Whatever Works

Larry David is Boris Yelnikoff, a curmugeonly former physicist who whiles away his remaining years complaining while eating with his impossibly tolerant friends, complaining while drinking San Peligrino, and complaining while teaching chess to "inch-worm" middle-schoolers, until Evan Rachel Wood's Melodie St Anne Celestine, an innocent waifish runaway from Plaquemines County, Mississippi, arrives on his doorstep, asking for a place to sleep.

So begins a comedy of culture shock and clashing values, and probably the most useless film of the year. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Woody Allen fan -- that's the problem. There's nothing new here.



The script is a rewrite of a dusty draft sitting around since the seventies (and it shows, despite the occasional Obama reference), the story is a rehash of several old plotlines, and the characters we've all seen before. So, if you're into Allen, you've already seen the depressive panic attacks about the meaninglessness of life (Hannah and her Sisters), the sometimes jarring monologue narration style (Annie Hall's Alvie Singer), the mentor/lover relationship of an older man with a precocious young girl (Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan), and so on. And if you're not into Allen, I just named three far better ways of introducing yourself to his work.

Whatever Works still works, though, despite these obviating self-plaguarisms. Most of the jokes are well-timed, and Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley, Jr both deliver strong performances as the Celestine parents, both fish-out-of-water in the big city.

Larry David's Boris is, surprisingly, the weak point of the film. His genius is never established enough to warrant our toleration of his jaded cynicism, and David seems to struggle at times with Allen's dialogue, which somehow would have sounded more natural coming from the elder actor. And Henry Cavill as the British travelling minstrel (he sits in his houseboat all day and plays his flute, apparently) who woos the married Melodie comes off as a totally creepy stalker, rather than as the (intended?) sweet romantic.

Ultimately, the strength of the writing and the optimism of the refreshing, if rather heavy-handed, final message make up for the film's shortfalls, and leave Whatever Works an intelligent and funny summer comedy, which in turn left me jonesing to rewatch Michael Caine's brilliant performance in its superior sibling.

Cloverfield

I did not get sick at Cloverfield.

This is surprising, because I have gotten sick 1. on a ferry crossing the placidly calm East river, 2. in an indoor pool, 3. during my third viewing of The Bourne Ultimatum, and 4. during church (which isn't even moving at all).

The film is meant to seem like it was shot entirely through a home-video camera, an illusion attempted by jerky movements and blurry zooming, but successful only in producing audience members retching from vertigo or laughing in disbelief. Surely, real amateur cameramen could have framed a shot much better and far steadier, without sacrificing any realism or immediacy?

Although I guess the characters were all supposed to be annoyingly rich yuppies, hours away from a much-needed caffeine-fix in a latteless Godzilla-ravaged New York, so that probably explains the shakiness well enough.

Anyway, I avoided getting sick by unfocusing and just letting the film do its thing; incidentally, this strategy is also necessary for enjoying Cloverfield's plot. Rob is going to Japan, and so his friends have thrown him a raging all-night party in his 100,000 sq. ft. Financial District apartment. There's some misplaced humor, some loud music to fill out the soundtrack CD, some whining about a girl, and then the lights go out. The rest of the film plays out in pretty much exactly the same order as the trailer, but only about twice as long.

A Monster has attacked Manhattan, toppling buildings, shedding scary spidery things, and generally leaving a swath of destruction in its wake. It also impressively chucked the Statue of Liberty's head towards the camera from an impossible uptown direction. Now Rob must both risk his life and defy the laws of physics by walking from Spring Street to 59th Street (in 10-12 minutes), directly into the Monster's path, to rescue his ex-girlfriend Beth.

There is a lot that director Matt Reeves got right. The snippets of TV news, the eerily 9/11-reminiscent building destruction, pandemonium on the streets, and onlookers snapping cellphone camera pics of all of the above: these scenes strike as resoundingly honest as such scenes could. The whole homemade, first-person POV aspect, while sometimes sickening and always annoying, is still pretty cool, as is the "US Government Property -- Classified Tape" bookend.

Nonetheless, the Monster is pretty disappointing, even borderline forgettable. Its spidery offspring do make people's heads explode I guess, which is always neat. Although exactly where this thing comes from is never explained (space? the posters claim "Something Has Found Us"), JJ Abrams has posted a lot of fake sites to the intarweb to spread origin-story gossip. I refuse to look at any of it, because I prefer to remain blissfully unaware of all but one possible source: the egg in Madison Square Garden that Matthew Broderick didn't destroy. Give this theory a try, it's quite satisfying.

That's really what I found most unbelievable about Cloverfield: no one ever mentions that this thing looks a lot like Godzilla. That'd be the first thing I'd say. Well, after, "No, I'm not going to walk the subway tracks," and, "Screw this low-flying helicopter evacuation crap, I'm taking the PATH to Jersey."

Final verdict: ultimately unsatisfying, but undeniably cool.

P.S. But come on, "Cloverfield?"
Even IMDB's "Untitled JJ Abrams Project -- 1/19/08" was better.

I Am Legend

After a miracle cure for cancer mutates into a deadly rabies-like virus, Robert Neville (Will Smith) stays behind in a quarantined Manhattan, struggling both to find a cure and to survive in vampire central. As The Last Man on Earth (or so say the movie posters), Neville keeps his sanity by watching taped TV, constantly renting movies in an OCD-enhanced alphabetical order, and talking to animals and large dolls. I do all of these things already anyway, so I feel very well-prepared for the impending Vampire Holocaust.

Oops, sorry. I forgot -- we can't call them vampires. Maybe some copyright issue with 30 Days of Night or something. The closest they come to getting a collective name is the "Night Seekers," which sounds, apart from ridiculous, like a paperback by R. L. Stine.

Anyway, Neville roams the impressively rendered abandoned city streets, scrounging for food in scary dark buildings, broadcasting his distress signal on AM stations, walking through a lot of tall grass, and working on his various Apple computers with their "six redundant hard drives." He must be a pretty busy guy, since he found time to make enough money to own an apartment on Washington Square North, become an Army Lieutenant Colonel, study immunology, train to be a survival expert, and still had a few hours left over to somehow spread the deadly virus.

About 33% of this move is flat-out awesome; that accounts for half of the first two acts. The scenes of deserted New York are simply stunning. Long show-off shots of grassy streets -- abandoned Humvees barricading evacuation routes, forgotten Christmas decorations glinting eerily in the summer sun, crickets dominating the silent cityscape -- are the coolest ever put to film.

Add to that source material by Richard Matheson (writer of some of the best Twilight Zone episodes) and some superb acting by Smith, whose portrayal of a man as burnt-out as the cars lining his street dominates the potentially overpowering computer-created scenery and drives the film forward, and you've got one hell of a formula for a successful movie.

Nonetheless, the night-time sequences, and pretty much all of the final act, resemble a jam sandwich dropped into the body cavity during open-heart surgery: a bloody unfortunate mess. The pale, all-CG vamp� Night Seekers are more silly than scary, and their rendering somehow resembles that of cut-scene bad guys from 90s PC shooters. They are about as unrealistic and unneccesary as the wolves from The Day After Tomorrow, and serve much the same purpose: to jump out and scare you without causing any real harm to anyone.

After a tense sequence with infected hounds (who are conveniently allowed out earlier than infected people are, although I'd be more worried about squirrels, personally -- there are a lot more of them, and they are already evil enough), Smith hits an emotional high point that only serves to show how crappy the rest of the movie will be by comparison.

The addition of two new survivors is a pointless move, as one of them does nothing but gets scared and hide, necessitating his rescue. It's a cheap move to motivate a flagging script and, like a jab of adrenaline to the heart of a dead hooker, fails to resuscitate it.

By this point the previously small plot holes are ripped open into gaping bloody wounds by digital fangs. Where did they get all of these shiny Ford trucks, outfitted with winches and brushbars and KC lights? How does Anna drive into and out of Manhattan when all of the bridges and tunnels have been destroyed? Why can't the Infected figure out how to kill deer or work a can-opener, if they can set an elaborate trap? Why can't they just swim off the island? How can they bust through a steel door in 10 seconds but take 10 minutes to break one made of Plexiglass?

I guess none of this really matters. The central message of the film, as painfully apparent as the "butterfly" theme, is delivered via an unnecessary end-credit voice-over: Light Up The Darkness. This is very good advice: the daylight sequences of this movie were so spectacular, and the dark ones with the vampires so sucky, director Francis Lawrence should have just taken the Infected as read and stuck with answering the film's deeper questions, like couldn't Neville have just thrown the damn hand-grenade? How can a Mustang, with a solid rear-axle and no traction control, corner so well? How could Batman and Superman ever have a crossover?

If only they had listened to Bob Marley.

Heroes

Just imagine waking up one morning to discover you have amazing powers which you can neither understand nor control.

Then you are approached by a shadowy individual who claims you are a new breed of man: genetically mutated, living proof of evolution itself. And then, as if that wasn't already enough to deal with, you realize you are being monitored and abducted by an evil company that is trying to protect all the other, non-mutated people.

'Wait a minute,' you say. 'I've seen this one. The bald guy from "Star Trek" in a wheelchair gets into everybody's heads, while Xenia from "Goldeneye" and the jealous magician from "The Prestige" try to stop Gandalf from messing up magnets. And there's a dam or something, I'm not really sure.'

Yes, it sounds like "X-men," doesn't it? In the words of "Heroes"-creator Tim Kring, when asked the same question at an early production meeting: 'Well, it just isn't. So there.'

Nonetheless, just in case you find yourself wondering which show you are watching, I have created a handy 10-step guide.

You are watching NBC's "Heroes" if...

1. You recognize that the acting is mainly crap, but don't care.
OK, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Jack Coleman are decent in their roles as Mohinder Suresh and Noah Bennett. But come on, Ali Larter's take on split-personality manifests in Jessica screaming at herself in the mirror. Greg Grunberg lumbers about as Matt Parkman, and somehow manages to screw up the mind-reading acting even more than Mel Gibson did in "What Women Want."

2. The writers do not respect their audience.
The show's inconsistency is its greatest blunder. The writers seem to forget that audiences are smarter these days, and will probably pick up on major plot holes; or perhaps they don't care.

Tension is never sustained because all interesting story-arcs are immediately axed at the start of the next episode: Mr Bennett takes a bullet to forget his daughter, only to remember it all again because of a note. That girl who can IM with her mind just disappears. Matt Parkman gets shot five times in the chest, only to recover without a scratch.

And come on, you know, deep-down, that Hiro and Ando were definitely in LA at the end of the last episode, carless and powerless, and yet somehow they are now in New York again.

3. You are watching it online (legally!) in what is certainly one of the first of many forays to come by a major network into the digital world, as the big-wigs realize that people want to watch shows for free, when they want, where they want. RIP TV-links.

4. Your main bad guy is a disappointing, whinging emo loser.
Sylar's origin story as Gabriel, the unloved clock repairman, negates virtually all of his character's impact. Casting Malcolm McDowell as the evil villain, and leaving his emotional baggage unexplained, would have been far more effective and scary (and far too much like Magneto).

5. You no longer trust yourself to remember if certain characters have met before. But the writers seem to be oblivious to all previous episodes anyway, so why shouldn't we be. The sheer enormity of the cast makes the show nearly untenable: characters and their subplots disappear for episodes at a time, preventing all understanding of the season's progress so far.

6. Having eyes that turn black and then kill everyone (or put them to sleep or something) now counts as a super-power. Let me remind you that Wolverine had adamantine knives that pierced through his knuckles.

7. You find yourself strangely craving a Nissan.
'Look Ando, Nissan Versa!' / 'Oh Dad, thank you for The Rogue!'
And since when do NYPD patrolmen drive Sentras? Extra points if you can guess the cars that Peter Petrelli and D.L. both drove.

8. Look! We don't know what this is, but it's definitely science stuff!
Why does a high-school lecture about Darwin require Bunsen burners and jars full of colorful chemicals? Not to mention Dr Suresh's sped-up theory of evolution.

9. Characters use their powers only at the most inopportune times.
Why the hell does Claire cut off her toe, stick her hand in boiling water, jump off a platform, etc? Yes, she can regenerate, but it still hurts! And why the hell couldn't Peter just fly into space himself?! And why doesn't Hiro just go back in time and stop himself from saving Kensei's life the first time around? Jeez.

10. Milo Ventimiglia is gasping about being a bomb or something. Every show has its defining moment. I think this one was in the second episode: 'Nathan, don't you get it! I think I can fly!'

Somehow, though, none of this matters. Despite all the talentless writing, atrocious acting, cheesy romances, and dead-end plot developments, I still watch the show, and care about what happens to everybody. Kind of.

And if two-dimensional characterization is what it takes to perpetually keep Hayden Panettiere in a cheerleader's outfit, then so be it.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

There is a scene in "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" where Cate Blanchett stands heroically on deeply green, oversaturated cliffs, looking off wistfully into the distance at burning Spanish gallions, as a stiff wind rips through her tent, blowing away (hopefully unimportant) maps and papers in slow motion.

Afterwards, she gallops ahead of her army on a brilliant white horse, dressed in full shiny metallic battle armor, her fake ginger hair flowing out behind her. At this point my mind wandered, and I started to think about Robocop. I then started to think about how awesome "Elizabeth" would be if, instead of two hours of period banter festooned with fantastic set pieces, costumery, and computer animated ships, it had run wild with director Shekhar Kapur's sci-fi/fantasy ambition.

What if Queen Elizabeth, wearing her armor, had for the last twenty minutes of the movie transformed into a giant flying robot who could fly, and shoot lasers, and ride on the backs of genetically mutated Tyrannosaurus-rexes, and had annihilated Philip's armada with heat-seaking missiles and other technology impossible even today, let alone in 1588.

Why, that would be a truly original cinematic acheivement, something heretofore unseen in any film. It would have taken every audience-member and critic by surprise, and would have become not only the most absurdly ridiculous but also probably the most talked-about film in decades.

But, alas, instead of breaking phantasmagorical boundaries, "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" rides poorly on the coattails of its predecessor, and remains unoriginally grandiose, beautiful, and haughty. Oh yeah, and Clive Owen plays Jack Sparrow for some reason. And later, a horse swims underwater in slow motion for about a half hour. Also, there are midgets.

The film wants us to question the necessity of Elizabethan values and opulence, but ends up forcing us to ask the same question of this sequel itself: "Now, was that really necessary?"

Rendition

For this review you will need:

1. A photo of Meryl Streep (scowling, but not actually doing anything.)
2. A thumb tack.

Now go get that. Go on, I'll wait.

Set the photo of the Oscar-winning actress in front of you in a manner that fully brings to your attention how she isn't moving at all. Now take the thumb tack in your favored hand and, while staring into Meryl Streep's lifeless gaze, stab it repeatedly into your other hand.

Wait -- why did I just do that? It's because you don't care enough about the US having secret camps in the Middle East where they torture prisoners. I saved you 11 dollars and a walk.

Apparently the only way Hollywood can produce a movie about Homeland Security is to have Meryl Streep scowl and say lines like, "polygraphs don't mean diddly." She's the head the US bureau of cover-ups and torture, by the way.

Lured by the important subject matter (and presence of actors like Alan Arkin), a whole bunch of actors who clearly want an Oscar far too much, and have no need for money or box office success (yes this is actually a reason to dislike them), decided to remake Crash. Except, they replaced everything provocative or dramatic with people shouting -- over cordless phones though, so it doesn�t get too dramatic.

Apparently, no one decided to come up with an actual set of character developments during the script-writing process, so essentially it becomes the same characters saying the same lines to each other. No Babel-style soul searching, Amores Perros action or witty Crash banter.

There are multiple scenes where:

• Jake Gyllenhaal is drinking because he has witnessed someone being tortured. However, he is apparently hung over at the beginning of the movie, prior to anything actually happening, so its importance is questionable.
• Alan Arkin is telling Peter Sarsgaard that he's "in over his head."
• Reese Witherspoon is showing us how awful it is to have a husband who disappears.
• This is apparently particularly bad if you have a Middle Eastern mother-in-law looking over our shoulder, a ridiculously needy son who demands you play soccer with him while you talk on the phone, and you are so pregnant you can't even walk. Don't worry: when her water actually breaks (in a ridiculously framed silhouette shot) you'll know the worst is over.

Amongst all this, though, there are several high points. Two, actually. A very nice suicide bomber MacGuffin which, though it rips off Amores Perros, is the best thing in the film. Also, in a hilarious piece of dubbing, a radical Muslim who speaks in exactly the same voice and volume whether he's talking over a loudspeaker or not.

Oh, and JK Simmons plays J Jonah Jameson in this film too, so that's nice if you like Spiderman.

Run Fatboy Run

Run Fatboy Run is an English comedy directed by the boring one from Friends. It positively revels in just how quaint and little England is. Therefore, I will treat it like an Englander, and take immense joy in the fall from grace of my idols.

Firstly, it's not a very good story, or even a modestly good one. In fact to call it mediocre would be an insult to the occasional originality of a mediocre script. If you cannot guess how the film plays out after the first 20 minutes you have either never seen a romantic comedy made in the last twenty years or are unfortunately weighed down by that extra chromosome you have saved away for a rainy day. If I were to rather lazily call it a bunch of sketch show skits joined together by reaction shots of Simon Pegg I would not be inaccurate in any way. In fact, if you were to take any five clips from the Fast Show or Little Britain and play them with shots of Simon Pegg saying stuff like, "I thought that ruining your day would be better than ruining your life" to Thandie Newton, you would pretty much have the film down pat.

This brings up just how remarkably pussy-whipped Simon Pegg's character is through this entire film. When your character's only motivation to do anything in the entire film is win over Thandie Newton, then there is a problem. I mean, Matt Dillon got more action in 40 seconds than Pegg gets in 90 minutes. His frequent mugging for the camera makes you wonder what kind of footage Schwimmer left on the cutting room floor, because you'd think that half the script was directions for people to pull a funny face.

Also the final twenty minutes plays out as though my Dad got to rewrite it. He, by the way, thought that The Break Up shouldn't have people breaking up. So you can rest assured that not only does the little shit, who has proved himself to be an utter twat with the social nous of a blind hermit during mating season, manages to win his family back, but that this is (warning Deus ex Machina approaching) because it turns out that the love-rival, despite everything that has been established in the previous 75-odd minutes, is a bipolar baby seal-killing madman.

In the end though, it's just about exactly as good as it has any right to be, and Dylan Moran will probably make a lot of money from future sidekick roles. Also I like watching ginger people in pain.

Superman Returns

Seeing the recent film Superman Returns on opening day has brought ten important issues to mind.

1. There actually are big-budget film franchises that I've completely forgotten about, which only does justice to John Williams and his rarely heard, truly epic theme song, which in no way whatsoever resembles the theme songs of Star Wars, Jurassic Park, or Indiana Jones. The rest of the music that wasn't gleaned off of Williams's original score is pretty crumby, but that's no surprise considering it was written by the movie's film-editor.

2. People are rather silly. If Superman doesn't die after you empty an entire belt full of 50-cal rounds into his chest, what good is your handgun going to do, even if it's at point-blank range? And furthermore, why can Superman stand there smiling smugly as the bullets bounce off, only to dodge the empty gun that baddies invariably chuck at him? Would that really hurt? Jeez.

3. Homosexual men are funny and should basically be characterized as weird, bowtie-wearing freaks to extreme comedic effect.

4. Lex Luthor isn't the bad guy. Smokers are. The message is clear: smoking is evil, and all of the world's problems are caused by it. Superman blows out Lois Lane's cigarette; Lex Luthor lights up a huge Cuban; a cab-driver's discarded butt nearly causes the destruction of Metropolis; and Lane eventually quits smoking, to prove that she's changed for the better. But don't worry, Marlboro. Bruce Wayne's probably a smoker (just listen to his voice), and he's way cooler anyhow.

5. Superman is better than Jesus because they both saved people, they both died with their arms outstretched into a cross, they both were risen from the dead, but only Superman has laser-eyes. Take that, nancy-Nazareth-man.

6. People REALLY are rather silly. I mean, all Clark Kent does is change clothes, take off his glasses, and quaff his hair a bit into a curl: that's it. People don't even suspect that he's Superman cause as far as they know, Superman is just Superman everywhere all the time, and doesn't even have an alternate identity. And why even bother with maintaining the identity at all, if it will forever limit your clothes-changing to phone boxes?

7. Sir Richard Branson is awesome. Now there's a rich man who knows how to spend his money. Screw computers, world peace, and charity: Branson knows how to get the most from his earnings. He spends billions making civilian space-flight a reality, and then gets a walk-on role on a Superman movie as a pilot on one of the shuttles that he's going to make. What a cool guy.

8. I really, really don't like Lois Lane, or Kate Bosworth for that matter. Take these lines for instance: "Chief, how many 'f's in 'catastrophe'?" If this line was serious, why has her character won a Pulitzer Prize? If it was not, why was it not funny? And this one too: "Oh, I forgot [pause] how warm you are."

9. Superman may be vulnerable only to kryptonite, but his clothes are completely indestructable. I mean, they never get dirty, ever. Even when he flies through fire, under-water, in space, through the wing of an aeroplane. Even when all his powers are gone and he can't fight back against Luthor's cronies, they don't get ruffled at all. And where does he keep them? Under his suit? What does he do with his glasses when he's wearing his Supersuit? If his Supersuit is under his normal suit, where are his SuperRedPlatformBoots? What happens to his suit? Don't people notice a bunch of men's business suits lying around out in front of the newspaper office, or does he get them back when he changes into Clark Kent again? If so, how? Does he get the aforementioned homosexual photographer to pick them up for him? If so, why?

9 1/2. I totally missed something in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. When did Lois Lane and Superman, you know...? How?

10. Metropolis is definitely New York City. There are even multiple maps in the movie that confirm this. What a letdown. I don't even want to know where Springfield or Gotham are anymore. My life seems to have lost its purpose.

Anyhow, when it could have been reinventing an entire franchise to give all demographics, from supergeeks to casual fans, everything they have ever wanted, Superman Returns chose not to be Batman Begins, and instead just recycled the same old crap with a glossy, sorta-newish-but-still-not-as-good face.

The Forbidden Kingdom

This will be the highest-grossing martial arts film of all time. This is because it's difficult to look at FK and find a reason why people wouldn't want to just give it all their money for the promise of two hours of Jackie-Chan-and-Jet-Li-beating-up special effects. If the current holder of this honor is Rush Hour 2 (a film which was about as much fun as an intervention with a drug addict, and just as clichéd and futilely repetitive) then this is as sure a bet for box-office success as Quentin Tarantino's World of Warcraft/ A-Team Crossover Movie^™.

I mean, let's look at all the boxes FK ticks:

• Jackie Chan- more or less the most iconic living actor of the 20th century, and the adolescent equivalent of Shrek.
• Jet Li- to appeal to both the people who want "real martial arts" as well as to those who like "nu-metal" and therefore associate Jet Li with Linkin Park and Massive Attack in a creepy Pavlovian, jumpy-editing kind of way (after Unleashed and every other American film he has put his name to).
• American teenager- who manages to not only come of age but finds his inner strength, becomes a kung fu master and learns the true meaning of friendship along the way, maybe.
• Special Effects!!!!!
• Monkey King. Half the Asians reading this just had a minor stroke because of name recognition just then. Monkey King! Like your mother used to make.
• Pretty Scenery- It's probably New Zealand. That's all you really need to know, right?

So, it has a couple of cool fight scenes, a sweet opening credits sequence which makes you wish you were watching a proper martial arts film, drunken-boxing- and mantis-style, and proves ancient Chinese can be learned in a minute if you have a fully developed Caucasian brain. In short, The Forbidden Kingdom is probably the best American film either Jackie Chan or Jet Li will ever be in, which is kind of like saying it's the least-lethal form of cancer to get. But that's the best one-line quote I am going to give it. Testicular Cancer.

There Will be Blood

There are many ways to judge the quality of an NYU cinema studies recitation. You can judge the vehemence of the students defending their positions on the various topics. There is the value of the materials brought by the TA that day. I, however, find it directly correlated to the amount of time it takes for a freshman to bring up There Will be Blood before the entire recitation group lathers itself up in a sweaty mess of Paul Thomas Anderson love juice.

Now, I'm not saying that TWBB is bad; by no means. It's just really overrated. It's the David Beckham of the cinema world.


Essentially, it's a story about a man named Daniel who is a bit of a crazy antisocial loner and portrays himself as the underdog up against the system, when really he's in truth a megalomaniac millionaire who is a great speaker, actor, and careful manager of his own PR.

So clearly a big stretch for Daniel Day Lewis then...

Let's be clear: this is a pretty simple film which complicates itself with various sound effects and people crying. In fact, lots of crying. So much so that it should have been called There Will Be NO Blood But Lots Of Grown Men Crying. I hear that on the DVD there will be a full extra hour of footage just made of the extra quivers the actors were adding to the end of their words, which had to be edited out in order to keep this movie to its conservative 2 hour and 40 minute running time.

To compensate for the straightforward plot, Anderson inserts a couple of betrayals which can be seen coming like a retarded Elephant crossing the Brooklyn bridge... while banging a drum... and wearing a hat with a propeller on it.

He also insists on disguising the A to B plot in a thick camouflage of grey tint. If this film is to be believed, there were only three proper colors in the early 1900s: grey, yellow and fire, which isn't really a color.

But, despite all this, it does deserve some praise, and maybe the Oscars that it won, too. However, it will only serve to continue the current trend for making ponderous character actor westerns where no one gets shot properly.

Thank you, Ang Lee, you sex-obsessed dick.

25 Random Facts About the Spirit

Well isn't that something. Apparently its possible for Frank Miller, one of the most celebrated comic auteurs of all time, to miss the point completely. What point? Well for starters why people went to see Sin City. It was not because it is in black and white. If this were the case people would have lined the streets for that fucking Penguin film. Actually that's a bad example.

The Spirit by Will Eisner is a comic that deserves better. Or at least it deserves to not be associated with this mess of a film. What should be a story about a man literally willing to give up all he possesses to protect the city he loves becomes a story about Gabriel Macht's chest. Minding how fine a chest it is, this is still a terrible idea. Honestly this is like the Striptease of superhero movies.

The acting is a mixed bag to say the least. You could be lazy and say that people are hamming it up. But that would imply that Samuel L Jackson retains the ability to actually give a straight performance. He seems to be suffering from some sort of acting Alzheimer's where each year he gets further away from being able to play a normal person. Gabriel Macht and Stana Katic seem to have been taught to deliver their lines by the child who played the 5th wise man (we were a big class) in my 2nd form nativity production. Every now and then I expect them to stare off camera and shout "Line?"

Paz Vega is forgivable as Plaster of Paris a role as ridiculous as it sounds, Jamie King is Galadriel on LSD and Scarlett Johannson seemed as though she read femme-fatale in the character description as lobotomised-department store employee.

Now you could say that Eva Mendes redeems the film in some way. However when you contextualise this with he fact that she was willing to get naked and show her nipple for a perfume ad you realise how ridiculous this argument is. Its like saying Jaws 4 is redeemed by having a shark as the villain.

All in all its wonderful that Frank Miller proved how much talent Robert Rodriguez has. Also that someone was willing to finance a film where the cast were alowed to bring their own costumes, in addition to directing their own performances. I'm not saying any of this is good. Just wonderful. Literally.