Some Movies...

I'll just wrap them up here instead of reviews for each. Here you are.

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND- Watched this last night, and I know where the praise for Whitaker's performance is coming from. He's magnetic, he's charming, he's ferocious, just like Amin was (I Wikipedia'd him a bit afterward). It reminded me of TRAINING DAY a lot, in that a black lead dominates the show with a powerful performance, flirting (not really flirting, I guess, more like destroying) the line separating the good from the bad, while the white guy looks on in horror and feels he must do something. While Whitaker dominates every scene he's in from beginning appearance to final frame, James McAvoy somehow holds his own as the young doctor who slowly realizes that Amin is a monster. Quite an emotional film, and hard-hitting too. A-

CRANK- 85 minutes of awesome. Chev Chelios (just from the name you know the movie doesn't take itself too seriously) is one badass motherfucker, and the entire movie is him trying to keep his adrenaline level up. This involves driving though a mall, putting his hand in a waffle iron, plugging a not subtle ad for Red Bull, and thrusting his manhood into Amy Smart in the middle of a Chinatown street while a crowd of onlookers watches (and yes, cheers) for him. Seriously awesome, and better than the TRANSPORTER films in that it has an R rating, so there is no real limit to its action, sex, titties, or language. B+

ELEPHANT- Extraordinary. The closest I've ever seen to a film re-enacting the high school life. It's a normal day at a Portland, Oregon high school, and the camera follows around several kids, including one whose dad is 'drunk again', a good-looking football player and his girlfriend, a gawky girl trying to fit in in gym class, an art student walking around while taking photos, and a trio of bulimic girls who constantly nag and nag and nag. And then, there are the two outcasts who bring guns to school and kill their classmates.

While the film is about an hour and a half long, most of the action takes place within a ten minute window. People pass each other, interact, accidentally bump into each other, and ask what they're doing later on, oblivious to what is about to happen. It's chilling, as more and more seems to be at stake with each character introduction. Minimalist director Gus Van Sant uses non-actors for the roles, and most of the time the camera is either right behind the characters involved in the scene, or behind them. And when the ending comes, it hits as hard as any movie I've seen in a long time. A+

THE LAST DETAIL- Jack Nicholson, I don't know how you do it. He's at his best here, in an Oscar-nominated performance for Best Actor in the 1973 film. He defines and exemplifies the rebellious spirit of the 60s and early 70s as a Navy corpsman assigned with another man to take one soldier to a Navy prison in New Hampshire. Given a few days, he decides to give the sailor, who is looking at eight years in confinement, one last good time. Jack is explosive and alive, and always a ton of fun to watch. The film itself is too long and a bit repetitive, but this is really a showcase for Nicholson, who plays the cards he is dealt. B

THE UNTOUCHABLES- Gawdy, overblown, and over the top. But hey, can you really not like this movie? It doesn't quite reach the over the top-ness of SCARFACE, another of director Brian De Palma's 80s opuses, but then again, its not quite as campy (which is good). A yougn Kevin Coster holds his own while Sean Connery and Robert De Niro steal every scene they're in as an Irish cop and Al Capone himself. The story is pretty familiar by now; young Treasury Department agent Elliot Ness rounds up a group of uncorruptable, 'untouchable' (get it **wink wink elbow nudge**) cops to take down Capone's alcohol smuggling ring during Prohibition-era Chicago. It's bloody, it's gorgeous, and the score really got me going. A lot of fun, especially during History class. B+

21 GRAMS- What does death do to us? How do we let it shape who we are? Do we even stand a chance when something so final, so unqavering takes over people around us? These are the questions the brilliant 21 GRAMS asks us, in a shattering display of terrific storytelling and go-for-broke acting. After an accident kills two children and a father, three people are brought together: the widow, the man who committed the hit-and-run, and the man who received the heart from the dead father. These characters are played by Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro, and Sean Penn. I think it's ironic that MYSTIC RIVER, another 2003 film starring Penn, won both the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor Oscars, when I believe this should have. The performances given by the three lead actors are emotionally gripping and tore me up inside. The story is told by the gifted director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who was recently nominated for a Best Director Oscar for his third film, BABEL. Here he uses a fractured narrative, and only a handful of films I have seen (PULP FICTION, THE USUAL SUSPECTS, and CITY OF GOD most notably) have made it work better than this. For the first thirty minutes the plot does not matter so much to the viewer, because it's incomprehensible. This allows the characters to be introduced to use with our full, undivided attention, and we never stop feeling for them, even after the film is over. This is an extraordinary work whose ambitions pay off at every level by the end: acting, direction, and story. A+

ON THE WATERFRONT- Why did I like this film so much? It's a classic in every sense. It tells a great story, with an amount of emotion that I find rare in the studio-controlling days of the 30s, 40s, and 50s. This is the birth of method, with Marlon Brando boasting one of the most soul-bearing and ballsy performances ever. He channels loyalty, compassion, love, lust, and regret at missed opportunities as Terry Malloy, former prize-fighter who now works for a scum bag crime boss on the docks in the South. He sees injustices committed every day, as do the citizens around him who are abused day in and day out. Lee J. Cobbs is the boss, and he is serpentine: venemous and hateful, but still a three-dimensional character. This is great storytelling in the most classic sense. A

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS- I was thoroughly surprised at how hard this film hit me. It's a dramatic turn for Will Smith, who I wouldn't blame if he stuck with action films and real paycheck projects. He sheds weight and grays his hair to play Chris Gardener, a man living on the brink of poverty in 1981 San Francisco with his young son, played by his real-life son Jaden. After his wife leaves him and his job leaves him on the street, Gardener is determined to become a stock broker and give his son an opportunity for a better life. The ending can be seen coming from the opening frame, but it's the journey, not the destination, that makes this movie work. Smith has never been this deep, even in his Oscar-nominated turn as Cassius Clay in ALI. This role requires charm, vigor, determination, and a ton of grit, and he delivers. Jaden Smith is also terrific as a child who of course doesn't want to be in his situation. In one of the quietest, but most affecting scene, his father asks him if he wants a candy bar. Like any child, he wants it, but knows that they're not well-off financially. When asked a second time though, he succumbs and gobbles it down. This film is as affecting and inspiring as any other 2006 major release by a Hollywood studio. I hope Smith continues diversifying himself, because his most challenging roles turn out to be his best performances. A-