Cold Souls

Plotted like a bad fusion of Charlie Kaufman films, such as “Being John Malkovich” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Cold Souls,” from writer and director Sophie Barthes, does little with its intriguing premise.

Just like in “Malkovich,” actor Paul Giamatti literally plays himself, or at least a caricature of himself. And like in “Sunshine,” Giamatti goes through a high-concept surgery with unexpected side effects. Instead of erasing memories, Giamatti removes his soul.

Giamatti’s role in a production of Chekov’s “Uncle Vanya,” is causing him unbearable stress and anxiety. An advertisement in the New Yorker for a high-tech clinic that removes and stores souls sounds like a promising solution.

Apparently, souls are heavy, and having a twisted soul is worse than having no soul at all. At least that’s what Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn) tells Giamatti on his first visit. He doesn’t go into more detail, which is one of the film’s problems.

Dialogue barely begins to scratch the surface. Extracting one’s soul hardly seems worth it, especially when the benefits are brushed over. Of course this is a high-concept comedy, but the film makes the idea unnecessarily hard to buy.

Giamatti loses all emotional and physical feeling and realizes he can’t act without a soul. Not wanting his own burdening soul, he fittingly chooses a Russian poet’s soul. His acting performance improves, but he desperately wants his own soul back. He discovers it was stolen by a soul-trafficking mule (Dina Korzun) and must go to Russia to retrieve it.

The film is more interested in its own ideas of soul trafficking and soul remnants left after an extraction than the true nature of the soul. In his first scene, Dr. Flintstein explains that they still don’t understand much about souls, let alone if they are immortal or not – yet souls are inexplicably physical objects. The film opts for the easier road and skimps on the more weighty philosophical and spiritual implications of removing souls.

Giamatti does provide some good laughs, but isn’t even as lovable as his usual sad-sack characters; he doesn’t punch up the endearing neuroses as much as usual. The film shows more restraint than most comedies.

When Giamatti receives the Russian soul, he thankfully doesn’t start speaking with a thick accent, a device that a lesser film would have used. This film is smart in its own right, but it still doesn’t dig deep enough into its story.

Much like Giamatti’s character’s soul, the film itself is quite cold. Director Sophie Barthes shoots the film so the viewer will feel detached, which makes it especially hard to sit through when the pace is so slow.

“Cold Souls” is funny, but could have been funnier. It’s smart, but could have been smarter. For a film about such a heavy topic, “Souls” comes off as a lightweight.

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Inglorious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino reigns himself in after “Grindhouse” and the “Kill Bill” movies to make a more ordered and even more entertaining World War II picture that audaciously rewrites history as it sees fit.

Brad Pitt is effective as Lt. Aldo Raine, leader of the Inglorious Basterds, an army outfit whose military connection seems fishy at best. The Jewish troupe is an entity of their own, the best of the best at killing Nazis. Pitt is quite matter-of-fact about each Basterd collecting 100 Nazi scalps.

This is a film lover’s film. From flammable nitrate film to the appearance of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, Tarantino tucks away delightful nuggets of film history for cineastes. A central plot point even revolves around a gorgeous cinema owned by a lovely Jewish girl, Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent).

Tarantino once again divides his film into scene/character-centric chapters, this time in a near linear fashion. For carrying the film’s namesake, the Basterds don’t own the screen time. Chapters also revolve around Shosanna’s struggle with a Nazi courter and the assimilation of her cinema, and the deliciously evil, self-centered Nazi Col. Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). The Academy had better take note Waltz’s pompous, highly watchable performance.

Light on action, the film is almost entirely dialog driven. There’s a lot of talking going on. Tarantino has always been good with interesting yet meaningless dialog and he’s gotten a lot better. Not more than half of the film is spoken in English; the German and French exchanges have a flair of exoticism that are perhaps the most intriguing.

The film clocks in at 153 minutes and definitely feels it, though it’s the film’s only major caveat. Tarantino chocked this film full of scenes that crackle with his usual tension and humor, a great story and superb acting. As one of the characters says near the end of the film, Tarantino would be justified in saying “I think this might just be my masterpiece.”

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The Wrestler

Desperate to continue a career as a professional wrestler after his golden years pass him by, Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke) works the amateur circuit. A heart attack forces him to trade in the tights for a normal life as he searches for relationships with stripper friend Cassidy (Marisa Tomei) and estranged daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood).

The picture belongs to Rourke. His performance is sublime, physically and emotionally vulnerable, and painful to watch. Even with the brutal beatings and countless injuries suffered, wrestling has been far kinder to Randy than real life.

You can’t help but root for the guy, which makes his scenes of breathtaking self-destruction hard to swallow. The camera frequently follows Rourke creating a unique and especially personal aesthetic.

Even if wrestling is more of a spectacle than a sport, the pain is as real as it gets. Colliding with barbed wire, staple guns, and shattering glass are typical. Intricate details of the fights and performers talking shop backstage create a legitimate feeling world for the film.

The only false step in the entire film is Wood’s slightly undercooked role, and the fact that her acting prowess pales when next to Rourke. Stephanie has been understandably jaded by years of her father’s absence, but Wood’s performance isn’t much more than one-note callousness. A far more interesting relationship is played between Randy and Cassidy.

Both are aging performers far from their peak. Both have different names for on stage and off. Offstage, Cassidy prefers her real name, Pam. But Randy is Randy “The Ram” everywhere. He shudders to be summoned by birth name “Robin.” He’s only alive when performing; Cassidy performs because it’s a living.

On paper it may seem like a typical underdog story, but I never once felt the pang of cliché. Rourke is dazzling, the style gritty, the story compelling.

This is Darren Aronofsky’s most conventionally done picture yet – the frenetic visual style of earlier works is gone - but it just might be his best. He’s paid his dues; this should have been his shot at best picture and directing. Though the Academy unrighteously snubbed this outstanding film, “The Wrestler” deserves the highest accolades.

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Three Monkeys

Turkish import “Three Monkeys” derives its title from the primate promoted proverb “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” The fourth monkey who advises to “do no evil” is missed, because there are plenty wrongdoings to go around.

Nearly asleep at the wheel, politician Servet (Ercan Kesal) kills a man on the road and escapes the scene. Afraid of losing an election, he bribes his driver Eyüp (Yavuz Bingo) to take the blame. The rest of the film chronicles what happens to Eyüp’s troubled son and adulterous wife while he’s in jail.

The concept of threes is there if you’re looking; three visits to father in prison, three family members, three sins committed. But does ignoring the truth make it go away? There’s pain that can’t be forgotten. Sweeping everything under the rug seemingly destines the family to misery.

Realism is splashed with creepy surrealism in the form of a ghostly figure that haunts the family, who I presume is the fourth monkey, but you should see the film to find out who that is.

The acting is nuanced and professional. The actors give us just enough clues but don’t tell us everything that’s going on in their heads. A minimalist approach with dialog leaves us with a very sparse film, save the rich visuals.

Superb cinematography abounds. Many scenes are shot in shadows, delivering a noir-like atmosphere and a very distinctive mood. Key scenes are shot with the camera pulled way back, leaving us cold and detached. Colors are mostly muted, with only ugly greens and yellows surviving. It’s equally unpleasant and gorgeous to look at.

While the pace is slow and deliberate, the film never gets boring. However, a little more tension would have helped propel things along. Also, the conclusion to the circular story arc feels like both too much and not enough. You’re not beaten over the head with the message, but you’re also left with not quite enough to chew on.

“Three Monkeys” almost gives us a hat trick with stellar imagery and strong acting, but the storytelling leaves something to be desired. Art house fans will be satisfied but not enthralled.

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Public Enemies

Michael Mann is back after 2006’s god-awful “Miami Vice” with “Public Enemies,” which is thankfully an improvement. Johnny Depp stars as 30s gangster John Dillinger and Christian Bale as his FBI foil, Melvin Purvis.

Depp is pretty good as Dillinger. He’s indifferent yet cool as ice when he needs to be. It’s refreshing to see Depp play a human being again as opposed to all the cartoon like characters he’s been doing lately. He gets all the best lines too. Some of them are so good they seem to be from a different movie altogether.

That is perhaps what’s most frustrating about “Public Enemies.” It has flashes of a great, Oscar worthy picture, but they’re too few and far between. The last scene in particular has an aura of going for gold.

The movie prefers settling somewhere between good and not bad. The acting is solid but never enough to get you emotionally involved. The story is interesting, but lacks direction and strong conflict. I was looking for an electric match up between Depp and Bale, but the tension was only there in one instance.

Bale does nothing with his one note performance. Billy Crudup as the slightly imprudent J. Edgar Hoover is much more interesting. The subplot of the birth of the FBI was worthy of more screen time.

The project based on Bryan Burrough’s book, “Public Enemies,” was originally pitched to HBO as a miniseries. More time could have been given to Hoover, the FBI, and outlaws Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd. This would have been nice here, but the picture belongs to Depp.

Marion Cotillard as Dillinger’s girlfriend Billie Frechette is one of “Public Enemies” greatest strengths. She adds a little weight and gives Dillinger a more human side to root for.

But in the end, I guess the lead and the viewer are both detatched; Dillinger from society, the audience from emotion. Despite the letdowns, “Public Enemies” is worth seeing. Who doesn’t want to see a gangster Johnny Depp run around robbing banks?

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Revolutionary Road

This is definitely not a date movie.

In an ingenious casting move, Titanic lovers Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet are reunited, but this time they’re falling out of love. And it’s not a pretty spiral downward.

Frank and April Wheeler (DiCaprio and Winslet) move into a quaint house in a Connecticut suburb with their two children. They live among local suburbanites trapped by their own lives, but the Wheelers believe they won’t get stuck in the rut too. However, work and infidelity eat away at their marriage until the two realize they’ve become another victim of middle class melancholy. Realizing that they have to make a change, the couple plans to move to Paris not to escape their lives, but to start living them. But when April becomes pregnant and Frank is offered a promotion the two are forced to rethink things.

Revolutionary Road depicts what happens when people realize they’ve settled. The film makes it easy to see how this kind of marital misery could have been widespread in the 50s and today for that matter. The film has solid directing and a great script based on the book by Richard Yates. But the acting between the two leads is where the film really succeeds. The scenes where Frank and April argue are downright acidic. They feel true to life and are sometimes painful to watch.

The film works as more than a narrative about its leads and becomes a pessimistic tableau of marriage and modern life in America. If you’re ready to walk away thoroughly depressed, this is one road worth going down.

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Wendy and Lucy

If you’ve ever been homeless or have lost your dog, watching this movie might move you to tears. But I think it’s more likely that you’ll be bored to them.

Wendy (Michelle Williams) and her dog Lucy are traveling to Alaska in search of a new life, with little more than a car and a handful of possessions. The car breaks down in a small Oregonian town, which is the first event in a series of bad luck and worse decisions for Wendy. She ties up Lucy outside a supermarket then gets caught shoplifting inside. After being released from jail, to her horror she discovers that her dog is gone. The rest of the picture is a bleak affair, chronicling the search for Lucy and Wendy’s struggles to survive in a foreign place with no money.

This is a tough film to sit through. Wendy seemingly has no friends and has an estranged relationship with her sister. When Lucy disappears, she’s got nothing left. There’s very little in the way of plot, which wouldn’t matter so much if Wendy were more developed. Her daily actions of endurance are fascinating to watch, but it’s very difficult to care for the character. We never find out why she left home, why she has those mysterious bandages, or why she is so hard on her luck. We don’t learn anything about Wendy’s personally either; she’s broken to the point of being a void. Her back-story is left purposefully ambiguous, but that becomes a big hindrance for the audience’s emotional investment.

This feels like one of those films you’re almost required to like as a critic. It’s “arty,” and minimalistic, but it tries too hard. Or maybe it doesn’t try hard enough. Wendy isn’t enough of a character for the film to be much of a character study. And without giving anything away, the conclusion to the film left me underwhelmed and not emotionally attached at all. This film is meant to evoke empathy for homeless and others in tough financial times. But that’s a pretty hard task when you’ve got a ghost of protagonist.

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Adventureland

Adventureland is a movie with great characters. The little moments between them feel organic. And it’s really hilarous, too. It’s 1987. James (Jesse Eisenberg) has just graduated from college and is looking forward to graduate school in New York City. But when his parents can’t fund his European trip nor his higher education, he realizes that for the first time in his life he has to get a summer job. The only thing he can find is a low-paying, degrading job at a local amusement park, Adventureland. There he meets co-worker Em (Kristen Stewart), and the two quickly form a sweet romance. In spite of James’s previous failures with girls and Em’s promiscuous past, this is their first love. And that’s what Adventureland is really about – falling in love for the first time. I don’t want to give away any more of the story because it’s best to walk into this film not knowing the subplot.

I was surprised at how easily Eisenberg carried the film. This guy’s acting skills are on par with – if not better than – look-alike Michael Cera. Usually the “angst-ridden female” character grates on me, but Stewart plays her well enough. Bill Hader is excellent as the park manager, playing the humor more low-key than he usually does. And then we have Ryan Reynolds, who sheds his usual wise-guy shtick and plays a genuinely creepy individual. The final scene with his character is done just right. The writers could have easily made Reynolds react one way to the preceding events, often the mistake of lesser films of the same genre, but they chose the more realistic option.

It’s little realistic moments that make Adventureland work. The way in which the characters relate and react to each other feels natural. And, most importantly, the relationship between James and Em works, so it’s hard not to root for them. Besides being about first loves, the film also explores dumb mistakes we make in those relationships. This is familiar stuff for almost anyone. Plus, this movie is also really, really funny, although the comedy pales in comparison to Superbad. Greg Mottola directed both, and this film is smarter and has more heart than its funnier counterpart. This film nails the romance and the characters, as well as the little interactions between them. Adventureland just works, and you’d be hard pressed to find a better comedy in theaters right now.

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