent to Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) because he is the closest known relative. The guy turns out to be a freak after their money (gee...couldn't have preticted that one), so the kids get tossed around to various distant relatives including Uncle Monty (Billy Connelly) and Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep). Hollywood poster boy, Jude Law, is the narrator.

I haven't read the Series of Unfortunate Events series, and I'm not planning to. I guess there are three books (The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, and The Wide Window), that the movie squishes into this one movie. Apparently, there isn't a lot of content in the books because the movie doesn't really have a lot of content to fill the time, but, like I said, I haven't read the books so I don't know. The movie has overdone characters with really cool sets and is overall very dark. The kids are pretty well done and are very intelligent in how they deal with their stark circumstances.

I wanted to leave the theater on this one...I admit it. The characters are shallow caricatures that show little growth or evolution throughout the movie. They are also really dumb. I simply can't enjoy a movie where I keep mumbling under my breath, "You idiot..." throughout the whole movie. Because everyone is making such stupid decisions, and the mediocre acting is not helping the character stupidity along any, I am constantly reminded that I am just watching a movie. It never pulled me in. At least in movies like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or any of the Harry Potter movies, I am pulled in to the environment and the strange characters and taken along on the advetures. This movie went on it's own little adventure and I spent two hours looking at my watch.

The Polar Express

Critic: Steph Lewis
On a scale of 0 to Awesome, I rate this: Good!
Released: November 10, 2004
Director: Robert Zemeckis
MPAA RATING: G

This movie is a creation of the popular children's book The Polar Express, by Chris Van Allsburg. Basically, a young boy doubts the existence of Santa and is scooped up onto the Polar Express to prove that "seeing is believing." The movie speaks of a child's desire for Santa to be real, but even more deeply shows the theme of humans longing for something bigger out there than just normal life. Starring Tom Hanks as, well, pretty much every adult male character, The Polar Express is a nice little diddy to definitely see once, and maybe yearly after that if you decide you like it. I probably won't, but it's still a nice little package of a movie.

I saw this one at the IMAX theater in Minnesota in 3-D. It's definitely the coolest thing I've ever seen in 3-D. It was awesome to go up and down the roller coaster train tracks and slide down chutes and be on top of a train and all that kind of stuff right along with the characters. Having first seen this in 3-D, I think it would be lacking in 2-D because the live action is what captured me. The animation is extremely real...to the point that I wondered why they didn't just use the real actors. These animations that were so close to real, but not, came off as a little creepy to me. I guess that I want movies to either have real characters (played by real people) or to be animated in a creative way that is not of this world. This movie was kind of a strange place in between and that was odd for me.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Critic: Steph Lewis
On a scale of 0 to Awesome, I rate this: Gotta See It
Released: December 25, 2004
Director: Wes Anderson
MPAA RATING: R, for language, some drug use, violence and partial nudity.

I missed the first two minutes of this movie because, idiot that I am, I accidentially knocked my friend's latte out of her cup holder when I took off my sweatshirt. The stupid thing went rolling down about ten rows, busted open, and saturated the already-sticky theater floor. So, I went to get another one for her. Then, I accidentally went into the wrong movie theater...blah, blah, blah... and missed the first two minutes.

But, I got filled in... Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) is a marine documentary maker and, while shooting an underwater scene, this "Jaguar Shark" eats his partner (Seymour Cassel). Zissou thinks fast and shoots the thing with a homing device, then declares to a film preview crowd that his next goal is to find and kill this shark to avenge his friend's death.

At a party on his boat later, we meet Owen Wilson's character, whom Zissou introduces as, "This is probably my son, Ned." Ned joins the crew and joins the bizarro world where finances are tight (and often non-existent), the fashion is oh-so seventies, and Zissou is aging in an emotional, reckless way. Other notable characters on the boat include Jane (Cate Blanchett), a pregnant journalist; Zissou's wife (Anjelica Houston); Klaus (Willem Dafoe), a really needy guy; and the guitar-totin David-Bowie-song-singing Pelé (Seu Jorge). Jeff Goldblum also plays Zissou's anal nemesis, Alistair Hennessey.

This movie is definitely the strangest I've seen in quite some time. It's like a strange Monty Python meets National Geographic meets Twiggy video meets kid with a video camera in his backyard. It also has these creepy cult-like costumes...I would so wear those shoes. There were special effects that were bad, but good because they were bad...know what I mean? There are these crazy invented creatures (like this sweet sea horse thing) as well as these albino dolphins with frickin video cameras stuck to their heads.

The crew ends up on all kinds of weird adventures, like when they go into unprotected waters and get attacked by pirates. Bill Murray does this hilarous battle scene in his bathrobe that is a great contrast to his gun scenes from The Man Who Knew Too Little.

Wes Anderson has made a nice little cult film. My mom will hate this and say, "I don't get it" and "You would like this weird movie...weirdo" when she sees it. The emotional parts seem a bit flat...but it's somehow believable that way because their characters remind me of these sort of generic stock characters who are only allowed to be or feel to a limited extent. And, the more they experience these bizarre situations calmly and seemingly uninterested, the more the characters increase their eccentricity.

Awesome work with Bill Murray's acting. Anderson smartly captures his facial expression and acting center-stage throughout the movie. I think Murray just gets better and better the older he gets. I'm also glad that he's choosing to work with up-and-coming directors (i.e. S. Coppola, Anderson) instead of the proven ones. It's been giving him more challenging, memorable roles and helping them pull up to a more noticed stature. Cool stuff.

Garden State

Critic: Steph Lewis
On a scale of 0 to Awesome, I rate this: Solid & Thoughtful
Released: July 30, 2004 Limited
Director: Zach Braff
MPAA RATING: R, for language, drug use and a scene of sexuality

Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, and Zach Braff have excellent, real performances in this beauty of a film. It's Zach Braff's directoral & writing debut and he does it with style and sass. This film reminded me of a strange Charlie Kaufman writing style mixed with a bit of The Graduate for quirkiness and thought.

Andrew Largeman (Braff) has basically been on a bunch of hard prescription drugs for most of his life, as prescribed by his psychiatrist father, which has left him essentially numb to life. It's pretty clear that his family has issues that haven't been discussed for quite some time. When his mother dies, Largeman leaves his small T.V. career in L.A. to go back home for her funeral. There, he reconnects with people from his past including his father (Ian Holm), his gravedigger friend (Sarsgaard), and other quite interesting people.

When "Large" comes back home, he leaves all of his prescription medications behind as kind of a bizarre experiment to see what happens when he's not medicated. He begins to see and feel life differently, which is emphasized in his meeting of Sam (Portman). She's this crazy-fun girl who gently helps Large to live again.

Overall, this movie is made very sensitively. There are moments of humor piggy-backed on deep thoughts. Each character is phenomenally played, especially Portman who absolutely shines. I wish that Sam was real so she could be my friend.

The only thing that made me upset about this movie was the ending. I felt that the whole script and characters were so well done, that the cheeseball ending kind of made me ill. I wish they had come up with a better ending, but the rest of the movie really held me. Whether they be burying a hamster, collecting tears in a dixie cup, or having breakfast with a knight...the quirky scenes are amusing and thoughtful at the same time. We find love and joy in the bizarre, and thus fall in love with the deep struggles the characters so openly share.

The biggest kudos goes to Braff, who wrote and directed this little beauty.
This movie is rich in symbolism, poignancy, and quirkiness -- which makes it a delight to see!

City of God (Cidade de Deus)

Critic: Steph Lewis
On a scale of 0 to Awesome, I rate this: AWESOME
Released: January 17, 2003
Directors: Fernando Meirelles & Katia Lund
MPAA RATING: R, sexual content, language, violence, drug use

This is one of the most beautiful and disturbing films I've seen in a long time. I know it's heaviness is going to stay with me for several days, and I am thankful for it since there seem to be so few things (especially movies) that get me thinking as of late.

Imagine living in the slums of Rio de Janiero during the 1960's, where youth gangs ran the streets and managed the drug trade. When uneducated, beaten down kids are given a gun, it gives them a feeling of power and purpose. Thus, the kids and kids-turned-adult run the slums. It seems that kids would be stupid for not turning to this life, since it pays so much (considerably more than an honest job...which is also not respected) and offers protection and a sort of family in your gang.

Despite this, Rocket (played amazingly by Alexandre Rodrigues) finds himself a failure at crime. When he tries to commit a crime, he bails out because the possible victims seem too nice. He tries to lose his virginity, but ultimately fails at that too. He's naive and morally precocious, and also a bit shy, and this ultimately means that his destiny will be different from others.

The surrounding battle is between gang leader Li'l Ze (played by Leandro Firmino da Hora) and the other druglords, all of whom are followed closely by the Runts (a pre-teen gang). Benny (Phellipe Haagensen) is a sort of peacemaker between everyone since he is well-loved and appeals to all of the crowds. Knockout Ned (Seu Jorge) is a good-looking good-guy who gets pulled into the gang fights when circumstances knock so hard on his door that he has very little choice anymore.

Rocket, instead of picking up a gun (though they are being handed out like candy) choses to use his own weapon - a camera.

Aside from the realistic acting, the real kudos go to director Fernando Meirelles and Cesar Charlone the cinematographer. Together they tell the story of thirty years of distress in Rio de Janiero with such realism and fluidity you'd swear you were there. Using rapid editing cuts, the movie cuts back and forth in time, helping us to transcend the story while, at the same time, pushing us deeper into it. The social commentary is amazing as we all hope for a miracle to descend upon the people in the City of God.