Handheld gaming might have a totally different definition for the title character of Napoleon Dynamite, but the game version of the hit indie film hits the DS and PSP soon, shipping October 23.. <I>Napoleon Dynamite: The Game</I> features 20 mini-games for the DS and 30 for the PSP, all of which really require that you use your skills… even your bow-hunting skills from when you went hunting wolverines with your uncle in Alaska. For more information, <A href=)
click here.
Daily Archives: October 5, 2007
Jindabyne
Lantana director
Ray Lawrence mines the source text of a Raymond Carver short story — one of the
same strands that made up 1993’s Short Cuts,
fans of Robert Altman
will certainly remember — for Jindabyne,
a so-so melodrama that skates by on the focused emotional investment of its starring
leads, Academy Award nominee Laura Linney and Gabriel Byrne.
,<br />
a former race car driver now worn down by life, leads pals Carl (John Howard),<br />
Rocco (Stelios Yiakmis) and Billy (Simon Stone) out into the wild, where they come<br />
across the body of a young Aboriginal woman. Deciding it’s too late in the day<br />
for them to hike back to the road and report their tragic find, they delay<br />
taking any action. The next morning, instead of making the long trek back, they<br />
spend the day fishing. When the men finally return home and report finding<br />
the body, all hell breaks loose. Their wives can’t understand how they could<br />
have gone fishing with the dead girl right there in the water — she needed<br />
their help. The men are confounded — the girl was already dead, they argue, so there<br />
was nothing they could do for her.<o:p></p>
<p></o:p>Stewart’s wife Claire (Linney), already troubled by the<br />
discovery that she’s pregnant and beset by a meddling mother-in-law (Betty<br />
Lucas), is the last to find out about the situation, and she becomes increasingly<br />
distressed over her husband’s callous behavior. To her it’s heartbreakingly emblematic<br />
of an already unraveling marriage. As public opinion builds against the actions of the men,<br />
their certainty about themselves and the decision they made at the river is<br />
challenged. They cannot undo what they have done. Only Claire understands that<br />
something fundamental is not being addressed. Determined to make things right again — not only<br />
for her own peace of mind, but karmically as well — Claire tries to reach out<br />
to the family of the murdered girl and offer them her condolences and<br />
explanation, in the process setting herself not only against<br />
her own family and friends but also those of the dead girl. Her marriage is<br />
taken to the brink and her peaceful life with Stewart and their young son hangs<br />
in the balance.</p>
<p><o:p></o:p>In relocating Carver’s “So Much Water so Close to Home” to <st1:country-region><st1:place>Australia</st1:place></st1:country-region>,<br />
Lawrence and screenwriter Beatrix Christian also add a racial element to the<br />
narrative. This gives the film a bit of a different flavor, but <span style=)
the chief
problem is one of scattershot focus and stalled dramatic device; this movie is
serial dawdler, and it wrecks much of the accrued downhill momentum that might
otherwise build up in its favor. Both pros, Linney and Byrne give us delicate
shades of how things have gone astray, even if the rest of the movie overcooks Carl,
Rocco and Billy’s relationships with their significant others. Jindabyne was highly praised in its
native country, where it was nominated for nine Australian Film Institute
Awards, include Best Film, Best Actor and Actress, Best Director, Best Adapted
Screenplay and Best Cinematography. As is, though, it remains just a bit too distant
and overdrawn to succeed as the tone poem of heartache that the premise and
evocative staging suggests.
in a regular Amray case, and is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with
a Dolby digital 5.1 soundtrack, and optional French and Spanish subtitles. The
DVD features a small clutch of deleted scenes that runs around six minutes in
total, as well as a hearty collection of trailers, but the main supplemental bonus
is a solid, half-hour making-of featurette that delves into production choices
big and small.
To order the movie via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) B+ (Disc)
On Arab Pigeonholing
A piece in the Los Angeles Times yesterday by Ashraf Khalil presents an interesting overview of the struggles facing actors of Arab and Middle Eastern descent. This despite opening with a deeply suspect, no-names anecdote — a voice coach lecturing an actor about hiding his grandfather’s heritage, or he “won’t work in this town.” Even if true (and I would flag it as somewhat dubious not because of shoddy reporting, but because of self-motivation on the part of the actor), this is reflective of the individual, bigoted opinion of one idiot voice coach, and not a top-shelf decision maker. As such, it’s an awful if predictably emotionally strategic opening for a much more thoughtful piece about one of the chief dilemmas facing Arab actors today — whether to play terrorist roles.
Interview subjects include Omar Metwally (Munich, the forthcoming Rendition), Tony Shalhoub and Sayed Badreya (next summer’s Iron Man), and of course the main gripe seems to (rightly) be one about multi-dimensionality. One of the more amusing bits, meanwhile, mentions the pilot episode of The Watch List, which features a skit in which young Arab actors learn how to play terrorists — practicing holding assault rifles, begging 24‘s Jack Bauer for their lives and, finally, falling down dead. In the end, the class’ teacher (Iranian American comedian Maz Jobrani) earnestly urges his students to learn how to play these roles “so that Latino actors won’t get them.”
There’s also a telling, funny-sad anecdote from Badreya about his work as a consultant on the 1996 Kurt Russell/Steven Seagal action flick Executive Decision; a wedding scene at a mosque, meant to showcase Arabs in a positive, familial light, as well as a moderate Arab ambassador character who helps the movie’s heroes defeat the terrorists were both trimmed from the film. That’s something you can hang on studio executives. Well… them and a jingoistic test audience, more than likely.
The Heartbreak Kid
A story of awkwardly overlapping romances liberally seasoned
with the patented, over-the-top humor of the brothers Farrelly, The Heartbreak Kid reunites the
behind-camera comedy specialists with star Ben Stiller in a careening showcase
for serial outrageousness that favors potent commercial formula over strict
adherence to narrative through-lines.
, and best friend Mac (Rob Corddry), starts to<br />
wonder if he’s being too picky about the women he meets. The<br />
wedding of a former girlfriend only serves to amplify these feelings of<br />
isolation, so when a chance encounter with an alluring blonde marine<br />
researcher named Lila (Malin Akerman) leads to the sweet bloom of<br />
romance, <b>Eddie believes he’s finally found true love</b>. When the threat<br />
of a potential job transfer for Lila endangers the relationship, he<br />
impulsively proposes.<em></em></p>
<p>But as the newlyweds drive down<br />
the California coast on the way to their honeymoon to Cabo San Lucas, <b>Eddie feels<br />
familiar pangs of unease</b>. Soon after reaching their exotic Mexican<br />
hideaway, he’s convinced he’s made a terrible mistake, put off as he is<br />
by <b>Lila’s aggressive bedroom demeanor and a chain of kept secrets that<br />
range from merely unnerving (a deviated septum) to jaw-tighteningly<br />
negligent (a mountain of debt, an old drug habit)</b>.<em></em> It’s here that Eddie also happens to fall for the down-to-earth Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), who’s visiting with her family.</p>
<p>Miranda<br />
has no clue that Eddie has just married, and with Lila confined to the<br />
honeymoon suite with a brutal case of sunburn, Eddie struggles to find<br />
a way to extricate himself from his days-old marriage without losing<br />
the (new) girl of his dreams. A tangled bit of misunderstanding<br />
Leads Miranda to believe that Eddie is a widower, but when that gives<br />
way to the truth, and Miranda returns home, Eddie sets off to try to<br />
win her back.</p>
<p>While <i style=)
The Heartbreak
Kid retains the Farrelly’s trademark humanistic touch (evident with the
care paid to Miranda’s country-raised family) it also doesn’t hesitate to
offend, chiefly through Lila’s sexual voraciousness, but also a wide variety of
casual brusque language and one-liners.
though, especially since some of Lila’s sprung “surprises” are matters that would have
been sorted out, even in six weeks of virginal, whirlwind courtship. Then
there’s the contrast, too, of scenes in which Lila talks about being just like
an elderly couple in 10 years (she’s “not good at math,” she confesses), then
immediately references spending the next 40 or 50 years together.
The fact is that The
Heartbreak Kid asks in many ways to be taken air-quote seriously as
something a bit darker and of more modern, sardonic substance than director
Elaine May and screenwriter Neil Simon’s original 1972 comedy, from Eddie’s
familial entanglements with his “would-be” in-laws to the movie’s general view
of relationships and its barbed, deliciously bleak-hearted ending. The film’s wild and
crazy, blue asides, then (bits that include a shot of Lila’s hairy, pierced
pubic area, and a discussion of Carlos Mencia’s hotel concierge placing Lila’s
hand on his genitals), often arrive with the jarring force of a
less-than-well-oiled traveling theme park ride; they’re naughty,
outside-the-lines coloring, wedged in for cheap effect. Still, the performances are almost uniformly engaging,
with Stiller cycling through a catalog of sputtering resistance ploys
that still work, no matter their familiarity. For the full review, from Screen International, click here.
Wings Takes Flight at Cinematheque
The American Cinematheque celebrates the 85th anniversary of
the Egyptian Theatre, 85 years to the day from its original opening, on
Thursday, October 18, with a special screening of William Wellman’s classic Wings, the first movie ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The 1927 World War I epic, starring
Richard Arlen, Charles “Buddy” Rogers, “It Girl” Clara Bow and Jobyna
Ralston, features breathtaking aerial stunts blended with real battle footage. A special book signing with William Wellman, Jr., author of The Man & His
Wings: William A. Wellman and the Making of the First Best Picture, will precede the film, and Robert Israel will provide live musical accompaniment. Tickets are available through
Fandango.com, but for more details, phone (323) 466-FILM, or visit the Cinematheque’s eponymous
Web site by clicking here.
Happy Birthday, Rachael Leigh Cook
It’s a happy birthday to Rachael Leigh Cook, who turns 28 today. Despite this summer’s Nancy Drew cameo and appearing in the forthcoming The Final Season, Cook is stuck is a rut of inconsequentiality, the result of a really bad 2001 (Antitrust, Josie and the Pussycats and fabled Miramax washout Texas Rangers) and… oh, who am I kidding? The only moment of commercial note in Cook’s career was the 1999 release She’s All That, which topped $100 million theatrically (seriously), and momentarily catapulted her to the top of people’s call lists.
