CulturePulp.

MOVIE REVIEW: 'The Other Boleyn Girl'

From the Leap Day Oregonian ....

"The Other Boleyn Girl" plays like an unofficial prequel to those loopy Cate Blanchett "Elizabeth" movies. It tells the story of Elizabeth's mom Anne Boleyn (Natalie Portman) and Anne's sister Mary (Scarlett Johansson) as they have sexy-tragic misadventures in the court and bedroom of Henry VIII (Eric Bana).

The sisters' father (Mark Rylance) and uncle (David Morrissey, the low-calorie Liam Neeson) are using the girls to try and advance their power and social standing. At their prodding, Anne tries to attract the married king and fails; Mary reluctantly becomes the king's mistress; Anne comes back from France having apparently read "The Rules" and uses Reverse Psychology for Dummies to steal the king from Mary, and....

You know what? Just read the Wikipedia entry on Anne Boleyn. Not only is it more illuminating than "The Other Boleyn Girl," chances are you'd be able to write a more entertaining script from it than the one used by director Justin Chadwick.

"Boleyn" is a mild disaster for several reasons. First, the screenplay (adapted from Philippa Gregory's novel by Peter Morgan) is relentlessly, hilariously expository. No one shows up in the movie without a paragraph of dialogue being spoken that explains who he or she is and how they'll fit into the plot -- i.e., "What could you possibly want with the sole heir to the largest landowner in Europe?"

Even women in labor aren't spared this curse: Mere seconds after enduring a painful stillbirth, the Queen of England turns to her daughter and says, "No brother for you to make this country safe."

These are just two of literally dozens of examples of this.

The all-description storytelling leads to other problems, too -- the worst being that "Boleyn" suffers from the same affliction as "The Golden Compass," where you're told about interesting stuff happening elsewhere in another movie you'd much rather be watching.

Chadwick focuses his camera on all the wrong things -- to the degree that a ridiculous number of key plot points happen offscreen: a hunting accident, Anne's transformative French education, entire courtships and meetings and secret romances, key moments of bonding and betrayal.... It's as if Morgan refused to try writing these scenes for fear he'd get them wrong.

All this leaves the movie so unfocused, you're unsure which Boleyn sister is supposed to be the main character. It also leaves good actors to posture endlessly while portraying Mad-Libs blanks instead of flesh-and-blood humans. And it makes "Boleyn" feel like a Cliff's Notes version of itself.
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D-plus; 115 minutes; rated PG-13 for mature thematic elements, sexual content and some violent images.

'The Other Boleyn Girl' (The Oregonian, Feb. 29, 2008)

CORT AND FATBOY: 'The Signal'

On the Friday, Feb. 22 "Cort and Fatboy" broadcast, we discuss the surprising pleasures of the indie horror flick "The Signal."

Cort and Fatboy (Friday, Feb. 22, 2008) [ iTunes ]

MOVIE REVIEW: 'The Signal'

Movie review in the Feb. 22 Oregonian....

"The Signal" plays with an idea we've seen a lot lately, in everything from Japanese horror (and Japanese-horror remakes) to Stephen King's "Cell": What if a transmission that drove you homicidally insane starting streaming through your radio, television and phone?

Incredibly, the no-budget "Signal" (which made a splash at Sundance last year) finds a new, strange, slightly revolutionary and exceedingly tense way of telling that story.

For starters, the transmission -- which hits everyone in a city called Terminus on New Year's Eve -- doesn't turn people into mindless killing machines. Instead, it amplifies a person's worst trait (jealousy, paranoia, protectiveness, perversion and denial, among others) until their thinking becomes just twisted enough to rationalize murder. It's a relatively subtle, unnerving process to watch, and it's beautifully acted by a cast of Atlanta-based unknowns.

Even stranger, the story is told in three parts -- with three different directors (David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry) offering three very different takes on the material. (The middle section, which plays out inside the tweaked reality of signal victims, is shot and performed as an absurd black comedy.)

The film suffers slightly from diminishing returns -- its first third is by far its scariest and best -- but this is still a bold, deeply artful take on a popular horror idea.
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B; 99 minutes; rated R for strong brutal bloody violence throughout, pervasive language and brief nudity.

'The Signal' (The Oregonian, Feb. 22, 2008)

PIFF: 'The Year My Parents Went on Vacation'

My capsule review from The Oregonian's coverage of the final week of the Portland International Film Festival:

In 1970s Brazil, two political dissidents dump their 12-year-old son Mauro (Michel Joelsas) at his grandfather's apartment in São Paulo, then drive off as fast as they can.

But Mauro's in for some rude surprises. His grandfather just died. His parents are fleeing arrest. And he's about to spend the summer living in his grandfather's empty flat -- raised by a village of devout Jews, activists and soccer fans.

"The Year My Parents Went on Vacation" is a sweet, intelligent little movie that adopts its 12-year-old's hero's point of view: As the world around Mauro erupts in political violence and World Cup fever, he seems almost as worried about Pelé (and peeping) as he is about his family. Through Mauro, co-writer/director Cao Hamburger captures the terror and excitement of the transitions of youth and 1970s Brazil -- no mean feat. And Joelsas does an incredible job carrying a movie on his tiny shoulders.

B-plus; Brazil; 104 minutes (Friday, Feb. 22 at 9:15 p.m., Whitsell; Saturday, Feb. 23 at 5:45 p.m., Whitsell)
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Complete Oregonian PIFF coverage (Oregonlive.com)
31st Portland International Film Festival (official site)

CORT AND FATBOY: 'Jumper,' 'Spiderwick' and 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Shimmering CGI Pants'

On the Friday, Feb. 15 "Cort and Fatboy" broadcast, We discuss:

• The underwhelming "Jumper";
• The surprisingly good "Spiderwick Chronicles";
• And the hasty, MPAA-mandated removal of guns from the new "Indiana Jones" trailer.

Cort and Fatboy (Friday, Feb. 15, 2008)

MOVIE REVIEW: 'The Spiderwick Chronicles'

From the Feb. 15 Oregonian...

It always feels like a minor miracle whenever Hollywood adapts a children's book into a movie and just nails it -- the look, the tone, the characters, the lack of condescension. And "The Spiderwick Chronicles" nails it beautifully.

It probably helped that "Spiderwick" authors Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black acted as executive producers on the film, and worked closely with a top-notch filmmaking team that includes director Mark Waters,  screenwriter John Sayles, cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, Spielberg's editor Michael Kahn, and creature-animation deity Phil Tippett.

This is more or less a dream team -- and together, they do a mostly stunning job telling the story of a broken family (Mary-Louise Parker, Sarah Bolger and Freddie Highmore in dual roles) who slowly realize their rural mansion is under siege by invisible monsters led by a terrifying ogre (Nick Nolte).

"Spiderwick" is fun, smart, well-acted, gorgeous to behold and surprisingly intense toward the end, when the story sort of turns into Helm's Deep for Kids. (It would be nice if the film featured less of James Horner's overbearing score, which wants to do all your feeling for you, but that's quibbling.) The film's myriad magical beasties look like they lumbered out of a storybook, and a couple of them represent some of the finest creature animation I've ever seen. But best of all, Waters and his team remember to make the movie about human beings; like "E.T.," this is a story about dealing with absent fathers that happens to be filled with adventure and outlandish critters.
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B-plus; 97 minutes, rated PG for scary creature action and violence, peril and some thematic elements.

'The Spiderwick Chronicles' (The Oregonian, Feb. 15, 2008)

MOVIE REVIEW: 'Definitely, Maybe'

From the Feb. 15 Oregonian....

In "Definitely, Maybe," a thirtysomething divorcee (Ryan Reynolds) tells his 11-year-old daughter (Abigail Breslin) the story of how he came to marry her mother. It's an excuse for a movie-long flashback, in which Reynolds falls in love with three gorgeous, funny, brilliant and slightly nutty women (Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher and Rachel Weisz) as he works in New York politics and advertising in the 1990s.

He also changes the womens' names to make the story a riddle: Which gorgeous, funny, brilliant and slightly nutty woman ends up being Breslin's mom?

The flashback itself is a romantic comedy that's quite a bit smarter than formula junk like "27 Dresses." Unfortunately, to get to the pleasures of that flashback, you have to carefully ignore two gargantuan idiocies -- and for a lot of people, they're going to be deal-breakers:

1. No sane father would twist his 11-year-old daughter into knots by telling this story to her in this fashion: It's full of booze, cigarettes, infidelity, regret and tons of sex with women who aren't Mom.


2. The first 10 minutes feature Abigail Breslin getting out of a sex-ed class at school and saying the word "penis" to Ryan Reynolds -- loudly and in earshot of assorted passersby -- roughly 500 million times. Oh, the hilarity!

Still, if you can squint past the foolishness of the frame story and that off-putting opening gag, the movie offers real pleasures. Reynolds -- who always strikes me as the belt-sanded, polished version of Jason Lee -- has great chemistry with everyone. And watching his character have to choose between romancing characters played by three of Hollywood's more intelligent, beguiling comediennes is ... well, we all have our burdens to bear.
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B-minus; 111 minutes; rated PG-13 for sexual content, including some frank dialogue, language and smoking; multiple locations.

'Definitely, Maybe' (The Oregonian, Feb. 15, 2008)

PIFF: 'Unrelated'

My capsule review from The Oregonian's coverage of Week 2 of the Portland International Film Festival:

Anna (Kathryn Worth) is completely out of place. This childless, fortysomething wallflower shows up alone at a Siena villa full of vacationing families. She mostly hangs out with her friends' college-aged children and longs to seduce one (Tom Hiddleston). And her cell-phone arguments with her absent husband during her morning runs hint at serious trouble -- at home and within her longing, regretful soul.

"Unrelated" takes on takes on leisurely, Rohmer-esque rhythms as Anna's trip slowly sours. Writer-director Joanna Hogg (a British TV vet) locks her camera down and films every scene in endless, conservative takes in which the overlapping dialogue is less important than the slowly unfolding mood. It's pretty, but the emotional payoff may arrive too late for the film's own good: Frankly, Anna is such a blank for so long, it's hard to work up much interest.

C; Great Britain; 100 minutes (Wednesday, Feb. 20 at 6:15 p.m., Broadway; Thursday, Feb. 21 at 9:15 p.m., Whitsell)

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Complete Oregonian PIFF coverage (Oregonlive.com)
31st Portland International Film Festival (official site)

Chuck Brown, age 47.

Bill Mudron let me play with his new toy, and this is the first thing I thought to draw.

SNEAK PEEK: The next 'Serenity Tale'

The opening panel of the upcoming Serenity Tale "Take My Love" -- words by Mark Bourne, lines by yours truly, colors by Chris Hanel.

The lines are on the page. The story owes a lot to Chuck Jones. And barring disaster, the full-color, four-page comic should be online in the next few weeks.
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Serenity Tales