Five Minutes of Heaven

2009 // UK // Oliver Hirschbiegel // December 24, 2009 // DVD - IFC (2009)

B - Just as Oliver Hirschbiegel's uncommonly penetrating Nazi epic Downfall pivoted on Bruno Ganz' portrayal of Adolf Hitler, so too does his tale of the Irish Troubles' aftermath rests on the shoulders of an actor. However, Five Minutes of Heaven's most riveting performance isn't delivered by its most familiar face, Liam Neeson, whose repentant Loyalist now works in conflict resolution. Leonine and haunted, Neeson suits the material well, but the film's locus is unequivocally James Nesbitt, as the brother of a Catholic man a seventeen-year-old Neeson gunned down. Goaded into confronting his brother's murderer by a company that engineers reconciliations for television, Nesbitt is wholly mesmerizing as a frayed man who is utterly unapologetic about his hatred and his lust for revenge. Hirschbiegel and writer Guy Hibbert never lose sight of the story's essential theme of the futility of blood-for-blood, but they are unafraid of exploring other avenues, such as the insidious nature of indoctrination, the toxic effects of grief on families, and, most damningly, the manner in which the media exploits human tragedy and treats peacemaking as just another bit of niche programming. It's primarily some third act wheel-spinning and narrative goofiness that prevents the film from feeling like an unqualified success.

The Hangover

2009 // USA // Todd Phillips // December 24, 2009 // DVD - Warner Brothers (2009)

B- - Although hardly the Second Coming of raunchy comedies that the hype suggested, The Hangover establishes that the "lost night" high concept can work when executed with sufficiently nasty enthusiasm and held aloft by a cast willing to fritter around in its weirder crannies. Call it Dude, Where's the Groom? Director Phillips and writers John Lucas and Scott Moore at least understand the appeal of their pseudo-detective story conceit. They maintain the focus on delivering unexpected gags right to the end, at which juncture nearly every plot point clicks into place. (Very, dare I say, Shakespearean, that.) Frequently, the laughs the films coaxes are guffaws of sheer disbelief, whether from a teacher swiping kids' field trip money for the casino tables, or a naked Chinese gangster popping out of a car trunk. The cast keeps things afloat, especially Ed Helms in clueless square mode and Zach Galifianakis' unexpectedly effective space cadet shtick. Too often, however, The Hangover errs on the side of gleefully gratuitous slapstick, when it isn't indulging in sexist twaddle. Helms' ludicrously shrewish wife in particular is an offensive bit of caricature that serves as a convenient straw-woman for the film's stale, contemptuous "Let Boys Be Boys" ethos.

Terminator Salvation

2009 // USA // McG // December 18, 2009 // DirecTV On-Demand

C- - Just as Nick Stahl's skittish, fatalistic John Connor fit Rise of the Machines' ferocious rush towards a bleak future, a zealous yet cynical Christian Bale—plagiarizing his Batman growl—suits Terminator Salvation's gritty realization of that future. This, and the admittedly seamless visual effects, is about the only thing that McG's distressingly rote sequel gets right. This outing's central conceit—SkyNet has spawned an experimental half-human, half-machine abomination (a rugged, essentially charmless Sam Worthington)—isn't remotely meaty enough to sustain a feature film. The story is as limp as a noodle, but even as a mindless science-fiction actioner, Salvation fumbles. At about the halfway point, McG trades genuinely frightening early set pieces for dull sensory incoherence. Blessedly, it's not the nerve-frying visual lunacy of a Michael Bay film, but just the undistinguished smash-bang nonsense that has characterized vast swaths of the past two decades' action films. That such mediocrity has befallen that Terminator saga is all the more frustrating given that the film-makers are clearly besotted with the previous films, loading Salvation with references and homages that range from the blatant to the clever. If only fanboy enthusiasm alone were sufficient to conjure a good film.

The Princess and the Frog

Once Upon a Time, In a Place Called "Crescent City"...​

2009 // USA // Ron Clements and John Musker // December 13, 2009 // Theatrical Print (AMC West Olive)

B - It's been five years since Disney Animation Studios has produced a narrative feature that was at least partly hand-drawn, and longer than that since the venerable House of Mouse's roughly annual doses of animated cheer could be regarded as unique cinematic events. (1999's Tarzan being the last triumph by my reckoning.) It's not surprising, then, that The Princess and the Frog is being trumpeted by the studio itself as a kind of overdue return to form. In the wake of forgettable computer-generated mediocrities such a Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons, there is a steely logic in Disney's decision to abandon its anemic Pixar apings and instead pursue films created according to the template of its successful Renaissance features. Indeed, TPatF possesses all the hallmarks of the studio's 1990s films: hand-drawn animation embellished with dazzling visual effects; Broadway-style musical storytelling; a young, appealing protagonist; goofy comic relief characters; and simplistic moral lessons. Perhaps it's the long absence of that Disney Magic(TM)—benign, kid-friendly entertainment executed with stunning visual achievement—that makes that familiarity work so well in The Princess and the Frog. Certainly, there's very little that's unexpected in Ron Clements and John Musker's Jazz Age fairy tale. However, there's also nothing wrong with following a formula when the result is so gorgeous. Just as Pixar has established itself as preeminent purveyor of children's fare that is thematically richer and more downright cinematic than most "adult" features, Disney Animation Studio once made unbearably lovely moving picture books, far lovelier than their often crude stories or questionable politics warranted. Perhaps the highest praise one can offer The Princess in the Frog is that it reignites that latent tradition with enthusiasm and boundless affection for its forebears.

The original Frog Prince fairy tale, as told by the Brothers Grimm, is thin gruel for a feature-length film. (It doesn't even include a kiss!) Accordingly, Clements, Musker, and co-writer Rob Edwards have taken the story's popularly understood premise—a prince is cursed with the form of a frog until he is freed by a princess' kiss—and transformed it into a brisk, voodoo-touched tale of 1920s New Orleans. While Disney has previously shaded their fantastical settings in different ways, TPatF is the closest the studio has ever come to attempting a "modern dress" version of a fairy or folk tale. And, truth be told, it works astonishingly well, partly because the film-makers exhibit such obvious adoration for the city's unique sights, sounds, and tastes, partly because they ground every inch of their story in the New Orleans' unique milieu (even if it is ultimately a Disneyfied version of the city). Far from serving as arbitrary window dressing, Clements and Musker's selection of time and place is woven into the narrative quite adroitly, right down to a cunning little conceit regarding a princess (of sorts) and a midnight deadline.

As a feature explicitly designed to fit into Disney's "Princess film" stream—a cynically retroactive bit of branding if there ever was one—TPatF accordingly boasts a young, beautiful, female protagonist, but she is without a doubt one of the most well-rounded such characters in Disney history. She is also black, a fact that has been difficult to miss given the past year's worth of hubbub about the film, some of it no doubt of the self-congratulatory sort. No matter. Whether Tiana (Anika Noni Rose) originated as a bit of niche marketing or not, she is a wholly appealing character on the screen, treated with the sort of care and warmth that few Disney heroes are afforded. To be sure, the film tiptoes gingerly around matters of race, as much as any fantasy set in early twentieth century American South can. The closest the film gets to stepping directly on that particular hornet's nest is a lawyer's comment to Tiana about "someone of your background." Still, to this white viewer, TPatF threads the race needle quite well, acknowledging racial disparities while maintaining an appropriately storybook tone, and giving black characters prominence without resorting to caricature. The film does sometimes shy away from context a bit too determinedly—there's no hint as to why Tiana and her family live in a shack while her white friend Charlotte (Jennifer Cody) lives in a mansion—but this is an animated children's musical, and perhaps we can only ask so much.

More refreshing than its respectful yet velveteen approach to race is the film's treatment of gender, for here we have the culmination of the self-critique that Disney began and fumbled somewhat in Enchanted. Charlotte, for all that she is presented as a lovable and loyal friend to Tiana, is unmistakably a buffoonish character, and it's therefore notable that her most dominant personality trait is her obsession with living out the dream of a fairy tale princess, especially the part about marrying a prince. Indeed, Charlotte is for all practical purposes a joke at the expense of the very same pig-tailed mini-consumers that Disney itself has nurtured. Whether one finds this cheaply reflexive is a matter of taste, but it's notable that Charlotte, for all her spoiled, dimwitted vanity, is never presented as a bad person. She serves mainly to contrast with Tiana, a young woman defined by her strong work ethic and independence. Tiana's fondest dream is to open an elegant restaurant in the Big Easy; finding a man isn't even on her radar. Remarkably, Clements and Musker present a fairly grounded rebuke to Disney's own ethos of effortless miracles. In a gentle prologue, young Tiana's father (Terrence Howard) explains that wishing for something is all well and good, but you have to apply yourself to achieve what you want. These gestures add up to make TPatF the most enlightened Disney animated feature in decades, perhaps ever. That's faint praise given the studio's conservatism, but it's nonetheless an invigorating thing to see it unfold.

The prince of this tale is Naveen (Bruno Campos), the arrogant, shiftless, but generally good-natured scion of a fictional Mediterranean kingdom. Besotted with women and American jazz, Naveen has been cut off from his parents' fortunes, and is on the prowl for a rich socialite. Naturally, Charlotte, as the only daughter of the fabulously wealthy Big Daddy La Bouff (John Goodman), fits the bill nicely. Unfortunately, Naveen falls into the clutches of a malevolent voodoo priest, Dr. Facilier (an exquisite Keith David), who transforms the prince into a frog and Naveen's venal porter Lawrence (Peter Bartlett) into the prince's double, putting into motion a plan to seize Big Daddy's millions. Things go from bad to worse at a costume gala in the prince's honor, where Naveen, having escaped from Facilier's clutches but still trapped in his amphibious form, runs into Tiana. Mistaking her for a princess and presuming that the famous fairy tale had things right, Naveen coerces a kiss from her. Unfortunately, Tiana discovers that kissing a cursed prince when you aren't a princess only spreads the curse like a virus, and she too finds herself green and web-footed. The pair escape into the bayou and from there the film takes on a familiar shape, as they pick up a couple of comic relief companions and make their way to the voodoo priestess Mama Odie (Jenifer Lewis) in search of a cure.

The character designs are all distinctive and pleasing, especially Tiana herself, who is easily the most appealingly drawn and animated Disney female since Beauty and Beast's Belle. Rose's performance fits the character snugly, lending an authenticity to her sharp personality and slightly restrained emotions that few animated characters can boast. In frog form, Tiana and Naveen are much more simply designed, but the simplification works well, especially for Naveen, who roguish qualities actually seem enhanced by the transformation. The film-makers utilize a much more cartoonish look for Louis (Miachel-Leon Wooley), an alligator with ambitions as a jazz trumpeter, and Ray (Jim Cummings), a Cajun lightning bug, but this is to be expected given that they are the film's designated comic relief. However, in any Disney animated feature the standout character is inevitably the villain, and Dr. Facilier is no exception. The lanky, silken Facilier is not an overtly comic nasty like Aladdin's Jafar, but neither is he so manifestly lethal as, say, Sleeping Beauty's Malificent. With his skull-and-bones-bedecked top hat and handful of tarot cards, he's every inch the Hollywood conception of a vodoun bokor, but it's the little details of his design that stick, such as his white spats, conspicuous tooth gap, or the stray curl of oiled hair. Veteran screen and voice performer David delivers a marvelous turn, and the writers cunningly emphasize the curiously transactional nature of Facilier's black magic.

Strictly as a example of contemporary "traditional" animation, TPatF is stuffed to bursting with wondrous sights. Every inch of the film drips with dazzling design, lovingly rendered landscapes, and sumptuous lighting. It's simply a drop-dead gorgeous film, and if that only counts for so much in cinema, it counts for quite enough when it's done as well as this. Clements and Musker can boast at having delivered the most beautiful work of hand-drawn feature animation since, well, Tarzan, which I suppose means that TPatF does indeed signal a Second Renaissance for the House of Mouse. The musical numbers in particular showcase some of the film's best moments: the dizzying whorls of fireflies in "Gonna Take You There"; the day-glo voodoo nightmare of "Friends on the Other Side"; and, most memorably, an art deco cut-out fantasy in "Almost There". Randy Newman's songs, which appropriately sample jazz, gospel, and zydeco influences, aren't particularly memorable, in that you don't come out of the theater humming them. Yet if there's no obvious "Be Our Guest" or "Hakuna Matata," neither is there a clunker in the bunch, and for a notoriously musical-phobic viewer such as myself, that's saying something.

The Princess and the Frog is, in most ways, a utterly benign and conservative piece of film-making. It hews closely to the conventions of every animated musical fairy tale that has gone before, and in those places where it shyly steps into the twenty-first century, the move has been long overdue. What sets it apart from the junk food that passes for much children's animation is the absence of anything disposable or perfunctory about it. Clements and Musker and the dozens of animators and writers that labored on it have delivered a straight-up beautiful thing within a mode of film-making that has suffered devastating erosion in the past decade. To be sure, TPatF isn't thematically ambitious, but it is plainly a work of deep love, and it wants us to love it too. The film succeeds in this endeavor by mating exquisite visual artistry with the warm, undemanding fuzziness of a fairy tale. That, more than anything, was what characterized Disney Magic(TM), and it's what makes The Princess and the Frog such a delectable comeback.

The Road

Here at the End of All Things

2009 // USA // John Hillcoat // December 3, 2009 // Theatrical Print (Landmark Tivoli Theater)

B - Much of the unexpected power of No Country For Old Men arrives in its final fifteen minutes or so, as an arguably perfect thriller evolves into a profoundly moving rumination on justice, ethics, and, most devastatingly, the role of parents as surrogate gods in a cold, empty world. These themes are front-and-center in The Road, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by No Country author Cormac McCarthy. The film adaptation of The Road veritably howls the despairing thoughts that Sheriff Ed Tom Bell only murmured. I'm reluctant to criticize director John Hillcoat—whose previous film was the spit-and-gristle Aussie Western The Proposition—for the film's bracingly straightforward treatment of its central concern: namely, the deity-mortal corollaries in the parent-child relationship. Bracingly straightforward, after all, is McCarthy's preferred approach in his novel, and Hillcoat's film is nothing if not a remarkably faithful preservation of both the letter and spirit of the source material. Accordingly, what The Road delivers is one of the grimmest, bleakest, most emotionally draining stories in contemporary narrative fiction. It is not, needless to say, a corking good time at the movies. It is, however, a poignant, sharply realized work that starkly tackles moral dilemmas that have troubled humanity for millennia.

The potency of The Road lies within its central visual: a man (Viggo Mortensen) and a boy (Kodi Smith-McPhee), bedraggled and malnourished, trudge through an ashen wasteland pushing a shopping cart that contains their meager possessions. The Man and Boy (they are never given names) are nomads in a lifeless wilderness that was once the United States of America. Ten years ago, there were booming sounds, a flash of light, and fires that burned through the night. The precise nature of this apocalypse doesn't really matter, either to the scattered survivors or to the story that Hillcoat is striving to tell. For a decade, the world has slowly been dying. The sky is perpetually overcast, plant and animal life have nearly vanished, and most of the remaining humans have turned to roaming the highways in armed, cannibalistic gangs. The Boy, who was born shortly after the world changed, has known only this benighted existence. His mother, the Man's wife (Charlize Theron) is gone now, her despair prompting her to choose death in the darkness over rape and murder at the hands of others.

Despite appearances, The Road is not any sort of dystopian action-adventure film. Most of its narrative is occupied with the quiet banalities of the Man and Boy's search for food, and occasionally with their evasion of other survivors. Yet Hillcoat nonetheless maintains a sense of urgency and desperation, calling to mind the tone of a gritty escape picture... except in this case there is nowhere to escape to. There is only the Man's anxious need to keep moving, always south and towards the coast, for no particular reason other than to avoid the risks of remaining in one place for too long. Even in such unremittingly desolate circumstances, the Man believes it is vital to teach his son something like a moral code, to distinguish the Good Guys like themselves from the Bad Guys that wander the wastes with minds full of hunger and murder. The ethical dialog between Man and Boy, and how it ricochets off the people and situations that they encounter, comprises both the film's character development and its out-in-the-open exploration of theme.

The apocalypse that The Road envisions is admittedly contrivance. It sweeps away the accumulated bullshit of civilization by, well, just sweeping it away, and then poses fundamental questions of human morality in the most visceral terms possible. What does it mean to be good? How much do suspicion and cynicism limit our opportunity to help others? How do our words and actions convey our values to the next generation? This frankness to the film's purpose might have been off-putting, especially given that the scenario it presents is one that is utterly without hope. (Give it a moment's consideration and it becomes apparent that humanity will necessarily go extinct as the last morsels of preserved food are scavenged.) Hillcoat, however, discovers the invigoration and sorrowful fascination inherent in a story stripped down to its most elemental components. And narratives don't get more elemental than A Father and Son Try to Survive.

The Road is not really a science-fiction film, if only because the nitty-gritty details of its apocalyptic event are completely ignored. Yet it fulfills one of the essential criteria of speculative visions of the future, in that it uses its setting to explore contemporary mores. It's readily apparent that Hillcoat, absorbing and utilizing the creased cynicism of McCarthy's novel, intends that The Road not really be taken as a story of The Future at all, but as a timeless tale of the struggle against moral darkness and the essential role of the parent-child relationship in that struggle. The not-so-subtle implication is that The Road's nightmare world of blight and brutality is only a slight exaggeration of the world we are dwelling in right now. This notion lurks in the picture, but it never presses itself upon the viewer, partly because the Man and Boy's plight is so immediate, partly because Hillcoat paints such a dire landscape with such believability. It's a world of perpetual, ash-flecked winter, the miserable punchline to civilization. The blasted environs of Mount St. Helens and the Hurricane Katrina-lashed Gulf Coast stand in for this crumbling world, but you'd never know it. It's in the obvious computer-generated shots that the illusion frays.

The Man is the sort of role that Viggo Mortenson excels at, and it's difficult to imagine the film, for all of Hillcoat's capable craftsmanship, functioning even remotely as well without him. Mortenson is able to hold resolve and self-doubt in a character at the same time, and here he puts that skill to great effect. He has the ability to portray paternal devotion with unashamed white-hot purity, without rendering it schmaltzy. When he whispers to another traveler of uncertain intentions, "This boy is my god," we don't doubt him for a second. One can't blame Mortensen for the slightness that clings to the film, its searing emotional content notwithstanding. It's not that Hillcoat's treatment of the story is precisely perfunctory, but that he doesn't enliven its dismal and straightforward parameters with the artistic deftness necessary to lend it a a greater thematic or psychological intricacy. The Road's success thus rests primarily on its precisely drawn premise and the uncluttered and emotionally forthright execution of that premise.

Precious

2009 // USA // Lee Daniels // December 1, 2009 // Theatrical Print (St. Louis Cinemas Moolah Theater)

B- - It's tempting to dismiss Lee Daniels' Precious as a miserablist ordeal that puts its protagonist—the obese, illiterate teenage mother whose name serves as the title—through the proverbial wringer in order to elicit vague guilt and sanctimonious tongue-clucking from its audience. The film leans heavily on the conventions of ghetto melodrama, but Precious is both too slight and too poetic to permit hasty categorization. There's a tinge of knowing fatalism to the film's despair, no doubt derived in part from the real-life experiences woven into Sapphire's original novel. Daniels flits between a dizzying array of social and cultural issues, but Precious retains an unsettled, even impressionistic tone that prevents it from descending into preachiness. The film's formalist flourishes—such as Precious' (Gabourey Sidibe's) gauzy fantasies of fame and fortune, or the unexpected use of gospel and R&B to add a fresh twist to familiar narrative situations—mute the asphalt horror and lend credence to the film's fuzzy, humanistic message. While it's Sidibe that provides the film with its restless, wounded mood, it's hard to deny that, Oscar-bait or not, there's something mesmerizing about sassy comedian Mo'Nique portraying one the most blisteringly vile mothers since Shelley Winters in A Patch of Blue.