A Mighty Heart

I really haven't been a fan of Angelina Jolie as an actress. Okay, as a mom and humanitarian she seems pretty cool. And she's gorgeous. But as an actress? Well, her turns as action heroes (Tomb Raider, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) left me less than impressed and is a Best Supporting Actress Oscar (Girl, Interrupted) all that difficult to obtain when acting opposite Winona Ryder? That gal makes anyone look like a Dame Judy Dench by comparison. Sooo, I didn't have high hopes for this ambitious project (Angelina went after this one like Madonna after Evita...) Okay, so it was a pleasant surprise that Angelina more than does justice to the film.

Of course this is the Daniel Pearl story from the perspective of Marianne Pearl, and based on her book. Daniel, a journalist with the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped in Pakistan in January, 2002. The film follows his 6 months pregnant wife as she, Pakistani law enforcement and the FBI desperately try to piece together what actually happened to Daniel and to find him. It's a harrowing account of great personal courage in the face of terrible odds and a widow's gift to her son... a true legacy to his father and his belief that the truth is what sets us free.

It's a hard film to watch; even knowing the tragic ending in advance the tension and desperation of the dedicated folks who tried to save Daniel's life is palpable. And Jolie is masterful both in her anger and her grief. Irrfan Khan (The Namesake) is impeccable as the captain in charge of the Pakistani investigation. All in all this is a moving account of a heinous crime, the realities of a world where the rules never seem clear anymore, and continued faith in humanity. Well done.
See the excellent website here, and don't miss the memoriam for the 230 journalists who have lost their lives in the pursuit of truth from 2002-2007.

Death at a Funeral

If you're in the mood for a bit o' fluff... and not easily offended by the darker side of pitch black humor, then Death at a Funeral is a pleasant way to waste an evening. Frank Oz has directed a decidedly British farce with a mostly British cast and the devil's own eye at how to make a completely outlandish situation seem plausible. Well, maybe not all that plausible, but at least I bought in enough to find myself snorting under my horrified breath.

Our story begins with a gathering of the clan for the final send off of a perfectly respectable old gentleman - the grieving widow, the put upon second son left holding the fort whilst his dazzling novelist brother gets all the glory, the old codgers' even older sibling straight from the nursing home et al. There's an additional guest that no one recognizes who turns out to have a dark secret and blackmail on his mind. So to the brew of dysfunctional family fun add some misplaced hallucinogenic substances and things get all kinds of interesting - naked man on the roof interesting.... extra body in the casket interesting.

Oz keeps the whole thing moving at a frenetic pace but the really funny stuff comes from Alan Tudyk (remember Firefly?) who is hilarious as a niece's intended, stoned mindless on the accidental acid cocktail. And Peter Dinklage (remember The Station Agent?) is brilliant as the lover come to get what he's due. And does he get it! There's plenty of innuendo and more potty humor than necessary but it all comes right at the end. See another review here.

Margot at the Wedding

Nicole Kidman really needs to stop making bad movies. No, really. She is a GOOD actress. Think Dead Calm, The Hours, Cold Mountain. Who makes lots of BAD movies. Like Birth, Eyes Wide Shut, Birthday Girl and this piece of crap. Nicole, I implore you. Read the script and Just. Say. No. Or - if you'd like to streamline your life - don't even read the script if it's from, say, Noah Baumbach. For God's sake, he wrote The Life Aquatic!

Margot at the Wedding follows Margot (Kidman) - our resident borderline personality - as she heads off to wreck havoc at the nuptials of her long suffering sister, Pauline (played unhappily by Jennifer Jason Leigh.) Pauline is about to wed a loser named Malcolm (Jack Black, who is also in the habit of Making Bad Films) because she's in the family way. Let's not mention that Margot's dragging around her nearly grown son in a decidedly Oedipal way and cheating on her husband. Add some neighbors that seem out of Deliverance and I think you're getting the picture. Really Bad Movie.

Hollywood got all swoony over Baumbach when he wrote and directed The Squid and the Whale. For the record, I hated that one, too, but I'm not always willing to watch miserable people behave badly for the sake of art. This film was supposed to have something to say about family, I believe, but I must have missed it while I was observing the miserable people behaving badly. I mostly found it incredibly dull. And no matter how luminous her milky skin, Nicole as passive-aggressive psycho bitch is not all that amusing. Worst of all, the trailer seemed to imply that this was supposed to be comedy. Yuck. Click here for the website, if you must.

Lust, Caution

I'll confess that I'm a trifle smitten with Ang Lee. Ever since Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I'm afraid. It started with a simple fascination with his visual style and morphed into adoration with Brokeback Mountain and the amazing gift he seems to have of drawing out and making visual the emotional turmoils of his principals. Lust, Caution couldn't hold a candle to either of those films, but it gave me a nifty little fix nonetheless. Gorgeous visual stylization and raw, emotional depth are abundant. (Some rather visual sex is also abundant and earned the film an NC-17.)

The story is a bit simplistic - your basic college kids get passionate about taking down the bad guys who are collaborating with the occupying other bad guys type of thing. The place is Japanese occupied Shanghai during WWII and the drama department at the local U decides to help the war effort by attempting to infiltrate the household of local head Bad Guy with an eye to off him. Of course the only one to get in is the babyfaced beauty with a crush on the leading man, and then she's asked to use her feminine wiles to ensnare him. It then gets a wee bit fuzzy about who ensnares whom, there is a lot of, um, the stuff that gets the NC17, and a highly predictable ending.

That said, I still ate it up with a spoon. The sets are lavish, the costuming supurb and that unmistakable Ang Lee camera angle/lighting genius is on full display. But even better were the beautiful performances of Tony Leung and Tang Wei as bad guy and beauty respectively. If eyes are the windows to the soul, I could have watched this film without subtitles and understood it perfectly - so nuanced are the glances, so naked and raw. Guess I'm still smitten.
Read another review here.