Film Reviews

"Martin Scorsese [the legendary filmmaker] zero Oscars - Three 6 Mafia, one!" The implication of Jon Stewart's words during the 2006 Oscars stamped a red hot exclamation point onto the thoughts of many moviegoers. Hopefully, with this recent offering returning to a gritty crime-drama, the Academy will finally recognize Scorsese's talent. The Departed is a witty, highly original story about a State Trooper named Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) who goes into deep cover to infiltrate Boston organized crime led by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), an aging, teflon crime lord. Billy has a dark past and many connections with unsavory types, so he's a shoo-in to get close to Frank. As a fresh plot element, one of Frank's henchmen, Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon), goes into deep cover as a State Trooper. Here Damon treats us once again to his Boston accent that sounded so natural in Good Will Hunting. Once Billy and Colin discover the existence of one another, it's up to them to smoke each other out. It is in these moments where the movie truly shines. The most tense scene is probably the film's most subtle, with Billy and Colin on opposite ends of a silent phone call, waiting for the other to speak and betray their identity to the other.

Part documentary. Part narrative. What the #$*! Do We (K)now!? reminds me those educational films they show in high schools. You know, where Jimmy's having problems in chemistry so the teacher takes him on a magical journey through labs and factories where Jimmy gets to learn all sorts of neat facts. It's kind of like that, but marginally better. The story part revolves around a woman (Marlee Matlin) who's going through some personal life challenges. She's depressed and hooked on a happy pill. As she tries to go about her life, she continually has surreal experiences, which are really just lead-ins for the documentary sections. These are the bread and butter scenes of the movie, since the surrealistic story parts are inserted as visual aids.

It's hard to know how to review a film from another culture sometimes. Can I really say that any one way of filmmaking is the "right" way? I don't think so. Well, let's just say that I enjoy martial arts films, but also enjoy the economy of scenes in Western films. With that in mind, I can confidently say that I had a good time watching this movie, but it got gratuitous and mired itself down with too much development. As near as I can figure, the plot goes a little something like this: An important witness is being transported under heavy guard so that he can testify safely. A young team of hot shot cops is assembled to protect him during transit. An old team of hot shot bad guys assembles to liberate the witness. The old team beats the young team and they make off with the witness, but not to rescue him. Instead, the witness is used as ransom by the old team bad guys to lure out the witness' brother who happens to be a different bad guy. And the reason they want that bad guy is because he got Michael Biehn's brother killed. Actually, every character on both the good and bad teams has a beef to sort out with someone else on the other side. And that's precisely the reason why the film breaks down.

We all wish that our lives were interesting enough to be the plot of a book or a movie. For Harold Crick, this wish is fulfilled to the nth degree and to a very literal point. An actual author is writing out his life and, in this case, his death. It's an interesting premise and, I admit with chagrin, is very close to the premise of one of my plays, but Stranger Than Fiction tries to do a little too much and muddles the story with excessive characters and too many plot elements. Harold Crick (Will Farrell) is an ordinary IRS agent who lives a dull, repetitive life and is probably obsessive compulsive with a numbers fixation. He also seems to have a magical wristwatch. Anyway. Minus the wristwatch, which he doesn't know is magical, everything is going along fine until Harold starts hearing a voice narrating his every action, right down to what he thinks of when he hears specific sounds. If that isn't crazy enough, the voice off-handedly mentions something about his imminent death, obviously throwing Harold into a tizzy of concern. The catch here is that the narrator is a actually the author Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) and she doesn't know that Harold actually exists.

If you're a fan of Mike Judge, like myself, it's impossible to watch Idiocracy without comparing it to Office Space. Even fan favorite actors like David Herman and Stephen Root make an appearance. Disappointingly, while Office Space satirized the workplace perfectly, the comedy doesn't work quite as well in Idiocracy. The concept is simple (and simply laid out for the audience by a helpful narrator): The United States military is conducting an experiment in human stasis and needs an average guy and girl to be preserved in coffin-shaped canisters for a year. Pvt. Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson), an exceedingly average guy with no aspirations, and prostitute Rita (Maya Rudolph), just a prostitute, are the lucky candidates. After a long-winded first act where Joe and Rita are forgotten and end up oversleeping, Joe wakes 500 years into future to find that America has become ridiculously stupid and Joe is the smartest man on the planet.