Movie/TV Reviews

Savage Grace

Susan Granger’s review of “Savage Grace” (IFC Films)

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are very different from you and me,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. “They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.”
Perhaps that explains the privileged Baekelands. When beautiful, charming Barbara Daly (Julianne Moore) marries adventurer Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane), heir to his grandfather’s Bakelite plastics fortune, she makes no secret of her social ambition. And the arrival of their son, Tony, does nothing to slow her down. A lonely, precocious child, Tony becomes his mother’s confidante, setting the foundation for their future outrageous decadence as they traipse through Europe.
During his listless adolescence, Tony (Eddie Redmayne) is drawn to homosexuality, despite the attentions of gold-digging Blanca (Elena Anaya), whom he picks up on the beach and who runs off with Brooks. Shocked and embarrassed at her husband’s desertion, Barbara invites a bisexual ‘walker,’ Sam (Hugh Dancy), to visit and they wind up in bed as a threesome: Barbara, Sam and Tony.
Since incest is our of our society’s basic taboos disaster is inevitable.
Based on Natalie Robins’ and Steven M.K. Aaronson’s true story, the screenplay by Howard A. Rodman spans from 1946 to 1972. Director Tom Kalin’s (“Swoon”) primary problem is eliciting sympathy for this seriously dysfunctional family without divulging their amoral pathology, which is never explored in any depth. Julianne Moore’s vulnerability and sensitivity are admirable, as is Stephen Dillane’s indifference. But Eddie Redmayne plays debased and debauched from the getgo. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Savage Grace” is a strange, stylized, sordid 5, dealing with lurid, repugnant relationships.

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Sex and the City

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Sex and the City” (New Line Cinema)

As fashionista Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) says: “It’s all about labels and love.”
Writer/director Michael Patrick King has adapted his hit HBO show, set in Manhattan three years later. After an angst-ridden 10-year courtship, 40 year-old Carrie is engaged to Mr. Big (Chris Noth). She’s working on her fourth book, searching for “real estate heaven” (i.e.: the perfect closet for Manolo Blahniks, et al) and planning her media-event wedding. Stressed-out Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is discovering how infidelity can cripple her marriage to Steve (David Eigenberg). Charlotte’s (Kristin Davis) cup runneth over with her adoring husband (Evan Handler) and adopted Chinese daughter when, miraculously, she becomes pregnant. And 50 year-old Samantha (Kim Cattrall), who has relocated to “Lost” Angeles with her actor boy-toy (Jason Lewis), realizes that enduring love simply cannot replace the promiscuous sex she continually craves.
Lacking the savvy wit and snappy pacing of “The Devil Wears Prada,” it’s like several supersized TV episodes strung together – with the women suffering predictable crises that involve heartbreak and forgiveness, sentimentally washed down with Cosmopolitans. To spice up the melancholy, monochromatic mix, Jennifer Hudson (“Dreamgirls”) appears as Carrie’s personal assistant and, not surprisingly, she belts out one of the background songs.
Curiously, what was slyly titillating in half-hour segments becomes silly, superficial and overwhelmingly materialistic when stretched to nearly 2 ½ hours, filled with costumer Patricia Fields’ choice of glossy designer labels, including an opulent Vivienne Westwood wedding gown, topped with a bizarre bird chapeau. Plus blatant branding: Skyy, Glaceau Vitaminwater, Apple, Louis Vuitton, Mercedes-Benz, Coty fragrances, and the Internet’s Bag Borrow or Steal site.
On the Granger Movie Gauge, “Sex and the City: the Movie” is an indulgent, estrogen-propelled 6. Even with R-rated nudity, bigger doesn’t always mean better.

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video/dvd update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s video/dvd update for week of Friday, May 23rd:

James Garner returns to the role that made him famous in “The New Maverick, joining Jack Kelly from the original TV series to reprise brothers Bret and Bart Maverick. Together, they teach their British cousin Beau’s college-dropout son Ben (Charles Frank) the tricks of the trade with one last heist to capture train robbers and collect a big reward.
Continuing the genre, just in time for Father’s Day, “The Tom Selleck Western Collection” includes “Crossfire Trail,” “Last Stand at Saber River” and “Monte Walsh.”
A muddled mess, “Youth Without Youth” is Francis Ford Coppola’s first film in 10 years. Set in Romania, it’s era-spanning parable about language, love and reincarnation. And George Romero is back with “Diary of the Dead” as his “Living Dead” rise again in a documentary made by college students driving a beat-up Winnebago past all those zombie corpses.
Part morality tale, part sex romp, “Forgiving the Franklins” is an outrageously kinky, irreverent, thought-provoking comedy that was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival, focusing on an ultra-conservative Christian family whose Original Sin is removed.
“Our House” is an uplifting, enlightening documentary that explores what it’s like to grow up with gay or lesbian parents, and the documentary “Autism: The Musical” is a moving testament to love and hope in the face of a diagnosis that seems to be reaching epidemic proportions.
For kids, “ZakLand: The Shiny Surprise” introduces a live action/animated world filled with music and imagination, hosted by Grammy-nominated Zak Morgan.
PICK OF THE WEEK: In “National Treasure: Book of Secrets,” Nicolas Cage embarks on another archeological quest; this time to find a missing page from John Wilkes Booth’s diary which implicates Ben Gates’ great-great grandfather in Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. It’s chock-full of historical trivia.

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Son of Rambow

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Son of Rambow” (Paramount Vantage)

This subversively eccentric, low-budget British comedy recalls innocent days – long before YouTube – when kids made neighborhood movies just for the fun of it.
Somewhere in the English countryside in the early 1980s, 11 year-old Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner), the fatherless son of a gentle mother Mary (Jessica Stevenson), lives in a quiet, austere, restricted world, sketching scenes and drawing cartoons. He’s considered an outsider at school because his family is part of a strict Christian sect, the Plymouth Brethren, which forbids corrupting pleasures like newspapers, magazines, novels, music, dancing, motion pictures or television. But when troublemaking, also fatherless Lee Carter (Will Poulter) shows him a pirated copy of Sylvester Stallone’s “First Blood,” the first Rambo movie, and recruits him to help with a homemade action video to win a BBC film competition, Will’s imagination suddenly explodes. Despite their differences, the boys have a great time devising bizarre, often dangerous stunts and concocting home-made special effects, like Will’s flip-book animation. Meanwhile, a group of exchange students arrives from France and wreaks havoc in their village and, when their flamboyant, punk-Goth leader, Didier (Jules Sitruk), starts dominating the movie-within-a-movie, it precipitates a rift between Will and Lee which only friendship and a newfound concept of family can heal.
Best known for their music videos for Radiohead, Beck and Vampire Weekend, director/writer Grant Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith obviously drew on their own childhood memories, and their overlong rambling is saved from shambles by the guileless performances by the child actors and the final few minutes which are truly touching. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Son of Rambow” is a whimsical, coming-of-age 6. It’s poignant but lacks the punch that fully fleshed-out characters and a more cohesive story could deliver.

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Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” (New Line Cinema)

Those pot-loving Jersey dudes from “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” are back – and this time they’re mistaken for terrorists!
For the uninitiated, straitlaced math-major Harold Lee (John Cho) is a Korean-American investment banker and Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) is an impulsive Indian-American wannabe medical student. Having satisfied their marijuana-fueled “munchies,” they head off for a smokers’ holiday in Amsterdam. Problem is: when the half-baked slackers sneak a homemade “smokeless bong” onboard the plane, turbulence strikes, the bathroom door swings open, the bong is mistaken for a bomb and they’re suspected of being part of a North Korean al-Qaeda terror conspiracy. As the plane detours to Guantanamo Bay, what else can they do but run from the law and try to find a way to prove their innocence?
Hot on their heels when they escape from Cuba with the boat people is Deputy Chief of Homeland Security Ron Fox (Rob Corddry). And complicating their angst is the realization that Kumar’s ex-girlfriend, Vanessa (Danneel Harris) is about to get married in Texas and her fiancé has White House connections that could clear their names.
Writers/directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg continue and amplify the vulgarly stereotypical and overtly political shenanigans that made their first film a hit, including graphic nudity, drug use, pervasive language and crude sexuality. While Neil Patrick Harris is back again, playing a gross-out version of himself, and there’s a visit to a bordello run by Beverly D’Angelo, the snickering filmmakers miss their chance to take on racial profiling in the war on terror.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” is a raunchy 3, not a high point for stoner comedies. Bongs away!

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (Paramount Pictures)

Indy’s back! After nearly two decades, he dons his famous fedora, snaps his bullwhip and delivers punches that still pack enough of a wallop to clinch this summer’s biggest blockbuster.
The fantasy-adventure begins in 1957 in the New Mexico desert, where Indy and his pal Mac (Ray Winstone) are pursued by villainous Soviet agents led by contemptuous parapsychologist Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett). After surviving an atomic bomb, Indy discovers he’s lost his teaching position at Marshall College (filmed on the Yale campus in New Haven) because he’s ‘under government suspicion.’ That’s when he meets motorcycle-riding, switchblade-toting Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf, channeling Marlon Brando/James Dean), who carries a message imploring the adventurous archeologist to search for the legendary Crystal Skull of Akator, which the Russians also covet. In the Peruvian jungle, along with the mysterious Mayan Skull, Indy finds his “Raiders of the Lost Ark” flame, irrepressible Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), whom he’d jilted at the altar. Plot-wise, that’s all you need to know. Let the surprises unfold.
Conceived by George Lucas, written by David Koepp, directed by Steven Spielberg, and punctuated by John Williams’ music, it’s far-fetched, fast-paced fun. Middle-aged Harrison Ford is a bit mellower but he’s still an intrepid, quick-with-a-quip leading man. All the stylistic Indy touches are there: the map with a moving red line indicating his travels and his inevitable encounter with a snake (a giant Olive Python), plus spectacular swordfights, ravenous red ants, subterranean caverns filled with gold, perilous plunges over waterfalls and lots of monkeys.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is a terrific 10, an awesome, thrill-filled roller-coaster ride that you don’t ever want to stop.

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video/dvd update

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s video/dvd update for week of Friday, May 16:

On the 10th anniversary of his death, celebrate Frank Sinatra’s remarkable career with “Sinatra: The Miniseries.” Produced by his daughter Tina, it recalls Sinatra’s music and life with some astonishing personal revelations. There’s also “Frank Sinatra: The Early Years” (his first five movies), “Frank Sinatra: The Golden Years” (five more movies) and the “Frank Sinatra/Gene Kelly Collection” (three M.G.M. musicals).
From the sublime to the ridiculous, in the implausible, improbable comedy caper “Mad Money,” Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes form an unlikely sisterhood when they decide to rob American’s Federal Reserve Bank.
If you’re into thrillers, Diane Lane stars in “Untraceable” as an FBI agent tracking a tech-savvy internet predator who displays graphic murders on his website, leaving the grisly fate of each of his captives in the hands of the public; the more hits the site gets, the faster his victims die.
Because Li Yu’s sex drama “Lost in Beijing” shows a modern, if melodramatic, slice of 21st century city life, it was banned in China; basically a morality tale, it involves innocence and corruption along with poverty and wealth. A far better choice is the powerful documentary “Nanking” which chronicles the infamous 1937 Rape of Nanking, when 200,000 residents of what was then China’s capital were massacred by invading Japanese troops; Woody Harrelson and Mariel Hemingway, among others, read from journals and letters from a handful of Westerners who risked their lives to help.
For toddlers: “Bob the Builder: The Three Muskettrucks” and favorite friends in “Summertime Fun!”
PICK OF THE WEEK: Inspired by the remarkable story of Wiley College’s winning team, “The Great Debaters” stars Denzel Washington as the volatile, controversial coach who uses the power of words to influence a group of African-American students.

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Gomorrah

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Gomorrah” (IFC Films)

Forget about the Sicilian glamorization of “The Godfather.” This brutal Italian saga about corruption and violence reveals the ugly, soft underbelly of the Mafia-type organization that rules Naples and its infiltrates its environs through five intersecting stories about people who believe they can ‘work’ the system which generates over $233 billion worldwide each year.
Wearing a bullet-proof vest, Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) is the local bag man who makes weekly treks delivering cash payoffs to the families of dead or imprisoned gangsters in the dingy housing project called Vele di Sampi. He’s carefully watched by 13 year-old Toto (Salvatore Abruzze), who’s eager to get into the ‘family’ business. Older teenagers Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone) are delusional rebels-without-a-cause, and it’s their image, firing automatic weapons in their underwear, that’s been publicized in posters and in the theatrical trailer.
Then there’s the cocky businessman, Franco (Toni Servillo), who hires college-educated Roberto (Carmine Paternoster) to help fulfill a toxic waste disposal contract by dumping poisonous refuse in the district around Campania. And a master tailor, Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo), who agrees to make clandestine midnight treks to teach Chinese competitors the intricacies of haute couture.
Based on Roberto Saviano’s 2006 bestseller, the title is not only a reference to the despicable biblical city, it’s also a play on the word ‘Camorra,’ the name of the Neopolitan criminal conspiracy. Director/cinematographer Matteo Garrone, working with several screenwriters, including Saviano, has crafted a gritty, convoluted tale of the lethal results of a power struggle within the different factions. If only he’d differentiated the characters more clearly, it would not have been so confusing.
In Italian with English subtitles, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Gomorrah” is a gritty, intense 8, culminating in a declaration that the Camorra crime syndicate has caused 4,000 deaths in the last 30 years (more than any criminal or terrorist group), funneling money into both legal and illegal enterprises, including the rebuilding of Manhattan’s World Trade Center towers, while infiltrating transport, tourism, textiles and banking.

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Redbelt

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “Redbelt” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet exercises his passion for the world of martial arts in this somewhat compelling drama.
Financially-strapped Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) runs a jujitsu studio in a seedy section of downtown Los Angeles. His prize pupil is a compassionate Los Angeles police officer (Max Martini) who earns off-duty money as a bouncer.
“Competition is weakening,” Terry insists in his self-defense instruction. It’s all about honor. “I train people to prevail.”
Which is why he doesn’t hesitate to come to the rescue of a hapless movie star, Chet Frank (Tim Allen), who gets caught in a bar brawl. For this Good Samaritan act, Terry receives a $20,000 gold watch as a gift and an invitation to dinner, where he becomes involved in an insidious showbiz scam involving his disgruntled Brazilian wife (Alice Braga, Sonia’s niece), Frank’s dress-designing wife (Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet’s real-life wife), Frank’s unscrupulous agent (Joe Mantegna) and a corrupt promoter (magician Ricky Jay), who ‘fixes’ fights using three marbles to determine which contestant must compete in the ring with a handicap (blindfolded, one arm tied down, etc.).
As writer/director, Mamet keeps the fragmentary dialogue terse and the tension high, as seen through the camera of Oscar-winner Robert Elswit. With his muscled physique, soft-spoken manner and soulful eyes, Chiwetal Ejofor is sympathetic and convincing as the naïve samurai.
Problem is: the coincidental plot twists are implausible, as are some of the performances, particularly Emily Mortimer as an emotionally distraught lawyer who shows up on Terry’s doorstep one rainy night, igniting an unstoppable chain of events. And the title designates the ultimate fighting warrior. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Redbelt” is a sleazy, pulpy 6. Sometimes being enigmatic just isn’t as interesting as it should be.

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The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Movie/TV Reviews / Susan

Susan Granger’s review of “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” (Disney)

One year has passed since four British schoolchildren, the Pevensies, encountered “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” but, when they return to Narnia, they discover that it’s 1300 years later in that magical realm – and a great deal has changed.
Peter (William Moseley), Susan (Anna Popplewell), Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgia Henley) are summoned back by Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes), the rightful heir to the throne who has been ousted from his castle by his evil uncle, Lord Miraz (Sergio Castellitto) of the warlike Telmarines. Since the lion leader Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) has been gone for 1,000 years, Caspian and the last remaining Narnian creatures (centaurs, minotaurs, satyrs) have taken refuge deep in the forest.
Stunned to find their beloved Cair Paravel ruined, their animal friends long gone and Narnia a darker, more savage place, the now-legendary Pevensies must prove themselves once again, even against the ice-trapped White Witch (Tilda Swinton). They team up with two Narnian dwarves – Trumpkin (Peter Dinklage) and Nikabrik (Warwick Davis), along with Reepicheep (voiced by Eddie Izzard), a chivalrous, courageous mouse – to restore peace and glory once again.
Adapting the second of C.S. Lewis’s seven Narnia fantasies, writer/director Andrew Adamson, along with writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, focus primarily on swashbuckling battle scenes with awesome production values, since their previously established primary characters have matured. Caspian initially arouses rivalry in Peter and romantic interest in Susan, marking the end of Narnia’s road for those two, leaving Edmund and Lucy to forge ahead on further adventures.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” is an imaginative, visually enchanting 8 – but, remember, as Aslan says, “Things never happen the same way twice.”

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