REVIEW: Away We Go (B)

(Away We Go opens today at the Landmark Uptown Cinema)

One of the things I've never understood about screenwriting is the propensity for unrealistically realistic character details. In Away We Go, for example, why must Verona (Maya Rudolph) be a medical textbook diagram artist? Why can't she simply be a regular artist, or a writer, or a consultant - something that people actually do in real life?

No matter - Away We Go isn't really about real life, but about the search for the "real life" that Verona and Burt (again, unnecessarily uncommon names?) think is waiting for them as they reach their mid-30's. Preparing for the birth of their first child, the couple bounces from coast to coast, ostensibly in search for the the perfect city to raise a family, but really because they don't know what else to do.

They are obsessed with the family of their future and the families of their individual pasts, never considering what might be there for them in the present. In searching for the "truest" versions of themselves they look out the window instead of in the mirror, and to that end Away We Go will probably hit home for many people, particularly those in the 25-35 year-old demographic that have been waiting for a sequel to Garden State (that the films share a similar soundtrack cannot be a coincidence).

On this soul searching journey, however, director Sam Mendes appears to lose his way. I think he's at his best in a static setting (e.g., Revolutionary Road, Jarhead, Road to Perdition) where he can develop atmosphere and character and an overwhelmingly bleak mood. Here, husband-and-wife screenwriters and celebrated novelists Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida have him working on the fly, desperately trying to maintain the same semblance of character from city to city. Alas, it doesn't quite work, and the running tactic ends up being scenes of promisy pillow talk between Verona and Burt (John Krasinski) at each stop on the road.

What surprisingly does work is the back-and-forth between quirky comedy and punch-to-the-gut, plaintively serious drama - like Mendes' American Beauty but not nearly as smug. Sure, it feels like it was designed as an emotional rollercoaster ride, but that's mostly true of life, even if our interactions with real people aren't quite always as fleeting. There's almost no continuity in their journey and we're often here and gone with thinly developed, easily abandoned characters.

Honestly, as far as adorable indies go you're better off with a little more substance and self-awareness from something like Medicine for Melancholy.

All that being said, and in spite of its identity crisis, Away We Go somehow, impossibly ended up winning me over, almost entirely due to the strong acting. Maya Rudolph was always a favorite cast member of mine on "SNL" and I was glad to see that her dramatic range has a lot of potential for future films. And maybe because I don't watch "The Office", Krasinski proved me wrong in thinking that he doesn't have much depth. The character of Burt appears to be tailor-made for him (or Zach Braff), but he wears it well. Add in a howlingly funny few minutes from Allison Janney, a disappointingly tired but still terrific performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal, and a great piece of acting by Chris Messina (who was also fantastic in Vicky Cristina Barcelona), and it's easy to overlook all of those flaws in the story. In fact, with Jeff Daniels, Catherine O'Hara, and Jim Gaffigan, this might be best work by an ensemble cast in 2009 so far.

Is that enough to win you over? Maybe not. A wrong character here or one too many indie-folk songs there might have spelled doom for my experience with Away We Go, but in the end it was a charming enough reminder of the well-worn cliché that life's a journey, not a destination.

Grade:
Writing - 7
Acting - 10
Production - 8
Emotional Impact - 8
Music - 4
Social Significance - 5

Total: 42/50= 84% = B

REVIEW: Break (F)

Break is the new movie "featuring" David Carradine in one of his last roles (he has several more films yet to be released), and it inexplicably opens for a one week engagement today at St. Anthony Main before a DVD release in July.

Find my 0/4 star capsule review from today's Star Tribune here.

Grade:
Writing - 4
Acting - 5
Production - 5
Emotional Impact - 4
Music - 4
Social Significance - 1

Total: 23/50= 46% = F

Hijacked Creativity: The Taking (and Remaking) of Pelham One Two Three

I challenge anyone to give me a new answer to this simple question: What is the purpose of Tony Scott's remake of Joseph Sargent's The Taking of Pelham of One Two Three?

It's a trick question, of course, because there is no new answer, and there has never been any acceptable answer for the dozens of remakes Hollywood has churned out over the last couple of decades, including the completely ignored (also by me) 1998 version of The Taking of Pelham 123, starring Edward James Olmos and Vincent D'Onofrio.

It's not good enough that Scott's glossy blockbuster is an updated version for "a new generation". It's not good enough that it's an updated version for the fans of the original (or for that matter, a reimagining of the original - everything is the same except the ransom is up to $10 million). And it's certainly not good enough that it's a critic-proof "summer popcorn flick".

This is a movie considered by many people to be one of the great crime dramas of the 1970's. It boasts a unanimous 100% fresh RT rating, and blogging pals Chuck Bowen and Matt Gamble have recently sung its praises. Having also seen it recently, I'll add that it's an effortlessly entertaining thriller featuring great performances in the wholly unique setting of the NYC underground. The general consensus since its release 35 years ago is that, despite some dated technology (and the fact the hijackers only ask for $1 million), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is an otherwise excellent movie.

So why bother pouring millions of dollars into a remake of a movie that simply doesn't need to be improved upon? What's the rational, and in the absence of any, why not just start remaking other great films? Give The Godfather to Michael Mann; Citizen Kane to Ron Howard, and, sure, Psycho to Gus Van Sant. I'm not being sarcastic - why isn't this happening more frequently with classic movies?

I imagine it's probably just a matter of time. Honestly, at this rate we can expect a Godfather remake any year now, and soon enough remakes of instant classics like No Country for Old Men. It will be like those idiotic "(Genre) Movie" movies that spoof movies still in theaters. Don't believe me that the remake situation is this serious? Check this out, or consider the remakes proposed by Jeff Wells, who unabashedly contends that the new Pelham is better than the original.

Why? Just...why?

Maybe the most recent trend started when dozens of hit British shows - "Britain's Got Talent" (America's Got Talent),"Pop Idol" (American Idol), "The Office," "Life on Mars", "The Weakest Link", "Hell's Kitchen", "Changing Rooms" (Trading Spaces), "Strictly Come Dancing" (Dancing With the Stars), "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" - crossed the pond and became big hits here. Soon enough Hollywood figured out, hey, we can make bigger hits out of foreign shows, so we can probably make bigger hits out of foreign movies, too (hold your nose for the upcoming American remakes of Let the Right One In and Tell No One).

Or maybe it was George Lucas and The Phantom Menace that started Hollywood's decline. If he could dust off a twenty year-old franchise and make millions from it, why couldn't everyone else? In fact, why not just make any new movie (Rush Hour, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Paul Blart: Mall Cop) a franchise to begin with?

So here we are at the peak of this trend, and desks and inboxes at production companies and studios in Hollywood are inundated with another 5-10 years worth of remakes, "reboots" (see, we even had to create a new term!), and sequels. And the worst part is, it's really difficult not to be tempted into seeing these new versions (as was the case most recently with Terminator Salvation). When somebody remakes The Godfather, are you telling me you won't end up seeing it? You'll have to see someone's attempt at an impossible feat, if only to see how miserably they fail. And while we're standing in line to watch the latest disaster, filmmakers with fresh, original stories (e.g., Ballast) are basically forced into self-financing and self-distributing their projects. Is this OK?

What's really being hijacked in the remake of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is not the subway car but the plot of the original film. There's a ransom demanded for the safe return of creativity to Hollywood. Anyone want to chip in? We should start by pooling the money we'll spend at the box office this weekend.

UPDATE: So I ended up seeing it (opening weekend), and can confirm it's one of the worst movies I've seen so far this year. What a waste.

Reel Life #5

It's been too long since my last edition of Reel Life, the occasional feature where I highlight news stories that have the potential for future film adaptations, so this edition is jam packed with material from the past few months. Here's the explainer from my first installment:

"This feature gets to the heart of my blogging and general film philosophy: bringing that which I see on screen into real world applications for my daily life. With these examples, the flow just happens to be in the opposite direction. Please feel free to share your comments on these stories and suggest or email me others that you find. All rights reserved if any Reel Life stories ever make their way to the big screen...just kidding...but not really..."

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"Child Elopers' Africa Plan Foiled"

When I was 3 or 4 years old I proposed to a girl in my preschool class, whispering in her ear, "Let's get married when we grow up" - or something to that effect. She shrugged her shoulders in affirmation; I don't remember her name. Maybe not the best story to base a movie on, but not too far off from this amusing report out of Germany about two romantic kids, aged 4 and 5, who stole off to the airport in the middle of the night to get married in Africa, "where it is warm", as they described it. Packing sunglasses and bathing suits and with an official witness (one of the kid's sisters) in tow, the trio made it less than a mile to their destination before being picked up by a security guard as they waited at a train station. Not the ending they might have hoped for, but obviously not the ending that we'd see in the movie. Done tastefully, this could be an adorably adventure movie for kids.

Story Potential: Moderate
Project Possibilities: Feature length film

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"Recruited For Jihad? What Happened to Mustafa Ali?"
and "Somali Youth from Minneapolis dies in homeland"

Living in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, home to more Somalis than any other place in the U.S. or Canada, I don't really have a sense of what the majority of people elsewhere know about Somalia or its people. My guess is that the general knowledge is tragically limited to the jingoistic Black Hawk Down and the recent Somali pirate madness, which is why a film about someone like Mustafa Ali, an 18-year old from St. Paul who was among a group of almost 20 young Somali men who disappeared earlier this year and are suspected to have been recruited by terrorist cells back in Somalia, could be extremely illuminating.

Although I admit Gran Torino tackled intercultural understanding in questionable fashion, the majority of people left that movie with a much better understanding (or likely an initial understanding) of the Hmong people and their culture. This movie, or a related documentary about Ali, could also shed light on the challenging transition many Somali refugees have had to make in Minnesota and elsewhere in the West.

Update: This story was published in February, and just this weekend it was reported that Burhan Hassan, a 17 year-old teenager from Minneapolis who left Somalia as an infant and returned around the same time as Ali last year, was recently killed in Mogadishu, the details of his death unclear. What is going on...?

Story Potential: High
Project Possibilities: Feature length film; feature length documentary; documentary short

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"Komodo Dragons Kill Indonesian Fisherman"

So there have been tons of movies already made about killer dragons, alligators, lizards, and other scaly reptiles, but has there been one specifically focusing on the venomous and razor-sharp-toothed Komodo dragon, the threatened species native to Indonesia? Not that I'm aware of, though monster movies aren't really my bag so I've probably missed one. This story about the horrifying attack on a fisherman who was "trespassing on a remote island in search of fruit" is tailor-made for an Anaconda-like thriller.

Story Potential: Moderate
Project Possibilities: Feature length film

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"The Tigers' Last Days"

Until a few weeks ago, Sri Lanka had been mired in a brutal civil war for 25 years. Fighting between the government and the rebel Tamil Tigers claimed the lives of 70,000 civilians during this time, with hundreds of thousands more displaced by the fighting. This violence, compounded with the devastating tsunami of 2004 (31,000+ killed in Sri Lanka), has to have caused severe physical and psychological damage to the people of this island country. What's going on in Sri Lanka now? How has this country recovered, and how did this horrible war eventually come to an end?

Story Potential: High
Project Possibilities: Feature length film; feature length documentary

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"Galaxy May Be Full of 'Earths', Alien Life"

While the graphic looks right out of Danny Boyle's Sunshine, the story is right out of Alien, Contact, Star Trek, or, well, any movie ever made about intelligent beings living on other planets in our galaxy and beyond. With this new "evidence", why not one more? Or how about a documentary on the subject, from an expert's perspective but for a layperson's understanding? I'd like to know what the future plans are for space exploration, and I'll probably never tire of sci-fi movies about it.

Story Potential: Extremely high
Project Possibilities: Feature length film franchise, feature length documentary

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"Dutch Harbor, Alaska: The Police Blotter Read 'Round the World"

This article makes the Dutch Harbor area of the port city of Unalaska, Alaska sounds like the Wild West - drunkards, brawls, wild animals, crazy people, etc. Though kind of amusing, the actual police blotter doesn't appear to show anything too exotic. Nonetheless I think there might be potential for a zany comedy - maybe even a Shaun of the Dead style horror comedy - to come out of this piece.

Story Potential: Moderate
Project Possibilities: Feature length film, feature length documentary

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"How Do You Get to Sesame Street?"

Recently I read that President Obama is the first U.S. president to have grown up watching "Sesame Street", or at least grown up within the first generation that watched it. Surprisingly, this show has been broadcast into the living rooms of American households going on four decades now. What is the lasting power, the secret behind its success? Also, what about the controversy in recent years that older versions of the show (from the 70's and 80's) are no longer appropriate for children to watch (you know, Oscar the Grouch being homeless, etc.)? I want to know more.

Story Potential: Very high
Project Possibilities: Feature length documentary

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"Young Couple Moves In With Her Ex-Husband"

For as quickly as Hollywood is able to fasttrack movies through production, it's almost surprising there haven't been more "recession comedies". How about this one? To save money, a woman, her husband and their two children moved in with the woman's ex-husband (20 years older than the new husband), who lives with his mother. Get me Kristen Wiig as the woman, Danny McBride as the new husband, Kathy Bates as the ex-mother-in-law, and - why not - Will Ferrell as the ex-husband.

Story Potential: Moderate
Project Possibilities: Feature length film, reality show

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"S.D. Rancher, 23, Lassos a Powerball Fortune"

Boom, you wake up tomorrow and you have $88 million in the bank. What happens next? I'm always curious as to how and why certain types of people win the lottery, like the most recent winner, a 23 year-old rancher from South Dakota who insists he'll just keep on ranchin'. I'm not really interested to see another Mr. Deeds or Billy Madison style comedy, so give us the straight story - maybe even make us feel a little better that we didn't win (or didn't even pay to play). How about a thoughtful drama or a documentary about the winners of these massive lottery purses?

Story Potential: Very high
Project Possibilities: Feature length film, feature length documentary

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"Chinese Hunger for Sons Fuels Boys' Abductions"

From China comes this horrifying story about abducted children in the southern rural areas of the country, "where a tradition of favoring boys over girls and the country’s strict family planning policies have turned the sale of stolen children into a thriving business." It's a nightmare of a situation that at the very least deserves some consideration as an awareness-raising documentary. Perhaps framed like 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, somebody also could make a powerfully affecting thriller from this piece.

Story Potential: Very high
Project Possibilities: Feature length film, feature length documentary, documentary short

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"Is Abu Omar al-Baghdadi a Terrorist or a Mythic Symbol: A Tale of Iraqi Politics"

In the last 18 months we've seen a sharp decline in the number of movies about Iraq, though that will be on the uptick again this year with The Hurt Locker and Green Zone. I think the combat situation has been covered enough for the time being, but there's so much more going on behind the scenes of this war. In this story lies a potential mystery thriller about Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, a jihadist leader and vapor of a man who's impossibly been captured, identified, and killed multiple times. The Iraqis have somebody in custody right now but aren't entirely sure who it is, or if al-Bagdadhi is even a real person. Why is this an important and/or otherwise interesting issue? As one source notes, "“the jihadists have been pledging allegiance to a state and a man they can’t see, and they have willingly given up their lives for that.”

Story Potential: High
Project Possibilities: Feature length film, feature length documentary

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Up: "You Know, That Disney Pixar Movie"

Carl recalls the days when a Disney movie was known as a "Disney movie"...

In the week or so since seeing Up, I've heard about a dozen people refer to it in conversation as "that Pixar movie", which, of course, it is. But it's also a Disney movie, officially, as all Pixar movies have been since Cars. There is a long and tumultuous relationship between Disney and Pixar, and if you don't know about it I'm not going to take the time to fill you in now, but I do urge you to track down and watch the excellent documentary The Pixar Story as soon as possible. The important point here is that "Disney-Pixar" is the agreed upon branding at this time, but "Pixar" is all that seems to matter - and all we should expect to matter from this point on.

Like millions of people, I grew up watching Disney movies. In fact the very first memory I have of seeing a movie in a theater is the rerelease of the classic Pinocchio in 1984, when I must have been three going on four years old. This was followed up over the next 10 years of my childhood by surely hundreds of viewings of Disney movies, culminating with what remains arguably my favorite (musically): Aladdin. Hours upon hours of my young life must have been spent watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia (also in its theatrical rerelease), Bambi, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, 101 Dalmatians, Robin Hood, The Fox and the Hound, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, and The Lion King, to name most of the popular animated ones. Additionally, I have fond memories of these live-action Disney movies: Mary Poppins, The Love Bug, Herbie Rides Again, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, Herbie Goes Bananas, Never Cry Wolf, Return to Oz, Flight of the Navigator, The Mighty Ducks, and Cool Runnings. All of these were produced and/or distributed by Disney, and they were cherished entertainment for the kids of my generation (note that we never saw these propagandic shorts) .

Then two things happened: 1.) I grew older, and 2.) Disney began a slow decline in both the quantity and quality of their original films, to the present state where the brand is almost meaningless. At least it's meaninglesst in the semi-tangible way that I once knew it: imaginative, original, durable, wholesome entertainment for children.

To be honest, these days I have to throw up my hands when thinking about what constitutes a Disney movie. The Princess Diaries? The Rookie? Remakes of both Freaky Friday and The Parent Trap? Pirates of the Caribbean? National Treasure? Howl's Moving Castle? Miracle? Glory Road? High School Musical? Invincible? The movies in The Chronicles of Narnia series? Hannah Montana? Meet the Robinsons? College Road Trip? Though I'm not making any judgment on the quality of these films (a few of them are even good), I have trouble reconciling them with the Disney movies of my childhood. They are still G- and PG-rated films made for families, but I fear the "Disney"-ness as I knew it is lacking from them, even if I can't exactly describe what that means. Am I alone here, or am I just missing the mark because I'm no longer the target demographic?

Either way, you could be forgiven for not realizing some of those were actually Disney movies. But then, without referencing an official list (from a tremendously helpful website) you might also not realize that Disney went from releasing one movie per year up until the early 1980's, then a few movies per year up until the early 1990's, to more than a dozen a year by the 2000's (exactly 12 last year, eight so far in 2009). Therein lies the rub: Disney grew too large in the last two decades, and in the process it diluted its own unique identity.

I realize I'm not breaking any news here to people who have been paying attention, and especially to those who know about the Pixar situation. But for whatever reason it wasn't until hearing so many people call Up "that Pixar movie" that the decline of Disney really hit home (even though the same phenomenon occurred with Wall-E last year). It's hard to complain when Pixar (excuse me, Disney-Pixar) continues to deliver such dazzlingly impressive films, yet a part of me fears that after this Christmas's The Princess and the Frog, Disney really will fall into a deep sleep, never to be woken again. Pixar is the Princess, and Disney is the Frog, and when lost in the memories of my childhood, well, I find that fact a little saddening.

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Incidentally, instead of reviewing the dreamy magnificence of Up (which I would now like to call La maison en petits ballons), I'll simply share my surprise that nobody else was reminded of La maison en petits cubes, the earth-shattering, mind-blowing, Oscar-winning animated short by Kunio Kato, he of "Domi arigato, Mr. Roboto" acceptance speech fame. Now, I realize 99% of people who have seen Up have not seen the short, but even those who have seen La maison apparently haven't noticed its similarity to the simultaneously intoxicating and heartbreaking montage of Carl and Ellie's marriage. Considering the set-up of the main character, the melancholic piano score, and even the use of a tree as a romantic rendezvous point, I'm baffled. (And it should go without saying that I'm not accusing one of copying the other; both obviously took years to develop.)

And so I leave it up to you now. When I reviewed the 2009 Oscar Animated Shorts I embedded this short and I'm not sure who was able to see it before it was taken down. I have once again found it but can not guarantee it will be around for long. I can imagine Kunio Kato is not happy about his film continuing to pop up online, but I consider the man a talented genius and I only hope that he can forgive my enthusiasm in showing his work to as many people as possible. Before or after your next viewing of Up (or, La maison en petits ballons), take twelve minutes in a quiet place and enjoy La maison en petits cubes (may take a moment to load):

Revanche, Jerichow, and the State of the American Suspense Thriller

In discussing the Underrated MOTM for May, Breakdown, I lamented that American suspense thrillers are about as prevalent and dependable as American cars these days:

"...shouldn't we appreciate it and movies like it more during this absolute drought of American thrillers? Over the last two years, for example, every first-tier No Country for Old Men or Zodiac, or second-tier Transsiberian or Gone Baby Gone, is outnumbered by an Eagle Eye, Vantage Point, 88 Minutes, Righteous Kill, or Untraceable, to name just a few. That I've seen none of those last five is, well, the point. American directors and studios are in far too deep with remakes, sequels, and "reboots" to think of anything new, while across the pond there's a seemingly constant stream of quality suspense. But this is really another rant for another time."

Like now. If anyone has any evidence to the contrary I'm all ears, but you'll be hard-pressed to convince me that big-budget projects like State of Play, Valkyrie, Traitor, or Body of Lies can sit on the same shelf as imports like last year's Three Monkeys, Let the Right One In, Boy A, Tell No One, and Roman de Gare, or this year's Revanche and Jerichow.

What's the problem? Well for one, Hollywood is in the midst of a decade-long remake/reboot/sequel bonanza that defies all logic, reason, and, in my young memory, precedent. I may not be happy with it, but I think I get it: moody suspense thrillers ain't exactly the easiest films for studios to market, and if you're developing a film that doesn't have a major star and can't dominate a box-office weekend, you might as well forget about it. Which leaves us, for the most part, with mediocre "suspense blockbusters" and very good foreign films with extremely limited releases. (Although in addition to the recent second-tier American thrillers I already mentioned, I would even add a third-tier of halfway decent, if not at least admirably original thrillers like Lakeview Terrace, Reservation Road, and We Own the Night.)

Secondly, I'm increasingly convinced that the majority of American directors just aren't using the right formula to create true suspense. Admittedly there are a handful who have done some solid work in recent years, including the Coen Brothers, David Fincher (Zodiac), Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects - and also Valkyrie), Christopher Nolan (Memento), Sam Raimi (A Simple Plan), and Scott Frank (The Lookout). But on balance, the American market is flooded with films that are "suspenseful" because of their action sequences (e.g., the Bourne series) or suspenseful because you're on the edge of your seat wondering if you're the only one who has absolutely no clue what's going on (e.g., Syriana).

What's frustrating is that American directors used to be masters of suspense (but not, of course, The Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, who is above and beyond this discussion); consider Orson Welles, Jules Dassin, Sydney Lumet , Alan Pakula, Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick, John Boorman, William Friedkin, Sydney Pollack, John Frankenheimer, Jonathan Demme, David Lynch, and even Steven Spielberg. Many of these directors have unfortunately passed on, but those who are still with us (Spielberg) seem to have lost their creative touch, and their successors have done little of significance in recent years.

Meanwhile, in Europe (and particular Germany), a group of young filmmakers is churning out original thrillers of extremely high quality. In addition to the directors of the foreign films I mentioned earlier, as well as Germans Tom Tykwer (The Princess and the Warrior) and Fatih Akin (The Edge of Heaven), we have two very promising writer-directors with new films out this summer: German Christian Petzold and Austrian Götz Spielmann.

See these movies if possible, and then ask yourself why, on this side of the Atlantic, we haven't figured out that simple story + well-developed characters we can relate to + a bad decision or two - manipulative musical cues - obligatory sex and action = real suspense. It's a pretty elementary formula, but then I suppose we've always been behind the rest of the world when it comes to math, right?

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(Revanche opens today at the Landmark Lagoon Cinema)

As the global economy continues to go through, oh, a rough patch, conventional wisdom would say that a rise in crime and illicit activity would follow along. People might start getting desperate and robbing banks, for example, and as most of us are not professional criminals, things are bound to go awry. Such is the case in Revanche when Alex (Johannes Krisch, a striking Colin Farrell lookalike) and his Ukrainian girlfriend attempt to hit a small bank on the outskirts of Vienna.

What goes wrong is for you to find out, but I'm giving little away to disclose that Alex is soon hiding, or rather living, at his grandfather's pastoral country cottage. He spends his days moping and cutting wood, and his nights moping and having an affair with one of his grandfather's neighbors (Ursula Strauss). In his mind he is always plotting his revenge (revanche), but the further he gets from the bank incident, the less sure he is that revenge is really the answer.

The tagline for the film is "Whose fault is it if life doesn't go your way?", which is somewhat misleading in that it suggests an answer would be sufficient. More appropriate would something like "What do you do when life doesn't go your way?", because while much of Revanche is about assigning blame to the right person when an accident happens (hint: you can't), on a deeper level it's more about what happens when you think you've figured who that is.

We don't really know how long it takes Alex to fully understand this, because writer-director Götz Spielmann has given us a tense, moody character who, like Benjamin Button, primarily communicates with his eyes. The difference is that Johannes Krisch completely owns this performance, no make-up or CGI required. What is he thinking? What is he planning? We can only guess, and in the meantime we're wracked with gripping anxiety about how and when he might snap.

One of the interesting things about Revanche (as well as Jerichow) is that unlike in Breakdown, the typical Hitchcock set-up of "innocent character trying to escape situation and/or clear their name" is thrown out the window. Alex is not innocent, yet you almost have to convince yourself of that fact as you begin empathizing with him throughout the film. This is a pretty amazing achievement by Spielmann, and despite a legendary year for foreign film in 2008, it would be hard to argue with the Academy Award nomination he received for Revanche.

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(Jerichow opens July 10, 2009 at the Landmark Edina Cinema)

Despite all of my whining and complaining about remakes, I find I forgive such movies if they're able to play by their own rules and establish their own identities, maybe thus disqualifying them as actual remakes. A popular term recently is "retread", and so maybe as Breakdown was a retread of The Vanishing, Christian Petzold's noirish Jerichow is a retread of The Postman Always Rings Twice.

It doesn't get much simpler than this: Thomas (Benno Fürmann, who also starred in The Princess and The Warrior) is a strapping army veteran who's recently completed a tour in Afghanistan and moved into his late mother's house in the formerly East German town of Jerichow. Unemployed and with little direction in his life, he fatefully meets Ali, a Turkish businessman, and Laura, Ali's beautiful blonde wife. Despite (or perhaps because of) his jealous tendencies, Ali asks Thomas to work for him as a delivery truck driver. Thomas and Laura predictably fall for each other and bad decisions are soon made by everybody.

Judging by the trailer you might think Jerichow plays like a soap opera, but as in real life, the dilemmas faced by Thomas, Laura, and Ali are believable, and the consequences of their actions are grave. Moreover, Petzold keeps the intrigue high by gradually allowing these complex characters and their backstories to fully bloom over the course of 93 riveting minutes. You don't get to know somebody after a five minute discussion in real life, so why shouldn't it be the same in movies? Because of Petzold's patience (and because there are only three characters), by the climactic ending our loyalties are torn among the three.

Immediately after seeing Jerichow at MSPIFF in April I regretted missing Petzold's Yella at last year's festival. As in Revanche, greed, lust, guilt, and distrust are simmering under the surface, discussed but never spoken. Jerichow, however, also has urgent real-world issues on its mind, including the fact that German-Turkish cultural tensions (a must in any contemporary German film) are no longer relegated to the big cities.

I should mention that Jerichow's finale, while not necessarily contrived, wasn't what I had hoped for. In other words, you can sense what's coming but you hold out hope that it won't happen in predictable fashion. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant surprise at MSPIFF and frustratingly better than its recent American counterparts. By that, I mean there are none.

Whatever Happened To: Michael Douglas?

["Whatever Happened To:...?" is an occasional feature about an actor or actress who, despite having had a highly successful film career at some point, has for some unknown reason faded from the spotlight in recent years. ]

If I didn't know better I'd propose a ridiculous theory here. While acknowledging the well-cataloged evidence of gender-based age discrimination in Hollywood (you might remember a rich discussion after I asked "Whatever Happened to: Meg Ryan?"), the case of Michael Douglas could fool you into thinking that the market isn't really flooded with opportunities for older men these days, either.

I even found a recent argument in favor of this idea, but a simple look back at Best Actor nominees this decade reveals a veritable AARP membership roster: Frank Langella (age 71), Richard Jenkins (age 62), Clint Eastwood (age 79), Peter O'Toole (age 76), Tommy Lee Jones (age 62), David Strathairn (age 60), Ben Kingsley (age ), Jack Nicholson (age 72), and Michael Caine (age 76). To be generous you could add Anthony Hopkins (age 71), who is perhaps deserving of a "Whatever Happened to...?" feature of his own (like Sean Connery), even though he was still great as recently as five years ago in Proof and The World's Fastest Indian.

So yes, I do know better than to make the age discrimination argument for Douglas, and even contrarians could continue arguing that there are even older (mostly British?) women landing major roles in recent years (Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, Imelda Staunton, Judi Dench). But...yeah, that's a pretty short list.

In any event, where does all of this leave 64 year-old Michael Douglas, a well-respected Best Actor winner who could command as much as $20 million per picture as recently as 10 years ago?

Fatal Attraction (1987), Falling Down (1993), Disclosure (1994)

I think the secret to much of his success, in addition to acting talent, confidence, a gravely voice and good looks, was a keen sense of self-awareness. He appeared to know exactly which roles suited his look and his style, like Tom Cruise or George Clooney behind him. This made him an easy target for the criticism of "always playing the same misogynistic/womanizing character", but the other side of that coin is "always playing the same misogynistic/womanizing character really, really well". Which is not to say that Douglas never took off his suit and stepped out of the office and away from the women. Movies like Falling Down (highlighted as an Underrated MOTM last summer), The Game, and even Wonder Boys showed Douglas in more emotionally tormented roles, while other performances (Romancing the Stone, The Jewel of the Nile, The Ghost and the Darkness) showed that he wasn't afraid to break a sweat out in the wild.

Somewhere around the year 2000, however, Douglas must have become restless in these roles. Wonder Boys was a bit of risk for him artistically, and despite the positive reviews the film received, he was pretty hurt by his peers' cool reception to it. IMDb quotes him as saying, "Wonder Boys was a huge disappointment personally. I loved the movie and we didn't even get critically acknowledged as far as awards go. I thought it was a fucking disgrace. I'll be honest - it really hurt my confidence. It was a punch in the gut."

How this affected his future choices in roles I can't say, but as I see it, 2000 was the year his career took a downward turn. Coincidentally - and I really do think it's a coincidence - it was also the year that he married Catherine Zeta-Jones, his junior by 25 years to the day (they share the same birthday, which is completely useless information that you now have stuck in your head).

The Game (1997), Traffic and Wonder Boys (2000)

But what actually happened after the year 2000? Well, he began exploring roles in comedy films (as well as a guest appearance on TV's "Will & Grace"), and almost immediately had two of the worst years of his career: 2001 (One Night at McCool's and Don't Say A Word - the latter maybe being an unintentional comedy) and 2003 (The In-Laws and It Runs in the Family, the latter of which also starred his father, Kirk, the screen legend-turned-MySpace blogger). As with Meg Ryan, these duds were followed, perhaps coincidentally, by a complete hiatus from any acting roles - nothing at all until 2006, when the terrible trend unfortunately picked right back up where it left off with The Sentinel and You, Me, and Dupree, both of which were almost universally panned. (Ironically, the same year he wisely declined to reprise his role opposite Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2.)

Those two movies in 2006 marked my last sightings of Douglas on the big screen, because by the time The King of California arrived in very limited release in 2007, it wasn't clear whether Douglas was still taking acting seriously. Either that or nobody recognized him in a wild-eyed, bearded role as an estranged father living in a mental institution. The movie earned moderately positive reviews but did little to revive his acting career, which may not have been his motive in the first place, since in recent years he has been an advocate for nuclear disarmament as well as an announcer for the NBC Nightly News.

Which brings us to 2009, where Douglas has just played - this is unbelievable- a supporting role to Matthew McConaughey in the ridiculous Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Roger Ebert deadpanned in his review, "Michael Douglas is widely said to have modeled his hair, eyeglass frames and general appearance on the noted womanizer Bob Evans, but actually he reminded me more of Kirk Douglas playing Bob Evans. It's an effective performance either way you look at it." Meanwhile, my neighborhood critic Colin Covert observed that "Michael Douglas, as the playboy uncle who raised the orphaned Connor, returns from the dead, introducing the spirits that will teach his nephew a cautionary lesson. Douglas, radiating an arid narcissism, does look as if he was recently exhumed. Whether this is a deliberate makeup choice or unfortunate lighting is hard to guess." The movie comfortably holds a 28% on RT and 34 rating on Metacritic.

What is Douglas doing in these movies? We can't be entirely sure, but if not for Oliver Stone it nearly would have been time to completely write off Douglas' career from this point on. Stone, who directed Douglas in his Best Actor-winning performance in 1988's Wall Street, has recently announced plans for a sequel titled Wall Street 2 (originally Money Never Sleeps), due out in 2011. Douglas will reprise his role as Gordon Gekko, with Shia LaBeouf (man, I'm getting so good at spelling that) and Javier Bardem in supporting roles.

Hopefully it will be a return to form for Douglas, even if his character is a complete weasel. As Gekko, he boasted, "I look at a hundred deals a day. I pick one." Douglas himself could have said the same thing 10-15 years ago, but sadly, these days it doesn't appear those deals are landing on his desk very often.