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Read David Limacher’s interview with Darryl, here: A chat with Darryl Roberts

Limacher Low Down: America the Beautiful 2: The Thin Commandments is a follow up to the 2007 Documentary America the Beautiful. The first movie dealt with the issues of Americans doing what they can to look better. America the Beautiful 2: The Thin Commandments provides greater insight into Body Mass Index (BMI), the world of weight loss, diets, and the infatuation people seem to have with believing that being thin means that a person is healthy. The movie provides insight into these topics, and Director Darryl Roberts offers himself as a test subject to test some diets and hypotheses as well.

We start off the movie by gaining a better understanding of the Body Mass Index or BMI. This is the scale that dictates whether people are healthy, overweight, or obese. Did you know that stars such as Will Smith, Mel Gibson, and Christian Bale are considered overweight according the BMI scale? Hell, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is considered OBESE when measured by the BMI scale. The BMI scale says if a person is a certain height, they need to weigh a certain amount or they are overweight or obese! The movie offers a great insight into the falsities of the BMI scale and certain reasons why the scale has shown great importance to certain people.

The movie then moves to Darryl getting a physical by his doctor, and he learns that he has an irregular heart beat and high blood pressure. This is an alarming fact which affects more people than care to realize it. It gets worse for Darryl when the doctor prescribes him two medications which could result in a man’s WORST NIGHTMARE, Erectile Dysfunction! Darryl realizes that it is now up to him to do whatever he can to not need the medication, and cure his problems as well.

Darryl decides to attempt a “Raw” diet. Raw diets are a basic vegan diet in which foods are provided that starts with a 4 week cleanse of all the toxins in the system to start properly on the diet. After speaking with people who have succeeded on the diet, he decides to give it a try. The scenes in which Darryl is on the “Raw” diet offer a funny and honest portrayal of what most people experience. Darryl doesn’t stop there; he goes through a gauntlet of diets all of which provide the same results.

The movie next focuses on High Fructose Corn Syrup. There is great insight into the reasons behind the use of High Fructose Corn Syrup as well. When certain people are questioned about High Fructose Corn Syrup, the subject is quickly changed or the subject is just ignored all together. Facts are provided and should hold the interest of most viewers.

Next we meet Candi, a person so infatuated with looking good, and being a certain way that it has taken over her life. She works out in the morning, goes to work, and then works out after work as well. Candi is so infatuated that she and Darryl head off to the gym in the middle of a blizzard that closed down Chicago. She believes that all the work she is putting in will pay off. But where does it end? She hits her goal, and then sets a new goal. She gets questioned when her figure and weight will finally be good enough, and it seems only she knows just when it will be good enough.

There is one scene that has stuck with me, and will continue to stick with me for years to come. In one of the most heart wrenching scenes in the movie, Darryl’s half sister admits to him a secret that she never told him. She had the courage to tell him for the first time on camera as well. It took real courage for her to do it, and her Doctor gave her advice to help her with the problem she had in the past. Her doctor had told her that her BMI was too high to conceive a child. Her Doctor was transfixed on the BMI scale that he has her believing that if she wants to have a child, she must lose weight and be at a BMI of less than 25%. It really makes a person wonder if this is true, or what facts either party has to go off to show this is true.

Focus now moves to BMI and education. Schools in Ohio are now mandated to place the BMI number of students in 1st, 3rd, 7th, and 9th grade on their report cards so parents get more involved! Superintendents are interviewed about why they petitioned to no longer subject their students to placement of the BMI scale on their report cards. They provide some interesting facts, and provide good reason as to why they chose to do what they did. The State Senator who wrote and helped pass the bill into law was interviewed as well. He seemed so obsessed with living by the BMI scale, he seemed blinded by the facts Darryl provided thus far.

Darryl does a good job of providing facts behind the BMI, the people who lowered the number back in 1998, and also into the CDC. He provided interesting insight to different factors that may have been overlooked as well. The facts and figures are out there, it is just how a person chooses to view them that make all the difference. But Darryl is not done there. He chats with psychiatrists and nutritionists about weight loss, and the facts they provide are eye opening as well.

The movie does a good job of giving a better understanding into the obsession with weight and being thin. Is it healthy? Are diets healthy? Is there one solution to the problem? The questions may go unanswered, but are left for the viewer to decide. The humor flows freely, and it helps progress the movie along well. There are points when the movie doesn’t progress well, and the fact some questions are left unanswered left me with more questions than answers. The movie was well done, and I would suggest it for anyone who questions diets, or the reasoning why America has the infatuation with looking a certain way.

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“Words get us nowhere.  It’s time for action.”

The H-Bomb:  Is that right, Carlos?  Time for action?  That’s why your life story offers so many words and so little action?  Oh, but I’m jumping ahead of myself, aren’t I?  “Carlos” tells the true story of Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, or, as the world would come to know him, Carlos the Jackal (though he’s never actually called the Jackal in the film).

Kicking off with a disclaimer saying that it should be regarded as “historical fiction”, the film covers Carlos’ entire career as a political terrorist for the Palestinian cause, from his early days fighting for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Red Army Faction in Europe, to his rise to fame/infamy, to later in his life, when he’s living in hiding and struggling, in vain, to stay relevant.

Of all the killings, bombings, and kidnappings that he orchestrated, the most notable, and the one that the film spends a great deal of time on, is when Carlos and his crew take hostages at the OPEC headquarters in 1975, though the real mission is to assassinate a certain official.  It all goes pretty wrong, leaving three dead, but Carlos, through careful maneuvering, is able to elude capture.

That single episode shows entirely who Carlos the Jackal was.  They could’ve made the movie solely about that incident, and they would have had a pretty taut thriller.  A kind of “Dog Day Afternoon” on a global political scale.  But instead they just made it one part in the larger story of Carlos.  They went for a full blown epic, one that was set in many countries and spoken in just as many languages.  They went for huge, and huge is what they got.  Too huge, as the end result is bloated, drawn out, and, at times, a tad flat.

“Carlos”, directed by Olivier Assayas, exists in two forms: as a nearly six hour long, three part mini-series, and as a two hour long theatrical film.  I watched the mini-series, and it’s worth mentioning that it should be viewed as a mini-series, meaning it should be taken in one segment at a time.  By trying to watch the whole thing in one shebang, you would only be dooming yourself to hate it.

The film that “Carlos” immediately reminded me of was Steven Soderbergh’s two-parter “Che”, not just in its sheer length, but in it’s style (documentary style), and it’s tone (understated).  There is also, of course, the connection of the subject matter, since Che and Carlos both considered themselves “revolutionaries.”  In fact, portraits of Che Guevera hang on the walls of the many safe houses and flats that Carlos stays in throughout the film.  Like “Che”, I found “Carlos” interesting to a point, but also tedious in spots and overall just lacking any true insight into who its protagonist was.

That is my real problem, I didn’t feel like I knew any more about Carlos the Jackal after the film than before it.  As played by Edgar Ramirez, Carlos was a calculating, strategic thinker who was perhaps a glory hound,  but sincerely committed to his cause.  But why?  Why did a Venezuelan care so much about Palestine,  so much as to dedicate his entire life as a terrorist to it?  Why was violence the only solution for him?  We never get answers to any of these questions.

Instead, we only see his actions.  Carlos shooting people.  Carlos tossing bombs into storefronts.  And Carlos talking.  Oh, we get a lot of him talking.  Talk, talk, talk.  Of his grandiose ideas.  Of how deeply committed he is to the cause.  Of how he dreams of uniting revolutionaries to the world over.  We get to hear over and over again about his philosophies, but not about what drove him.

And he talks about these ideas of his with so, so many people.  “Carlos” is a film with a cast of millions.  There are so many players, in fact, that when they come on screen, we’re shown little subtitles to tell us who the hell they are.  It’s all for naught, as trying to keep all these people straight is utterly futile.  And that new characters keep on being introduced, right up until the very end, really doesn’t help matters either.

As a polemic, director Assayas keeps it objective and doesn’t judge Carlos.  He’s neither a good guy or a bad guy.  Neither romanticized nor demonized.  Instead, his words and actions are depicted in a clinical, matter-of-fact fashion, leaving it up to us to decide whether he was a terrorist or a freedom fighter.  I lean towards terrorist, myself, but that’s just me.  He certainly was cold blooded, with zero remorse.  I did laugh out loud when he claims to have “a great respect for human life,” though I don’t think I was supposed to.

“Carlos” does benefit significantly from a powerful performance by Ramirez.  He really put all of himself into the role, and is indeed terrific.  He pulls a De Niro in “Raging Bull” in how his figure morphs over time.  The youthful Carlos dons many looks and disguises as he bounces around Europe and the Middle East, while the older incarnation, who was a drinker, is puffier and sports the requisite beer belly.  The film’s faults aside, he is riveting to watch, and manages to hold the film together when nothing else does.

Overall, “Carlos” is not a bad film, as the subject matter is inherently interesting and it was never really boring, per se, just monotonous and long winded in places.  I would expect a biopic that’s six hours long to have a fully developed lead character.  But the Carlos we get here is underwritten, and, as a result, the entire film, while striving for greatness and importance (much like Carlos himself), is under-whelming.

(1 People gave this 4.00 out of 5)

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His father’s son.

The H-Bomb:  It’s the late 1980′s, and Iraqi Soldier Latif Yahia (Dominic Cooper) has been summoned to Uday Hussein’s office for a mysterious assignment.  They went to school together way back in the day, but he has no idea what Uday could want with him now, except that he does bear an uncanny resemblance to the Iraqi leader’s son.  Aside from the fact that Latif is three centimeters shorter, his eyes are a little different, and that “his cock is too big,” he is a virtual dead ringer.  So, Uday makes Latif an offer he can’t refuse, to become his double.  And it literally is an offer Latif cannot refuse, since Uday will have him imprisoned and his family killed if he refuses.

Latif himself will have to disappear completely.  He’ll never be allowed to see or speak to his family again.  That kind of stinks, but, there are perks to the job; he’ll be living in Uday’s palaces, wearing his designer suits, his Rolex watches, driving his sports cars…  everything, except fucking his women.  That is the one thing Uday is not willing to share with him.  Although, Uday’s favorite play thing, Sarrab (Ludivine Sagnier), does take a liking to Latif, and comes onto him accordingly.

Uday treats him like a brother, and takes him practically everywhere he goes.  It’s during these wildly decadent excursions to nightclubs and private parties that Latif gets to see the very ugly side of Baghdad’s most spoiled brat; the drinking, the drugs, the raping, and the spontaneous killing of anyone who crosses him.  Latif’s new job becomes even less appealing when its real purpose surfaces, to act as a decoy for would be assassins.

Latif decides that he’s had enough of the insanity that this psycho Uday calls a life and starts to think about his escape.  But that could be tricky, since Uday has told him “You’re mine now…  and I’ll never let you go.”  And he means it, too.  Sucks to be Latif.

Saddam Hussein was a fucking monster.  No sane person is going to deny that.  But as bad as he was, his eldest son, Uday, was even worse.  He’d pick up a 14 year-old schoolgirl, drug her up, and screw her.  He’d rape a woman during her wedding reception, then laugh as she commits suicide by jumping off the balcony.  He’d carve someone up with a knife then shoot them in the face, just for the fuck of it.  And he would do it all while sitting in his lavish, gold crusted office, snorting absurd amounts of cocaine, just like a Middle Eastern Tony Montana, only more manic and less quotable.

That, ultimately, is what “The Devil’s Double” is.  Not a political drama, or a docu-drama, but a gangster film.  One that is highly stylized, larger than life, and, by director Lee Tamahori’s admission, plays fast and loose with the facts.  Much of the specific incidents depicted are made up, but the essence of the kind of cretin that was Uday Hussein is conveyed quite accurately.  He was a gangster who didn’t have to worry about the law, because he was the law.  “God gives me nothing.  If I see something I want, I just take it” was his motto, and that is what he did, pretty much with complete impunity,  the occasional scolding from daddy aside.  The film makes no bones about it, Uday was slime.

The main reason to see “The Devil’s Double”, and it very much makes it worth seeing, is the tremendous dual performance from Dominic Cooper.  This is an instance where I forgot I was watching the same actor play both roles.  Between the slight differences in appearance, and their different voices (that’s two accents he employed), I just accepted that I was watching two different people.  His Uday is a lunatic man-child who is always jacked up, wired, and ready to blow at any moment, while his Latif is a calm, sane, decent man just trying to cope with the madness around him.

Another thing to consider is that Cooper also has the task of playing Latif playing Uday, which we get to see him practice in the mirror, in an amusing bit.  This was a very demanding task, the kind that any real actor dreams of undertaking, and Cooper delivers.  It is a truly great pair of performances, and I know I say this a lot, but it’s a pair of performances that is very much deserving of award recognition (which it shamefully probably won’t get).

Director Tamahori, who nearly sunk the James Bond franchise with the abysmal “Die Another Day”, wholly redeems himself here.  He fills the picture with stylish, vibrant visuals and keeps it moving at a brisk, energetic pace, giving the film the look and feel of a Scorsese mob flick.  He also doesn’t shy away from the utter brutality of the story, making the violence visceral, bloody, and never letting us forget what a sadistic fuck Uday was.  I haven’t seen Tamahori’s much lauded debut, “Once Were Warriors”, but of the films of his I have seen, this is easily the most impressive.

In fact, I would consider this a great film, if it wasn’t for one little thing that kept nagging me throughout; the way Latif acts towards Uday.  Throughout the whole film, Latif doesn’t even attempt to mask his contempt for Uday, often talking back to him, insulting him, and even in one instance, slugging him.  I find it highly unlikely that Uday would have put up with this.  Yeah, Latif was the best double he could find. Yeah, he wanted to embrace him like a brother, but he was a Kurd, for Christ’s sake!  Not to mention, Uday was the kind of guy who would kill people for looking at him the wrong way, so would he really have tolerated this kind of crap from Latif?  I think not.

That one hang up of mine aside, I would say that “The Devil’s Double” is one solid picture.  It’s certainly far more entertaining than I would expect a movie about Saddam’s number one son to be, and a lot funnier, as Uday is often made to look like a clownish buffoon.  I must confess that I’m not sure what exactly the point, or the moral, was supposed to be, other than it’s just a damn interesting story.  It shouldn’t be taken as a history lesson or a biography, since again, many, many liberties were taken, but sure does make for one fascinating watch.

(1 People gave this 5.00 out of 5)

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A New Muppets Film For Old Fans

Swift shot:  The Muppets are back with all their singing and dancing and of course lightning quick cameos . . . it’s a family film that will probably mean more to the aged but it was still a lot of fun for the littlest (and newest) Muppet lover in my family.  Jason Segel deserves credit for making The Muppets cool again and for giving me new Muppet memories to share with my son, as my father and I shared many Muppet memories together.

I am not a Muppet fanatic by any means, but I have always had a soft place in my heart for anything that Jim Henson created, and when he died, it devastated me, a little piece of magic, hope, and imagination died that day, so anytime a new Muppet film comes out, I am reluctant to accept it as part of the canon.  When I saw Jason Segel created a puppet opera for his aggressively funny Forgetting Sarah Marshall film, I wondered if he was a closeted Muppet fanatic – folks, the man IS a Muppet, granted a giant Muppet, but a Muppet nonetheless.  I think Jim Henson would be proud of this film.

The Muppets starts out in Smalltown, USA, a place where everyone is carefree, happy and randomly breaks out into song and dance.  This film is stuffed with plenty of frivolity, so if this is your first Muppet movie, get on board immediately or you will just sit there grousing the whole time.  Gary (Jason Segel) and Walter (Walter the Muppet) are inseparable brothers who like to do just about everything together, but as Gary grows up, Walter . . .  well, he is a Muppet, you do the math.  One thing they always do together is sit in front of the TV and watch VHS tapes of the original “The Muppet Show”.  Both giant fans, when Gary decides to take his girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams) who is far from a bad teacher, to Los Angeles, he invites Walter to join them in the hopes they can visit the Muppet studio together.

Once they arrive though, the studio is in ruins, the tour amounts to basically viewing the outside and paying a fee – Walter is devastated, but he manages to sneak into Kermit’s old office (which is one of the most nostalgic scenes of the film, excellent job by designer Steve Saklad for that nice touch throughout the film).  While there he overhears a business deal between the sinister Tex Richman and Statler and Waldorf who are finalizing the selling of the studio to Richman.  As far as they know, the studio is being purchased to create a museum.  They don’t know much, always too busy pitching one-liner put-downs to read the fine print.  Still, Walter realizes all is not lost, as long as the Muppets can raise ten million dollars in a week – sure, simple enough . . . enter, the scream!

Desperate to save their beloved Muppets, Walter and Gary seek out Kermit the Frog, who is constantly referred to as “Mr. the Frog” – a bit that never gets old for some reason.  The dramatic, and funny, first encounter is classic Muppet comedy, heavy on the absurd and quite punny.  Kermit is quickly on board once he realizes the fine print spells the end of all things Muppet.  The whole team, including the oft overlooked yet plucky Mary, gathers the old gang.

They manage to gather every Muppet with one piggish exception . . . yeah, Miss Piggy, who is working in Paris at Vogue – see if you can recognize her devilish secretary.  They even convince one network, due to the cancellation of Punch Teacher, to let them air a telethon to raise the money needed to save Muppet studios.  Now all they are missing is an A-list celeb, something that the original Muppet show would never have to worry about, but on such short notice, even in LA, the celebs aren’t lining up to help . . . which, if you read the production notes was the exact opposite – so many people were dying to be in this film.  Giving away the A-lister would be mean-spirited and thus, un-Muppet behavior.

Reuniting the old friends is wonderful and Walter even manages to become a bona fide Muppet, but poor Mary is never quite sure where she stands with Gary, is he a man or a Muppet?  Gary, and even Walter, struggle with that question towards the film’s finale and I’d wager America’s ‘biggest’ cameo will have you grinning and dying to tell your friends who you saw – but, again, that wouldn’t be very Muppet of you.

With original music scores by Bret McKenzie and choreography by Michael Rooney, son of Mickey Rooney, who is still ticking by the way, if Muppets movies are your thing, you won’t come out disappointed.  I don’t know if people will rush out to by the album before Christmas, but I do imagine a ton of downloads for “Man or Muppet”, by far one of the best, personally home-hitting, sequences in the film.  Heck, it may even be on par with “Rainbow Connection”.

At the end of this film, I hope you find yourself asking that same question, are you a man/woman or a Muppet, because we all need to channel our inner-Muppet from time to time, even if for only a few moments then we begin to realize that life is a happy song.  Enjoy the Muppets, you will, even if Miss Piggy isn’t Frank Oz.

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“The secret is always in the clockwork.”

The H-Bomb:  After his father’s untimely death, 12 year-old Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is taken in by his uncle (Ray Winstone), who maintains the clocks at a train station in post-World War I Paris.  The uncle is a notorious drunk and disappears before long, leaving Hugo alone to take care of the clocks himself.  Although, Hugo is not entirely alone, as he has a child-sized mechanical automaton that his father found to keep him company.  It appears as though the automaton was designed to write, but since its heart shaped key is missing, Hugo has never been able to turn it on.

Since Hugo lives and works behind the walls of the station, nobody actually knows that he’s the one running the clocks, so he is forced to steal food from the station vendors in order to survive.  He has also been taking mechanical toys from a toy booth and using their parts to try and repair the automaton.  One day, he is caught by the owner of the toy booth, Georges (Ben Kingsley).  When Georges makes Hugo turn out his pockets, he finds a notebook with schematic drawings of the automaton inside it.  He confiscates the notebook and tells Hugo that he’s going to burn it, but not simply out of punishment, as the drawings of the automaton seem to actually mean something to Georges.

Shortly after, Hugo follows Georges home and meets his goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz).  They become fast friends and she agrees to help him get the notebook back.  In doing so, they learn something incredible about Georges.  Something about his past…  before he was a toy booth vendor.  And that’s about all I can say about the plot, since discovering the story with our young heroes is the best way to experience it.

“Hugo” is a Martin Scorsese picture.  But, it is a different kind of Martin Scorsese picture.  There’s no Joe Pesci popping some guy’s eye out with a vice, no Mohawked Robert DeNiro blowing a dude’s hand to pieces with a .44 Magnum.  This is a Martin Scorsese family picture.  I had no idea such a thing existed, but alas, here it is, and it is an absolute fucking masterpiece.  Sorry for dropping the F-bomb in a family film review, but it’s the only way to get my feelings fully across– this review’s for the parents, anyway, not the kiddies.

Normally, I hate family films.  I truly despise them.  They bore me with their blandness and insult me with their stupidity.  But this is one family film that is neither bland nor stupid.  Instead, it’s gorgeous, thematically rich, and just absolutely fantastic in every way imaginable.  As we come to find, it’s a movie about movies, Scorsese’s love letter to the films of the past, and he made it using all the technology of today to deliver an experience that’s both moving and wholly cinematic.  He’s considered one of the greatest directors to have ever lived for a reason, and here, he pulls out all the stops.

As one character puts it, movies are the place where dreams are made, and with a heightened visual style that’s reminiscent of Tim Burton, except with more heart and charm, Scorsese turns all of Paris into a giant dream place. The 3D visuals really pop off the screen and hit like a rocket to the eye socket.  The dazzling opening shot, starting on the cityscape of Paris and going into the grimy bowels of the train station, is a stunning blend of CG and live action melded together seamlessly.  Scorsese shows us the Lumiere Brothers’ “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat”, the film that made the audience think the train was going to come off the screen and run them over (those poor, dumb primates), and then later on puts his own incredible twist on it.

Scorsese has never made a 3D movie before, but you sure could’ve fooled me, because he uses it in a way that’s not distracting, or a gimmick, but in a way that really immerses us in the story and makes us feel like we’re right there with the characters.  The actors really shine in their close ups, and there were so many times when I felt like I could’ve reached out and touched them.

Speaking of the actors, they are yet another major reason this film works as well as it does.  The entire cast is on top of their game and they each play their roles, large and small, to perfection.  Butterfield, who looked to me like a child version of Cillian Murphy, I’ve never seen before, but he sure made me into a fan with his performance here.  He’s equal parts mischievous, vulnerable, and endearing.  Carrying a film of this size is a lot to ask of a child actor, but he makes it look so damn easy.  He’s matched by Moretz, who is absolutely kick-ass as the girl who holds the key to one of the film’s main secrets.  She’s got a big career ahead of her, no doubt about it.

Among the veterans in the cast, Kingsley is first rate as the proud-yet-heartbroken Georges.  He has the look of a man with a painful past, who has given up on dreaming, and I see some award nods in his future.  Winstone, unfortunately, is in and out of the picture before you really get a chance to notice him, which is too bad, since his colorful lush of a character had potential.  Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays the train station cop with a mean Doberman, a gimp leg, and a child-sized jail cell, provides the expected comic relief with his bumbling antics.  I expected to truly dislike him, but honestly, I didn’t.  He manages to be funny without being too over-the-top or out of place.

In fact, I can’t think of anything to really gripe about.  I could whine about the length, as it does go over two hours, but it doesn’t feel too long.  The 3D glasses did give me a bit of a headache, but that’s my problem.  All things considered, “Hugo” is wonderful on every level; the terrific script, the superb performances, the amazing cinematography (by the great Robert Richardson), and, of course, Scorsese’s masterful direction.  I would rate this up there alongside “Goodfellas” and “Raging Bull” as being one of his finest.

It’s a film for young and old, and everyone in between.  For film buffs, especially those with an affinity for the dawn of cinema, “Hugo” will be a huge treat.  Never mind the lame vampire soap operas, the dancing penguins, the talking animal puppets (as much as I love them), and all that other nonsense, “Hugo” is true cinematic magic and pretty much perfect.  It’s certainly my favorite film of the year, I even put it over “Super 8″.  If you only get out to see one film this Holiday Season, do make it this one.

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Happy Feet 2 starts off on a happy foot (pun intended!) with a grand opening montage of dancing and singing penguins. This film had us tapping our feet and singing to surprisingly cross generational selection of songs covered in the film. Mumbles (voiced by Elijah Wood) is now an adult penguin with a family of his own. His wife Gloria (Pink) is one of the most beautiful female penguins with an amazing voice who tries to foster a more positive relationship between Mumbles and their little penguin, Erik (EG Daly) who finds himself without “happy feet” and rather clumsy.

The message is the same, don’t be afraid to be different, and always put your friends and family first. However, the story bounces back and forth between the penguins plight of being trapped by newly formed avalanches, and their reliance on other penguin tribes, and a krill’s quest for independence and evolution. Bill the Krill (Matt Damon) and Will the Krill (Brad Pitt) added some of my favorite parts, with witty dialogue and fun bantering. The addition of these new characters and a puffin named Sven (Hank Azaria) certainly mixed things up a bit. However Sven’s accent left my 7 year old asking, “What did he say? He sounds weird!”

The music was fun, the energy was cool, and overall I was surprised that I liked the sequel just as much as the original, especially in 3D.

Warning:  If you haven’t read the books, these reviews may contain spoilers!  Also, the vampires sparkle in the sunlight, so . . . yea, there’s that.

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A ho-hum review for a ho-hum biopic.

The H-Bomb:  To call J. Edgar Hoover one of the most controversial figures of the 20th Century is almost an understatement.  He is the man who more or less created the Federal Bureau of Investigation as we know it today, and ran it with an iron fist for nearly fifty years, right up until the time of his death.  He was also considered a control freak who often abused his power to ruin the reputations, careers, and lives of many, many people.  You would think that the life of such an individual would make for one dynamic biopic, but in the overly-understated hands of producer/director Clint Eastwood, you would be mistaken.

The film, told in non-linear fashion, basically covers the highlights of Hoover’s career;  from his early days hunting and deporting anarchist radicals, to his introducing of scientific methods, such as fingerprinting, into criminal investigations, to his heading up the investigation of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, to his attempt to bring down Martin Luther King.  Along the way we get glimpses of his contentious relationship with Bobby Kennedy, his aversion to the opposite sex, his Norman Bates-like relationship with his mother, as well as his longtime “partnership” with his “confidant” Clyde Tolson.

Occasionally, we are treated to some interesting factoids, like how he came to be addressed as J. Edgar, and how he dreamed of an America where everyone’s information would be registered and available at a moments notice, in the name of stopping crime, but most of the speculative behind-the-scenes stuff seems to arrive at one single conclusion, that Hoover was insecure.  He was insecure in the extreme, maybe because he was maybe gay, maybe because his demanding mother expected too much from him, who’s to say?  Sadly, if you’re looking for any real insight into this most fascinating of historical figures, there is very little to be found.  They go as far as to show him trying on his mother’s nightgown after she dies, but they don’t even touch on what might have been contained in his infamous secret files.

Aside from failing to give us a sense of who J. Edgar was, aside from what we could already surmise, Mr. Eastwood’s film also falls short as entertainment.  Every would be dramatic event from his life, from an early bombing, to the Kennedy assassination, to pretty much everything else is treated in such a matter-of-fact way that they have little to no emotional impact whatsoever.  Eastwood has always been on the low key side as a filmmaker, but here his approach is so leisurely, he keeps the whole film limping along at the same “so what” tempo, that he renders it all dramatically inert.  Even the scene in which the skeleton of Lindbergh’s baby is found, which should be inherently upsetting, is ineffectual due to the indifferent storytelling.

That’s not to say that “J. Edgar” is without any virtues.  The film certainly looks great, thanks to Tom Stern’s artfully shadowy cinematography and the handsome production design by James Murakami, which makes Hoover’s F.B.I. office, where the film spends a good portion of its 137 minutes, look appropriately closed off and claustrophobic.  It conveys, far more effectively than the script does, how Hoover is involved with, yet weirdly disconnected to, many of the important events going on around him.

Solid production values aside, the film is also aided by the efforts of a game cast.  The casting of Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover may be questionable, but he puts in a commendable performance, nonetheless.  He’s been bucking for an Oscar for a while now, and this is unlikely to win him one, but still, he shows here that he’s got what it takes to someday nab that little gold statue.  His old man make-up is a little distracting, at first, but it’s not nearly as embarrassing as the layers of crap they piled onto Armie Hammer when he had to portray the elder, post-stroke Clyde Tolson.  Good God, that was just a travesty.

As for Hammer’s performance, he’s terrific, actually, despite the laughable Mummy make-up.  His Tolson is sympathetic as Hoover’s foil/maybe (most likely) lover, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see his name come up when the Oscar Nominations are announced.  Naomi Watts fairs well as Hoover’s loyal, lifelong personal secretary, and actually manages to make a strong impression, despite not getting a whole lot, script-wise, to work with.  As for Judi Dench, as the mother who would rather see her son dead than become a “daffy,” she’s good, in her typical scary, Judi Dench way.  It’s just that Clint makes the mistake of showing her in close up, which makes the old age make-up on the other characters look all the more phony in comparison.

Though the actors all bring their A game, they are let down by Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black’s superficial screenplay, which shows us plenty of J. Edgar doing what J. Edgar did, but again, fails to show what made the man tick.  He was an unhappy, insecure little man who wanted power and glory, who hated to dance as much as he hated the Reds.  Okay… but why?  “J. Edgar” is a bit of Oscar Bait that certainly has the look and feel of an important picture, but none of the substance.

It’s as if Eastwood was trying to play it safe with this one, as a character as rich as Hoover most definitely lived a more interesting life than the one depicted here.  Perhaps a director with more teeth was needed to give this film the bite it needed.  As it is, “J. Edgar” is toothless, flat, and just never nearly as captivating as it should be.  It’s certainly not terrible, or even bad, but it’s not good, either.  It’s a false start to the awards season, and most definitely worth skipping in theaters.  I wouldn’t even recommend renting it.  Honestly, this is one that can wait for cable.

(1 People gave this 4.00 out of 5)

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Paging Dr. Harris . . .

Swift shot: Another Liam Neeson action flick . . . but with a surreal, cerebral edge.  If you are paying strict attention, you may figure out the twist, plus it helps if you have a warped imagination.  Shot, on location, in Berlin, “Unknown” is a plausible thriller which is engaging to watch and solve.  Strong German casting complements Neeson well.  Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan), “Unknown” has a fast pulse and delivers action and intrigue.

Neeson plays a scientist (Dr. Martin Harris) who is going to speak at an International Bio-Tech summit in Berlin, but in a rush, he leaves behind his briefcase with all his research and needs to leave the hotel and get back to the airport where he left it.  January Jones plays his wife, Elizabeth, who is experiencing some drama checking into the hotel, so she hardly notices him leaving.  While in the cab heading back to the airport, he crashes and wakes up in a hospital telling people he is Dr. Harris, but there is a guy who apparently already has his identity, played by Aidan Quinn, and Quinn and Elizabeth think Neeson is some shitballs, insane nut trying to convince others he is the good doctor.  Will the real Dr. Martin Harris please stand up?

Paranoia creeps up on him, as he is being hunted, and the only person he can turn to is his ill-fated cab driver, Gina (Diane Kruger) who is a bit reluctant to come out and play cabbie, now that hers is in the bottom of a lake; her boss is not pleased with her performance.  Bruno Ganz does a fabulous job as the proud former Stasi (East German Police) officer, Ernst, you all know him from the “Hitler Reacts videos” which was ripped from his work in “Downfall”.  Neeson hires Ernst to suss out his identity and to confirm the other Dr. is bending reality, or is Neeson the one who doesn’t quite have a firm grip on reality?  That is the unknown element of “Unknown”.

This film is great to rent and watch alone, without the peanut gallery (hey, we all have them) constantly blurting out-loud what they think is really going on or about to happen next.  In my crew, that role usually falls on me, so, when it comes to a thinking film, I prefer to view them solo.  Also, if I am wrong, no one can point and laugh.

If you liked “Taken”, you’ll like this one, but it isn’t (most-likely) what you are expecting.  Still, it was solid entertainment and with January Jones and Diane Kruger, it’s got some choice eye-candy in case you missed trick or treating this year.