Reay Jespersen

Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) is an Interpol agent who’s working with Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) on what’s become an extended investigation into a mega-bank dealing in the international weapons trade. The problem is that everyone who gets close to the truth - or is willing to tell it - is showing up conveniently dead. Added to that, both Salinger and Whitman are getting threats of another nature from their respective superiors: either make this case stick, or it has to be dropped once and for all. Neither of them is willing to simply drop the case, but how far will they go to bring justice to the guilty?

Though The International sets the audience loose into the story right off the bat - Salinger and Whitman are actively investigating the bank in order to secure their case - it still has a broad development arc. It doesn’t follow the usual patterns of movie formats, but instead keeps setting up our heroes for success before they’re confronted with a failure roadblock, which takes them on a detour to apparent success before another failure roadblock turns up, etc. Then the filmmakers throw in an extended gunfight that seems oddly juxtaposed with the scenes around it, as though it were tacked on after the fact (as it perhaps was; early screnings determined people wanted more action in it, and what little action was shot later on seems to have been spliced pretty ham-fistedly into the story), which only helps underscore the odd pacing of the movie.
It’s perhaps from this unconventional approach that the climax a) doesn’t feel as climactic as previous scenes had and b) rather fizzles. It ends with what can’t truly be said to be a deus ex machina moment, but feels almost that unsatisfying anyway for it not ending the way it feels it should end. And really, when you have people sitting for two hours for a movie these days, they’re going to want a solid ending. What we’re given instead didn’t feel like an outright cheat, but it did fall pretty flat given the lengthy story and process we’ve seen.

If you’re a big Clive Owen fan, The International’s worth checking out at some point. If you’re a conspiracy or thriller fan, you’d probably do just as well to take a pass. After all, Angels & Demons is just a few months away…

World War Two Germany. The Nazis continue to experiment with human psychic abilities in the attempt to create an army whose collective minds are the true weapon. The Nazis are ultimately defeated, but the experiments are continued, Stateside and around the world in what are known as Divisions. Some of those people with psychic abilities who’ve escaped have had children, even as governments track down and capture or trace as many as possible who are known to have these abilities. And the abilities are myriad: those with telekinetic abilities are known as Movers, while those who can see glimpses of the future are Watchers. Pushers are people who can make you believe anything they tell you, as though you’re remembering it as reality. These abilities are joined by Smiths, Stitches, Bleeders, Sniffers, Shadows… the list goes on.
A drug has been created which should greatly enhance the psychic power of these people. Ongoing experiments prove fatal to those who are forcefully injected. That is, until one woman is injected in the current day setting and survives, then is barely able to escape the Division facility. Those with psychic powers working for Divisions help track down those with psychic abilities, but it will take time to find her, and there’s not much time to lose.

Nick Gant (Chris Evans) was told ten years ago by his Mover father that he was “special” just before his father was killed by Division agents headed by Pusher extraordinare Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou). Nick has been living on his own ever since, trying unsuccessfully to master his Moving skill. Division knows where he’s staying in China, and two of their Sniffers show up looking for the woman who escaped a few days earlier. Just as they leave, Cassie (Dakota Fanning) shows up at his door. She’s a Watcher who’s still honing her own skills, and offers to help both of them become rich. She’s seen where six million dollars is being stored, and with his help, they can get it and split it. Nick is walking away before she even has a chance to explain the plan. She runs to catch up with him but then sees a glimpse of the future: there are people already in the market with them who are going to attack them. A Chinese family, themselves a group with psychic powers, have been tipped off about Nick and Cassie’s future windfall and want a piece of it.
Barely surviving, Nick and Cassie finally connect with the woman who survived the injection and escaped from Division; it turns out to be Kira (Camilla Belle), Nick’s former girlfriend and a (newly drug-enhanced) Pusher. The three of them go on the run, now pursued by Division and the power-hungry Chinese family who not only want what the trio have, but what they’re soon going to get.

Push worked for me better than it may for others, in part because I’m a sucker for psychic powers that are handled well. I’ve actually been working on a similar idea to this for a few years, though clearly I’m not the first one to tap the “government experiments on people who(se children) gain psychic powers” concept. The main problem that I had with the movie was that it was good for the first half and plateaued too much in the second half. Once we’re introduced to the abilities and the characters who have them and the set-up is made - all of which was handled pretty well - it feels like it winds down too slowly, rather than winding up toward the climax.
Added to that was some confusion about what exactly the powers were. Watchers are supposed to be able to see the future, which potentially changes with every choice made. Yet the daughter of the Chinese family, herself a Watcher with more finely-honed abilities than Cassie has, later on sees not only the future but what has just happened in the immediate past, letting her close in on her selected target even when choices aren’t being consciously made for her to pick up on. A Stitch shows up early on to heal Nick’s battered and bruised body, yet shows up later to inflict a great deal of pain upon him, the same sound effect suggesting that she’s perhaps un-doing (or re-doing) that damage back to him.
Early in their partnership, Nick and Cassie approach a friend of Nick’s to ask for his help. He has the psychic ability to turn one physical thing into another (evidently really, not just as a mind trick), but it only stays changed for a limited time before reverting to its actual state. And not that the audience has to be told everything about everything, but it struck me as odd somehow that such an ability was limited. If his altered physical state reverted after a time, why wouldn’t a Pusher’s influence only last a limited time, rather than apparently being long-lasting, if not a permanent fixture in a person’s mind?
Finally, Nick is supposed to be a Mover, but there are hints that he may be more than that. His father tells Nick he’s special, perhaps suggesting that he’s special beyond inheriting his father’s Moving ability. Later on, as they’re re-connecting, Nick playfully asks Kira if she’s Pushing him. She tells him to just Push back. And as the movie approaches its final confrontation, Nick writes out personal instructions for each of his ragtag group which they’re to open and follow at specific times, and then has his memory of writing them wiped out so he can’t be Watched. The way the instructions play out is clockwork perfect. Yet how would he have known precisely when they needed to open and follow their instructions without knowing what events and twists would be happening in the future, a Watcher’s ability?
I understand that there are enough powers at play here that the use and limitations of them can’t be itemized for the audience, or it could get very dull very quickly. But as with any other universe created for a viewer/reader, once the rules are introduced and put into play, they must be adhered to. Changing them out of the blue later on will only serve to confuse people who have been dutifully playing along and think they know what’s what.
That aspect, along with the hints but no follow-through on Nick’s “specialness”, and with the unforunate winding down feel from the half way point, only serves to make Push an alright movie but not nearly as good as it could’ve been, had it revved up what it started off with.
It’s left with enough open-endedness that a sequel could be written for it pretty easily, but unless the writers tie up some fat loose ends regarding the abilities, and ramp up their story to a true climax next time, they’d do as well to not bother putting in the effort.

In short, an alright rental if nothing else on the shelf grabs your attention, but as cool as some of the stuff in it may be, taking a pass on it completely wouldn’t leave you missing a whole lot.

Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) is a father who has retired from a special ops combat life in order to try to get to spend more time with his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). He realized too late that his time in the military kept him away from his family too long. Bryan’s ex-wife (Famke Janssen) has since married to a very well-off man who she and Kim now live with, and encouraged by his former combat buddies, Bryan is striving to connect with Kim in spite of his ex’s jibes.
Bryan signs off on Kim going to Paris despite his reservations about her going abroad, and though things start off well, they quickly turn. Kim sees her travelling companion kidnapped in another part of the palatial apartment where they’re staying, explaining what’s happening to Bryan on the global cell phone Bryan had given her. Kim herself is taken as well, and while recording the ordeal, Bryan has a brief conversation with the kidnapper, explaining that he has a very specific set of skills from a very specific career; that he will find this kidnapper, and he will get his daughter back. “Good luck” the kidnapper mocks before destroying the phone.
Bryan flies into action, uploading the recording to one of his buddies and explaining the situation to his ex-wife and her husband, who gets Bryan on a private jet to Paris.
His friend has pinpointed the group that Bryan is looking for; Armenians who moved into Paris some years before and have since become a criminal force which even local underground groups don’t mess with.
Armed with only his special ops experience, Bryan hits the ground running in Paris. There’s no time to waste. His friend’s research concluded that Bryan has 96 hours before he’ll never see Kim again.

Taken works better than I’d first expected it would’ve. Liam Neeson is one of the least likely actors for making my Top 5 List Of People Who’d Be Awesome Former Commandos (were I to have one), but it’s to his credit that he makes it work, and work well. He doesn’t come across as cocky in everyday life, nor when he’s on the job; he’s just all business. But he’s also not depicted as a superman who can take anything that’s dealt to him and walk away from it unscathed. The man takes his lumps. And it was frankly a refreshing change to see him getting out of breath. Granted, it was only toward the end as the climax was approaching (all the better to draw the audience to his plight and pull for him), but it was nice to see a touch of human limitations in a character with such impressive abilities.

In that vein, a tip of the hat must also be made to writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Besson has written or been connected to a few of the best action films in the last twenty years, including La Femme Nikita (both original film and the television series), Leon (aka The Professional), and The Transporter. He worked with Kamen on a number of projects, and Taken will surely remain one of their better collaborated films.

All in all, a definite must-see for action film fans.

Echo (Eliza Dushku) is a woman who has agreed to go into a covert ops program in order to make up for - or perhaps get out of jail time for - a mysterious something she’d done previously. We don’t know how much she’s told about the program, but what we soon discover is that it involves people having their memories and personalities wiped clean in order to pave the way for later programming. If a client of the program’s company front needs any kind of professional catered to his particular situation, the company can program one of their agents to fit the bill perfectly.

In this series opener, a millionaire’s daughter is kidnapped for randsom. The millionaire approaches the company, needing a negotiator to ensure the transaction goes off problem-free. Echo is called upon, and programmed with the designed personality and history of someone who would be ideal for this kind of job. Echo shows up at the millionaire’s house and immediately takes control of the situation, clearly unaware that she’s anything except who her memories and abilities say she is. It’s only when the millionaire brings her programmed “expertise” into question that things begin to go wrong: Echo has a couple of flashbacks to seeing another woman in pain, being prepped in the Dollhouse’s programming room.
Meanwhile, we find out that there’s a cop who’s determined that the mythical Dollhouse is a real thing and is getting raked over the coals by his superiors for having gone to dangerous and case-threatening extremes in order to prove it. He’s told to back off and agrees to do so, but only before continuing on the investigation as he had regardless.
When Echo and the millionaire show up to make the exchange of money for the young girl, the problems increase: Echo recognizes one of the kidnappers and starts to come unravelled. It turns out that the personality which was tailor-made for her happens to include the personality of one of the childhood victims of the same kidnapper, who it’s revealed is also a pedophile.
As the covert ops team reels from the blow of this faux pas combined with the client almost being killed during the exchange-gone-wrong, Echo and her former cop handler (Harry Lennix) push forward to help resolve the situation as quickly as possible.
When all is dealt with, Echo is wiped clean again and is put to bed with the other mindless/personality-free agents.
At the very end we get a small taste of things to come, however: the company has become aware of a problem with Alpha, who we find in an apparent residence where he has killed the occupants and is watching a college video of the woman Echo once was as he puts a picture of her in an envelope.

As big a splash as the show had every right to make - Joss Whedon has a number of pop and cult TV shows to his credit - there were unfortunately a number of problems with this premiere of Dollhouse. First and foremost is the fact that the main character, played by Dushku, is effectively a non-person. The only personality she has, save the hinted-at troubled woman off the top, is programmed into her. And when she’s not programmed, she’s a hollow being who drifts dream-like around the Dollhouse, along with all the other agents. That the audience can’t connect with the main character of a new show was an odd choice to make.
Secondly, there were a number of minutes near the top of the show which had Echo and some mysterious guy racing around town on motorcycles; apparently part of his birthday celebration, where he and Echo then danced with friends before he confesses he seems to be falling for her. He gives her a small gold heart on a necklace shortly before she leaves the party. The mystery man, for his part, seemed to be understanding, telling a friend of his that the time was up and she had to leave. But does he know who or what she is? We’ve no idea. All we do know is that this seems to a program she’s playing out, as it then gets wiped out and isn’t referred to again.
And finally, while we get to see a glimpse of Alpha - someone who will apparently be a villain (or at least foil) for the company or Echo personally - it felt like too little a hint to go on. That absolutely everything about this person has to be revealed in pending episodes feels an unnecessary amount of detail to have to wait for. Who is he? Why does he seem to have gone rogue from the company? Why is he focused on Echo? Why does he apparently not mind killing people in the pursuit of that focus? A bit more information to go on would’ve gone far in helping build the foundation of this world. Perhaps the company could’ve mentioned his name earlier, or had a brief discussion in passing about Alpha’s mis-programmed obsession with Echo and how he’s still at large or causing problems for them, or hints that he and Echo had a past together which he’s started remembering and which he wants her to remember as well. Something - anything - rather than just a mysterious someone doing a mysterious something for some reason (with respect to a character the audience thus far can’t connect with) would’ve helped.

I’ll catch the next show or two to see where it takes us. But without any must-see moments to be had or character/story arcs, and unless we get some insight and something to care about and tune in to follow in pretty short order, I’ll take a pass on the series.

While having done some movie reviews for both my website and friends who don’t hit theatres as often as I do, I’m by no means a movie expert. Having said that, I tend to see more movies than most people I know, which gives me at least a bit more insight into cinematic goings on than some. And I’ve got to say, when the Oscar nominations came in, not only wasn’t anything there that particularly surprised me, but nor did any of it even really interest me. Again, I’m a movie fan; shouldn’t the Oscar nominations have generated a least a little interest for a pretty regular moviegoer?

But look at the contenders for Best Picture. I grant Slumdog Millionaire was very well done - and I think both for its small/underspoken origins and the momentum it’s gained over the last few award shows, it’ll take the Oscar as well; everyone likes a Little [blank] That Could story - but there’s nothing else in the contenders that really interests me. Slow-moving dramas and/or biopics? They’re doubless well done, but seriously… meh.

Maybe it’s just the kid in me (the one that will never grow up), but where’s all the… well… cool stuff? Why wasn’t The Dark Knight nominated? Granted, I thought it was a wee bit long (and I realize I seem to be in the minority on that), but at 166 minutes in total, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button clocks in at 14 minutes longer. And Benjamin Button is, by some recent buzz I’ve heard, a very long-feeling 166 minutes. The Dark Knight didn’t feel nearly as long as it was. How does a movie that well done, which so engrosses you that you literally lose track of time, passed by as a Best Picture nominee?

It would’ve been awesome to see a superhero movie nominated for best picture, but given its overall quality, its being passed by makes me wonder if such a thing ever could happen. Does the Academy have it out for superheroes or flash-bang action/thriller pics, even if they still manage to hold their own cinematically despite what genre they’re pigeonholed in? Does something have to be a drama (or combined genre thereof, as each of the Best Picture nominees are) to get the Academy’s green light? A quick check of the last few years of nominations would seem to suggest so.

So if you make a great movie that’s hugely entertaining and rakes in hundreds of millions across the globe from its popularity (which it’s going to owe in part to quality; word gets around and sinks even big name, super-hyped movies in short order if they aren’t well done), it doesn’t mean a thing and will get passed by for Best Picture if it’s not some type of drama? And it doesn’t stop there. The Best Leading Actor and Best Leading Actress categories are also all for dramas (again, as they have been for at least the last few years). What is it about the drama genre that makes an actor/actress somehow more worthy of a nomination than any other genre? To take a quote from arguably my favourite performance of the year, why so serious?

It’s not all about my take on things, of course - everyone has an opinion; in cases like this, based on their own tastes; and it’s the opinion of the Academy that these five movies are the best of the year - but somehow this time around I expected to be pleasantly surprised by the Best Picture nominations.

Perhaps I’m my own Curious Case. The older I get, the less interested I become in some things that older people are supposed to be into, while “younger” things become more prominent. Though doing it for research to help gear some of my own writing toward it, I’ve been reading more kids’ books in the last few years than ever before. And my wife bought me a Nintendo DS for my birthday last month, as another for instance, which I’ve been playing entirely too much. More to the point, however, I’ve got to say I’m more interested in the MTV Movie Awards these days than in the Oscars. Not only standard categories like Best Picture and Best Leads, but Best Villain? Best Comedic Performance? Best Fight? Best Breakthrough Performance?

I don’t know that I’ll care too much if I miss the Oscars this year, but with its more interesting categories and apparently broader scope of what constitutes “good”, when the MTV Movie Awards are on, pass the popcorn and turn up the volume. And hands off my DS!

Based on the book by Neil Gaiman, Coraline opens as the Jones family - Coraline and her distracted parents - move into a spacious new residence. They have part of the main floor of a huge old house, while aging former stage performers Misses Spink and Forcible stay in the basement with their Scottie dogs, and Mr. Bobinsky lives in the attic along with the mice he’s training for his mouse circus. Bored while her parents finish writing their gardening articles, Coraline starts to explore around the new grounds, meeting a local black cat and the offbeat neighbour boy Wybie, who soon gives Coraline a button-eyed doll which looks oddly like her.

When rain moves in and she’s forced to stay indoors, Coraline starts to investigate inside the house, and finds a small door which has been wallpapered over in the unused study. Her mother unlocks the door to show Coraline the brick wall behind it. Meeting the literal dead end, Coraline thinks nothing more of it and distracts herself elsewhere.

That night, Coraline is woken by small squeaks, and finds a mouse in her room. She chases it through the house and into the study, where it dashes behind the small door in the wall, which Coraline opens to now find a tunnel leading to another small door. Ever the explorer, she crawls along the hallway and through the other door to find she’s back in the same house. Only, it isn’t quite the same house. Things are different here, from minor changes to vast ones, including finding her mother at work cooking in the kitchen; something her mother never does. When her mother turns around, however, we see the buttons that she has for eyes. This isn’t her mother, we’re told. This is her other mother. And her father - in this world a cheerful pianist - has buttons for eyes, as well. Yet in spite of the creepiness all around her, Coraline still finds this home oddly appealing. The parents here pay attention to her and feed her delicious food, doing everything to make her feel welcome; to make her feel wanted. It’s only when she goes exploring in the ever-night outside, however, that we get the first word of warning. It comes from the same black cat she’d seen earlier, who talks in this world, and warns her of dangers, albeit done in an aloof style one may expect from a cat.

Coraline travels back and forth between the worlds a number of times, continuing to find the other world more appealing than her own, until she’s finally approached with the option of staying there permanently. It’s her choice, her other mother tells her. All she has to do is sew two big buttons onto her eyes, and she can stay there and be loved for ever and ever. It’s only when she declines that things turn bad. The increasingly horrifying other mother traps her real world parents, so despite her own escape, Coraline has to return to the other world and confront the other mother to release them, along with three other children who have already fallen into the same trap that had been set for Coraline. The cat tells Coraline that the other mother loves games, though she most certainly won’t play fairly. Coraline knows she has no other choice, and challenges the other mother to a game that will risk everything.

Coraline was filmed for the first time ever in a steroscopic 3D stop-motion animation, though the 3D version will only be shown for a short number of weeks after its release this Friday, the 6th. The process took the film crew a number of years to complete, with director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach) opting to go the old school route of stop-motion - Gaiman’s own preference for this story - rather than using digital animation.

The 3D effect was far from mindblowing, but there are a couple of nice “it’s coming right at us” moments, and there was a definite sense of depth created throughout the film. More impressive to me was the animation itself, and I had to remind myself a few times that nothing we were watching was done on a computer (aside from “painting” some elements). Everything that moved on screen was moved by hand, and photographed, and moved and photographed again, in order to create the age-old illusion of movement. That a movie this well done and highly detailed was completed using that approach is the real feat.

The film is decidedly less dark and more kid-friendly than the book, which Gaiman wrote as a bedtime story for his own children. Even so, parents should - as always - be doing their due dilligence on this material before letting their kids see it. This isn’t a Disney/Pixar release, remember, and its subject matter may end up giving some kids more nightmares than comforting or entertaining them. Eyes sewn over with buttons and the increasingly possessive “other mother” who gradually turns into needle-limbed spider aren’t going to be every kid’s idea of a great time at the movies.

Gaiman’s immagination and execution are excellent in the story, as always, but as much as I enjoy his work and applaud/admire this new fairy tale, it has to be said that this is one of the darker and more unsettling “kids’” movies I can recall. Definitely worth checking out for Gaiman and fantasy fans alike, but parents will definitely want to scout it out before bringing the kids along.