"American Dreamz"

American Dreamz (2006) 2001pm RATING: 7/10 Produced by: Paul Weitz Written by: Paul Weitz Directed by: Paul Weitz MPAA: Rated PG-13 for brief strong language and some sexual references. Runtime: 107 min. CAST… Martin Tweed: Hugh Grant President Staton: Dennis Quaid Sally Kendoo: Mandy Moore Chief of Staff: Willem Dafoe The First Lady: Marcia Gay Harden Omer: Sam Golzari Martha Kendoo: Jennifer Coolidge William Williams: Chris Klein Paul Weitz directed “American Pie.” If you liked or hated “American Pie,” it’s because of Paul Weitz. His new film is “American Dreamz.” I liked “American Dreamz,” and it’s because of Paul Weitz. Just as “Pie” is a comedy/satire that shoves easy, simple, rude visual and verbal jokes and satirical jabs right in your face, so is “American Dreamz.” The movie is a laugh-out-loud funny satire that probably would have better if it were cut as an “R” movie. But then the teen audience, who may appreciate “Dreamz” the most, and who pays all the actors’ salaries, wouldn’t have been able to see it. In the opening scene we meet Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant playing his version of “American Idol’s” Simon Cowell). He’s the host and judge of America’s top-rated TV show, “American Dreamz,” which is ramping up for a new season of talent competition. There is no attempt to keep us from knowing “American Dreamz” is actually the top-rated U.S. TV talent show, “American Idol.” Tweed is so self-absorbed that he barely looks up from his latest ratings sheet as his beautiful girlfriend breaks up with him in his Hollywood home. Grant plays Tweed to perfection, in a role he could have very easily overplayed. Over at the White House, Dennis Quaid is newly re-elected President Staton , who is obviously George W. Bush. (Quaid is excellent. He nails Bush’s look and mannerisms.) Willem Dafoe is Staton’s Chief of Staff (Dafoe is Dick Cheney -- I laughed out when I saw Dafoe’s Cheney makeup), and Marcia Gay Harden plays the First Lady, looking adorable as a Laura Bush clone. Dafoe tells the president it’s time to greet the public after winning his second term as president. The president decides he wants to read a newspaper instead -- something he’d never done before as president. He reads one paper, then another, and soon he spends all day in his pajamas, holed up in his bedroom reading a library’s worth of books, to the dismay of Dafoe and Harden. Dafoe finally convinces the President to come out of hiding, which culminates in Quaid being a guest judge on the “American Dreamz” season finale. Meanwhile, in rural Ohio, the ruthless Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore in a surprisingly good performance) and her mom, Martha (Jennifer Coolidge), are strategizing so Sally can compete on “American Dreamz.” Sally dumps her handsome, adoring boyfriend (Chris Klein) because he’s getting in the way. She gets an agent (Seth Myers from Saturday Night Live), and is chosen to be on the show. Another thing you must have in a Paul Weitz-in-you-face bombastic political satire is at least one Middle-Eastern terrorist. So Weitz gives us Omer, a failed terrorist exiled from a hidden training camp near the Afghan border. After a day of tough terrorist training, Omer loves dancing and singing along with show tunes in his tent after everyone else is asleep. Omer is booted from camp and lands in Orange County to live with his California cousins. Of course, Omer ends up as a contestant on “American Dreamz.” The film’s climax comes during the live airing of the “American Dreamz” season TV finale, with a Hasidic Jew, an Arab, and a blonde beauty as the three finalists, with the President of the United States and a Simon Cowell-like guy deciding who should win. The ending is ridiculous – and funny. Are we laughing at a TV show, a movie, or ourselves? “American Dreamz” either hits home runs or strikes out. There is no middle ground. The satire is served up on a platter. You either love the jokes or you cringe at their simple-minded delivery. I was lucky to see the movie in a public theater that was over half full. At the end, I heard something you don’t hear at many movies: applause. As bad as the strikeouts were, the home runs were better, and people walked out laughing. Including me. -2001pm -30-

"V for Vendetta"

V For Vendetta (2006) 2001pm RATING: 8/10 Directed by: James McTeigue Writen by: Andy Wachowski (screenplay) & Larry Wachowski (screenplay) CAST... Natalie Portman: Evey Hugo Weaving: V Stephen Rea: Finch Stephen Fry: Deitrich John Hurt: Adam Sutler Tim Pigott-Smith: Creedy MPAA: Rated R for strong violence and some language. Runtime: 132 min. A beautiful, petite, smart brunette named Evey (Natalie Portman) walks down a dark alleyway late at night and is assaulted by thugs who want more than money. The mace spray she pulls out of her purse is useless. Evey is thrown to the pavement, unconscious. Suddenly, a mysterious masked man appears out of nowhere and kicks the bad guys’ butts six ways from Sunday. Between body armor and martial arts mastery and accurately thrown knives, the man is indestructible. When Evey finally wakes up, she is lying in a bed in the secret lair of the masked man. Are we watching another typical comic book hero movie? No way. It’s November fourth in England in the year 2020. A civil war in America has spread overseas, but the British government has stopped the war in England by establishing a totalitarian regime. The evil dictator Adam Sutler (John Hurt) is running the country. Innocent citizens have been killed in prison camps where biological warfare experiments are conducted. The only people allowed out after curfew are government security enforcers. The TV station is state-run: the only “news” available on TV is written and produced by the government. Television is the only time the dictator Sutler is ever seen. There’s a popular variety show hosted by a man named Deitrich (Stephen Fry in a wonderful supporting performance), but that too is censored by the government. It’s hell on Earth for Englanders. The masked man who rescues Evey calls himself “V,” for reasons we learn during one the film’s most poignant scenes. He is played by Hugo Weaving in a difficult role, because we never see him talk through his mask. We only get to hear his voice, and watch him use body language to convey his emotions. (We learn V’s mask is fashioned after the image of Guy Fawkes, a religious fanatic who unsuccessfully tried to burn down the Houses of Parliament on November fifth, 1605. V has dedicated his life to emulating Fawkes.) Evey bonds with V quickly in the secret hideout. He feeds her fried eggs on pieces of toast and butter – the first real butter she’s had since childhood. Evey is stuck in V’s hidden lair, unable to show her face in public again since she faces certain death if recognized. When the clock strikes midnight to signal the arrival of November fifth, V also strikes. Furiously. He goes on a rampage, violently killing government officials and blowing up government property, resurrecting -- and expanding on -- the original mission of Guy Fawkes, who died in his attempt to destroy Parliament. V’s strike against the government sets the dominoes in motion, and, from this point on, nobody is safe: heroes’ lives are in danger from government retribution, and villains are no match for V. “V for Vendetta” is first and foremost a visual film, with its dark rooms, alleyways and shadows. (It’s based on a 1982 graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, who distanced themselves from the film, as they have for other films based on their work.) The film is not as comic-bookish in look or feel as I expected – not like “Batman” or “The Mask,” for example. But it has just enough of a 1984 Apple Macintosh computer commercial feel to it. What we see is not quite the real world, but close enough. V’s past is revealed to us in flashbacks that are not forced. The film churns through heroic plans that both succeed and fail, near-misses, dangerous escapes, and violent acts against people who, if you’re rooting for V, deserve what they get. Throughout the film, V is called, by different government officials, a “terrorist.” The “T Word” is used frequently, and was, I believe, deliberately put in the script to get us to react. Is V really a terrorist, or is he a revolutionary freedom fighter working for the common good of all people? That’s what the Wachowski brothers are asking us to decide. I believe there are good arguments on each side, thanks to the brothers themselves. They haven’t tried to force anything on us. The film leaves plenty of room for us to dislike its hero – a risky strategy by the filmmakers that worked. It is one of the reasons this film rises above so many others in this genre. The films successes also lead to some of its failures. We are bombarded with so many scenes of visual information combined with plot details that, at times, we get lost in the imagery and the details. But I found myself actually enjoying getting lost in what I was watching. Natalie Portman’s performance is the focal point, and she is superb in her portrayal of Evey. We feel everything she feels. We empathize with Hugo Weaving’s V, even as we’re deciding whether or not he’s doing the right thing. The supporting characters are cast perfectly – good or evil, everyone is convincing. “V for Vendetta” brings out all the guns (and knives) and all the butter, and lets us decide which is better. -2001pm -30-

"CLOSER"

Movie: Closer (2004) RATING: 8/10 Directed by: Mike Nichols Written by: Patrick Marber (adapted from a screenplay by Patrick Marber) CAST... Natalie Portman: Alice Jude Law: Dan Julia Roberts: Anna Clive Owen:Larry MPAA: Rated R (for sequences of graphic sexual dialogue, nudity/sexuality and language.) Runtime: 104 min Natalie Portman can play a 16 year-old or a 26 year-old with her hands tied behind her back. In "Closer," she's a 20-something girl who is the centerpiece of a film that lets us watch four wonderfully flawed characters follow their hearts into places that make us feel a little like voyeurs. Clive Owen, Jude Law and Julia Roberts round out this cast of ordinary people that keep getting caught at the top of some kind of Evil Tree of Romantic Temptation with no way down, and no fire department to rescue them. Now, Portman, Roberts, Law and Owen are four good looking people. You could probably turn off the sound and enjoy the film as eye-candy. But to reach the film's core you have to listen. The dialog between these characters is either so tenderly innocent or sharply cruel that you want to smile warmly or slap one of them for being so stupid. The emotional charge in "Closer" is fueled by passion, temptation, love, cruelty, hate ... and sex. Portman meets Law in the film's opening scenes, and a relationship develops. Roberts and Owens are also paired up as the film opens, as husband and wife. Periodically, "Closer" shifts back and forth in time (never to the point of confusion), but what we see in the beginning is kind of like looking down the lane at bowling pins right before you roll the ball at them. Owen's character, a doctor, is a disaster waiting to happen. Portman is a happening waiting for a disaster. Roberts, a photographer, is more complicated to figure out, but her marriage is in trouble as soon as she meets Law, an author, whom she is photographing for a professional book cover. Law's future is a little harder to predict. Portman's character is reminiscent of Meg Ryan's romantic leads: You like her so much you don't want to see her feelings get hurt. Throughout the film everyone's feelings get hurt; relationships form, they fall apart, and they form again. Owen looks so emotionally trampled in one scene where we see him enter a bar it's almost funny. Almost. But he won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor because it's not funny. It's as real as it gets. Portman won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress because we believe everything she is feeling, too. Roberts' and Law's characters are just as believeable and real, but played out a little more quietly. There's a surprise at the end. A little gift for the audience -- one closeup in an airport scene -- that you have to pay attention to see. It is just one of many scenes that separate "Closer" from the rest of the pack as a film about believeable people, and what those people can do to each other that brings as much love as pain. -2001pm -30-

"INSIDE MAN"

Movie: Inside Man (2006) RATING: 7/10 Directed by: Spike Lee Written by: Russell Gewirtz CAST... Denzel Washington: Detective Keith Frazier Clive Owen: Dalton Russell Jodie Foster: Madeline White Christopher Plummer: Arthur Case Willem Dafoe: Captain John Darius Chiwetel Ejiofor: Detective Bill Mitchell Carlos Andrés Gómez: Steve Kim Director: Stevie MPAA: Rated R (for language and some violent images.) Runtime: 129 min. A medium-tight shot of Clive Owen talking right into the camera launches us into director Spike Lee's "Inside Man," a psychological thriller that is the most mainstream film Lee has ever made. The "Spike Lee film mystique" disappears quickly as we concentrate on what Clive Owen is saying, and why he's saying it. He's talking to us from what looks like a third-world prison cell. The only real information we're given in the opening 15 minutes or so is that there is going to bea robbery at a big Manhattan bank, Clive Owen and three others are involved and there's a lot more than a bank robbery happening here. There's almost a calmness amidst the excitement as the robbery is committed -- even mildly violent scenes are more mild than violent -- as Lee gives us all the camera angles we need to see who's involved and the details of how the crime is committed. The smoke clears and there are now 40-50 hostages as the NYC cops arrive and we meet Denzel Washington, a 2nd-grade detective/hostage negotiator trying to make 1st grade detective, but he's hit a roadblock because he can't account for missing money he's accused of stealing on a prior case. We also meet Willem Dafoe as a police captain who wants to storm the bank and get it all over with, and Christopher Plummer, the bank's elderly founder, who has a secret hidden in the bank that is more important than any valuables the robbers may steal. Plummer's secret is so important that he calls in Jodie Foster, who turns in the finest performance of a person who has no reason for being in a film as you'll ever see. Foster is a problem fixer for those at the highest levels of politics and business in New York and possibly the world -- she even walks past sweaty guys and an in-use men's bathroom to talk to the mayor in a private office -- and the mayor welcomes her presence. The problem is, we don't know who Jodie Foster really is, we never find out, and it doesn't matter anyway because the movie didn't need her in the first place. But at least she turns in a great performance to keep her record of great performances virtually untarnished. Foster's character isn't the only problem with "Inside Man." Without giving away the film's plot twists, Owen and the other three robbers are keeping hostages -- they don't have to hold hostages for for any other reason than the fact that it's in the script. Washington is trying to negotiate with Owen to meet his questionable demands, but they play each other to a draw and we don't get to see any crafty negotiator tricks that we would have love to have seen. We learn what Christopher Plummer's secret is (he did a bad bad thing), and we learn the robbery is a mechanism to right Plummer's past wrongs. Plus, we get a little Albanian language and history lesson along the way. The ending serves up a surprise twist in the plot (not only to wrap up the film, but to satisfy the audience, too), leaving the main characters with what they morally and materially deserve. What saves this film are the performances by Washington, Owen, Foster, and Plummer. (Willem Dafoe plays what amounts to a bit part, but he plays it perfectly, too.) Spike Lee even gives us a few real good laughs -- more humor than you expect out of your usual psycho-thriller, including a scene with a young boy, a video game and Owen, the "bad guy," that results in a good laugh and a stellar commentary on what has become normal and acceptable in our society. For a thriller, "Inside Man" doesn't break into a sprint and leave us gasping for breath at the end. It kind of walks along and provides interesting scenery along the way. But the questions you'll ask yourself walking out are questions that should have been answered during the movie. Overall, "Inside Man" is a nice walk around a familiar neighborhood that won't leave you out of breath. -2001pm -30-