The love for one’s child can transcend both space and time. In J.A. Bayona’s “The Orphanage,” Laura (Belen Rueda) plays a mother with an adopted child who decides to move her family into an old orphanage. Laura and her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo) plan to accept and care for young children with special needs. Laura grew up in the same orphanage as a child, but unbeknown to her, the place is haunted by her former peers.
Produced by Guillermo Del Toro, the film has a similar atmosphere and influence to “Pan’s Labyrinth.” Although well-polished and professional, the Spanish-language film uses minimal special effects compared with “Pan’s.” However, it still provides some great chills and thrills — putting audiences on the edge of their seats.
“Orphanage” starts slowly to set up the the relationship between Laura and her son Simon (Roger Princep). After Simon goes missing, Laura begins to hear and see things at the orphanage. Six months go by, and she begins to think the supernatural elements at the orphanage are playing games with her. They know where Simon is, and she begins to follow the clues. The ending is both shocking and bittersweet. Fortunately, it’s a good and unpredictable payoff.
3 stars
***
Wayne’s star system
1 star –> avoid at all costs
2 stars –> watch on TV when nothing else is on
3 stars –> rent it eventually
4 stars –> must see before you die
I never followed the Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder. Although I remember the coverage, I wasn’t interested in news, geography, politics or journalism at the time. In early 2002, I couldn’t even hold a conversation about the Middle East or U.S. foreign policy. However, spending time overseas changed all that. I learned more in just one year living in South Africa than in the past 20 years of my life. Today, I’m much more interested and aware of what’s happening throughout the world, but sometimes, I wish I had been more perceptive in my younger days.
Director Michael Winterbottom’s “A Mighty Heart” is more than just about the Pearl kidnappings, which happened over the course of January to March 2002. Although Pearl’s story is central to the plot, other issues are explored, such as Guantanamo Bay detainees, torture and the effect of intense media scrutiny on families. By taking us to on-location to several locales overseas such as India and Pakistan, he’s able to create the same atmosphere that the Pearls and their friends experienced.
Pearl (Dan Futterman) was the Wall Street Journal South Asia bureau chief at the time, and was kidnapped in Pakistan on Jan. 23, 2002, after he was lured into a bogus meeting with a sheik who had alleged ties to Al-Qiada. The story follows Mariane and the law enforcement and WSJ staff that helped follow the case. Much of it plays like a police procedural, with characters following clues and traveling back and forth across town looking for answers and suspects. The pacing manages to keep audiences interested and attentive for the duration of the film until its grim conclusion.
“A Mighty Heart” is based on a book of the same name written by Pearl’s wife, Mariane (Angelina Jolie), who was five months pregnant at the time of the kidnapping. Mariane wrote the book for her son Adam, so that he could know his father. If audiences know anything about the Pearl case, they’ll remember that Pearl eventually was filmed being decapitated by his captors.
The story is tragic, and the film’s goal is to present issues facing the world today without taking sides. Scenes are presented accurately without a clear idea of whether what is happening is right or wrong. Many of the themes explored relate to terrorism, counter-terrorism practices and policies, and love and forgiveness. Mariane could easily have been filled with hate and rage after her husband was murdered. However, she chose to use the incident as a way to bring people together and to promote understanding between different cultures and backgrounds.
“(The kidnapping) brought people together and did quite the opposite,” said producer Brad Pitt during a news conference at Cannes. “It’s powerful and a great example for the world.”
As a journalist, its easy sometimes to think you’re invincible. I know some of my peers would jump at the chance to go to Iraq or Afghanistan to cover the war. My colleagues are young and idealistic and lack the responsibility to wives, husbands or children. At one time, even I would have jumped as the chance without thinking or considering the dangers. After all, who wants to live his or her life in fear?
But a foreign post in a hostile country is more than just a calculated risk, and as more journalists are killed, the odds become stacked against you. For example, two media technicians with ABC News in Iraq were killed Friday, and another journalist was killed Monday. So far, 105 journalists and 41 media support workers have been killed in Iraq. The outlook doesn’t look good for journalists working in war zones. But as long as Pearl’s story stays in the consciousness of others, there’s a small hope that its message might prevent others from suffering a similar fate.
3.5 stars
***
Wayne’s star system
1 star –> avoid at all costs
2 stars –> watch on TV when nothing else is on
3 stars –> rent it eventually
4 stars –> must see before you die
Last night, I got to see U2 perform live for free outside the Palais de Festival before going in to see “U2 3D,” a new 3-D film of a U2 concert shot in Buenos Aires and Mexico City. The band played two songs, “Vertigo” and “Where the Streets Have No Name,” before going into the theater.
U2 plays “Vertigo”
U2 plays “Where the Streets Have No Name”
U2 is introduced at the premiere.
Video blog: I show the inside of the Grand Theatre Lumiere.
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore’s latest film, “Sicko,” tackles the U.S. healthcare system and the problems associated with it. Although in the past, I’ve advocated a public-private partnership when it comes to healthcare, this film definitely had me questioning whether the U.S. should just go to a publicly funded system. Moore tugs at the heart strings, and he does it very well.
The “Bowling for Columbine” director is back in full form this time. Although I was entertained by “Fahrenheit 9/11,” I didn’t feel that Moore made a strong enough case against President Bush. Al Gore, in fact, laid out a better case for global warming.
But in “Sicko,” the stories he tells about Americans who had access to private healthcare — but ultimately were denied coverage by their HMO’s and insurance companies — is heartbreaking. Make no mistake about it: There is something seriously wrong with the U.S. healthcare system and no one is left unaffected. Moore, however, spends almost half the film overseas in places such as Canada, Britain, France and Cuba to show how these countries run their healthcare systems.
A lot of his comparisons between these countries and the U.S. are satirical. However, Moore unfairly paints these places as a healthcare lover’s paradise. But all of these countries have their own healthcare-related problems, and Moore’s lack of disclosure somewhat undermines his credibility. What Moore needed to say — and what he did say during the news conference afterward — was that even those these public systems have their flaws, they still are better than the U.S. system. It’s likely that no citizens of these countries would ever trade in their healthcare system for America’s.
Even though this section was well-received by foreign audiences, it is the weakest part of the film. It’s entertaining to think what it would be like for the U.S. to mimic countries like France and Canada, but there are a lot of logistical reasons why it couldn’t work. Population size in the U.S., for example, is a huge hurdle to lawmakers for finding a system that everyone can benefit from and agree upon.
The film, however, effectively entertains and successfully gets it message across. One of the best scenes is when Moore reveals that was the anonymous donor who paid the health insurance bills of Jeff Kenefick, the Web site operator of MooreWatch, an anti-Michael Moore Web site.
In the end, the documentary is worth seeing, because it’s a good entry into the debate. And Moore also tells some really good stories about real people who experienced real tragedies because of our failed system.
3.5 stars
***
Wayne’s star system
1 star –> avoid at all costs
2 stars –> watch on TV when nothing else is on
3 stars –> rent it eventually
4 stars –> must see before you die
Sometimes there are no answers to tragedy. People die, people live, and there isn’t any rhyme or reason to it. It’s moments like these that make you wonder if there is a God. Why do bad things happen to good people? And why do good things happen to bad people?
Joel and Ethan Coen’s latest film, “No Country for Old Men,” is a dark film about tragedy and despair. The title, taken from a W.B. Yeats poem, presents its meaning literally. As we get older, we think that the entire world is going to hell. Things seem worse than back in the old days, and people seem to become more and more savage and brutal. This isn’t a country for old men.
In the film and book, Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin) is a hunter in West Texas who comes across a drug deal gone horribly wrong. Everyone involved in the deal is dead after a brutal shoot out. Moss finds a suitecase with $2 million dollars — and no one left to claim it.
Eventually, Moss is fingered for the theft, and the antagonist, a hired gun and sociapathic killer named Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), is sent to hunt Moss down. The sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) realizes that Moss is on trouble, and spends most of the film learning about Chigurh’s path of murderous destruction in the efforts to recover the money. Woody Harrelson, meanwhile, plays a small but hilarious role as Carson Wells, a man sent to keep tabs on Chugurh’s mess.
After the initial setup, what follows next are a series of showdowns and confrontations that lead to a tragically open and ambiguous ending. I won’t spoil it for you, but the events don’t wrap up neatly for any of the characters. Some people get what they deserve. Others don’t. It just doesn’t make any sense.
But that’s the point. The movie is faithful to the book in that it maintains its non-Hollywood ending and leaves the viewer somewhat confused as so why these final events took place. What does it all mean? Or maybe, it just doesn’t mean anything. And that is what is so painful to realize. Maybe there’s no meaning to life. Everything happens by chance. And for some people, that is the most terrifying aspect of all.
“No Country for Old Men” is the best film I’ve seen so far at the Cannes Film Festival. It had me on the edge of my seat the moment it began, and while there was no pay off, I’m glad the film didn’t play safe. It was true to its material, and it scores points for that.
4 stars
***
Wayne’s star system
1 star –> avoid at all costs
2 stars –> watch on TV when nothing else is on
3 stars –> rent it eventually
4 stars –> must see before you die
For people like me, friendship is everything. You don’t judge what your friends do, and no matter how much you disapprove of their behavior, you accept that you’re stuck with them for life.
“Brooklyn Rules” is about that kind of friendship. It’s also about growing up in Brooklyn during the mid-1980s when organized crime bosses like John Gotti ruled the streets. Michael (Freddie Prince Jr.), Carmine (Scott Caan) and Bobby (“Entourage”’s Jerry Ferrera) play three childhood friends who lead very different lives. Michael, the protagonist, is a student at Columbia University and eventually hopes to trade in his Brooklyn roots for a life as a lawyer in the wealthy suburbs of Westchester. Carmine becomes more involved in organized crime thanks to mob captain Caesar (Alec Baldwin). Bobby, meanwhile, is a homebody who plans to marry his longtime girlfriend. His dream is to become a postal clerk to give his future family stability.
The film’s plot is predictable, but it’s entertaining. You have your typical run-ins with the mob and conflicts between friends and the choices they make. The banter and dialogue between the three friends is the best part of the film, but not much else lifts it beyond your typical coming-of-age genre movie. “American Beauty”’s Mena Suvari shows up as a love interest for Prinze in the middle of the film and provides some interesting drama and psychological analysis of his reasons for wanting a “preppy” lifestyle. Had this been the core of the film, it would have been more interesting. Instead, the issues aren’t explored very well, and its resolution left me unsatisfied.
In the end, “Brooklyn” provides good entertainment, but not enough to justify shelling out at the box office.
2.5 stars
***
Wayne’s star system
1 star –> avoid at all costs
2 stars –> watch on TV when nothing else is on
3 stars –> rent it eventually
4 stars –> must see before you die
At some point in our lives, I’m sure all of us have felt invisible. Sometimes, we just want to be popular at work or school. Other times, we just want to be noticed by someone we love or adore.
Bob Maconel (Christian Slater) is an office drone who desperately wants to exist in coworker Vanessa’s (“24″’s Elisha Cuthbert’s) world. He is ridiculed by his superiors and invisible to women at the office. Bob often imagines himself talking to his goldfish, and he keeps a gun in his drawer because he dreams of one day shooting all his fellow cubicle workers.
One day, just as he is about to try it, a coworker beats him to the punch. Bob, conveniently armed, kills the gone-postal coworker and is hailed as a hero by the community. Suddenly, he’s the most popular man at the office. Executives want to hobnob with him, chief executive Gene Shelby (William H. Macy) gives him a promotion and women suddenly find him desirable. Vanessa, meanwhile, is sadly injured in the shooting and becomes a quadriplegic. She blames Bob for not letting the shooter finish her off and asks him to help her commit suicide.
What happens next I won’t say, but while “He was a Quiet Man” has an interesting plot, it never quite is believable. Director Frank Capello tries to make up for the film’s low production values with some flashy edits and special effects. Unfortunately, the techniques simply distract rather than enhance the storyline. Meanwhile, although Christian Slater is more than capable of playing a down-on-his-luck cubicle office worker, his character is more annoying than sympathetic. It’s the same with Elisha Cuthbert’s character, who is portrayed as a woman with rough edges and a no-nonsense attitude. Fortunately, William H. Macy delivers a solid performance — how he agreed to do this film, I have no idea.
In the end, although the plot for “Quiet Man” was interesting, the film doesn’t execute well and is poorly cast. It’s probably going straight to video.
1.5 stars
***
Wayne’s star system
1 star –> avoid at all costs
2 stars –> watch on TV when nothing else is on
3 stars –> rent it eventually
4 stars –> must see before you die
As much as I enjoy traveling to foreign destinations and reporting at international events, the Cannes Film Festival can be a lonely place. There are a lot of journalists here, but everyone is doing their own thing and under a lot of pressure to produce. Journalists compete for space in news conferences, seats in theaters and time with actors, actresses and directors.
Last year, I met a lot of American students and foreign journalists, but I didn’t create many opportunities to socialize with them. I was too busy attending as many screenings and events as possible, and because I commuted in from another town, I often had to leave Cannes before midnight to catch the train.
Fortunately, before I left Cannes last year, I made a few friends and contacts, and this year, several of them are back. Even though I haven’t had much time to socialize, it’s good to know there are people around if I do need the urge to seek out human contact.
***
I spent the past few days attending screenings and news conferences to get material for WENN, the entertainment news service I’m accredited with. Although I haven’t filed much, I’m hoping that as more films debut, I’ll have more opportunities to talk to actors and directors. I’m a bit worried about my lack of access to one-on-one interviews and press junkets at the festival, but I’m going to continue to push the press offices until something comes through.
A lot of the dazzle and glamor of Cannes has disappeared since I’ve been here before. I find myself not terribly interested in trying to get into parties or red-carpet premieres. I guess I have a “been there, done that” attitude toward it. Although I didn’t get into many parties last year, I wasted too much time trying. Furthermore, the red-carpet premieres are only as good as the film that’s showing.
What do I hope to accomplish at this year’s festival? I want to see and review as many films as possible, and I want to file as much news as possible for my outlet. The latter is going to be difficult, because I feel as if I don’t have control over what questions are asked in news conferences or whether publicists will even give me the time of day. Will I even get into some of these screenings? Will I even get into the press conferences? I try to show up early and stay late, but ultimately, I can’t help if there’s no interesting news to report.
Another film with a depressing ending, Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev’s “The Banishment” starts off slowly but ends up as a powerful study in character and loss.
The movie tells the tale of Alex and Vera, a young Russian couple with two small children who go to the countryside for a holiday. It’s hinted that Alex is a criminal or at least is involved in shady dealings (he pulls a bullet out of his brother Mark’s arm in the opening scene), but the film never fully explains it. In fact, the film hints at a lot of things about its characters, which makes the plot flat until the middle, when its revealed that Vera is pregnant — and that the child isn’t Alex’s.
For the first hour, the film is painfully slow. The director takes his time to establish the day-to-day rhythms of the family and the couple while they vacation in the countryside.
But when the plot finally is revealed, things get interesting. Alex tries to come to terms with Vera’s pregnancy and decides that she must have an abortion. Afterward, they can move on and pretend as if it never happened. Vera doesn’t want one, but resigns herself to it. At the same time, Alex’s brother Mark shows up to counsel him.
Eventually, the abortion is performed on Vera, but she ends up dying from it — or so Alex thinks. Alex thinks a lot of things in this movie, and he often jumps to a lot of conclusions.
Overcome by loss and eventually by the truth, Alex learns a painful lesson about his ego and his past behavior. Hopefully, he’ll raise his children right. Too bad he had to learn the hard way. That’s Russian cinema.
2 stars
***
Wayne’s star system
1 star –> avoid at all costs
2 stars –> watch on TV when nothing else is on
3 stars –> rent it eventually
4 stars –> must see before you die
One of the best movies about journalism is “All the President’s Men;” often hailed as a highly accurate portrayal of investigative journalism. At first glance, “Zodiac” appears to be a film about a serial killer and the men who tried to catch him. That description, however, is just a ruse, according to director David Fincher.
“That’s the hook of it,” Fincher said during a news conference Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival. “After the first 35 minutes, I don’t know if you’d call it a serial-killer movie. It’s more like a police procedural or a character study.”
“Zodiac” already was released March 2 in the U.S. However, foreign critics watched it for the first time Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival. Well-received by U.S. critics, the film unfortunately was met with an underwhelming response at the U.S. box office, grossing $33 million domestically — well below its reported $60 million budget. Gyllenhall said at the news conference that although starring in the film was risky, he wanted to think that audiences are smart enough to understand and appreciate the film. “That might be a mistake on my part,” he admitted.
Fincher said he likes to compare “Zodiac” to “All the President’s Men.” Fincher’s movie, based on a true story, follows two journalists and two detectives who try to find the identity of a serial killer that terrorized the Bay area for almost 10 years during the late ’60s and ’70s. In the end, all four characters destroy their lives with their obsession over th case. In both real life and in the movie, the killer never was caught, and the case still is open.
Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Graysmith, a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle who later became consumed by the Zodiac killings. The movie is based on Graysmith’s two books, “Zodiac” and “Zodiac Unmasked.” His colleague and newspaper reporter, Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), spent more than a decade piecing together clues about the killer’s identity. Meanwhile, Detectives William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) and David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) are assigned to the case by the San Francisco Police Department and go on a similar crime hunt.
In the end, there are no answers, and the four men become so obsessed with the case that they let their careers and families fall apart around them. The movie is about this obsession more than anything else. Some of the best scenes are similar to “All the President’s Men,” such as when the journalists and detectives conduct interviews, go through case files and try to confirm facts using more than one source. The procedural is supposed to be at the heart of the film, but sometimes, it runs too long.
I was impressed by the amount of legwork that went into writing and producing the film (the screenwriters spend months interviewing witnesses, going through case files and talking to law enforcement about the Zodiac killings), and although parts of the film were good — especially the last half hour when Gyllenhaal takes over the unsolvable case — the movie as a whole is too long and drawn out. Days, months and years pass by without much notice or regard, which is annoying. You never get a sense that time is passing, and you sometimes wish time would stay in one place.
This film was ambitious, but it wasn’t as entertaining as I would have liked. Fincher’s best work still is “Se7en.”
2.5 stars
***
Wayne’s star system
1 star –> avoid at all costs
2 stars –> watch on TV when nothing else is on
3 stars –> rent it eventually
4 stars –> must see before you die
I'm finally going to backpack through Europe. Follow my trip from May 9 to June 15 in France, the United Kingdom, Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin.
Meanwhile, from May 16 to May 27, I'll be in Cannes, France, covering the Cannes Film Festival. I'll blog daily about the festival and file several short items as well for a London-based entertainment wire service that I'm accredited with. Expect hilarious hijinks and other musings.
