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Susan Granger’s review of “Haywire” (Relativity Media)
As the story goes, when director Steven Soderbergh was watching “American Gladiators” on television one evening, during a bout of women’s mixed martial arts fighting, he was so impressed by 29 year-old, raven-haired Gina Carano that he decided to develop a grim revenge thriller with screenwriter Lem Dobbs (“The Limey), casting Carano as a globetrotting lethal operative.
Introduced in a prologue at a rural roadside diner in snowy upstate New York where she has a confrontation with Aaron (Channing Tatum), another hired assassin, Mallory Kane (Carano) is a freelance black-ops who seeks vengeance when she realizes that those whom she has trusted have double-crossed her, placing her life in jeopardy. Working for a shadowy, private sector agency run by her nerdy ex-boyfriend, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor), she’s sought after by a high-placed government operative named Coblenz (Michael Douglas). A specialist in international intrigue, Mallory’s previous covert assignment – to rescue a kidnapped Chinese dissident held hostage in Barcelona – went terribly wrong, as she relates to Scott (Michael Angarano), whose car she’s hijacked. Revealed in a flashback, that fiasco is somehow connected with a brawl in a Dublin hotel, where Mallory and a suspicious client, Kenneth (Michael Fassbender), decimate the furniture. So now, Mallory Kane is paranoid. Basically, the only person she trusts is her ex-Marine-turned-fiction writer dad (Bill Paxton), living in New Mexico.
Although she has yet to develop her acting talent, certainly tough, strong Gina Carano’s physical presence puts her in a kick-ass warrior category with Uma Thurman (“Kill Bill”) and Angelina Jolie (“Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” “Salt”). So instead of emoting, Carano excels in an inordinate number of action-packed street/alley chase sequences in which Soderbergh stylishly photographs Carano sprinting from a myriad of angles. Soderbergh has done this before, like when he cast porn star Sasha Grey as a New York call girl in “The Girlfriend Experience.” Yet it’s too bad there’s not even a shred of humor.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Haywire” is a fierce, ferocious 5, filled with relentless, kinetic, if senseless, violent mayhem.
Susan Granger’s DVD Update for week of Friday, January 27:
While it’s delusional to consider “Drive” an action film, Ryan Gosling has been acclaimed as the nameless, monosyllabic, emotionless wheelman, as has comedian Albert Brooks, who switches gears to show his mean side as a mobster.
Neither a sequel nor a remake, “The Thing” is a fright-filled prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 horror thriller, set in frigid Antarctica, where a group of Norwegian explorers discover a deep crevasse containing a huge spacecraft piloted by a shape-shifting alien encased in ice.
Justin Timberlake, Olivia Wilde and Amanda Seyfried team up for “Gattaca” writer/director Andrew Niccol’s slickly stylized, dystopian allegory, “In Time,” set in the bleak future, when money buys time and income inequality determines life-and-death.
“The Year Dolly Parton Was My Mom” is a poignant, sometimes funny coming-of-age drama about an average, suburban 11 year-old who discovers her whole life has been a lie, which leads to a cross-country trek by a mother searching for a daughter who’s searching for a mother.
The remarkable, revelatory documentary “Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us?” explores the integral role of the honey-field insects and the world-wide peril of Colony Collapse Disorder. And “Hell and Back Again” is a powerful documentary about Marines in Afghanistan and peppered with battlefront footage.
“The Revenge of the Electric Car’ is the highly anticipated sequel to the conspiratorial “Who Killed the Electric Car?,” going behind the closed doors of the auto-industry giants to track the race to create the first car that doesn’t require a single drop of foreign oil.
For youngsters ages 2-7, “Timmy Time: Timmy Needs a Bath” follows a day in the life of barnyard friends, learning life lessons that every preschooler needs to know.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Family-friendly “Reel Steel” is set in 2020,
when eight-foot-tall, 2000-pound robots brutally battle in boxing rings with
their owners holding remote controls. So when a scheming former heavyweight
boxer-turned-promoter (Hugh Jackman) realizes that his estranged 11 year-old
son has discovered a remarkable, if battered sparring ‘bot’, they find
something that bonds them together..
Susan Granger’s review of “Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey” (Submarine Entertainment)
Who doesn’t love Elmo, the familiar, furry, red Muppet from “Sesame Street”? But did you know that Elmo’s the only non-human ever to testify before the United States Congress? That and other fascinating nuggets are part of this documentary about Kevin Clash, best known as Elmo’s hand, voice and soul.
Narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, the journey begins outside Baltimore where, after watching “Captain Kangaroo,” young Kevin Clash cut up his father’s raincoat to construct a monkey character to animate for family and neighborhood friends. Initially mocked for “playing with dolls,” by the time Kevin graduated from high school, he’d created more than 70 puppets and landed his first gig on a local Maryland children’s TV show. Supported by his parents, Kevin was obsessed with puppetry, snagging a breakthrough job with “Captain Kangaroo.” After that, he worked on PBS’ “The Great Space Coaster,” bypassing Jim Henson’s “The Dark Crystal” to do the 1968 movie “Labyrinth.” That gave him a foothold into the “Sesame Street” universe, where Henson became his friend/mentor, teaching him the tricks of the trade.
Curiously, Kevin wasn’t Elmo’s first puppeteer, but he is the one who contributed the helium-infused, falsetto voice and developed the personality of a perpetual three year-old, speaking in the third person. He was the first African-American to join the Jim Henson organization and currently serves as Muppet Captain and co-executive producer.
Kind and thoughtful, Kevin epitomizes the observation of “Sesame Street” veteran Martin P. Robinson: “When a puppet is true and good and moving, it’s the soul of the puppeteer you’re seeing.”
Adapting his 2006 autobiography “My Life as a Furry Red Monster: What Being Elmo Has Taught me About Life, Love and Laughing Out Loud,” director Constance Marks ignores Kevin’s role as a single parent, never completely revealing the man behind the Muppet.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Being Elmo” is an adoring, sweet 7.
Susan Granger’s review of “Contraband” (Universal Pictures)
This generic action adventure about high-seas smuggling is a remake of a 2008 Islandic thriller, “Reykajavik-Rotterdam,” which starred this film’s director, Baltasar Kormakur (“101 Reykjavik”).
When it begins, legendary New Orleans smuggler Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) has abandoned an international life of crime to become a Louisiana home-security contractor, settling into middle-age, middle-class domesticity with his wife, Kate (Kate Beckinsale), and two young sons. But at a family wedding, Chris finds out that his punk brother-in-law, Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) botched a drug deal by dumping his cargo of cocaine in advance of a Customs raid, and now he is terrified of his ruthless, tattooed gangster boss, Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), because he owes him $700,000. Chris tries to intervene in his behalf but he’s rudely rebuffed. So cocky Chris decides to do one last job, running a pallet stacked with counterfeit bills from a distant barrio in Panama City to New Orleans to settle Andy’s debt. He dutifully assembles a crew, which includes his hot-head buddy, Sebastian Abney (Ben Foster), and their dimwitted pal Danny Raymer (Lukas Haas). But the contraband cargo arouses the suspicion of the container ship’s bulstering Captain Camp (J.K. Simmons), who was none too fond of Chris’ father, and there’s mounting danger to Chris’ family from treacherous drug runners, lethal hit men and the police.
Adapted by Aaron Guzikowski, it’s such a contrived, predictable plot that its formulaic familiarity cannot be disguised by the jerky, hand-held camera work that is so often employed by cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, who won an Oscar for “The Hurt Locker,” nor Elisabet Ronalds’ deft editing. The most compelling scenes are nautical, involving freighter ships, dock workers and maritime law, particularly the claustrophobic interiors aboard the nearly 900 foot-long S.S. Bellatrix.
It’s interesting that the user-friendly online support includes Facebook’s Training Grounds (https://apps,facebook.com/traininggrounds) and Contraband Hustle Game (http://contrabandhustle.com), which should appeal to the target audience.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Contraband” sinks to an undercurrent 5 and seems to be quickly headed for a perch on the derivative dvd shelf.
Susan Granger’s DVD Update for week of Fri., Jan. 20:
Writer/director/producer/star George Clooney’s thought-provoking “The Ides of March” is a cynical dissection of the corruption of America’s political culture – with Clooney as a charming, charismatic Presidential candidate and Ryan Gosling as his hotshot, 30 year-old media strategist.
Inspired by actual events, “The Whistleblower” is the tension-filled, true story of a United Nations peacekeeper (Rachel Weisz) who discovers friends and colleagues are involved in sex-trafficking in post-war Bosnia and Herzogovinia.
Gus Van Sant’s “Restless” is a quirky, melancholic romance about two people obsessed with death who meet at a funeral: Mia Wasikowska has a terminal brain tumor and orphaned Henry Hopper (son of the late Dennis Hopper) has befriended the ghost (Ryo Kase) of a Japanese kamikaze pilot.
In “Undocumented,” good intentions lead to a living nightmare when student filmmakers trying to document the struggle of illegal immigrants become the target of a dangerous radical group.
Despite its tantalizing title, “Dirty Girl,” set in 1980s Oklahoma, is an uneven road movie about a gay, overweight teen (Jeremy Dozier) and his slutty, bitchy classmate (Juno Temple) who flee from his dad and find hers.
Best known as the werewolf Jacob in the “Twilight” series, “Abduction” is all about Taylor Lautner’s abs, despite the ridiculous, tissue-thin story about a teenager who’s grounded by his parents and stumbles on his picture on a website for abducted
children.
With the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and the succession of his son Kim Jong Un, the threat of nuclear escalation looms once again, and “The Forgotten Bomb” is a timely, comprehensive documentary about the nuclear weapons debate.
For foreign film aficionados, Raul Ruiz’ “Mysteries of Lisbon,” based on the epic Portuguese novel, tells a sweeping, timeless tale of romance, war, passion and betrayal, covering three decades, four countries and a host of rich characters.
PICK OF THE WEEK: Joseph Gordon-Levitt scores as a 27 year-old diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in the poignant serio-comedy “50/50.” Sharing his shock, dread and bewilderment are his raunchy buddy (Seth Rogen), his self-absorbed artist girlfriend (Bryce Dallas-Howard) and anxious mother (Anjelica Huston).
Susan Granger’s review of “Coriolanus” (The Weinstein Company)
Ralph Fiennes transforms Shakespeare’s war tragedy into a violent, contemporary action-movie, filled with bloody battles and torture scenes.
Basically, the story revolves around Caius Martius Coriolanus (Fiennes), an arrogant, disdainful, patrician General who, pushed by his formidably ambitious, rigidly controlling mother Volumnia (Vanessa Redgrave), must ingratiate himself to the common citizens of Rome, whom he despises, in order to become a Consul. When he’s repudiated by the lowly masses, Coriolanus’ anger prompts his expulsion from The Republic, so the outraged, banished warrior then allies himself with his sworn Volscian enemy, Tulus Aufidius (Gerard Butler), to wreak revenge upon the city’s wretched rabble…much to the chagrin of his hapless wife Virgilia (Jessica Chastain) and trusted friend Menenius (Brian Cox).
Working with veteran screenwriter Josh Logan (“The Aviator”), first-time feature director Fiennes reprises the role he played so successfully on the London stage in 2007. Photographed in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, on a handheld, shoestring budget by Barry Ayckroyd (“The Hurt Locker”) and filled with visceral, rapid-fire cuts, it is set in an alternative Roman universe, complete with machine guns and rockets, cars and armored tanks, and riots reported via TV interviews and updates on news channels. The lighting is flat and the actors wear drab fatigues.
With occasional rephrasing, Fiennes retains much of the classic language of The Bard’s dialogue, as scowling, scarred Coriolanus snarls, “You, common cry of curs whose breath I hate as reeks of the rotten fens whose loves I prize like as the dead carcasses of unburied men that do corrupt my air.”
And his vitriolic mother observes, “Before him, he carries noise and, behind him, he leaves tears.”
“My favorite characters – in literature, in drama – are rather high-definition people whose personalities are uncompromising,” Fiennes explains. “I like the idea of setting ‘Coriolanus’ in a world of business suits and cell phones.”
That might also describe Fiennes’ villainous “Harry Potter” character of the slithery, snake-headed Lord Voldemort.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Coriolanus,” like its hero, is a sharp, stubborn 7, aimed at an admiring art-house audience.
Susan Granger’s review of “Joyful Noise” (Warner Bros.)
Blame it on the Fox Television series “Glee”! With the resounding success of the lives-of-the-members-of-the choir theme, intercut with catchy songs, there were bound to be imitators like this. So instead of progressive, “Glee”-type social/cultural issues, there’s a small town in Georgia church choir trying to get to a national singing competition in Los Angeles.
After their beloved choirmaster, Bernard Sparrow (a cameo by Kris Kristofferson), suffers a fatal heart attack during the annual Joyful Noise showcase, members of the Pacashau Sacred Divinity Choir are stunned when Pastor Dale (Courtney B. Vance) appoints Vi Rose Hill (Queen Latifah) to succeed Bernie. Particularly upset is his wealthy widow, G.G. Sprrow (Dolly Parton), who expected to inherit her late husband’s position.
Strong-willed, spiritual Vi Rose Hill is a stubborn gospel traditionalist, espousing conservative Christian values and snapping “Don’t you bring all that Mariah/Christmas mess in here!” when her 16 year-old daughter, Olivia (Keke Palmer) riffs during rehearsal. In contrast, spunky G.G. wants to shake things up by injecting more contemporary pop culture into the choral music. Meanwhile, G.G.’s rambunctious, rebellious grandson Randy (Jeremy Jordan)
has a hankering for songbird Olivia and volunteers to give piano lessons to Vi’s
self-absorbed, Asperger’s-afflicted, teenage son, Walter (Dexter Darden).
Since he made his directorial debut with “Camp” (2003) about a performing arts summer camp, followed by “Bandslam” (2009), 52 year-old actor-turned-writer/director Todd Graff is treading familiar turf. And his campy dialogue can be barbed, like Dolly’s quip, “God didn’t make plastic surgeons so they would starve…”(and a jab at Queen Latifah) “My doctor does good liposuction too!”
On the plus side, there’s lots of exuberant singing, including hits by Paul McCartney (“Maybe I’m Amazed”), Michael Jackson (“Man in the Mirror”), Chris Brown (“Forever”), Sly and the Family Stone (“I Want to Take You
Higher”), Usher (“Yeah”) and Stevie Wonder (“Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m
Yours”), among others.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Joyful Noise” is an obviously flimsy 5, consisting of familiar hallelujah gospels glued together by caricaturist Southernfried performances and an overwrought, formulaic story.
Susan Granger’s review of “In the Land of Blood and Honey” (Film District)
Angelina Jolie acquits herself admirably as writer/director in this controversial, cross-cultural love story set amidst the ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990s:
“I wanted to make a film that would express, in an artistic way, my frustrations with the international community’s failure to intervene in conflicts in a timely and effective manner. I also wanted to explore and understand the Bosnian War, as well as broader issues, such as women in conflict, sexual violence, accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the challenge of reconciliation. It was the deadliest war in Europe since W.W. II, but sometimes people forget the terrible violence that happened in our time, in our
generation, to our generation.”
Danijel (Goran Kostic) is a blond, blue-eyed Bosian Serb policeman, serving under his brutish father, General Nebojsa Vukojevich (Rade Serbedzija), while dark-haired Ajla (Zana Marjanovic) is a Bosnian Muslim artist. Their romantic relationship is just blossoming before an explosion rocks the café in which they are dancing and violence erupts, separating them on opposite sides of the political conflict. While Danijel’s deeply conflicted, Ajla’s evicted from the apartment she shares with her sister, Lejla (Vanese Glodjo), and Lejla’s infant child – amid a barrage of vicious rapes and cold-blooded killings – and incarcerated in a military camp, where Danijel makes her his prisoner/mistress.
Within this “Romeo and Juliet”-inspired romance, Jolie fails to provide any depth of understanding about the reasons for the war, preferring, instead, to rely on Gen. Vukojevich’s self-justifying explanation that Serbs stood up to Hitler and prevented the Turks from conquering Europe centuries ago, and it’s now their responsibility to prevent the Muslims from taking over. Instead, Jolie chronicles in grim, grisly, graphic detail the horrors committed by Serbs against Muslim neighbors. English-language news broadcasts clarify what’s occurring, while the rest of the film is in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “In the Land of Blood and Honey” is a brutal 6, an impressively serious project from a humanitarian activist.
Susan Granger’s review of “Rampart” (Millennium Entertainment)
L.A. noir has become an atmospheric sub-genre of the cynical crime thriller, one that includes Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon,” Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown” and James Ellroy’s “L.A. Confidential.” Now Woody Harrelson plays an angry, bullheaded cop on a downward spiral, both professionally and personally.
Working as part of the notoriously intolerant, militaristic, and overtly corrupt Rampart Division of the Los Angeles Police Department in the late 1990s, chain-smoking Officer Dave Brown (Harrelson) often takes the law into his own hands when the court system fails to exact justice, much to the chagrin of the scandal-plagued Assistant District Attorney (Sigourney Weaver), Mayor (Steve Buscemi) and Internal Affairs investigator (Ice Cube). He got the nickname Date Rape Dave because he allegedly shot and killed a serial rapist. But the 24 year-veteran vigilante gets fouled up when he’s videotaped brutally beating a motorist who slammed into his police cruiser. When that footage goes viral, it ignites a protest among those who feel the police department is out of control. Misanthropic Dave has been married twice – to sisters, Barbara (Cynthia Nixon) and Catherine (Anne Heche) – and he lives with them and his two daughters in a small, stucco family compound.
One night, he picks up Linda Fentress (Robin Wright), a boozy lawyer with whom he gets involved – and, complicating matters, there’s his old friend Hartshorn (Ned Beatty), a crooked ex-cop/informant, and General Terry (Ben Foster), a wheelchair-bound vet who roams the streets. But the emotional climax comes when his rebellious older daughter, Helen (Brie Larson), accuses him of being a macho, sexist, racist, homophobe, chauvinist bigot.
Adapted by novelist James Ellroy and director Oren Moverman and photographed by Bobby Bukowski, it’s a bit reminiscent of “The Messenger” (2009), also starring Woody Harrelson, in that it totally revolves around the psychology of a flawed, deeply troubled protagonist, who is inarticulate and action-oriented, and whose movements inevitably telegraph what’s going to happen next.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Rampart” is a sleazy 6, distinguished primarily by Harrelson’s “rotten from the inside out” rogue character study.
Susan Granger’s review of “The Devil Inside” (Paramount Pictures)
This derivative, micro-budget exorcism tale is just the latest in the “found footage” sub-genre of fake documentaries, allegedly “inspired by true events,” that was launched so successfully by “The Blair Witch Project.”
“Between science and religion, between hope and fear…no soul is safe” is the teaser, along with the promise, “The Vatican did not endorse this film nor aid in its completion.”
So after an American woman, Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley), calls 911 to confess to committing a triple homicide that took place in Connecticut in 1989, she’s summarily dispatched to Centrino Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Rome, primarily because that institution has ties to the Vatican and her three unfortunate victims were two priests and a nun who were attempting to exorcise the demon within her.
Twenty years later, Maria’s daughter, Isabella Rossi (Fernanda Andrade), travels to Italy to find out if her mother is mentally ill or, perhaps, still demonically possessed. Accompanied by a videographer friend, Michael Schaefer (Ionut Grama), Isabella delves into what’s described as the Vatican School of Exorcism. While the Catholic Church is unwilling to assist in this investigation, two rogue clerics – Ben Rawlings (Simon Quarterman) and David Keane( Evan Helmuth) – invite Isabella and Michael to observe their techniques as they cast the devil from a bedeviled young Italian woman (Bonnie Morgan). But when the priests attempt to perform a similar cleansing on Maria, the results are quite different because, according to the rambling religious ruminations, Maria’s multiple demonic possession is unique.
Working from a script that he co-wrote with co-producer Matthew Peterman, director William Brent Bell (“Stay Alive”) conjures up some spooky, perilous scares with horror scenes reminiscent of “The Exorcist,” “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” “The Last Exorcism” and “The Rite.” But Bell makes a fatal error when he abruptly ends the film without supplying a conclusion.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Devil Inside” is a satanic 3. It’s a supernatural stunt – and, judging by its astonishing grosses, it won’t be the last of its kind.
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