Category: Review

Carolyn Williams
Staff Writer

To call Christopher Nolan (“Inception”) “master” of the summer blockbuster would be putting it lightly. His latest film “The Dark Knight Rises,” the epic conclusion of Nolan’s Batman franchise, is by no means an exception.

“The Dark Knight Rises” picks up eight years after “The Dark Knight” ended, and Gotham’s days of organized crime are becoming a distant memory. The Harvey Dent Law, named after Gotham’s dear departed white knight, has put away hundreds of mobsters, cleaned up Gotham’s streets and turned the city’s police force into a collection of complacent mall cops. The stalwart Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) is about to be fired because he can’t adjust to peacetime police work, and is still covering up the lie which has vilified Batman, Gotham’s currently unsung hero.

Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne/Batman (Christian Bale) has been living as a virtual recluse since the death of Rachel in the last film, retired from acting as Batman, and kept company by his caretaker-cum-butler, Alfred (Michael Caine). Wayne is pulled back into the land of the living when a cat burglar (Anne Hathaway)–she’s never actually called “Catwoman,” but the implication is blatant–enters his home disguised as a maid and makes off with his mother’s pearls. Once again abusing the privacy of Gotham, Wayne tracks her down and the two form a flirty alliance. Their relationship is based on her desperation to escape her mounting criminal record and his desire for information on a growing threat to the city, a mysterious figure named Bane (Tom Hardy), which only a denizen of Gotham’s seedy underbelly could provide.

Bane, it turns out, is an expelled member of the League of Shadows, which Wayne is also a graduate of. But when Wayne left the group to fight against Ra’s al Ghul’s plans for chaos and destruction, Bane intended to complete this “noble” work by destroying Gotham once and for all. After Batman has been physically bested by the brutal villain, kidnapped and stripped of his fortune, he is forced to watch from a distance as all hell breaks loose, struggling against insurmountable odds to return to his helpless city. Bane’s army of malcontents patrol Gotham, which quickly devolves into a war zone, cut off from the rest of the world, and left to fight for its own life–or become a literal crater.

In the aftermath following the tragedy of the Colorado midnight premiere, fans continued to rally around the movie–proof of the film’s cult following.

“It would be difficult for any future Batman film to surpass Christopher Nolan’s end to the trilogy,” Ava Giuliano ’14 said.

Nolan is working with nearly all of his favorite actors on this project, and it shows. Though it is nearly impossible to compete with Heath Ledger’s unforgettable performance in the previous film, the ensemble cast could hardly be better. But with so much cool stuff happening, we are willing to overlook the little things. Sure, there are some gaping plot loopholes, such as a lack of explanation of what happened to the Joker and the fact that the talented Tom Hardy wore a mask that literally restricted his ability to act. We’ll forgive them because hey, it’s the new Nolan movie, and at the end of the day, it’s just that cool.

Carolyn Williams

Staff Writer

To say that Stephen Daldry’s latest film “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” packs a monumental emotional punch would be to put it lightly. Walking that razor-sharp line between tragedy and quirky coming-of-age story, dealing with the fallout of the Sept. 11 attacks and the trauma of losing his father, 9-year-old Oskar Schell embarks on “Reconnaissance Mission No. 6.”

Precocious to the extreme, Oskar (Thomas Horn) is grappling with a return to “normal” life one year after the Sept. 11 attacks that killed his father. Left alone with his grief-stricken mother (Sandra Bullock), Oskar flashes back repeatedly to memories of his father, his hero (Tom Hanks). Raised to be a thinker, the wheels in Oskar’s head immediately begin turning when he finds a mysterious key marked “Black” in a blue vase in his father’s closet. He decides that if he can ring the doorbell of every person with the last name “Black” in New York, he will be able to solve this last mission of his father’s.

What ensues are a series of heartwarming encounters with a number of Blacks throughout the city. Along the way, Oskar picks up a partner in crime, his estranged grandfather (Max von Sydow), referred to simply as The Renter, who has been living in Oskar’s German grandmother’s apartment for the past year. Von Sydow’s performance is well worth his Oscar nomination, conveying artfully the character of a man who has been so traumatized that he has mysteriously lost his ability to speak. He converses instead via notepad or with the aids of the words “yes” and “no,” which he has tattooed to the palms of his hands.

Daldry does not allow his viewer to forget the heavy subject material for long, though. Indeed, flashbacks to Sept. 11 are interspersed throughout, and the worst is the secret Oskar’s been keeping from everyone, the six messages on the answering machine left by Oskar’s father as the towers went down. Oskar keeps it from his audience until the last possible second, and with good reason: it’s just as awful as you dreaded it would be.

To a point, Daldry’s film maintains the postmodern integrity of Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel of the same title. But something of the book does not translate to the screen. We lose a lot of Oskar’s narration, which is a shame, but more importantly, we lose some of the gravity of the situation. Though nowhere near as bad as the vomit-inducing “Remember Me,” the romance which killed off Robert Pattinson with a cheap Sept. 11 twist at the end, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” seems, at times, more intent on making us cry than telling a valid story. We remember Sept. 11 painfully, a fact which Daldry exploits at every turn, but Oskar’s story, while touching, does not do justice to Safran Foer’s original or the real-life tragedy which sets the plot in motion. With a hopeful, almost sickly-sweet Hollywood ending, the film diverges completely from the book, granting Oskar a sort of closure which is neither realistic nor appropriate.

By Carolyn Williams

Staff Writer

If the first thing you think when someone brings up “The Artist” is that the average modern moviegoer wouldn’t want to sit through what they think will be an outdated, black and white silent film, think again. Michel Hazanavicius’s new movie is light, funny and a genuine delight to see.

George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) stars as one of the most famous silent movie stars in Hollywood. Conceited and egocentric, but with his heart in the right place, Valentin is on top of the world. He meets the young dancer, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), on the set of one of his starring roles, and is impressed with her charm, taking her under his wing. Valentin tells Peppy she needs something to set her apart from the competition and draws on a beauty mark, which will become her signature look. Little does Valentin know that Peppy’s on the way up, and he’s on the way down.

With the advent of talkies, many young stars, like Peppy, get their big break, while Valentin, who publicly denounces the new technology as a fad, fades into the distance, losing his fame and fortune with only his dog, his performing partner, to keep him company. But Peppy has not forgotten who gave her the first help she ever got in Hollywood and is determined to pull him out of his slump.

In true silent movie style, the cast of “The Artist” are from all over the world, with a variety of native tongues. (Dujardin is French, Bejo is Argentinean, for example). The supporting cast is excellent, particularly John Goodman as the formidable film studio head.

Remember, this is a silent film about the first movies with sound and Hazanavicius is very sly about this subject material, which pays off dividends. The modern silent film does have a great soundtrack, rather than the outdated piano being played in the theatre. Deprived of sound, the actors do have to ham it up a little, but within the context of the film, it works, particularly for the extremely expressive Dujardin.

And, really, if anyone needs any more verification that “The Artist” is worth the ticket price, they can consider the fact that it has 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Dujardin and Best Supporting Actress for Bejo. After already taking home three Golden Globes last month, critics are predicting even more success for “The Artist” this Sunday. But regardless of what film aficionados say, “The Artist” is truly one of the most charming movies of this or any year, and you’ll thank yourself for seeing it.

By Carolyn Williams

Staff Writer

Director Lars von Trier’s latest film “Melancholia” is being billed as “a movie about the end of the world” and honestly, it would be impossible to sum it up more aptly.

The film begins with a painfully lovely series of tableaux in which we see the fate of Earth as the planet Melancholia approaches. Von Trier has enlightened his audience before his characters, because the first half of the movie happens in complete ignorance of the doom inching ever closer.

Justine (Kirsten Dunst, “Spider Man,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) is a new bride on her way to her wedding reception, giddy with delight, at least at first. Looking a vision in a lavish wedding dress, with bashful groom Michael (Alexander Skarsgård, “True Blood,” “Generation Kill”) trailing along behind, they reach Justine’s sister Claire’s (Charlotte Gainsbourg, “Jane Eyre,” “Antichrist”) old world seaside estate, hours late into the reception. From here on out, the audience quickly becomes privy to Justine’s crippling depression. Although weddings in general are a display of human folly, Justine takes it to a new level as she tanks her career, has random, public sex and takes a bath when she’s supposed to be cutting her cake. Claire, uptight and humorless, is mortified and frustrated by Justine’s behavior, as is her husband John, (Kiefer Sutherland, “24”) who is financing this extravagant disaster. By the end of the night, the groom has left and the bride is left alone with her sister’s family. She tells her sister “But I tried, Claire,” to which Claire responds, bleakly, “You did. I know you did.”

Time passes before the next segment of the movie takes place. This half centers on the duty-bound Claire and the arrival of the newly discovered planet Melancholia. While John, an enthusiastic astronomer, seemingly cannot wait for what scientists have predicted will be a very near miss as Melancholia travels past Earth, Claire is absolutely panicking, convinced that the end of the world is imminent. Justine has come to visit, and it is immediately evident how far her own melancholia seems to have progressed since we last encountered her. While Claire clings desperately to the hope of survival and a continuation of life on Earth, Justine prophetically speaks her own harshly fatalistic understanding of the situation. She says, “Life is only on Earth. And not for long.”

“Melancholia” is an inhumanly beautiful film and is, at times, genuinely excruciating to watch. Von Trier (“Antichrist,” “Dogville”) turns his attention once again to the suffering of women and in Dunst has found a truly spectacular leading lady. Dunst, who has already secured the award for best actress at Cannes this year, carries the film with her fantastic portrayal of a woman in the grips of an unshakeable depression. She is a veritable angel of death as the known world dissolves around her and she is exultant to be destroyed as well. “Melancholia” is cinematographically magnificent, with an excellent ensemble cast and a brilliant star, but be forewarned, the story itself is grim and the film is anything but a happy one.

By Carolyn Williams

Staff Writer

Gilles Paquet-Brenner’s movie adaptation of “Sarah’s Key” is, unfortunately, average at best. Based on Tatiana de Rosnay’s international bestseller (the original French title translates to “She Was Called Sarah”), the film interpretation struggles, as does the book, to balance between its dual narratives. In its attempt to compromise between the two, it ends up falling flat.

The beginning of the film primarily focuses on Sarah Starzynski, (Mélusine Mayance), a 10-year-old Jew living in the Paris of Vichy France, 1942. Sarah’s family is taken in the night, not by the Germans but by French police officers, to be part of the infamous Vélodrome d’Hiver Roundup, in which thousands of Parisian Jews were kept in inhumane conditions at the Vél d’Hiv, an indoor stadium within the city. Sarah, in a moment of impulsivity, locks her little brother Michel in the closet, promising to return soon, taking the key with her. She expects to be home in time to let him out before nightfall. But as she and her family are kept captive day after day, Sarah begins to realize the full weight of her well-intentioned actions, and becomes desperate to escape Beaune-la-Rolande, the transit camp where she and her family are waiting to be shipped off to Auschwitz, hell-bent on keeping her promise to protect her brother.

Meanwhile, in modern day Paris, American journalist Julia Jarmond, (Kristin Scott Thomas, “The English Patient”), is writing an article to commemorate the events of the Vél d’Hiv roundup. In a turn of events which is a little too convenient for the audience member of average intelligence, it is revealed that the apartment belonging to Julia’s family was acquired shortly after the mass deportation in 1942, and the former owners were none other than the Starzynskis themselves. Julia becomes obsessed with learning the truth behind what happened to the apartment’s former tenants, and when she learns that Sarah, managed to survive the Holocaust, she turns her investigative journalism to the task of putting the pieces of this family drama together.

The real problem here is not the actors’ fault, because both Scott Thomas and the very poised Mayance give strong performances. The script is badly written, and the overall effect of the juxtaposition of modern day with historic scenes is jolting and ultimately unsatisfying. The scenes of Sarah’s story are very convincingly articulated, particularly the depiction of the separation of children from their mothers at Beaune-la-Rolande, but in comparison, Jarmond’s determined search into the past is weak and stilted. Julia’s marital troubles and recent pregnancy are tiny problems compared to the horror story of Sarah’s experience. Her survivor’s guilt is poignant, and the movie’s greatest failing is not telling more of Sarah’s life. Instead, they inexplicably focus on the soapbox from which Julia preaches the wrongs committed by the French people during the German Occupation, and we are forced to listen when, if allowed, we could see that Sarah’s story speaks much louder, and with significantly more grace, than Jarmond’s self-righteous diatribes.