From the moment you emerge from the vast darkness of the womb, your parents start teaching. “I’m Mommy.” “That’s Daddy.” “Stop crying.” “Don’t ever lie.” That last one is a particular stickler. In the case of one’s growth into an adult, when the inevitable screw-up occurs, it’s usually difficult, but somehow better to just tell the truth. You might get yelled at for screwing up in the first place, but lord help you if you lie about it and get caught later. Then you’ve screwed up twice. The key phrase to this end is, “honesty is the best policy.” But is it? Some people can’t handle the truth, as Jack Nicholson so eloquently put it. If you tell it to them, they refer to it as “brutal honesty.” Is it worth making something up just to make someone feel better? That’s the question asked in The Invention of Lying and it’s a curious one indeed.

Mark Bellison (Ricky Gervais) is a creature who inhabits a world not wholly dissimilar to our own. He works in an office. He has friends. He has enemies. He watches television. The difference between Mark’s world and the one we occupy is that nobody on Mark’s planet has evolved the ability to lie. In fact, they don’t even have words like “truth” or “fallacy” or “real” or “fiction.” People describe things only as they are without a hint of deceit. Believe it or not – though I would never lie to you, dear reader – all this honesty makes for kind of a dry palace, sans fun. It’s reminiscent of that kid in school who raises his hand during the last nanosecond of class and reminds the teacher she forgot to assign homework. People speak their minds. There is no fear of consequences.

Mark is set up on a date with Anna (Jennifer Garner), which almost immediately spells doom. He arrives too early when she was in the middle of something private, frustrating her. Next, she notices he’s fat, short and has a snub nose. How does he know this? She tells him straight up. No need for internal monologue. Voice-over be damned. Apparently when you are told nothing but fact for your entire life, what we know as “brutal truths,” no longer seems like jabs and digs shot straight at the heart. Instead, they are more annoying than anything. Just a day in the life.

When his assistant tells Mark she’s always hated him and he’s about to get fired, there’s perhaps disappointment, but no insult. Mark is a screenwriter for Hollywood films. In his world, screenwriters are the stars, because there are no actors, only people who read the script in front of a stable camera. Scripts are solely based on historical fact. The only stories which exist are about things which have already happened. There is no make-believe. The firing from his job naturally creates financial problems for Mark and when his landlord demands the payment of overdue rent, Mark finds himself in a bind. He doesn’t have enough money in his bank account to cover the full amount. In a spurt of inspiration, he lies. The world’s first. He is given the money needed, because everything said is believed. He now possesses a superpower. Whether he uses it for good or evil depends on his character.

If you lie well enough, you can eventually be like Hef.

When the film was first announced, it was immediately accused of being an inverse Liar, Liar, when in truth, it’s much more than that. The Invention of Lying is certainly a high-concept film, which if starring Jim Carrey would have turned into a wacky good time, but with Gervais at the helm, it’s interested in more than just delivering laughs. It tackles bigger issues at hand. A lot of the film’s humor stem from the unexpected bluntness of the way characters speak to each other. No secrecy is veiled or comment guarded. It’s an odd world indeed, but one devoid of much vibrancy. The strict adherence to truth makes for a bland artistic output and the film goes to show why most people prefer some sort of scripted fare over The History Channel. The film’s big idea covers the advent of religion and is perhaps its biggest argument for the necessity to create some kind of story, as opposed to sticking to complete fact.

Co-directed and co-written by Gervais and Matthew Robinson, the film visually offers little more than any standard romantic comedy and sadly has a third act which is mostly geared toward Mark getting the girl, but their intention for striving higher is what puts the film in a different category. They don’t put complete reliance on the hope that characters speaking “brutal truths” can carry an entire film of funny. Instead, they manage to insert the larger societal conundrums and prove a lot more can be done within a basic framework than most filmmakers are either unwilling or unable to do.

Gervais may still be a long way away from becoming the star in America that he is in Britain, but here he’s crafted another role tailor-made for his persona. Mark isn’t the nicest human being, but not a jerk, either. He’s more of a product of his non-lying environment. Gervais does surprise in a scene full of emotion, displaying a depth to the actor unseen to this point in his career. We shall continue to yearn for purely comedic performances, but this new turn gives Gervais the ability to delve deeper into a role, as opposed to skimming the surface. Jennifer Garner is given perhaps the most befitting role of her career in the film, as beautiful, but slightly dim-witted and superficial Anna. It’s nearly impossible to distinguish between the actress and the character and one wonders if this is more up her alley than her five-year stint on “Alias.”

The Invention of Lying, doesn’t ride high throughout, but given weight to a high-concept without relying on the initial idea to be the sole driving force of the film, makes it one of the more enjoyable movie-going experiences of the year. Hopefully Gervais can continue his ascent to stardom, and will undoubtedly do so if able to stay the course he’s currently on. He overtook the small screen and has Hollywood dominance eventually forthcoming. That’s the truth. Go ahead and run with it.

Ever since The Blair Witch Project (’99) and its lesser-known cousin, The Last Broadcast (’98) introduced the mockumentary “found footage” formula as a horror technique, the style has become almost a staple in the genre – capturing a sense of realism and voyeuristic terror in viewers unfazed by flimsy slasher flicks and creature-features. Able to be shot on a shoe-string budget, these films literally level the playing the field and can make anyone an overnight success, depending on how many people you can scare half to death. Such is now the case with director Oren Peli, who now has willing financiers after the early returns on his debut, Paranormal Activity.

The genre has taken on new life in the past few years as zombie icon George A. Romero caught on with his recent Diary of the Dead (’07), as are the Spanish with [REC] (’07) and its English-language counterpart, Quarantine (’08). Heck, even Hollywood is dipping its toes into the water with J.J. Abrams’ comparatively big-budgeted blockbuster, Cloverfield (’08).

So, Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity may be a copycat of sorts, coming on the heels of the recent parade of mockumentary features and now being released nearly a decade after The Blair Witch Project became a cultural phenomenon. But what it lacks in originality it makes up for in pure unadulterated fear and unrest. Already gaining underground cult status with its midnight showings and slow-burning expansion, the film has all that it takes to become the new gold standard – in this case, lightning may strike twice.

Essentially, Paranormal Activity is a demonic-haunting film centering on a young San Diego couple, Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat (both playing themselves). All that we see is through Micah’s camera, who decides that he’s going to attempt to document “strange occurrences” that the two have been witnessing in the house – more specifically, while they’re sleeping. Micah carries the camera around wherever he goes during the day, but at night, he stations it on a tripod facing the bed, giving us an eerie angle out towards the hallway, which is exposed by the open bedroom door, so eternally creepy and inviting. The fact that the camera angle during these night scenes never changes gives the film a lingering creepiness and a strategical advantage. While most horror films attempt to throw you off and then pounce like a whack-a-mole game, Paranormal Activity tells you exactly where to look and the suspense is unbearably effective.

Appropriately, most of the scares come from this angle of Katie and Micha's creepy bedroom.

For the first couple of nights, we witness a few odd happenings – items being moved from their original location, swinging doors, etc. – before the two are consented by a “psychic” who advises that emotions like fear, paranoia and anxiety are an open invitation for the ‘spirit’. I don’t want to give anything away, but as time progresses, Paranormal Activity proves mightily frightening and unsettling in the best kind of way. It occasionally slips up here and there, but it’s mostly a genuinely horrifying surveillance-style freak-out. It isn’t the best “horror” film I’ve ever seen, that regard is reserved for more artistically qualified and rendered fare, but it could very well be the “scariest” movie I’ve ever seen. If unrest and fearful anticipation were measurables in a film, this one would grade quite nicely.

Perhaps the most ingeniously conceived and fundamentally portrayed aspect of the film is the way that it preys on the vulnerability of its victims, Micah and Katie, and then by extension, the audience later that night. By creating a spiritual haunting that is almost exclusively present after our two leads are slumbering, it’s similar to the way that Alfred Hitchcock made showers a defenseless, exposed area of weakness and a prime spot for a murder and subsequent clean-up. Or more directly, the way that Wes Craven made your nightmares a reality in A Nightmare on Elm Street (’84). So how do you protect yourself when your defenses are down and you are at your most vulnerable?

As I mentioned, the film does slip up a few times when genre conventions are employed into a generally unconventional film. There is an unnecessary backstory involving Katie’s past and possible situational relation to a former haunting victim, plus the ending, which apparently took several different forms, is a bit of a letdown in its predictability.

Nevertheless, with every midnight showing and small-market expansion, the movie is converting waves of curious horror fans into believers. Whatever problems it may have as a film, the packed-house that I saw it with who didn’t emerge until the wee hours of the morning didn’t seem to notice – they were too busy wondering how they were going to get some of that deadly, vulnerable sleep.

Michael Moore is undoubtedly the most polarizing filmmaker in America. There are just as many people who revere and laud both the man and his films as people who hate his guts. That’s no small feat for someone who’s primarily made documentary films. He’s popularized cinema verite so much that they’ve sometimes become blockbusters and any new release of one of his films becomes an event. It would be difficult for anyone to dispute that he’s a gifted filmmaker and a talented entertainer, but his insistence to push his opinions on people causes as much rebellion as it does followers. In Capitalism: A Love Story, he takes on the big and rich corporations that reside in America, which have played the villains in most of his films, but perhaps this time there will be more willing to care.

The top one-percent of America’s population is wealthier than the bottom ninety-five-percent combined. This is a well-distributed fact, which leaves the lower rung of people cash-starved. The fear that one day that less financially solvent group might snap and takeover is warranted and Moore builds it up that throughout the film. The opening credit sequence begins with loads of security camera footage of armed robberies. Masked men (or women) wielding shotguns and pistols, holding up liquor stores, banks and department stores of all shapes and sizes. What would normally be disturbing and unsettling images are juxtaposed with peppy rock music, creating an almost endearing quality. Violence is contained within, but coupled with the sonic overlay one realizes these people are just trying to make it in the country the same way victims of Hurricane Katrina were “looting” bread.

Moore then presents clips of a film about the fall of the Roman Empire, once the strongest in the world, creating likenesses to the current state of America. Moore makes it known he loves this country and wants to redirect its fate. The current struggle of oppression: capitalism. Much like Moore’s first film, 1989’s Roger & Me, he uses his hometown of Flint, Michigan as a stand-in for Anytown, USA, with numerous families being evicted from their homes due to failure to pay their rent. Some may find little sympathy for these people (Chris Rock’s line “I have two jobs, you can’t get one,” may apply here), but there are larger things at work and it stems from the economic system the United States has adopted as their own, allowing the richer to get richer and ensuring the poor stay where they are. One of the victim’s of the evictions says he fully understands why some people feel the need to point a gun in another’s face for money. Times are indeed tough.

Making matters worse, there are large corporations (representing “the rich”) in constant pursuit of keeping others down and profiting from their misery. Moore discovers a story about a widowed mother, whose husband had died of cancer. He worked for Bank of America, who knew about the illness. Out of the “kindness” of their hearts, they took out a life insurance policy on the ill-fated fellow, kindly naming themselves as the beneficiary. They were awarded $1.5 million upon his death. The widow, not a solitary cent. To further ram the point home, the company took out a second policy on their former employee. This one profited them a cool $3.5 million, for a nice $5 million take on the death of one of their workers. Not wanted dead or alive, but dead. However, a sliver of hope remains as CitiGroup sent a private letter to its most wealthy clients instructing them to be very afraid of the lowest common denominator, due to their power to vote. No one vote is more important than the other, and thus an uprising is very much in the cards.

Little known fact: the American flag has ears, but you have to speak into them really loudly.

Moore is a fascinating filmmaker in his ability to weave non-fiction stories into something wholly entertaining, educational and enduring. He seems to know how hard and just when to push the proper buttons, eliciting the exact emotional response he desires from his audience. Moore is invited into the home of another victim of “Dead Peasant” (the actual name for it) Life Insurance. This time, a 26-year-old woman with two children, now grown. The widowed father reads one of his final letters to his wife, which he authored while unable to see her as she laid in her hospital deathbed. Indeed this letter is extremely emotional, but Moore knows not to force another weepie on the audience. He just allows the viewer to be placed firmly in the viewer’s shoes, to appreciate the gravity of the situation.

Many of Moore’s critics lob accusations of his penchant for pointing out problems, but not offering solutions. It’s impossible to pretend this film is any different, but for all the films made to force-feed information to the audience, isn’t it refreshing to be given something to think about and marinate on long since the end credits roll? Typically, the measure of a good film is one which invites discussion or at least creates memories which grab you and hold on for dear life. Capitalism: A Love Story is full of such moments and creates a buffet of food-for-thought from its opening frame to its informational website epilogue. Some want to be fed answers, this film welcomes you to discover them.

Another criticism, which is easy to dispute this time around, is from those who feel Moore is too prevalent and “in-your-face” for them to handle. He’s certainly not the typical leading man, rotund and shaggy-haired, but he genuinely cares about his subjects and his objectives and is never short on creative ways to make a point. This isn’t a film about whining about the countries problems, it’s about labeling them so they can be corrected. All is not doom and gloom. There is plenty of uplift to be had even if there isn’t a fairy-tale ending. After all, this isn’t a tale made in Hollywood, it’s one made in America.

It was almost a year ago when this country voted for change by an astonishing margin. New developments have been hard to come by, but we’re able to rest easy knowing there’s always someone fighting with all his might for the U.S. to progress and not maintain status quo when things can always be improved. However, Michael Moore needs helps. Step one in the crusade is to see Capitalism: A Love Story. For step two, I’ll quote the late John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” The question is, what are you going to do about it?

There are several routes one can take when making a zombie film. The most widely used approach would be the serious take on the genre, such as Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later or Zack Snyder’s remake, Dawn of the Dead. The second approach, and the most fun, would be the comedic approach used in Shaun of the Dead and in Ruben Fleischer’s new zombie killing opus, Zombieland.

Zombieland follows a world overrun with the living undead. Everything we once knew has been destroyed, even the U.S. is no longer has a functioning government. The film opens with one of the most creative title sequences in recent memory. There are multiple slow motion zombie kills accompanied by Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”  After seeing the amazing title sequence, it’s obvious that first time director, Ruben Fleischer comes from a background of music video direction and title sequence design.

It's hard enough to find your car keys in the dark, let alone while being chased by flesh-eating zombies.

The film follows Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a young man who has survived the zombie apocalypse by adhering to his own set of strict rules. His rules include helpful zombie survival skills such as – when shooting a zombie, use the double tap method, once in the chest and once in the head, to make sure they’re dead. He also has a phobia of getting caught with his pants down, so one must always be careful in bathrooms.  Columbus was a college student before the world was turned into a zombie land so he decides to travel back to his hometown. He knows the chances of his family still being alive are slim but he is starved for human interaction. While traveling across the country, he meets zombie-killer extraordinaire, Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson).

The two are complete opposites, Ohio is the shy, nervous kid; Tallahassee is the completely out there, zombie hunter. Even their views on zombies are completely different. While Ohio laments what the human race has come to, Tallahassee only wants to bash them to a pulp. The two travelers soon happen across another pair of survivors, sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). (Are you seeing a pattern with the character names?) The sisters, who initially trick Ohio and Tallahassee, soon realize that they are safer joining forces with the two men.  Wichita and Little Rock are heading to an amusement park in California, which they believe is in a zombie free town. The four survivors head off to the west coast, and on the way encounter many zombie infestations. The film includes several enjoyable zombie killing sequences but all are played for laughs. In the film’s most hilarious – and what will be its most talked about sequence – the crew, while traveling through Hollywood, decide to seek shelter at the home of Hollywood’s top star, Bill Murray. The star’s cameo is a hilarious one and it’s the best portion of the film.

The only thing scarier than a clown, is an undead one.

This being a zombie film, horror fans are probably wondering, “Yeah, but what about the zombies?” Well, in Zombieland the undead are mostly glimpsed while trying to attack the films protagonists. There are a few gruesome close-ups of them devouring flesh, but the film is more focused on delivering laughs than being a classic zombie film. The film does however feature zombies being dispatched with everything from bullets to banjos. It’s obvious the writers, Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, had a great time coming up with all the ingenious ways the film’s zombies meet their demise.

The performances here are uniformly good, and while we only get a little background on each character’s motivations, none of the roles are underwritten. Each actor gets numerous laughs and equal time to shine. Jesse Eisenberg has gone from Adventureland to Zombieland, and he perfectly captures Ohio’s neurotic tendencies and longing for a human relationship, as Ohio and Wichita begin to fall for one another. Even Little Miss Sunshine star, Abigail Breslin gets a lot of laughs, especially when we see the child star wielding a shotgun. Emma Stone is also worthy of mention as the tough, protective older sister to Breslin. Stone continues her rise after catching my attention in 2007’s Superbad.

The film’s best performance is easily given by Woody Harrelson. As Tallahassee, a cowboy hat wearing Zombie killer, he steals every scene he is in. The actor, who hasn’t been in much recently, could be in the position for a career resurgence with Zombieland (trailer), as well as the upcoming Defendor. He doesn’t just play Tallahassee as a one note joke; we also see the reason behind his zombie hatred. I also thoroughly enjoyed Tallahassee’s search for what could be the world’s last box of Twinkies.

Zombieland is sure to be a crowd pleasing film for one reason – it’s an exciting time at the cinema. While the film’s amusement park climax doesn’t quite live up to the buildup it receives, and the plot is pretty thin, Zombieland’s running time is a brief 80 minutes, so it never overstays it welcome. I’m sure this will be a hit with movie goers; the audience I saw it with loved it. If you’re in the mood for some zombie splattering mayhem, go see Zombieland. You might be a pulse-less zombie if you don’t get a kick out of this film.

By “The Film Nest” guest contributor Chase Kahn (see him in the comments section as well).

Young love is the subject of Jane Campion’s Bright Star, the New Zealand auteur’s first feature film since 2003’s In the Cut. After wrapping on the Meg Ryan thriller, the 55 year-old director decided to take four years off to be with her daughter, who inspired her to tackle the 19^th century story of Fanny Brawne and her romance with English poet John Keats, lasting between 1818-1821.

Already with Kathryn Bigelow’s searing war drama The Hurt Locker in theaters and the inevitable and impending praise for Lone Sherfig’s An Education, Campion appears set to fit in nicely into what is shaping up to be a banner year for women directors across the world. Campion is no novice to success, having won the Palme d’Or in 1993 for The Piano (the first and only female to win the coveted prize at Cannes). Now, she revisits the lush confines of the period drama for her gallant, yet unspectacular return to the screen.

To be young -- Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish looking quite posh.

Mrs. Brawne (Kerry Fox) moves her family to the Elm Cottage in Hampstead, England, where living next door is Charles Brown (Paul Schneider) and his co-worker and dear friend John Keats (Ben Whishaw). The eldest of Mrs. Brawne’s three children, Fanny (Abbie Cornish) immediately takes up an interest in John and his struggling work as a poet. When John’s brother Tom falls ill with tuberculosis, it provides the kind of tragic bonding that brings the two young lovers together. Despite the ill consent of his colleague Mr. Brown, John and Fanny develop an unshakeable connection, enhancing Keats’ artistry and Fanny’s appreciation for it, in equal doses.

Bright Star is a rather slight and minimalist kind of film, featuring only three significant characters and taking place almost exclusively in or around the Brawne family’s home or the residence of Mr. Keats. It enhances the aesthetic quality of the film, allowing concerns of genre conventions and banality to fall by the wayside. Campion is such a talented director, working with a first-rate crew, that the film is frequently an overwhelmingly well-polished production. It’s shot, cut and composed in a way that occasionally becomes levitational. With Mark Bradshaw’s gently subtle score and the soft, muted and gorgeous compositions (which are almost bashfully rendered) by Campion and cinematographer Greg Fraiser, the pedigree is never in question; the writing however, is.

Bright Star adheres strictly to the motto, “less is more”, which works great filmmaking-wise, giving it a distinctive touch, but unfortunately extends to Campion’s own screenplay. The relationship between Fanny and John is handled at arms-length and while the actors do their best, there’s never an authentic level of believability to the romance and as a result, it’s a cold, unemotional trip.

You can't read love letters in just any old flower patch.

Abbie Cornish (Stop-Loss) is a refreshing face for a movie of this caliber, bringing the emotions of Fanny Brawne front and center in an admittedly edgeless and underwritten role. But the way Campion captures the young Cornish’s face, frequently in profile, accentuating the actress’ natural features – her up-turned nose and defined brows – it’s hard not to be impressed with the physical work in her performance. Ben Whishaw (Perfume, I’m Not There) is another very interesting young actor who equally impresses with his reserved and remote nature; there are times when the two actors really make something out nothing. However, despite their charms and undeniable talent, the characters themselves, especially John Keats, are written as such infuriatingly distant portraits that by the time the emotional impact is clearly intended to take over, it doesn’t register.

Paul Schneider (The Assassination of Jesse James, Away We Go), however, is delightful as the self-centered, confounded, snarky and seemingly jealous curmudgeon, Charles Brown. Donning a heavy “scaw-ttish” accent, his disdain towards Fanny and John renders him as the villain, but he brings humanity to the role and has a really despondent moment in the closing scenes to bring Mr. Brown full circle. Schneider has proven to be a wonderful character actor over the last five years or so and his performance here will do nothing to harm that notion, but rather, only improve it.

John Keats, as portrayed by Jane Campion, was a man who feared that he would die before accomplishing all that he could as an artist and a poet. It seems ironic, given that Bright Star is a film that never reaches its true potential even when the results can be intermittently brilliant. For all it gets right, it’s too fundamentally distant and cold to resonate the way it was intended to and the tragic nature of its central love story is left untapped.

Fan-boy favorite writer-director Quentin Tarantino, who has made what is arguably one of the greatest films of all-time in Pulp Fiction, reveals his passion project to the world with Inglourious Basterds; a WWII fantasy revenge movie that is several years in the making.  This is a world where a man nicknamed the “Jew Hunter” seeks to instill fear in any Jew (or those aiding them, as the first scene coolly reveals), during the war.  But this is a Tarantino work, so a polarizing opposition has to be evident to present obstacles to the Nazi Reign. That opposition is found in a group of rag-tag hooligans called the “Inglourious Basterds.”

The plot, fairly straight forward in theory, though it gets a bit more convoluted in execution, is about a group of Nazi hunters who seek to assassinate Hitler (not unlike Valkyrie) and his chief men in charge in order to bring an end to the war. Heading up this underground operation, much to Hitler’s consternation (a great performance from Martin Wuttke) is Brad Pitt’s Lt. Aldo Raine, leader of the titular “Basterds.”  Aldo and his band of renegades have made a name for themselves becoming Nazi bulletin-board fodder, with tales of murder by any cruel means necessary hoping to make any Nazi sleep with one eye open in fear at night.  Their success in this endeavor has been enough to cause heighten anxiety for the Fuhrer and his crew.  Truthfully, getting too much deeper into the plot might be fruitless at this juncture but I’ll give a bit more.

If you want to kill him, you too can be a "Basterd."

Diane Kruger makes her mark as Bridget von Hammersmark, a German actress of the highest order, who with her own crew of troops (including a strong Michael Fassbender) is trying to also get to Hitler during a film screening.  That screening is to be held at the cinema of a former escaped Jew (hunted by the aforementioned “Jew Hunter,” Col. Hans Landa), who is the object of desire of the film’s star, a Nazi war-hero who gunned down nearly 300 men from a sniper tower, Private Fredrick Zoller.  Eventually, various teams of Nazi haters and hunters are all individually hatching their own schemes to get at Adolf.  Which team is able to survive and succeed becomes the fun of the film.

Tarantino virtually acknowledges that his characters are participating in a film, as some of the film takes place within a cinema with a packed house watching along on the big screen.  Irony drips.  Several of Quentin’s elements translate this as well.  Eli Roth’s Sgt. Donny Donowitz, “The Jew Bear” that bludgeons Nazi’s to death with his baseball bat, is the man who Aldo claims “watching him work is the closest thing we ever get to seeing a movie in a theater.”  There are graphic close-ups of Nazi’s being scalped, since Aldo “wants his scalps!”  Overall, QT places a great deal of trust in his actors and creates tension in the deception of the story throughout.

The scene-stealer in the film is Christoph Waltz as Landa and make no mistake, while Pitt gets the marquee, it is Waltz’ Landa that is the real star in the film.  He exhibits all sorts of range here, clearly embracing the devilish delight with which he has the opportunity to portray.  His storyline is the one that singularly resonates throughout.  This will undoubtedly garner him a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the Oscars (unless he receives a push in the Best Actor category).

Might I be able to exchange my phone - for an Oscar?

Inglourious Basterds is a slow paced, dialogue heavy film, with spurts of violence mixed in.  This is what has become typical of Tarantino’s works of late as he seems more enamored with the dialogue that his characters regurgitate than telling the story in a timely manner.  It is interspersed with Quentin’s trademark humor, most of it coming in the form awkward silences in situations of trepidation (for all the characters).  While the film is solid and above average, it fails to wow you.  I was entertained but not moved. I was interested but never blown away at any point.

Still, you can’t deny QT as an auteur.  He clearly made the movie that he wanted to make.  It’s deliberate pace and prosaic dialogue allows his actors (primarily Pitt and Waltz) to chew their scenery to the hilt.  The movie itself though doesn’t really result in much. It’s fun but not overly so; it doesn’t have the cool cache of his best films, nor does it have an incredibly layered story.  In the end, you watch rather than deeply experience, and move on.  In that regard, I don’t think Quentin achieved the ultimate result that he was hoping for.  However, all of that being said, Basterds is one of the best movies I have seen so far this year, which feels more of an indictment on the movies that I have seen thus far though, rather than the greatness of this film.

If there is a genre of movie that I would classify as my least favorite, it would have to be romantic comedies. Most romantic comedies are formulaic, unfunny and contrary to their label not all that romantic either. Although every once in a while, a movie will come around to breathe new life into a fizzling genre. Marc Webb’s (500) Days of Summer (I’m still not sure why the 500 in the title is in parenthesis though), is just the shot in the arm that the tired romantic comedy genre needed.

The plot of the movie is – stop me if you’ve heard this one before – boy meets girl and they fall in love. This plot may sound familiar but the execution is far above what most studios are releasing this summer such as The Ugly Truth and The Proposal. The boy in this movie is played by Joseph Gordon–Levitt (The Lookout) and the girl he falls for is the gorgeously cute, Zooey Deschanel (Yes Man). Gordon-Levitt is Tom, an aspiring architect, who after not finding a job in that field, settles for writing greeting cards. Tom is an idealist when it comes to the subject of love (he watched too many sad British pop videos as a boy), we are told through the films ever present voice-over narration.

Tom hasn’t found the girl of his dreams, until one day Summer (Deschanel) gets a job as his boss’s assistant. Tom is instantly infatuated with Summer, as most guys are (we are told she averaged 18 double-takes a day by men on the bus). Tom’s only problem is getting up the courage to talk to her. He spends weeks consulting with his guy friends for advice, although the best advice he gets is from his wise beyond her years younger sister. Tom is having no luck getting beyond initial pleasantries with Summer until it is announced that the whole office is going to a karaoke night. At the karaoke bar Tom and his buddy discuss relationships and love with Summer. She informs Tom that she is happy being single and doesn’t believe in the fairytale called “love.”  After this initial meeting, chemistry develops between the two, and they begin seeing more of each other.

As the two are in a furniture store pretending to be married to each other, Summer lets Tom know that she doesn’t want anything serious and Tom, against his own wishes, says he agrees with her that they are “just friends.” After the two get back from their IKEA trip however, Tom soon finds Summer in his bed. What’s a guy to do? The next morning, after consummating their “relationship” Tom is on his way to work. You see Tom is having the best morning of his life; the scene reflects this as Tom is high-fived by strangers and even engages in a huge dance number, complete with an animated blue bird landing on his shoulder.

The next few days run smoothly for Tom, until one night he gets in a fight at a bar with a guy who is hitting on Summer. Thinking that he was defending her, she is really disgusted by the act and tells Tom she can defend herself. Tom says that he gets a say in their relationship too and she is his girlfriend. The two soon make up and all is well for while until, one night at dinner, Summer suddenly breaks up with him. After that night, Tom is crushed, and his friends tell him to just get over her but Tom says he only wants to get her back.

To be young, in love, and liking vintage records.

(500) Days of Summer starts with a deep voiced narrator telling us that this is not a love story…and it really isn’t, it’s more about two people falling out of love. Another thing the movie does so brilliantly to differentiate itself from so many other films of this type is it starts with the couple breaking up. The story of (500) is told in non sequential order so it starts on day 488 and works backwards, forwards and every up and down in between, similar to Christopher Nolan’s Memento. This idea is not a new one in film but it is the first time I can remember it being applied to this genre.  It certainly works here as we discover how the couple fell for each other and watch their romance blossom and ultimately, dwindle.

The two leads performances by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are amazing, with the better performance here being from Gordon-Levitt.  As Tom, he puts us in his situation, as everyone can identify with his character’s plight of trying to get his dream girl, only to lose her. We hope that he will win her back and everything will be “happily ever after.” But this being a truly fresh takes on the standard boy-girl story, and the narrator warning of its outcome, we know it may not work out in the end.

Deschanel gives a good performance here as well as the free spirit love-cynic Summer, but like other actors of late (Michael Cera), she is fast approaching being typecast in this type of role. The script was written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who also wrote The Pink Panther 2 (?). That blunder aside, here they more than make up for Panther 2, as the script is very funny with great dialogue and a very realistic look at how a “real” relationship is.

The movie was directed by first time director Marc Webb, who up until now has only done music videos. You can tell that the music industry is where he got his start. The film makes great use of its soundtrack (even Deschanel has a song in the film). Webb also has a great visual sense as well; there are a couple standout scenes. One is a scene where Tom goes to a party to try and win back Summer and the screen splits to reveal the reality of the situation mixed with Tom’s expectations of what happens. The other scene is the dance sequence after Tom and Summer’s first night together, it’s a really infectious upbeat sequence that had me smiling along with Tom.

(500) Days of Summer has been out for a while, it was released July 17, but only recently came to any theaters in my area (St.Louis). I’m not sure why Fox has been so  slow in getting this out in more theaters. It’s a great, fresh take on a tired genre and if you get a chance to see this – you need to – and that’s high praise coming from a guy who loathes most chick flicks.

Hollywood has been making movies involving aliens and alien invasions since the 1950s. Of all the movies that deal with the subject of Earth being visited by extraterrestrials, most cinematic alien encounters are of the “destroy all humans” variety. Also in the most of these films, the alien visitors are usually little green men with enormous black eyes and highly superior intelligence.  Both of these ideas about aliens, their looks and intelligence, have become so ingrained in pop culture that it’s hard to imagine any visitors from other planets looking or acting any other way.

Get ready to rethink your concept of how aliens look and act. First-time director Neill Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings) have created one of the most original takes on the standard alien invasion movie.  The film begins with South African news footage from the early 80s, of an alien space craft mysteriously appearing over Johannesburg. The alien spacecraft is enormous; it’s the size of a floating city. Where did the ship come from? Are there any survivors on board?  When the South African government sends a search team up to the ship, they find aliens starving and malnourished. The government soon brings the aliens help.  The aliens are housed in a “temporary” camp within the city dubbed “District 9”.

The movie flashes forward 20 years, and the aliens, nicknamed”prawns” because of their shrimp-like appearance, are still living in District 9. The prawns, unlike other alien creatures we’ve seen in movies, are disgusting, dirty and most are highly lacking even basic intelligence. The humans who share the city with the aliens are fed up with their uninvited guests. District 9 was originally set up for the aliens to get help and as a place for them to stay ’til they were healthy enough to get back home.  We are informed through the movies’ many interview segments, with a range of authorities on the alien creatures, that the aliens lost a vital piece of their ship and can’t get it operational. The experts, who have been studying the prawns also believe that their low intelligence and violent behavior can be attributed to the fact that they are most likely low-level workers, who have been separated from the more intelligent of their species. Over the course of the two decades the aliens have been living in their makeshift  homes, the district becomes a haven for drug dealers, violence, and even interspecies prostitution (you read that right – interspecies prostitution).  As violence between the humans and prawns continues to escalate, it is decided that the aliens need to be moved outside of the city.

Wikus van der Merwe has an eye irritation not even Visine could get rid of.

The man in charge of moving the aliens to their new “home” is the film’s protagonist, Wikus van der Merwe (newcomer Sharlto Copley). Wikus isn’t the smartest guy in the room and has only been put in charge because he married the boss’s daughter. As van der Merwe and his agency (The MNU) begin to move the alien residents out of their homes, the aliens aren’t willing to go without a fight. The MNU, and a private security company hired to help, begin serving eviction notices to the aliens. While serving the evictions, Wikus and his team are also searching the prawns dilapidated shacks for weapons and other contraband. In the District, most of the crime has come from gangs trading with the aliens. Cat food (the alien’s favorite dish and a near drug to them) is being traded by the gangs, in exchange for the aliens advanced weapons (even though the weapons can only be fired by having alien DNA).  Wikus soon comes to the home of the seemingly only smart 7-foot shrimp alien, named Christopher Johnson. Chris and his son are also hiding a secret, and when Wikus happens upon their secret: a shiny tube of black liquid, it blows up in his face – literally. Van der Merwe soon finds himself throwing up violently and also losing his fingernails (in a The Fly-esque scene). These however are not his only problems; his left arm begins to turn into a prawn’s claw. After he is admitted to the hospital and the doctors see his arm, Wikus is taken captive by the MNU. The scientists soon find that his DNA is slowly becoming the alien DNA, thus Wikus has the ability to fire the aliens advanced weaponry. As he is made to shoot the aliens weapons, the doctors soon decide to harvest the nerdy Wikus’s body for further experiments. Not willing to accept his fate of certain death, he escapes from MNU and is soon the most wanted man in South Africa. With nowhere to go and no one to talk to for help, Wikus soon finds himself going to the very people he has been tasked with evicting, the prawns.  While hiding in District 9, Wikus again runs into the computer-savvy alien, Johnson. It turns out that Johnson desperately needs the silver tube of liquid that caused Wikus’ “transformation” for a different purpose, and Wikus agrees to help the alien get it in exchange for a cure for his rapidly worsening condition.

Director Neill Blomkamp has crafted one of the best and most realistic alien invasion stories in all of science fiction. Blomkamp filmed District 9 using a documentary technique similar to last year’s sleeper hit Cloverfield. The first-time director was also shooting with some of the best HD cameras I’ve ever seen (the look of District 9’s HD blew away the very sub-par digital of Mann’s Public Enemies IMO.) The CGI of the prawns (and all of the effects for that matter) are flawless. Most first-time directors have to settle for low budgets and Blomkamp had to as well, but District 9 easily looks like it cost three times its $30 million budget. The acting in the movie by the lead Sharlto Copley is very believable.  I began to feel for his situation and even root for him as he becomes more courageous over the course of the movie. I have a feeling we will be seeing more of Copley in the future as he gives a terrific lead performance in what is essentially a one-man show.

My only slight nitpick with the movie would have to be some plot holes, and its second half falls into a “man on the run” cliché. I would have rather seen District 9 focus more on the documentary-esque filmed movement of the aliens to the new camp, as I found this to be the most entertaining part of the movie.

Overall, District 9 is top shelf entertainment and one of the best releases of the summer. This movie will have other studios thinking twice about the quality of films they have put out. Neill Blomkamp is definitely a director that I know we will be hearing more about in the future. District 9 is a fast-paced sci-fi action film that fans of the genre will love.  It also proves that a film can have both a message and ray guns that turn people into liquid. District 9 is certainly a must see film.

Every once in a while, you’ll find a cynic who proclaims Valentine’s Day is a holiday invented by greeting card companies in order to sell their products an additional time per year. Of course, that person is right. Weddings aren’t necessarily the same thing, but they’re close. The wedding industry is absurdly huge and I have to wonder why it’s so many little girls’ dream to have the perfect wedding. Did advertisers get to them? We have countless bridal magazines and reality shows like “Bridezillas,” either glorifying or deifying the act. We see those bridezillas as crazy, but they’re only into getting what they want, which is what they were programmed to want from a young age. The perfect wedding. It’s supposed to celebrate the love of two people, but it’s more of a corporate sham than Christmas. Weddings cost tons of money, get couples instantly in debt and they’re still not finished with the celebration they think they’re supposed to have. The honeymoon comes next. It’s all in an effort to achieve perfection. After the stress on themselves and they’re pocketbooks, they deserve an opportunity to get away from it all. That’s where the main characters find themselves in A Perfect Getaway.

Cliff (Steve Zahn) and Cydney (Milla Jovovich) are newlyweds. Both of their names start with “C,” isn’t that cute (Even worse, did you read about the couple with the exact same name)? They decide to travel to Hawaii for their honeymoon, more specifically the island of Kauai, to go hiking and a little adventure-seeking. Cliff is a recent film school graduate who’s sold his first script (making him a screenwriter, but not screenplay writer), which is currently in pre-production in Canada. However, another writer has been brought onto the project to do a two-week touch-up, thus negating his need to be on set and freeing him up for his honeymoon. What Cydney does is a bit more of an unknown, but she is the consummate newlywed: chipper at all times, missing Cliff after being away from him for just nine minutes and already having their lives planned out, with two boys and three girls.

C&C (music factory?) take their rented Jeep through the forestation and happen upon another recently wed couple, Kale and Cleo, hitchhiking their way up the mountain. Since vacationing in Hawaii as husband and wife is so new to Cliff and Cydney, Cliff decides to do something else uncharacteristic by stopping for the hitchhiking couple and offering them a ride. Cydney becomes immediately apprehensive to the idea, as does Cliff once he sees the tattooed, muscular Kale. The ride is eventually offered, but Kale, sensing their hesitation, angrily tells Cleo to get out of the Jeep and let them go on alone.

Cliff and Cydney get to where they’re going and set to have their first adventure, hiking up a cliff-side trail. They encounter a watery passage that if not approached properly would lead to their deaths far below. A former black ops officer, Nick, helps them navigate around the slippery surface and the couple attaches himself to him for the rest of the hike. Near the end of the day, the three of them run into a group of girls whose father had ordered them home, as police have reported the brutal slayings of a newlywed couple on another Hawaiian island just the day before. Cliff and Cydney follow Nick to a hideaway where his longtime girlfriend, Gina, resides. Kale and Cleo show up unannounced as well, and Cliff and Cydney become increasingly paranoid about whether the couple they’re hanging out with or the one they blew off is out to kill them next.

Olyphant's shirt says "Carolina Basketball." North Carolina's colors are light blue and white. South Carolina's are burgundy and black and is called "South." I'm unaware of any school called "Carolina."

Steve Zahn as the lead in a tropical thriller may sound a bit odd at the outset, but I assure you, his and every one of the six main roles are cast to perfection. It may take until the end of the film to seem that way and I can’t give you specific details as to why without spoiling it, but trust me, it’s true. I’ve never seen Milla Jovovich actually act like a “girl,” before. It was a new experience, but I liked it. She’s always been relegated to portraying the badass heroine from the Resident Evil franchise, Ultraviolet and The Fifth Element. You’d never see her in a romantic comedy and she doesn’t need to reduce herself to that. She’s great here. The standout performance goes to Timothy Olyphant (or Oly-phantasitc as Kevin Smith refers to him) as Nick, though. It’s a shame the star-making role Hollywood handed to him was in Hitman, as he deserved better and proves so in this. Give him something better, Hollywood!

The film was written and directed by David Twohy (Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick), who is only one person, but I wanted to touch upon his job titles individually. You get a sense that David Twohy the screenwriter had a lot of fun with this script. The majority of the film is conversational, with characters telling stories to another and the viewer becomes enrapt with the soliloquies. This is especially the case with the interaction between Cliff and Nick. Nick is a war hero, or at least that’s what all his stories pertain to, who envisions Cliff writing a film about his life. Nick is constantly pitching ideas at him and they’re able to hold conversations about screenwriting. In a similar way to Scream, the screenwriting discussions had between them echo elements in the film we’re watching before our eyes with self-reflexive ingenuity. These are conventions Twohy plays with that the audience can enjoy.

Although a large portion of his script is talkative, Twohy the director certainly doesn’t forget that his film is set in the thriller genre. He possesses the ability to create tension in minute events and even when the audience feels they’re on top of what’s taking place, trying outguess the filmmaker, a new wrinkle is thrown in. A great sequence combining humor, suspense and great visual and aural design comes in a scene where Cliff and Nick sift through vegetation looking for a goat to take down for dinner. Twohy lets character traits move the action and it comes together masterfully. There is a ten-minute or so sequence toward the end of the film in which the killers are revealed, where Twohy used black-and-white nightvision to convey flashback, which I thought carried on too long, but ended up being necessary for the finale.

A Perfect Getaway may not live up to its prestigious title, but it’s at least a good getaway full of thrills and great characterization. Again, the casting is perfect and you’ll know why when you see it. Another positive is for any man looking to get married, but not quite jazzed on spending more money on the honeymoon, maybe this will help talk your wife out of it.

As anyone in today’s society knows, most everyone wants to be famous. In the past, the only path to becoming famous was either by doing something truly great or notable. In most cases, this meant curing a disease or winning a gold medal. Today, you don’t really have to do anything to see your name in the papers or have your picture on the front of a magazine. Every tabloid magazine you see these days is plastered with the faces of people who have done nothing to deserve their notoriety. All you have to do is either be born into a wealthy family, or have a bunch of kids to see your name in lights. None of which require any actual discernible talent. What is a person to do if they don’t possess the talent to sing or dance? Will they ever become famous?

Writer/Director Nicolas Winding Refn (the Pusher trilogy), explores this idea in his surreal biopic of madman Charles Bronson. For Michael Peterson, who was later renamed Charles Bronson, his path to fame would arrive by becoming the most violent prisoner in Britain (everyone has a dream). Peterson, who was born into a relatively normal family in Luton, England, turned to a life of crime because of the dwindling economy in early 70′s England. He took a sawed off shotgun into a post office and took the place for 26 British pounds. This robbery earned him seven years behind bars.

Who wouldn't want to do time with this guy?

Once inside, Bronson (Tom Hardy) tells us through a voice over which runs the course of the film, that he ended up loving jail. He refers to prison as a hotel room and a place where he could make a name for himself. The way Bronson goes about making a name for himself and sharpening his “skills” however is by fighting anyone and everyone. Fellow inmates or prison guards, all meet the end of his fists (or worse). His wild behavior leads to him being transferred to almost every prison in the country, none of which keep him for long, as he begins to hold guards hostage and is increasingly more violent. All of these acts lead him to eventually being moved to a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. Charles doesn’t much care for being locked in with “loonies” as he describes the other inmates, and hatches a plot to get himself back into a proper prison. His “attempt” to get out leads to him being put in solitary confinement for 26 years!

After causing millions in property damage to the mental hospital, through a fluke in the system he regains his freedom. Once free, he goes back to his parents home and then meets with his Uncle Jack, who runs a brothel of sorts. Bronson begins a relationship with one of his uncles girls, and also meets with a former inmate he did time with. This man, Paul (Matt King), becomes his fight promoter as well, and Peterson begins fighting under the name of Charles Bronson. His freedom however is brief and Charles is soon back in prison for another infraction. We are informed at the end of the film through text on the screen, that Bronson is still in prison to this day. It is astounding that a man who has never killed or raped anyone, but is such a force of violence to others, that he has been in solitary confinement for 30 of the now 34 years he has been in jail.

Charlie looking very innocent while his cell is searched.

Director Nicolas Winding Refn has created a near masterpiece. He uses his camera and soundtrack to create a portrait of a guy who uses his violent alter ego to become notorious. Refn has said that Bronson is his homage to the late Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, and with his use of carefully orchestrated violence set to classical music, it’s hard to not be reminded of “Clockwork.” Refn, who also penned the script with Brock Norman Brock, also allows Bronson to tell his own story. With sequences of Bronson on stage in clown makeup and a tuxedo, he tells his personal account of his life to an unseen theater audience. The only minor problem I had with the movie, is that the story doesn’t really go anywhere, but the fact that the film is about a man who is still in prison to this day might have something to do with that.

The most remarkable aspect of Bronson however, is the lead performance by British actor Tom Hardy. Hardy, as I found out has been in quite a few films I have seen, such as Layer Cake and Guy Ritchie’s gangster flick RockNRolla but never made an impression on me…until now. Hardy is superb as Bronson. It’s a transformation in the vein of DeNiro in Raging Bull. For the role of Bronson, Hardy packed on over 40 lbs. and shaved his head, but the physical aspect of his performance is only second to his wonderful acting here. One minute he is a scary force to be reckoned with and the next, delivering some hilarious dialogue. I couldn’t take my eyes off him whenever he was on screen. It’s a very unpredictable and charismatic performance, one that if the Oscar voters have any guts, will give him at the very least a Best Actor nomination for. He is that good in this.

Refn has put together a great film here, with an amazing lead actor. A film that should be seen but the nature of the material will most likely limit it’s exposure. Finally, the film also raises the question of “what exactly do we do with a guy like Charles Bronson?” His violent nature makes him too dangerous to be let free. But has all the time in prison, most in solitary confinement, irreversibly damaged him even more and led to his violent tendencies only becoming more pronounced?