It’s a two hour “Family Guy” episode. That’s all you need to know about Ted, Seth MacFarlane’s tale of a little boy who gets his wish for a real-live talking Teddy Bear, who then grows up to be a man-child still palling around with a childhood toy.

OK, it’s only an hour and forty-six minutes, but the last 20 minutes really drags.

But really, that’s all you need to know: It’s not much like, say, Mike Judge doing Office Space or Idiocracy, where you wouldn’t necessarily realize this is the guy who does “Beavis and Butthead” and “King of the Hill”.

Ted’s voice is Peter Griffin. (Even referenced at one point.) There are “Star Wars” jokes and constant references to ‘80s cultural icons, including special guest star Sam J. Jones (who played in 1980’s Flash Gordon) and fart jokes and sex jokes and penis jokes, as well as lack-of-penis jokes. And of course the extended comedy fight scene, and the Airplane! rip off.

I didn’t expect much, so I had a kind of mixed reaction to the film. On the one hand, it started strong. Lots of fast jokes that are familiar, sure, but still funny. Mark Wahlberg is appealing as the man-child, and Mila Kunis seems to have cornered the niche of world’s coolest girlfriend.

And since it’s Wahlberg and not, say, Seth Rogan or Jason Segel, it’s way more believable. Amirite, ladies? Even if he is 41, he plays a convincing 35 and doesn’t look like an anthropomorphous Pilsbury dough-boy.

The plot is unfortunately more formulaic than you would think a plot about a walking-talking teddy bear could be. The movie pivots on a scene where Kunis brings Wahlberg to a business party only to have him skip out because Sam J. Jones has shown up at a booze-and-drug filled party Ted is throwing.

But we’d already established how cool Kunis is. She knows Sam Jones is Wahlberg’s hero. There’s no reason for us to believe she’d be upset if he left, and particularly no reason for him to sneak out without telling her.

Worse, though, is the sub-plot that is required to tie everything together, featuring Givoanni Ribisi as a creep who kidnaps Ted—this is not a spoiler, it’s obvious from moment one that Ribisi is the villain and that’s what he’s going to do.

When that happens, of course Kunis and Wahlberg drop their relationship problems as if they’d never happened, and work together to save Ted.

Also, Ted beats the crap out of Wahlberg in one scene and in the next big sequence, Ribisi throws a bag over his head and he’s powerless to stop him.

Am I nitpicking a movie that’s about a talking teddy bear? Yeah. If you aren’t going to do it right, don’t do it all. As a series of funny random gags, it works pretty well. As a rom-com-thriller, the gags destroy any continuity and feel crudely manipulative. (Maybe that’s the ultimate ’80s homage.)

I actually rolled my eyes at one point when Ted is escaping and they played the Indiana Jones theme. There’s a “Family Guy” episode where a character says to Stewie “You are the weakest link. Good bye.” Stewie then proceeds to go on a five-minute rant about whether she has any other fresh material like stuff about the movie Titanic.

Using the Indiana Jones theme as a reference was tired within weeks of that movie coming out. And it’s just been beaten to death ever since. It hasn’t even had time to rest for a comeback, it’s such a cliché.

But you don’t go see this kind of thing because it’s fresh. You go see it because you like it.

Much like a “Family Guy” episode, I liked a lot of the gags, but some of them are positively naive for such an “edgy” show.

There was one way that the movie differed from the show, and that’s in trying to achieve a kind of emotional connection. (“Family Guy” always disrupts any kind of emotionalism with a really horrible joke.) So the very talented McFarlane may have a weakness after all.

Well, two weaknesses. One of his weaknesses is ripping off Airplane! exactly and in whole, I guess as an homage, but it always feels like “Dude, write your own jokes.” In this case, it’s the scene in Airplane! that parodies the scene in Saturday Night Fever.

I’m griping, and it really doesn’t matter much: You know if you like this sort of thing. Prepare to be unsurprised.

Killer Joe

William Friedkin is back, reprising his work with Bug playwright Tracy Letts, in this malignant little tumor of a film called Killer Joe.

Story: Chris is thrown out of his mother’s house (after she steals and sells his drugs), and he runs to his sister Dottie’s trailer, but she’s a little weird (momma may have caused some brain damage to her trying to smother her as a baby, or maybe that never happened) and sleeps heavy, so he goes next door to his dad Ansel’s trailer, where the well-worn Sharla snipes at him while he explains to his (broke) Dad that if he doesn’t come up with the money he’ll be killed by the drug dealers he owes.

Chris has a plan, however. He’s learned that his mother has an insurance policy and that Dottie is the beneficiary. And he knows of a guy named Killer Joe—a cop who has a sideline knocking people off for cash. Since they don’t have the money up front, Killer Joe’s gonna write ‘em off, until he gets a load of the winsome Dottie, whom he takes as a retainer.

So, what we have is a tightly constructed, excellently shot and acted movie about people with no redeeming characteristics whatsoever. It’s actually pretty funny, particularly at first. It gets increasingly violent and darker and darker as the story progresses, till the third act is utterly submerged in gore and sexual humiliation.

I kinda liked it.

The Boy said he felt they were trying to hard to be shocking and he just got bored toward the end.

It’s NC-17 and that’s actually warranted. Don’t believe people who say US censors are uptight.

Emile Hirsch and Juno Temple are great as the brother and sister, and I don’t really know them from anything else. (Hirsch apparently was Speed Racer but, seriously, who saw that?) Gina Gershon and Thomas Haden Church are also very good. But it’s Matthew McConnaughey drives the story forward as the psychotic, sexual deviant who passes for the movie’s hero.

Or maybe it’s Dottie who’s supposed to be the hero. This isn’t really a film about a character’s journey and personal growth.

I’ve heard that Ethan Coen liked this, which doesn’t surprise me, since it bears a striking resemblance to Blood Simple, the Coen brothers first film. And as a machine, it’s a well-oiled one. Also, like some of the Coen brothers’ flick, it’s a story about some profoundly stupid people.

But if the Coen brothers are accused of being cynical or detached from their characters, there’s positive revulsion in this movie. The only human characteristics these people have are parodic vestiges of familial obligation.

Also, the ending’s kind of a cop-out.

To say it’s not for everyone doesn’t do it justice. Much like Bug, it’s for hardly anyone. And Bug’s main characters were extremely sympathetic. Not so here. The movie disabuses you of any affection you might have for the characters quickly and often.

For Greater Glory

So, one of our greatest predictors of movie quality these days is the critic/viewer split. Movies like Machine Gun Preacher, Blue Like Jazz and Act of Valor are just a few of the movies that viewers (like us) enjoyed which critics excoriated.

The latest entry in this category is the 16/83% split For Greater Glory, starring Andy Garcia, Peter O’Toole (in his last-ish role! Thank God!) and Tron, himself, Mr. Bruce Greenwood. No, wait, Tron was Bruce Boxleitner. Never mind.

This is the true story of the Cristiada, the three year struggle of Christians which began with El Presidente de Mexico Calles basically outlawing Catholicism. Calles, an atheist and a totalitarian (funny how often those go together) didn’t care for the power of the Roman Catholic Church in his country, so he forbade its practice and rounded up and killed or deported its clergy.

If only people weren’t so religious, atheists wouldn’t have to keep killing them.

Well, that’s what I kept thinking during this, what with atheists constantly telling us how religion is the source of so much evil in the world. And yet, every time an atheist comes to power, his first order of business seems to be to kill religious people.

Well, anyway, with the heroic religious warriors fighting the oppresive state, the first miracle is that it got made at all, and the second one is that it managed to get a whole 16% from critics.

How is it, really? The Boy and I both liked it, but we had some reservations. For lack of a better word, it’s kind of square. Maybe it’s intended to appeal to people who don’t frequent movies often, but for the seasoned moviegoer, there’s a lot of setup and character development that’s sort of obvious.

It’s not exactly slow in these parts, mind you, just maybe in need of some tighter editing. Maybe.

Other than that, it’s nicely shot and acted. Oh, the music was a little square, too. A little on-the-nose, if you will. Not quite “Star Wars” on-the-nose but then stromtroopers going around killing priests is a little order 66.

The main attraction of this film is Andy Garcia, as the atheist generale who is lured into uniting the Cristeros, who are separate groups of fighters with no central command, into a real army. The movie portrays him as a man interested in freedom, and sort of puzzled by the devotion to God, but who slowly moves toward God through his association with the Cristeros and a boy who has fled his home town to help the rebels after government thugs shoot his priest in front of him.

The action scenes pop, though The Boy pointed out that it seemed like a few of them felt rushed, with some of the less necessary exposition being favored in lieu of drawing out the otherwise very good action scenes.

It reminded me a bit of Garcia’s non-pro-Castro Cuban Revolution flick The Lost City, though this actually is more enjoyable to watch. Overall, I’d recommend if you’re interested in any of the elements: Mexican history (though obviously this should not be your only source of information about the Cristiada), Man’s struggle with God, Man’s struggle with Totalitarianism, Andy Garcia.

I’d say first-time director Dean Wright and screenwriter Michael Love have made a solid flick here, if not exactly a masterpiece.

The Green Wave

Up next in our series of revolutions-by-Twitter documentary is The Green Wave, the story of the Iranian revolution, as told through interviews, some recorded footage, and animated segments of blog posts and tweets.

Unlike Never Sorry, there’s no plucky hero of this movie. You get a pretty good idea of the repression and just outright thuggery of the Iranian government. The Chinese government seems to have a certain smugness, a confidence that allows them to tolerate some dissent, while the Iranian government is either very insecure or just run by sadists.

But there’s so much not explained here. Clearly the 2009 elections, which should’ve unseated Ahmadinejad were badly and baldly rigged—but why? Given that the ruling clerics obviously run the show, why go through all the trouble? The challenger wasn’t really an outsider, either, so whose power was threatened?

On top of that, the whole “the challenger leads"—whoops, blackout!—"And Ahmadinejad wins by 70%!” is really pretty insulting. I mean, I know American politicians regard The People as stupid but this is just rubbing their noses in it.

And maybe that’s part of what leads to the protests.

A few days of protesting and things get surreal. The clerics send out their mooks, which are literally motorcycles ridden by two guys, where the guy on the back has a baseball bat or something.

They bash in some heads, they round up and brutally torture a few hundred people—no real rhyme or reason, just thuggery and terrorism and a kind of “Oh, yeah?! We’ll show you!” from the government.

In between the representations of the crackdown, they have various Iranians talking confidently how the regime can’t last, and so on, but it’s somewhat dispiriting to note that this stuff happened three years ago.

The Boy was in a dark mood after seeing this. Though the bureaucratic incompetence on display in both Iran and China is essentially the same beast, in Iran there appears to be no consideration for, say, world opinion. China wants to be respectable and a world leader, no matter how many people they have to crush to do it; Iran doesn’t care about respect, only fear, inside and out.

There’s no plucky artist dogging the mullahs in Iran, presumably because they’d just kill him and a whole bunch of random other people.

As a documentary it lacks the focus and backdrop of “Never Sorry” but it’s still a compelling story. I just wish it gave more reason for optimism.

Hope Springs

My dad hated Meryl Streep. He used to paraphrase Katharine Hepburn’s criticism, “Wind her up and she acts.” I mention this because he used to rant about her in the ‘80s—having ruined two of his favorite books (The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Sophie’s Choice)—long before I’d ever seen her in any movie, except Kramer vs. Kramer, which I really didn’t pay much attention to.

When I finally did see her in Silkwood (or maybe it was Still of the Night) I was inclined to agree. She’s acting. It’s very obvious. But I don’t know if this is one of those situations where the rest of the world is wrong (which happens so often) or I was prejudiced (which happens nearly as often). When she started doing comedy, I started enjoying her performances more. She-Devil, Postcards From The Edge, Death Becomes Her—they all seemed a lot more relaxed. (My favorite performance of hers remains her winningly playing herself in Stuck On You.)

I think she’s a sweetheart in real life.

I mention all this because I was drifting aimlessly this weekend and stumbled in to see Hope Springs, the senior-sex-comedy-romp (a completely inapt description) with Streep and perpetually crusty Tommy Lee Jones.

She acts a lot in this movie. Every detail is perfect. Her character is defined not just through dialogue but through every little mannerism and movement.

I just couldn’t stop noticing it.

So, that’s my caveat for this benign if odd tale of a couple in their 60s who haven’t touched each other for years and wind up at an “intensive couples therapy retreat” to try to save their marriage.

As long as I’m talking about acting, Jones is Jones and naturally great in this role. You can imagine it if you’ve ever seen him in anything post, say, The Eyes of Laura mars. Steve Carell is the therapist and manages to tread that fine line between sensitive and goofy. (Therapists seem to actually be goofy; it’s a fine line, indeed.)

 Jones and Streep have a plausible chemistry and the screenplay avoids a lot of the most obvious landmines, such as blaming the husband for everything (which is how it would’ve played out a few years ago). Things move along fairly briskly, with some laughs along the way. It’s not boring.

It is kinda weird, though.

It’s weird because there’s a lot of goofy humor mixed in with some severe pathos. It’s weird because there’s a constant reminder of the age of the participants, mixed with very explicit details. It’s weird because there’s a setup for a kind of dramatic reveal that—well, just never happens and doesn’t seem to matter.

Even Carell’s character is essentially superfluous (again, very much like a real therapist rim-shot).

So, reserved recommendation from me. (The kids weren’t with me: I mean, old people making out! Eww! Not that I asked. I really was drifting aimlessly.)

Oh, also, if you’ve seen the full-length trailer? You’ve seen the whole movie. The trailer hits every beat in the movie except two, almost every funny line, and the entire shape of the film, too. There are literally no surprises here.

There was a great preview for Frank Langella’s upcoming film Robot and Frank, which looks great, but it also gives away the entire movie. What happened to the tease?

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

Use the phrase “conceptual artist” around me and you’re likely to get an involuntary eye roll. It’s not that I think that there is no such thing, though I’d be hard-pressed to think of some concept art that I found really moving, it’s that “conceptual art” is most certainly a refuge for scoundrels.

You don’t need any particular talent, just “ideas” and people to actually carry them out. And in this documentary about Chinese artist “Ai Weiwei”, that’s exactly what he does: He takes his ideas and has his many minions execute them under his guidance.

But a funny thing happens when you take an ‘80s avant-garde hipster from the streets of New York and transplant him to China: All the ridiculous crap he’s spewing about “government oppression” and “freedom of expression” becomes not just true, but positively heroic.

Flipping off D.C.? Meh.

Flipping of Beijing? When you live in China? That’s a whole ‘nother kettle of fish.

Ai Weiwei is the son of Chinese Poet Ai Qing, who joined the Communist party and then got re-educated during one of those purges the Left is so fond of. Ai Weiwei bummed around New York through the ’80s and early ’90s, until he returned to China at the end of his father’s life.

Back in China, he started publishing underground art books. Now, in America, “underground” is kind of a quaint thing. It’s all rebellious and edgy without actually being dangerous. In China, it’s genuinely dangerous. You couldn’t buy these books in stores. Instead, people sort of lurked on street corners with a sort of “Hey, buddy, wanna buy some art?” come-ons.

Weiwei gained enough notoriety internationally to secure a place of prominence in the design of the Beijing Olympics, which he quickly denounced and distanced himself from. (And possibly shamed Spielberg into distancing himself from, as well.)

The documentary, while about the artist, is largely focused on Weiwei’s “citizen investigation” of the Sicuhuan earthquake, in which thousands of Chinese schoolchildren were killed, perhaps due to the shoddy “tofu” construction of the government schools. Beijing, of course, wanted to bury the story, literally and figuratively, and Weiwei sent people out to the villages to investigate and collect names of the dead.

It’s also about the government’s ham-fisted approach to silencing him.

Weiwei is a master of the blog and Twitter and he uses these media (especially Twitter @aiww) to communicate things the government would rather not have communicated. You can debate how dangerous the Chinese government is—the movie refers to other dissidents who simply vanish—but not really how dangerous the Chinese people think it is.

We see a meal eaten out in public, where fans sit down with Weiwei (knowing they’re being watched), disrupted by cops.We see cops bust into a hotel room where Weiwei is staying and hear a scuffle that seems to result in Ai Weiwei being physically struck in the head, enough to where a CAT scan done in Munich a week later reveals serious trauma.

We see the kind of comical stupidity of Chinese bureaucracy (bureaucracy is the same all over) as Weiwei goes through the approved channels to demonstrate how the system is broken, and the less comical (but still sort of laughable) brutality of a system that is at best indifferent to the thuggery within its ranks. And we finally see as the Chinese government makes Weiwei vanish for three months, only to justify this with a “tax evasion” accusation.

Of course, one never knows the full story, but one also isn’t inclined to give the Chinese government any benefit of the doubt (unless one is Tom Friedman). They are stupid to fight someone who is both very charming and also very self-effacing. (He’s dismissive of his own talents and bravery, and it seems very genuine.)

An interesting part of this story is that Ai Weiwei has a son. A very young boy that he had with “a friend”. The Brit interviewing him brings this up and says something to the effect of “Well, you’re an artist, so it’s okay.” And Weiwei allows that it’s not okay, that his wife isn’t cool with it, and is generally embarrassed by the situation—while also very clearly adoring his son.

He’s not looking for an excuse for his bad behavior. And now he has a son which, one speculates, gives the Chinese government leverage to use against him. He seems much cowed after his long stay with the officials.

But it doesn’t stick. Although he talks about not being able to talk, he’s still out there, tweeting and being a gadfly on the dragon’s ass.

And that’s an encouraging thing, as is the fact that when he’s hauled off, his followers continue his work. And they seem to be growing in numbers and boldness.

So, yeah, while “conceptual artist” may conjure up images of effete New York pantywaists and genuinely strange weirdos like Yoko Ono, in Ai Weiwei you have a rare example of conceptual artist bad-assery.

The Boy was impressed.

The Queen of Versailles

The theater had to put “DOC” next to The Queen of Versailles because a lot of people are apparently showing up thinking it’s the French historical drama Farewell, My Queen, about the last days of—well, from what I can tell, a woman who’s in love with Marie Antionette, while Antionette only has eyes for some other chick.

It’s not really on my list, but the kids were intrigued by the story of this ultra-wealthy family that is trying to finish their American inspired-by-Versailles 90,000 square foot mansion. Even after I told them this probably wouldn’t be as hilarious as they were imagining it.

The Boy had this whole Marx Brothers-style scenario imagined where Groucho’s taking a bath in a bathroom on one of the upper floors, where the bathroom was open to the wall, and doors that opened into nowhere or had no walls around them. And so on.

That’d be hilarious.


My concern was that this documentary was going to be a denouncement of American excess, and perhaps it was planned that way. Perhaps, even, the filmmakers felt that way. But, in fact, there’s very little apparent judgment going on from what I can tell. (Of course they can, indeed must, edit in such a way as to craft some kind of narrative but if it was done here to grind an axe I couldn’t tell.) It’s not so much a denouncement, I think, as a cautionary tale—a subtle distinction, perhaps, but an important one.

I’ve seen the word “schadenfreude” used a lot in others’ reviews of this film and I frankly didn’t feel it. I didn’t feel like the filmmakers’ were gloating; I didn’t feel like gloating while watching it.


The Siegels and their seven kids and adopted niece live in a 27,000 square foot mansion with their 12 dogs, and so much crap that they can’t really contain it in those meager confines. There’s a marvelous mishmash of high and low culture, with the Siegel’s massive Rolls limo parked outside the local McDonald’s, for example.


It’s all fun-and-games until the market dries up and Siegel’s business, which has been powered by loans, and which depends on people being able to get loans, has the rug pulled out from under it by the market crash.

There’s a kind of touching scene where Jackie talks about how she thought the point of the bail out was so that the money would come to…regular people, like her and David. I mean, it’s a laugh out loud moment because they’re not regular people—but it’s also true. The money given to the banks seems to have been used entirely to keep themselves solvent and done not a damn thing for the rest of us.

In a lot of ways, their massive wealth allowed the banks to screw them extra hard. In fact, it kind of looks like that was the plan: The bank sees a big pile of free money in Siegel’s Vegas timeshare, that he’s sunk $390 million into. He has the option of giving it up and maintaining his lifestyle or fighting for control and being ruined.



In Fight Club, Tyler Durden says “The things you own end up owning you.” There’s a lot of truth to that, but in this case, there is so much stuff, they can’t even timeshare the owners. (See what I did there?)


I think a lot of the schadenfreude I’ve seen is rooted in envy and moral posturing, in other words, than any real superiority. “I wouldn’t do that if I had a billion dollars. I’d solve world hunger and stuff.” Yeah, right. (Though I should say, my dad made millions in his life and gave it all away while living in a 1,500 square foot house in a lower middle-class suburb. So there are people like that. He also never talked about it.)

Siegel himself comes off the worst in this movie. He talks about his contributions to society and how much he values his kids, but he’s kind of a hollow man. When he says he doesn’t  care about the stuff, you believe him because he exclusively demonstrates an interest in work (and status).

He doesn’t want to sell Versailles, not so much because he wants to live there, but because he wants to see it finished. He doesn’t want to give in to the bank on his Vegas timeshare because that’s his, he built it and he realizes he’s been played.

So at the film’s nadir, which is, sadly, toward the end of the film (and, one suspects, story), he has nothing. Jackie is highly flawed, but she tries to be a good wife to him, and he’ll have none of it. He’ll take no solace in her or his children—nothing matters but his business. He has no God, his connections with his community are tenuous: No one comes to bail him out, to save his work from the banks.

Jackie on the other hand, while she comes across spacey and disconnected, is actually a character of some depth. She was a small town girl who became an “engineer” (I’m guessing software) so she could go to work for IBM, which was the only shop in her town.

But one of her co-workers (or her boss, I forget which) showed her this program he’d written to countdown to the second when he was going to retire because that was when he was going to start living his life.

That sort of freaked her out and she left for Florida, became a model, became Miss Florida, married an abusive guy who she called the cops on and divorced, and hooked up with David. When she realized fecundity didn’t have to destroy her figure and also that she could have a bunch of other people taking care of her children, she had seven of them.


The two are humiliated at the prospect their children might have to fend for themselves in the world, but it’s hard to see how that wouldn’t be the best thing for all of them.

None of this excess, this disconnection, this unreality made me hate these people or take joy in their suffering. None of it made me hate America (where the rich can’t be counted on to get richer, only the connected), though it made a good (and I’m sure deliberate) metaphor for America.

They just seemed human to me.

And to this day Versailles sits, stranded in limbo, not exactly being snapped up as a $75M “fixer”.

The Dark Knight Rises

It was a fair bet that the last movie in Chris Nolan’s Batman trilogy was not going to live up to the ridiculous hype of the second movie. But I think it’s fair to say that, while we don’t have a trilogy that measures up to only great trilogy in cinema history (Toy Story) we have a very solid finish to a very watchable trilogy.

Personally, this was probably my favorite of the three. If Nolan has a weakness—at least as far as I’m concerned—it’s that his movie can be clever intellectually while not really engaging the emotion. In some ways, Insomnia is one of my favorite films of his because you really get a sense of Pacino’s deterioration as the film goes on. (Plus I can relate to not having slept for long periods.)

But this was engaging on a lot of levels. There was tremendous layering and depth by a really top-notch crew of actors. The story begins several years after the last one ended with Batman having vanished, the scapegoat of the bad events of the previous film. Life is great now, with crime down and criminals being put away right-and-left thanks to the Dent act.

Gary Oldman does a fantastic job as Police Chief Gordon, who struggles every day with the lie he created for the greater good. New to this film is Nolan regular Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as the beat cop who believes in the Batman and knows what is afoot. Michael Caine’s Alfred has the depth of a adoptive father, worried for the safety of his ward, far from the comic relief his character is typically associated with.

It’s fair to say that, if these aren’t the definitive interpretations of these characters, they are interpretations which future reboots will be measured against.

Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman is particularly worthy of mention. In keeping with Nolan’s hyper-realistic approach, she never really suits up and dons the mantle of “Catwoman”. She’s just a jewel thief. She only wears a mask at a costume party. They do this very clever trick of giving her special glasses that, when she flips up, look like ears.

She looks amazing in the jump suit—kinda have to get that out of the way up front. But she’s shockingly convincing as a badass, delivering the occasional high kick and judo throw without ever getting camp.

She talks like an OWSer. I don’t think Nolan was trying to make any specific political points: He’s less about the OWS and more about the French Revolution, which is sort of what unfolds in Gotham during the course of the story. You can make your own parallels and draw your own conclusions; there’s no reason for him to do so.

At the same time, if she’s an OWSer, she’s an early one, one who is horrified by the eventual climax and denouement of the revolution, like many of the people who got behind OWS at first only to later be appalled by the most noxious elements. Again, it’s not necessarily an OWS commentary at all; these things happen all the time, and the OWS is just the most obvious recent similar example.

But travelling through the rubble of a once beautiful apartment, she picks up a photo and says “This was someone’s home once.” To which her female companion (Catwoman is totally bi, yo) replies “Now it’s everyone’s home.” Catwoman’s struggle is personal and profound, capturing the character’s struggle between her sense of justice and the nagging remains of her morality.

There’s an amazing sense of teamwork here, too. From Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox and Marion Cotillard’s Miranda down to Gordon and Blake (Levitt’s character), I haven’t mentioned the Batman his own self yet because he’s just one character in this ensemble. Well, he’s two: Batman and Bruce Wayne, and he’s the hub around which the action takes place, though this isn’t reflected all that much in screen time. (He’s absent in the beginning of the film and also at the start of the third act.)

What’s clear is that, unlike (especially) Burton, Nolan understands heroism. His Catwoman isn’t a victim (whatever she’s suffered), and each character gets a chance to be a hero, even the establishment-political-type-cop played by Matthew Modine.

Anyway, I should say Bale is beyond merely good as The Dark Knight. He seems comfortable—comfortable with the discomfort, you could say. He has less screen time in this than earlier films but he fills it well. I guess in part this is because in the earlier films, he was trading more on the past mythology of the Batman, whereas here we’re looking at what he’s done in the previous films, and the effect it’s had both on the city and his own personal state.

Actor-wise, there are some nice touches in the form of the reappearance of Liam Neeson (as Ra’s al Ghul) and Cillian Murphy (the Scarecrow). Heath Ledger’s Joker is missed, but the movie is pretty well crammed—close to three hours in length, so his absence is more of a nostalgic ache than a conspicuous plot hole.

This is just the acting and characterization, and there are many other excellent points this movie: Like, getting away a little bit from the stark realistic feel of the last movie, this one really captures the imagery of the best comic book art. The initial battle between Bane and Batman is tremendous, a thrilling and horrifying spectacle with one shot directly lifted from the comic book cover. There’s an excellent twist which would also be tipped if you knew your Batman—I only realized it after it happened.

Then there’s music, set design—the sound mix was a little off in places, I thought, and I wasn’t sure if it was deliberate, like, “It doesn’t matter what they’re saying.”

But the biggest flaws were in this struggle that Nolan has between the comic book and the reality. I had this problem in spades with the last flick: The Batman’s “no kill” code starts to look stupid in the face of the Joker’s wanton destruction. There was a little less of that in this one but there were many other similar problems.

Bruce Wayne has some serious health problems, but they don’t seem to stick. Like, he’s been limping for years, but when he gets back into the suit he’s fine. Now, they explain that with a little bit of mechanical assistance but it really just goes away, Bruce Wayne or Batman. And that’s just the most obvious instance of a physical malady seeming nigh unconquerable only to vanish later on.

Then there’s a little bit of comic-book-logic, which regular readers know that I love, but which is bizarrely out of place in Nolan’s Gotham. The central plot device hinges on Wayne having put half his fortune into this unlimited energy source which he then abandons upon completion because it can be used as a weapon. Upon seeing it, Cotillard’s Miranda exhales breathily, “Free energy for the entire city.” And Wayne responds “but it can be turned into a bomb”.

This is really beneath the Nolans (brother Jonathan co-wrote with Chris). First of all, we’ve already established it cost at least half the Wayne fortune variously figured at between $6 and $11 billion. And it completely renders the Wayne Corporation unprofitable. And Wayne’s not the only shareholder.

So… free energy?

And the weapon it can be turned into? Well, a 4 megaton bomb. So…yeah, what’s the point? It serves a certain dramatic purpose, to have the mistrustful Wayne turn over the keys to the bomb/fusion reactor to Miranda, but the setup struck me as kinda dopey. (Current nuclear plants are actually pretty safe from precisely this sort of thing.)

There’s a prison in a remote region of—I think it’s Tibet, recalling the first movie—but people seem to be able to get there and back pretty easily. Also, to be able to get a satellite cable hookup with big screen TV. Heh. How about that service call?

The Boy was particularly bothered by the street fight where everyone seems to forget they have guns. It’s a thing with him.

I’m scratching the surface here. Point is, in some ways, it’s not tight.

On the other hand, I could see going to see it again. There’s a lot there. The drama is above par. The broad strokes are so right I can overlook the little stuff. A lot of satisfying wrapping up here, too. It’s a good way to go out.

Anyway, nicely done, Nolans.

The Intouchables

A French movie about a quadriplegic who hires a thuggish black dude to take care of him. What could possibly go wrong? Seriously, if you encapsulated this film, I would rank it just slightly below their new Marie Antoinette film (Farewell, My Queen) on films I wouldn’t want to see.

And  yet, this is a delight.

2012 humor
Driss yells at Philippe for taking him to see “The Watch”.

Quadriplegia wouldn’t seem like a great topic for movies but it has always treated me pretty well. Murderball, The Sea Inside are two of the best movies of their respective years. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was a critical success, and was a very well done film, though it reeked of Boomer sensibilities.

This isn’t quite Murderball but it has the same kind of insouciance.

Francois Cluzet (whom I last saw in the noir Tell No One) plays the wealthy wheelchair-bound man who, after interviewing caretakers in a long string of compassionate weenies, hires a thuggish ghetto criminal who was just pretending to interview so he could get his “benefit”.

This movie is about the friendship that forms between the two of them, and what’s remarkable is how many ways this story could go wrong. Not only does this film never strike a false note, it glides easily through the story as if there weren’t any ways to go wrong.

This might be because it’s inspired by a true story. (I mean, “true story” isn’t always just a marketing gimmick.)

Wheelchairs are fun!

Behind the buddy story is the dual tales of redemption. Driss (Omar Sy) is a lowlife and thief whose own mother (er, stepmother? adoptive mother? I couldn’t figure it out) kicks him out of the project apartment he lives in with his innumerable siblings. On his interview with Philippe (Cluzet) he steals a Fabergé egg.

Philippe is understandably suicidal, though as we find out, it was this tendency that put him in the wheelchair. And what’s interesting is that it’s not Driss’s “keepin’ it real” attitude that reaches him, it’s Driss’ complete inability to comprehend and empathize with Philippe’s disability.

This probably medically contraindicated.
There are also some interesting “field trips”.

He doesn’t load Philippe into the handicap-accessible hybrid minivan-like thing, he throws the wheelchair in the back of the Maserati (or whatever) and Philippe in the passenger seat, and screams around Paris at unsafe speeds.

He’s squeamish about cleaning Philippe off, and he’s interested in Philippe’s potential for enjoying physical relationships. He has nothing much to lose, really, so he never has the deference toward this very wealthy man that everyone else around him does.

There’s a little bit of the “culture clash” stuff, where Driss is mocking the modern art and classical music that Philippe enjoys, and Driss brings in a lot of ‘70s disco to liven up the soundtrack, but this is done without condescension—in both directions. In other words, the movie offers art high and low for what it’s worth, without any apparent judgment.

Driss DEFINITELY has a point, tho’.

There is a great bit with Driss deciding he can paint modern art and Philippe trying to sell it for an outrageous price. And a running story of Driss trying to seduce Philippe’s haughty assistant (the haughty hottie Audrey Fleurot). But as a whole it doesn’t engage in class warfare.

That’s kind of remarkable, really.

This movie features love, lust, friendship, loss and success. It reminds of that quote attributed to Mae West, W.C. Fields and others: “I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. Rich is better.” At the same time, it can’t help but show how money isn’t everything.

In the end, you get some pics and data on the real people who these characters represent, which is a nice touch.

He has it coming.
I think this is right before she slaps Driss.