(2 People gave this 4.00 out of 5)

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“Everyone has lost something in the war.”

The H-Bomb:  Like many in my generation, I have grown up with the movies of Steven Spielberg.  Be it Indiana Jones or “Jurassic Park”, “E.T.” or “Jaws”, the man has an ability to create pure magic on film in a way that really no one else can.  Or at least he did.  To be perfectly honest, I don’t think this past decade has been Spielberg at his best.  “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” had interesting aspects, but didn’t really work as a whole.  Ditto for “Minority Report”.  “Catch Me If You Can” went in one ear and out the other.  “The Terminal” I would argue is a genuinely bad movie, as is his remake of “War of the Worlds”.  And don’t even get me started on “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Expletive Deleted”.  For me, the only good film he’s made in the last ten years was “Munich”, which I do feel is a terrific movie that didn’t get anywhere near the recognition it deserved.  But that one aside, I can easily live without anything else he’s done.  Not to mention the man seems to have forgotten how to end a movie, filling them full of false endings and making them run at least a half hour longer than they should.

For all intents and purposes, it looked to me like the bearded one had lost his touch.  That’s why I was so pleasantly surprised by “War Horse”, a film that is harrowing and moving, and sees Spielberg back in fine form.  Based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo,  it tells the story of a down on his luck farmer (Peter Mullan, “Session 9″) who purchases a horse to work in his field just as the first World War is about to begin.  His wife (Emily Watson), thinks that the animal is useless and wants to get rid of it, but his son, Albert (Jeremy Irvine, excellent) immediately takes a liking to the gorgeous young horse and names it Joey.  When it looks as though the horse can’t be trained, Albert prevents his father from giving Joey a buckshot shampoo and sets about training the horse himself, and then defies the odds by doing exactly that.  But before long a storm rolls in and destroys the crops.  Completely broke, and with no way to pay the rent, the farmer is forced to sell Joey to a young British Army Officer, who intends to ride him into battle.

After Albert’s tearful pleas for him not to take the horse, the officer gives him his word that if he can, he will return Joey to him after the war.  But World War I was a particularly messy war in which nothing went according to plan, and over the course of four years, Joey finds himself being shuffled between many different owners and masters, on both sides of the conflict.  Each owner is very different from the last, but they all share one thing in common, they are all able to recognize that this is a very special horse that they have in their care.  Once he is old enough, Albert joins the army and goes off to fight, in hopes that he will be reunited with Joey.

“War Horse” is, a few minor flaws aside, an absolute triumph for Spielberg.  It has all the elements from Spielberg’s best films; it’s touching, if a tad sentimental, emotional, and rousing.  Fantastically crafted with stunning cinematography, it, much like “Saving Private Ryan” did, captures the visual beauty of everything, even something as ugly as war.  It’s theme of Albert’s unbreakable bond with Joey is one that will surely resonate with anyone who has ever owned and cherished a pet.  If there’s one thing Spielberg does better than anyone else, it’s being able to strike an emotional chord in the audience, and that’s very much evident here.

As the title clearly indicates, this is about a horse that goes off to war, so it’s easy to surmise that the horse is placed in jeopardy on a number of occasions.  The most grueling of which being when Joey gets himself “tangled” in the middle of no man’s land.  The sequence is difficult to watch, but plays out in a way that is rewarding and very “Spielbergian.”  It tugs on the heart strings, perhaps a little too deliberately, and if you’re one who is inclined to shed tears, then I recommend bringing tissues.  For the record, I’m not and I didn’t.  Cynics may condemn Spielberg for being emotionally manipulative, but frankly, who gives a rat’s rectum what they think?  For me, it worked, as I’m sure it will for most.

As for complaints, I would say there are times, mainly with character actions and the way certain events unfold, where the story stretched credulity almost too far.  It was never so unbelievable that it was absurd, but it did have me thinking, “Come on, would that really happen?”  Also, there were some interesting characters that I would have liked to have spent a little more time with, like the two German brothers who desert the army, as well as Joey’s German handler on the battlefield.  These were people I felt were a little short changed.  But the film’s biggest flaw, the one that most of Spielberg’s modern film’s suffer from, is that it’s too damn long.  It’s not that it had a series of false endings, but that the first act on the farm, which is kind of dreary, really should have been shortened.

But, these problems are miniscule, as “War Horse” is overall one terrific motion picture.  Joey’s journey is long and trying, but it’s one that is very much worth riding along on.  It’s not the best film I’ve seen this year, but it’s most definitely up there, and it has left me convinced that Spielberg has not lost his touch, after all.

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“Out with the old, in with the new.”

The H-Bomb:  George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is a 1920’s movie star who is on top of the world.  Each film is a bigger hit than the last, he lives in a beautiful mansion with a cold, money grubbing wife (Penelope Ann Miller), and he’s a darling of the press and public alike.  Life couldn’t get any better for George… and it doesn’t. 

One day, George’s producer Al Zimmer (John Goodman) tells him about a big change that’s coming to cinema: the addition of sound.  George blows the notion of this new kind of picture off completely, thinking that it’s just a passing gimmick and believing that his audience will always be there for him. 

But George soon finds out the hard way just how wrong he is.  “Talkies” are not just a fad, they are here to stay.  It’s no longer just about faces, but about “Words! Words! Words!” as Norma Desmond would contemptuously say.  The truth finally sinks in for George when his latest film opens against a sound picture and flops.  To make matters worse, the star of that talkie is Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), an actress he more or less discovered, who’s star has been on the rise while his has been on the decline.

Now George finds himself completely unemployable in a business that he once had at his beck and call, unable to even pay his loyal chauffeur, Clifton (James Cromwell).  Will he ever find a way to reclaim his former glory?  And what about Peppy, the newly minted start for whom he once had feelings?

An appreciation for silent films and the early age of cinema seems to be a recurring theme as of late.  It certainly was in Martin Scorsese’s fantastic “Hugo”, and it is yet again in writer/director Michel Hazanavcius’s “The Artist”.  However, “The Artist” isn’t merely an homage to silent films… it is a silent film.  A silent film shot in black and white to look like it came straight from that era, with the dialogue being shown on titles against a black screen, but most of the information and emotions being conveyed through exaggerated facial expressions and gestures. 

It’s a silent film about the end of the silent films, when the advent of sound, coupled with the Great Depression, made them obsolete.  But it wasn’t just the technique that went obsolete, many of the actors did, as well, once actually delivering dialogue (and ideally doing it well) became a factor.  George’s story could be the story of any actor who couldn’t adapt to the new ways.  In fact, the theme of adapting to a constantly changing world is a universal one, that could be applied to people from all walks of life, especially in this day and age.

But what makes “The Artist” so good isn’t simply that it has a theme that rings true, it’s also that it’s a love story.  One with many facets, not only about romance, but also about loyalty and second chances.  All that, combined with the cinematic form and technique, along with some knockout performances, make “The Artist” an absolute delight to watch. 

Dujardin and Bejo, with their classic looks and expressive faces, truly look like two actors who stepped right out of the period.  Their chemistry is terrific, as you can almost see the sparks between them, despite the fact that they have no dialogue.  Goodman is terrific, and provides some of the funnier moments as the stereotypical, cigar chomping studio honcho.  Cromwell does great with what little he is given to do, and I loved Miller as the bitchy wife.  Oh, and the dog… the dog is brilliant!  See the film and you’ll see why.

On the downside, the film does have the slight scent of prestigious Oscar Bait to it… a scent that usually makes me gag.  When I sense a film is bucking for an Oscar, it just pisses me off.  However, I had such a good time with “The Artist” that I can’t begrudge it that.  Film aficionados will absolutely treasure it, and general audiences who are willing to give it a shot will enjoy it, too, I think. 

But how many will, since it is a black and white silent film, and that undoubtedly will put off a good number of average moviegoers, who sadly would rather see what Asshead Kutcher is doing this “New Year‘s Eve“.  And that really is a shame, because “The Artist” is an immensely entertaining little yarn, with heart and smarts, that is far more worthy of people’s time and dime than most of the junk floating around out there.  It’s slowly trickling into theaters around the country this awards season, and if it comes to one near you, definitely take a chance on it.

(4 People gave this 4.00 out of 5)

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The feel bad movie of Christmas.

The H-Bomb:  Remakes are considered by many to be an ongoing epidemic plaguing Hollywood.  Everyone bitches about them, they’re often sited as proof of how creatively bankrupt the movie industry has become, and overall they’re viewed as nothing more than cynical cash-ins.  Normally, I myself share these sentiments, viewing remakes as pointless, unoriginal, and undeserving of my time or money.  But in the case of David Fincher’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, I can and must make an exception, because it is one remake that not only matches the original, but actually surpasses it.

Of course, this isn’t exactly a remake of the 2009 Swedish film, so much as it’s a new adaptation of the Stieg Larsson novel, which is the first entry in what’s known as the “Millennium Trilogy”.   The action is still set in Sweden, though everyone speaks English this time, and the plot is pretty much the same;  Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is a journalist who steps down from his magazine after being convicted of libel.  Soon after, he’s summoned out to an island owned by the rich and powerful Vanger family, where he is hired by Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to investigate the disappearance of his niece, Harriet, who vanished 40 years ago, and who he believes was murdered by someone in the family.

The Vanger clan is a peculiar one, in which everyone lives in close proximity to each other, yet they never speak.  As Blomkvist conducts his investigation, he comes to find that some of the family members are more cooperative than others, and everyone seems to have something to hide.  Eventually, he finds himself in need of a research assistant, and turns to Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a punk computer hacker with a look and disposition that is somewhat unconventional, to put it mildly.  She’s a girl with a painful past, a frosty demeanor, and her own unique way of dealing with people who cross her, be it a purse snatcher in the subway or her lecherous social guardian.

Reluctantly, Lisbeth agrees to help Blomkvist with the investigation, and as they dig deeper into the mystery of Harriet’s disappearance, they find evidence that she might have been the victim of a serial killer.  Soon, they realize that their lives are in danger, as someone in the Vanger family does not want them to discover the truth about Harriet.  All the while, an unlikely attraction between Blomkvist and Lisbeth starts to develop.

While I did like the Swedish film of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, I didn’t entirely love it.  I felt it had too many issues to make it a great film; the pacing was off, it was difficult to keep track of all the characters, it was too long, and I just didn’t feel as drawn into the story as I felt I should have been.  This new version rectifies most of these problems.  Right away, from an exhilarating, James Bond-style opening credits sequence, this thing just grabbed me tightly by the nuts and didn’t let go until its final, melancholy moment.  I can’t attest to whether this is more faithful to the novel, as I haven’t read it, but I can say, with certainty, that this new film is the version that I responded to more.  Throw bricks at me if you must, but I just flat out liked this one better.  And no, it has nothing to do with not having to read subtitles (though that certainly didn’t hurt).

Director Fincher and screenwriter Steve Zaillian not only fixed the first film’s imperfections, but actually improved on what that one got right.  The mystery is completely captivating, methodically building tension with Trent Reznor’s and Atticus Ross’ offbeat music score helping to create a feeling of unease throughout.  It moves at a deliberate pace, without ever becoming dull, and makes for a perfect companion piece to Fincher’s under-rated “Zodiac”, which this is, to me, reminiscent of, except with a lot more attitude.  As the two leads, Craig and Mara play off each other well, each giving it as good as they take it, and their chemistry is terrific.  Their rather chilly romance is perfectly believable, despite the age difference, which is brought up.

The film also doesn’t shy away from some of the uglier aspects of its Swedish counterpart, most notably the relationship between Lisbeth and her guardian.  I won’t say exactly what goes down, but things do get nasty, and it is just as potent in this version as it was in the original.  The guy sitting right next to me in the theater became visibly uncomfortable during these scenes, averting his eyes, squirming in his seat, and afterwards saying out loud, “This is too graphic for me.”  It does indeed get pretty rough, and if you’re of the squeamish variety, you may just want to avoid this altogether.  You may also want to pass on this if you’re a cat person, since something very bad happens to a certain feline at one point.

Much like Fincher’s previous film, “The Social Network”, this is very much an actor’s piece, and this time, he has brought some top level talent to the table.  As Blomkvist, Craig gives what I would say is his best performance outside of Bond.  I think he’s a tremendous improvement over the original Blomkvist, Michael Nyqvist.  Don’t get me wrong, Nyqvist was good, but Craig is sympathetic and charismatic in a way that he wasn’t.  Plummer, the veteran that he is, brings real gravitas to the role of the ailing Vanger patriarch.  He perfectly conveys the sadness of a man whose great wealth has brought him very little happiness and who has been tormented over the years by not knowing the fate of his beloved niece.  Stellan Skarsgard is just creepy as Martin Vanger, Henrik’s nephew.  Even when he’s being nice, he’s still just creepy, and that’s why I fucking love him.

Of the entire cast, the one I initially had doubts about, the one potential weak link, was the girl with the dragon tattoo herself, Rooney Mara.  It’s not just that Noomi Rapace, the original Lisbeth, seemed irreplaceable, it’s also that Mara seemed unlikely to be able to fill her Ass Kicker boots.  She was good in her bit in “The Social Network”, but if she had been anymore lifeless in the “Nightmare on Elm Street” re-dud, she would have been playing a corpse.  But, my concerns were misplaced, as she turned out to be every bit as amazing as Rapace ever was.  She’s tough, brilliant, sexy, and disturbed.  Her Lisbeth seemed to me to have a bit more warmth than Rapace’s, and by a bit, I mean a bit, as  the character still is emotionally cold and distant. At one point she dons a t-shirt that reads “Fuck You, You Fucking Fuck.”  Truly a chick after my own heart.  Mara has made the role of Lisbeth Salander entirely her own, and I do see some award nominations in her near future.

I would say she steals the film, except that the rest of the film is almost just as good.  Fincher, one of the best directors working today, has crafted a near masterpiece, marred only by over-length (the one flaw of the original they didn’t fix).  People who haven’t read the book or seen the Swedish film may get a little lost in spots, and the Lisbeth/guardian subplot may seem extraneous to those not familiar with the entire “Millennium Trilogy”.  I am a little nervous that they spent $100 million to make this thing, as this isn’t exactly a film that’s going to appeal to everyone, and if it fails to make its money back, it could prevent the rest of the trilogy from being made into films.  And that would be too bad, as “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a dark, gripping mystery that is, while tough to take at times, intelligently written and flawlessly acted.  Take it from the H, the feel bad movie of Christmas is one you do not want to miss!

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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.

(2 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.

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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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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.

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Hisss-terically bad!

The H-Bomb:  According to ancient Indian legend, Nagin is a deadly snake goddess who holds within her body the key to immortality.  If her mate is threatened or harmed, she will hunt down and take vengeance on whoever is responsible, and will in all likelihood claim the lives of at least a few innocent bystanders along the way.  Not only is an evil American by the name of…  wait for it…  George States, fully aware of this, he is actually counting on it, as he is dying of a brain tumor and has kidnapped Nagin’s mate in hopes of drawing her out so he can get at this immortal what-have-you that’s inside of her.

Well, his plan works, as Nagin takes the form of a hot naked woman (Mallika Sherawat) and goes in search of her captive mate.  Along the way, she encounters a few uncouth individuals who would love nothing more than to rape her.  So, she is forced to teach these hooligans a lesson in manners by eating them up and puking them out.  This, predictably, attracts the attention of local police inspector Gupta (Irrfan Khan), who is understandably baffled by these crimes.  However, Gupta’s batty old mother in law, as well as some other superstitious locals, begin to suspect that it’s the work of the serpent goddess.

Will the snake woman rescue her mate from the evil George States, or will she fall into his trap?  Will Gupta the cop catch her before she can, or won’t he?  Who’s to say?  The real question is…  will the audience still be awake at the end to find out, and if so, will they care?  The answer to both: not bloody likely.

“Hisss”, shot on location in India, is the third directorial effort from my favorite nepotistic filmmaker, Jennifer Chambers Lynch.  Ms. Lynch and I have crossed paths in the past when I reviewed her hilariously horrible debut “Boxing Helena”, as well as her decent sophomore effort, “Surveillance”, which was far, far from perfect, but overall a step in the right direction.  With her latest film, she ditched Hollywood for Bollywood, and has slithered all the way back down to “Helena”‘s level of utter awfulness.

Basically, “Hisss” is a B-grade creature feature.  You would expect a filmmaker from the Lynch family gene pool to take this myth and spin it into something creepy and cool…  or at least weird, in a good way.  But no, she made a plain old monster movie, the kind that airs on the Syfy Channel during one of their snake themed weekend movie marathons.  It’s the kind of movie that’s meant to be stupid fun, except here Lynch made it extra stupid, and skipped the fun all together in favor of sheer boredom.

One thing she did manage to nail is the look of a Syfy Original movie, in that it looks spectacularly cheap.  Not cheap in a cool, indie film kind of way, but cheap in that bad, direct-to-DVD way, complete with a laughably shoddy CGI snake monster that looks like it was ripped from a mid-90′s video game.  The snakes in that Samuel L. Jackson movie were more convincing.  As for the cinematography, you may think it impossible to make such a colorful place as India look drab and dreary, but Lynch somehow manages to make it look about as vibrant as London on a gray winter day.

Setting aside that the film is about as visually appealing as a dried dog turd, and that the special effects are only special in the short bus sense of the word, there’s also the putrid script to take into account, which features maybe ten minutes worth of clunky, uninspired action, and spends the rest of its eighty-something minutes wasting our time with bad drama and unfunny attempts at quirky humor until it finally gets to its awkwardly staged, and not-even-remotely thrilling climax.

Is there anything at all that sets “Hisss” apart from other hokey creature features?  There is, actually, in that it is, to my knowledge, the first and only movie to feature a snake-on-human sex scene.  A little Hisss, Hisss, Bang, Bang, if you will.  Leave it to the daughter of David Lynch to come up with that one…  and also leave it to her to make even that boring.

As for the acting, Sherawatt isn’t half bad, considering she doesn’t have a single line of dialogue in the film.  But, given the quality of the dialogue, that probably worked in her favor.  She’s required to look sexy and dangerous, and she pulls off both.  Khan, who plays the police inspector, you may remember from “Slumdog Millionaire”, in which he played…  a police inspector.  Way to cast against type there, Jennifer!  Anyway, he does okay, but he was better in “Slumdog”.

As the evil American George States (wow, really Jenn, really?), Jeff Doucette is over-the-top and cringingly terrible, but I blame that more on the writing than him.  In a well written script, he would have been a good man forced to do bad things out of desperation.  But, that would have required a little more thought than Lynch was willing to put into it, so instead he’s just a one note mustache twirler who is all dastardly and villainous…  just because he is

Is there anything positive that can be said about “Hisss”?  Well, the snake-woman makeup effects by Robert Kurtzman are pretty impressive, I’ll give it that.  Unfortunately, that very faint praise is all the praise I have, because bottom line, “Hisss” is pisss poor.  It truly sucksss asss, and while it was apparently taken away from Ms. Lynch and re-cut by others, it still bears her name, and I can’t see how a good film could ever be made from the footage I saw, so she is still to blame for it being the piece of ssshit that it is.

However, if you do feel inexplicably compelled to see “Hisss”, it is currently available on Netflix Instant Play.  But seriously, why would you, when there are so many more productive things for you to do with your time…  like pulling the wings off a fly, or checking your lawn for severed ears, or about a million other things.

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The other “Batman Begins”…

The H-Bomb:  Okay, before you start throwing Batarangs at me, let me just say that calling this the other “Batman Begins” isn’t at all fair, since Frank Miller’s graphic novel predates the Christopher Nolan film by almost two decades.  If anything, “Batman Begins” is the other “Batman: Year One”, since Nolan most definitely appropriated a number of elements from Miller’s book.  Both tell the origin story of the Dark Knight: how Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered when he was a child; how he traveled the world for several years, then returned to Gotham City to wage a one man war on crime; and how he came to adopt the Bat as his symbol to strike fear in the hearts of criminals.

Both “Begins” and “Year One” are set in a more realistic world, far removed from the Gothic fantasy of Tim Burton’s take on the material, or the neon nightmare of Joel Schumacher’s (thank fucking Christ).  The Gotham City of both is one overrun with crime, and home to a terminally corrupt police force that refuses to do a thing about it.  So, it is very safe to say that, even though Nolan’s and Miller’s origin stories are ultimately different, without “Year One”, there would be no “Begins”.

The critical difference between them, at least as far as this animated film adaptation goes, is that “Year One” does not focus mainly on Batman, but rather on police Lieutenant Jim Gordon, an honest cop who has just transferred to Gotham with his pregnant wife.   Upon his arrival, Gordon is forced to contend with not only street crime, but also with his dirty partner, his dirty police commissioner, and, last but not least, a vigilante who has been dressing up like a bat and beating the living guano out of bad guys at night.

Gordon also finds himself struggling with his own personal demons.  He has serious misgivings about bringing a child into a world as bleak and violent as this one, and he finds himself attracted to a young female detective who is working the Batman task force with him.  If all that wasn’t enough, there’s also a tough-as-nails street walker named Selina Kyle, who decides to make a career change and become, quite literally, a cat burglar.

Now, to be open and honest with all of you, I have never read the graphic novel upon which this is based, but seeing this film has actually made me want to.  It has the dark, violent tone that’s often associated with Miller’s work down pat, as well as a number of suggestive themes that really push the boundaries of the film’s PG-13 rating.  This ain’t Adam West’s Batman, nor is it a Batman for the kiddies, despite it being in animated form.  I don’t think kids would even like it, anyway, as they would probably find it slow and hard to follow.

This, like “The Dark Knight”, is Batman for grown ups.  The action takes a back seat to the story and character development.  The whole thing has a kind of Noir-ish feel to it, with Batman and Gordon delivering most of their dialogue in voice over narration as the movie cuts back and forth between the two.  This was an interesting approach that, for the most part, worked for me, as we see that Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon are two men fighting for the same cause.  They just happen to be on opposite sides of the law.

While I can’t personally attest to this, I have heard that “Batman: Year One” is very faithful to the source material, which may be both a good and bad thing.  Good in the sense that it is an intelligent, engaging take on the Batman character, and bad in the sense that it decided to make Batman a secondary character in what is supposed to be his own story.

Instead, our protagonist is Jim Gordon, a character who, until Gary Oldman took over the role in the Nolan films, was a one dimensional, ineffectual, incompetent oaf.  Here, he’s fleshed out, complex, and deeply conflicted.  A man constantly having to make personal sacrifices in order to do the right thing.  This in itself is not a bad thing, it’s just that the title of the movie is “Batman: Year One”, not “Gordon Goes to Gotham”.  This is the tale of Batman’s origins, thus one would assume that the story would be told from his perspective…  but it’s not.  This is why, for me, “Batman Begins” is the definitive Batman origin story.

The other big issue I have with “Batman: Year One” is the length.  No, not that it’s too long, but that, at a scant 64 minutes, it’s too short.  There are many things that this film just brushes over and rushes through, like when Bruce Wayne actually becomes Batman.  As it works in the film, Wayne is trying to think of a symbol to scare criminals when a bat flies into the room, and the next time we see him, he’s in his bat costume, complete with his bat gadgets and everything.  Considering how ambitious and multifaceted the narrative is, it really should have been at least a half hour longer, in order to flesh out the key elements of the story.

Another aspect that didn’t pay off was the inclusion of Catwoman.  I know it was meant to set up the character for the future, but, aside from a fist fight she has with Wayne early on, she really has no impact on the story at all, and every scene with her just feels extraneous.  I was, however, amused by how pissed she gets when the press identifies her as “Batman’s assistant.”

The vocal cast, for the most part, is quite strong.  Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”) makes a great Jim Gordon.  I’d put him on par with Gary Oldman, and he does a more than adequate job carrying the film.  Eliza Dushku is good and sassy as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, despite not getting a whole lot to work with.  Hot fuckin’ damn I wish she was doing the live action version!

The only weak link in the voice ensemble is, sadly, Batman himself, as played by Ben Mackenzie (“The O.C.).  He tries for the deep, strong voice, but he just sounds wooden for the most part, his line readings are weirdly stilted, and let’s be honest, Christian Bale he is not.  Hell, he’s not even Kevin Conroy, who kicked ass as the Caped Crusader on the animated series.  I understand why they would want a younger actor, since this is a 25 year old Batman, but…  they should’ve found someone else.  In fact, now that I think about it, maybe giving Gordon the most screen time wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.

But, all my pesky grievances aside, I really did enjoy this rendering of the Dark Knight legend.  It’s a tough, mean take on the character and the world he inhabits, the kind that I’ll always prefer over the more kid friendly interpretations (fuck you and your bat-nipples, Schumacher).  The animation is slick, beautiful to watch, and really eye popping on Blu-Ray.  For fans of Miller’s graphic novel, and Batman fans in general, this is absolute essential viewing, and it should be enough to tide us over until “The Dark Knight Rises” hits theaters next summer.