Short Takes: "50/50" and "Habemus Papam".

Let's get one thing out of the way: disliking a movie where someone has cancer isn't the same as supporting cancer (whatever that would entail...), with that said 50/50 isn't really a great or outstanding movie, what it does - and it does it efficiently- is deliver a story about beating the odds without extreme corniness.

Movies about terminal patients can be done beautifully and with just the right amount of feeling (Terms of Endearment for example, which is even mentioned here) or they can be ludicrous weepfests that aim to move you even if you know the creative team could do better.

50/50, despite being based on real events, feels like another Judd Apatow-lite movie in which men-children grow up because life pretty much forces them to. Here it's Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Kyle (Seth Rogen) whose lives turn upside down when the former is diagnosed with stage three cancer. Even if the sick one should be the most "important" character in the film, most of the attention is divided into how Kyle deals with the disease. He uses it to his advantage and convinces women to have sex with him because he's sad. Perhaps this film would've resulted a bit more interesting if the casting had been more creative. Aren't you sick of Rogen always playing the adorable man-child who learns his lesson in the end? Aren't you tired of Gordon-Levitt always playing the sensitive young man who gets his ass kicked by life? To continue its lazy, stereotypical casting the movie has Bryce Dallas Howard play Adam's bitchy, control freak girlfriend and Anna Kendrick as his cool-but-way-too-eager shrink. The only one who dazzles in the cast is Anjelica Huston who could give Shirley MacLaine a run for her money in the "imposing mamas with sick children" department. She makes all of her scenes thrive with the kind of life nothing else in the movie has. 

All the imagery, rituals and traditions of Catholicism should result fascinating even to non-believers (or people of different faiths) which is why Nanni Moretti's Habemus Papam hooks you from its opening scene. We see a group of cardinals walking towards a room where they will vote for who is to become the next Pope. As the old men in red cassocks go towards their room, reporters shout at them trying to get an interview. This moment, perhaps because of its strange mix of realism and postmodernism, hints at the delicious way in which Fellini dealt with the church. When a Pope is finally elected (after a hilarious scene in which we realize all of them are praying not to be chosen) he has a problem: he doesn't think he's ready to do this job.

Therefore elected Pope, Cardinal Melville (Michel Piccoli) is set to receive help from a psychiatrist (Moretti) until he decides it's better to escape and see what he's missing in the outer world. The movie then becomes a severely existentialist version of Roman Holiday as the old man meets new people, goes to therapy (Margherita Buy plays his chosen shrink) and relives one of his youth dreams improvising Chekhov in a hotel lobby.

Even if the ending feels a bit too facile and Moretti doesn't dig too deep into Melville's motivations or tries to deliver a political or spiritual punch, the film is the perfect mix of clever comedy and melancholic drama, with some scenes that are absolutely haunting (a setpiece accompanied by Mercedes Sosa's "Todo Cambia" results absolutely breathtaking).

Best in show might be Piccoli's performance filled with lovely nuances. His ability to evoke deep nostalgia with nothing but a sigh makes for quite a treat and the way in which he delivers his speeches will break your heart. Moretti might have the last laugh but Piccoli delivers the soul.

Grades: 50/50 **
Habemus Papam ***

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.

Color me unimpressed with both the trailer and poster for The Help. Supposedly this is some sort of Oscar vehicle for the lovely Emma Stone but it simply looks like an average made for TV movie or late 80's drama a la Driving Miss Daisy.

The cast looks terrific (am I the only one who thinks Bryce Dallas Howard is seriously underrated?) but still, meh?

The poster continues the path of serious meh-ness featuring its leading ladies in positions to represent segregation. Emma Stone's cute look is priceless, the rest not so much.

A poster like this could make me go see ANY movie it was advertising. Gotta love the Saul Bass nod, the classy and classic tagline and even if I don't know who anyone in the cast is, I'm excited about this one!

Excited about Blame? How would you help The Help?

Short Takes: "Love and Other Drugs" and "Hereafter".

More than the "Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhall Naked Variety Show", this movie is a sadly overdone ode to complicated love. Sure, Anne and Jake are naked a lot and as good a marketing angle as that might've been, the truth is that they are remarkable not because of their bubble butts and perfect stomachs but because of the nakedness of their performances (corny to say it but true...).

Gyllenhaal plays womanizing Pfizer medical representative Jamie. Hathaway plays Maggie, the cynical, early onset Parkinson's disease, patient he falls for.

They try to make it all about sex but movie conventions have showed us that before soon they'll be entangled in some messy emotional issues.

When this happens the movie gives its lead actors a chance to shine, the rest however is a confused mess that makes it seem as if the editor and the director were on some weird emotion altering pill.

The film alternates between moods in such an uneven way that it's impossible for the filmmakers to say they were doing a cute postmodernist take on the drug experience through editing. The whole thing is jut muddled filmmaking.

It's nice then to see Gyllenhaal stretching his limited chops to explore a more aggressive character, someone unafraid to come off as a total jerk and win our hearts by the end (George Clooney would've played him in the 90's...).

And it obviously comes as no surprise that Anne Hathaway is all sorts of magnificent. The little things she gives Maggie are stunningly detailed without being show-offs. She could've played this woman with pity and gone over the top to deliver her message, however she does quite the opposite and slowly lets Maggie become who she is.

Watching Hathaway go from sexiness to raw pain is the one truly addictive thing about this movie.

Clint Eastwood has got to be one of the most overrated working directors, yet at the same time some of his films are so subtle and misunderstood that he seems to be slightly underrated.

Such is the case with Hereafter, a haunting romantic drama that fails to ignite the tragic passion The Bridges of Madison County did but is still able to steer off the preachy stubbornness of Changeling.

The script (written by Peter Morgan) seems to be getting its line from the Iñárritu school of "connecting random dots to achieve universal catharsis" and as such, we see how the lives of former psychic George (Damon), French tsunami survivor Marie (de France) and British boy Marcus (Frankie McLaren) are united by death and then brought together by the magic of the movies.

Eastwood however directs taking his cue from the school of Clint and turns the film into a meditative examination of life in times of chaos. Hereafter takes its time to make its point but it's never a slow movie. In fact Clint plays with the story so well that for a moment we doubt it's leading to the place where it eventually takes us to.

This makes it a curious experiment and the film often feels as moody as the characters are tragic. Damon gives a superbly restrained performance but the film perhaps belongs to the stunning de France. Her bittersweet portrayal of Marie is infused with a cruel tenderness that gives her such rich layers. Her story is often at risk of becoming the most convoluted and corny, yet she handles it with such class that you really don't care when the movie tries to turn her into a paperback romance heroine.

The ending of Hereafter might turn off some who feel Clint's gone senile, surrendered to love and just teased us for 130 minutes with the promise of turning on his darkness and delivering one of his intense takes on justice.

However those willing to look past the sensationalism the movie deals with, will be rewarded with a heartbreaking tale that tells us to stop worrying about what's to come when all we really have is today.

Love and Other Drugs **

Hereafter ***

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse *1/2

Director: David Slade
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
Bryce Dallas Howard, Anna Kendrick, Michael Welch
Sarah Clarke, Peter Facinelli, Kellan Lutz, Billy Burke
Dakota Fanning, Daniel Cudmore, Cameron Bright

By this point it should be more than obvious that the Twilight movies are definitely not meant for everyone.
The minute you walk into this movie you should know what you're getting yourself into. For those obsessed with the celibate vampirism and nonsensical romance between Bella (Stewart) and emo vampire Edward (Pattinson), no force on Earth would be able to make them see that there is not a single artistic quality to be rescued in this movie.
Unless of course, you choose to think that Taylor Lautner's body has a classical Greek aestheticism to it...
Those on the other side who only see the lackluster filmmaking aspects of the saga will no doubt indulge themselves in a constant trashing of what makes this so inefficient and will indulge in quoting the terrible dialogue, bashing Ms. Stewart's utter lack of soul and laugh out loud at the way Pattinson delivers his lines like a parody of a Victorian hero.
This time around Bella is torn because she can't decide if she wants to marry Edward and be turned into a vampire, if she has sudden feelings for werewolf friend Jacob (Lautner), what to do with the band of rebel vampires coming all the way from Seattle to kill her and what to wear for the upcoming graduation.
Nothing of much importance seems to occur in this chapter and we don't really learn anything new about the characters to justify its existence. It feels too much like a transition especially for the casual viewers.
This feeling of inconsequence is best evoked by the film's initial and final sequences during which Bella and Edward sit in a sunny field while they mope about their love.
That the film begins and concludes in the same way, just reassures us of the fact that everything that occurred in between was merely an excuse for these tow to put some drama into their lives.
Hey, if they're not having sex, at least they can channel their hormones through murder huh?
What can be rescued about this movie is the fact that it buys its message in such an un-selfconscious way that to loathe and attack it would be to do so to a being so into itself that it would never open its eyes to anything else.
Of course this doesn't have any sort of Dostoievskian magnitude and the film is far from being a clever examination of anything other than old fashioned values and the need for abstinence in a world where sex is only bad if other people know you're doing it.

Along Came a Spider (and Hollywood Squashed It).

Sony Pictures did what not even Venom could: kill Spider-Man. In what's been regarded as an insane strategy since it was announced earlier today, the studio has decided to reboot the series for the 2012 release (hmm all those Mayan theories are making more sense huh?) after director Sam Raimi refused to compromise the series' artistic integrity by rushing into a filming without a definite screenplay.

Reboots have come a standard of sorts in Hollywood, but they have been relegated for series that were in serious creative issues or were being left behind by the moving times.
When they hired Daniel Craig to play James Bond and Christopher Nolan to retell Batman from the beginning, they were not playing around. Both moves were highly risky and paid off in the best ways: box office hits and critical darlings.

But what was so wrong about Spider-Man that needed a reboot even before the first film turned a decade old?

Now that there's not much to do about this, the issue that follows is the idea of their intended reboot; according to the official release from the studio,

Peter Parker is going back to high school when the next Spider-Man hits theaters in the summer of 2012. Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced today they are moving forward with a film based on a script by James Vanderbilt that focuses on a teenager grappling with both contemporary human problems and amazing super-human crises.

Don't they mean Smallville? or even worse Twilight?

If my memory serves me right Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) was bitten by the radioactive spider in the first movie, which means that whatever the studio has decided to tell in this new version will technically be set in what happened in about twenty minutes in the original film.
Hmmm perhaps because it didn't matter much?

The wonderful thing about Spider-Man was to see Maguire grow into those red tights. Remember that if it hadn't been for Raimi's genius casting of the atypical Maguire as a superhero we'd still probably be stuck with the likes of Val Kilmer and Billy Zane as comic book icons.
If Maguire hadn't been so perfect as Parker perhaps we wouldn't even have Craig as Bond or Robert Downey Jr. as Iron-Man.

It was this thinking outside the box that refreshed the superhero movie for the decade that was. With this Hollywood move we're reminded that the 2000´s are indeed over and done with.

More on the Spider-Man reboot:
Deadline Hollywood: "Spider-Man 4" Scrapped; Franchise Reboot for 2012 (includes complete statement from the studio)
Chud.com: The Devin's Advocate: Twilight for Spider-Man and Hollywood a wonderful analysis of what become the end of the blockbuster era or the perpetuation of zombiefied film production.
Cinemablend: 15 Reasons Rebooting Spider-Man is A Really Bad Idea all of them are spot on.

What does your Spidey sense tell you about this?

Terminator Salvation **

Director: McG
Cast: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington
Common, Anton Yelchin, Bryce Dallas Howard
Helena Bonham Carter, Jane Alezander

The fourth installment in the "Terminator" series begins in the year 2003 where Dr. Serena Kogan (Bonham Carter in full Burton, necrophylia mode) convinces death rown inmate Marcus Wright (Worthington) to donate his body to science. After this "random" prelude we flash forward to 2018 where Judgment Day has taken place and humans are living in hiding under the threat of Skynet and their terminators.
After a Resistance attack, Marcus Wright wakes up and finds himself with no memory of what happened to him after his death. He decides to find answer at Skynet.
John Connor (Bale) is now a leader of the Resistance planning a massive attack on Skynet enterprises. Little does he know that the company has a plan of its own and are trying to kill his yet-to-be father, the young Kyle Reese (Yelchin) who is unaware of being a target.
Before you can say Arnold Schwarzenegger their stories become intertwined and fans of the "Terminator" franchise will hopefully be thrilled to find out new links in the mythology they follow religiously.
For the rest of the audience the film will seem yet another mindless summer blockbuster and that is obviously its biggest flaw.
The characters' history is quite easy to follow, you just need to know "John Connor must die" and disengage all scientific notion of time travelling to get in the film's universe.
This however doesn't justify the fact that the movie feels mostly like a very long prequel to the upcoming sequels.
The film's very existence is impossible to justify as it doesn't add much to what should feel like a saga. You never really care for the characters because early on the filmmakers reassure us that life is expendable if you have time travel and evil machine corporations.
This leaves them time to fill two hours with explosions, all the kinds of robots they can invent (look it's a Motonator!) and references to the previous movies.
The ensemble is mostly uninterested and uninteresting; Bale loves his time in the spotlight and squeezes even the last tough scream and grunt he can get out of a single line of dialogue (is his character dislikable because of the arrogant incident between the actor and the film's cinematographer? It obviously adds a little something to those watching the film), Alexander is cast as one of those "wise and eccentric post apocalyptic priestesses" sci-fi has reserved for respected actresses, Yelchin lacks presence to feel as if his character is important and the underrated Howard is left as an accesory.
The film overall would be a complete miss if it wasn't for the electrifying Worthington who convinces you there is something meaningful going on, at least through his character's eyes.
He turns Marcus into a battlefield of emotions and after a twist (revealed in one of the trailers...) he finds the humanity nobody else in the film ever achieves.
Even when the plot gives him opportunity after opportunity to revel in grandiose moments deemed to be iconic for the franchise (the whole Jesus Christ metaphor is ridiculous and lacks subtlety...crucifixion motives, the whole resurrection issue, John Connor's initials and their connection in the end...) Worthington keeps it down to Earth and visceral. He is this sequel's salvation.

Because he Cannes, Cannes, Cannes...

Lars von Trier defied expectations, and sparked even more controversy, when his "Antichrist" leading lady, the very lovely, Balenciaga muse, Charlotte Gainsbourg was awarded the Best Actress trophy at the Cannes Film Festival.
Crazy and weird as he might be, very few living directors push actresses to the lengths he takes them to. The stories about how he tortured Bjork in "Dancer in the Dark" are legendary, but she got Best Actress at Cannes too (and was robbed of an Oscar nomination), Nicole Kidman was never better than in "Dogville", and the seriously underrated Bryce Dallas Howard was phenomenal in "Manderlay".
Other winners at the festival included Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon" which was awarded the Palme d'Or and Christoph Waltz as Best Actor for Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds".
Rest of winners at the festival's website.