Patrick McDonald

Sandra Bullock, Strong Script Bring Clarity to ‘The Blind Side’

PatrickMcD — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:14:25 -0700

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – “Based on a True Story” films are difficult to pull off, especially those that are the improbable story of a white Memphis family adopting an African American football prodigy. Sandra Bullock is the mother, through it all, in “The Blind Side.”

The football-themed title refers to protecting the quarterback’s blind side, the area where he can’t see a defensive linebacker coming. Symbolically, it also describes the life of Michael Ohr (an exceptional Quinton Aaron), a Memphis teenager who is discovered to be homeless by the Tuohy family, and is taken in by the firecracker Mom, Leigh Anne (Sandra Bullock).

Michael’s blind side is his past, a difficult road of negative parentage and squalid conditions. The shelter that the wealthy Tuohy family gives him is almost too much for him, much as the private school a previous mentor managed to get him into.

Stranger in a Strange Land: Quinton Aaron as Michael Ohr in ‘The Blind Side’
Photo credit: Ralph Nelson for Warner Bros. Pictures

Michael is an inwardly drawn soul, prone to randomness in his first football practices. But Leigh Anne’s intuition and stick-to-it guidance lights his path, and the blessings that fill his life begins to heighten his play. Soon the college recruiters come in, and getting a scholarship to a major school will prove to be one more difficult challenge for “Big Mike,” the child that society almost lost.

What could be incorrectly formulaic actually works for two reasons – Sandra Bullock and a script that has a little fun with the subject. The Virginia-born Bullock absolutely knows her modern Southern woman character, a hard charging matriarch who absolutely clutches the rudder in steering her direction. Despite some unnecessary wardrobe choices (appropriate for the character but still unlikely in some scenes), Bullock never wavers from the no-nonsense believer in Michael’s potential.

The script has some decent laughs, and is unapologetic – as it should be – about the family’s wealth, football passion and the process that pairs them with Michael. He is a huge presence, unlike anyone around him, yet the clan brings him in and transitions the frightened homeless kid to confident member of the family. And through it all, the narrative is not afraid to note the absurdity of it all.

Recruiters: Sandra Bullock (center, in sunglasses) as Leigh Anne Touhy and Some College Coaches in ‘The Blind Side’
Photo credit: Ralph Nelson for Warner Bros. Pictures

The worthy supporting cast keeps the story afloat as well. Tim McGraw is the idly rich Dad Tuohy, providing Greek chorus commentary to his agreeability regarding the situation. Ray McKinnon provides some comic relief as high school Coach Cotton, not knowing what to do about Michael, but basking in the glory when Bullock’s Leigh Anne directs the course for his team’s use of the big guy. And Kathy Bates brings her usual flair to a small supporting role as a brassy tutor, believable without overdoing it.

John Lee Hancock’s direction is crisp and natural, and his decision to let Bullock run with her character was a good one. He even throws in a comic montage, with the middle age college coaches slobbering over an 18-year old offensive lineman like groupies over a rock star.

But some of the scenarios were a little too sharply drawn to work. The Tuohy children were perfect movie kids and were used as annoying props at times. The revisit to Michael’s housing project roots had a boyz-in-the-hood flavor that bordered on stereotype. The Bullock character’s defiance in those revisit scenes muddied any chance that some real human exchange would take place.

But these are small complaints in a well-done and persevering tale of football and a family’s purpose. This is simple entertainment that doesn’t pander to the usual expectations for this level of Hollywood product. The celebration of family, the American Dream and of course football doesn’t hurt either. The Blind Side adjusts the focus toward its own vision, and has the gumption to stick to it.

”The Blind Side” opens everywhere November 20th. Featuring Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw, Quinton Aaron, Kathy Bates, Ray McKinnon and several real college coaches in cameos, and is directed by John Lee Hancock. Rated “PG-13”

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

‘Napoleon Dynamite’ Creator Jared Hess Scores With ‘Gentlemen Broncos’

PatrickMcD — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:29:32 -0700

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Writer/Director Jared Hess’ universe, where obscure pop culture references and strange survivors abide, gets another workout with the spontaneously funny “Gentlemen Broncos,” which also features Mike White and Jennifer Coolidge.

Gentlemen Broncos features the affable Michael Angarano as Benjamin, a science fiction nerd with a penchant for creating his own intergalactic stories. His widowed mother, Judith (Jennifer Coolidge) is his biggest cheerleader, but is racked with bi-polar bouts of crying in conjunction with a fledgling designer nightgown business. When she sends Benjamin away to a sci-fi writing camp, it puts into motion the next phase of their lives.

Hess’ Material World: Michael Angarano as Benjamin and Jennifer Coolidge as Judith in ‘Gentleman Broncos’
Photo credit: Seth Smoot for Fox Searchlight

At the camp Benjamin meets Tabatha (Halley Feiffer), a perplexing fellow nerdling who vaguely takes a shine to him. She reads his stories of Bronco, a sci-fi action hero who is searching for his lost testicle. Bronco is a lusty adventurer, who rides bucks (male deer) that can shoot laser beams. His writings also come to the attention of his author hero, Rob Decker (Jemaine Clement), who recognizes his talent by stealing his story for publication.

Back at home, Benjamin must contend with his new found friendship with Tabatha, selling the movie rights for his story to a untalented director named Lonnie (Héctor Jiménez), and his new best friend/guardian angel, Dusty (Mike White).

At the core of all of Jared Hess’ films (“Napoleon Dynamite,” “Nacho Libre”) are anti-heroes who use the power of love to complete their quests. Gentlemen Broncos is no exception. Benjamin has dedicated all of his stories to his father, the late park ranger named Bronco, and has formulated a whole deep space world around his heroics.

This is at times hilarious stuff, as off kilter and endearing as Napoleon D. The on-screen rendering of the Bronco story is especially heady, considering we get the tale from three points of view - Benjamin’s original (with Sam Rockwell as Bronco), Rob Decker’s rather queer recopying (Rockwell again) and Lonnie’s film version, which features an overmatched but eager-to-please Dusty as Bronco.

Buckin’ Bronco: Sam Rockwell in ‘Gentlemen Broncos’
Photo credit: Seth Smoot for Fox Searchlight

There are softer spots in the comedy than Dynamite, but it is much more accessible than Nacho Libre. As in the previous films, Broncos uses a style of counteraction against its enemies – think Napoleon’s dance and Jack Black’s wrestling – but here it includes the shooting rays from the flying bucks and a recurring blow gun that Benjamin uses towards the end to roll-on-the-floor-laughter effectiveness.

The cast, as usual in the HessWorld, plays it as straight as possible, with the exception of Jiménez’s Lonnie, who might possibly be brain damaged. Haley Feiffer handles her character beautifully, keeping Benjamin and the audience guessing as to what her motives essentially are. Jemaine Clement as the larcenous author is so complete with his bizarre villainy that even in comeuppance there was an endearing quality about him.

Like Napoleon and Nacho before him, Benjamin seeks that holy grail of enduring recognition so he can rescue himself and the world around him. The laughs from such a journey are a natural extension, in this case, of science fiction, the writer, the plagiarist, the girl and a hero named Bronco, who might possibly save the whole universe.

Jared Hess (with his co-writer/wife Jerusha) just want you to live in this universe for awhile, recognize some of yourself in their characters and have a bit of fun. It is what their films are all about. As Napoleon Dynamite would say, ”Just follow your heart. That’s what I do.”

”Gentlemen Broncos” opens in Chicago November 13, 2009, with a limited release elsewhere. Check local listings for theaters and times. Featuring Michael Angarano, Jennifer Coolidge, Halley Feiffer, Héctor Jiménez, Mike White and Sam Rockwell, directed by Jared Hess. Rated “PG-13.”

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Art World Bares its Soul in Adam Goldberg’s Superlative ‘(Untitled)’

PatrickMcD — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:52:06 -0700

Rating: 5.0/5.0

CHICAGO – One of the best and most exciting surprises of the 2009 film year is a smaller, claustrophobic film starring Adam Goldberg and set in the art gallery world of New York City. “(Untitled)” is an honest, uncompromising character study.

Taking its name from the practice of inscribing artwork with no label at all, (Untitled) involves three people, two who are practicing artists and one who owns a small Soho art gallery. Adrian (Adam Goldberg) is a composer of atonal symphonies – think using buckets and chains for sounds instead of harmonics – and although recognized as a significant craftsman he still needs to supplement his living by providing piano atmosphere in a haughty bistro.

Adam Goldberg as Adrian in ‘(Untitled)’
Photo credit: Parker Film Company/Samuel Goldwyn Films

His brother Josh (Eion Bailey) is a “successful” artist, having found a niche market selling his works to decorate hotel lobbies and corporate hallways. He is the biggest income generator for Madeleine (a revelatory Marley Shelton), who owns a small but cutting edge gallery. Embarrassed that she has to rely on Josh’s commercial work to stay afloat, she coyly hides his work in the back when clients come to call.

When Madeleine sees Adrian perform one of his symphonies, she not only gets a commission for him but takes him on as a lover. When the three attitudes of the principal characters collide – Adrian’s outsider inclination, Josh’s desperate need for artistic credibility and Madeleine’s blind worship of the next edgy art happening – the very question of who decides what art can be is philosophically rendered.

Jonathan Parker’s direction, from a script co-written with Catherine DiNapoli, is a tightly woven potpourri of feeling regarding humankind’s notion of promoting and understanding their own artistic taste. The script is also highly quotable. Adrian assertion that harmony was created so capitalists could sell pianos is just one of the crazy, beautiful lines that are both thoughtful and hilarious.

The principal characters are right on the money. Goldberg is playing a variation on his reliable character, the twitchy intellectual whose very presence has psychological implications, but with more depth and complexity. Eion Bailey’s Josh is a perfect sibling foil. He is rich, he is apparently successful, but he knows deep down that Adrian is the artist with integrity. And Marley Shelton, both icy and scintillating as Madeleine, is pitch perfect. She is everything that is expected of an NYC art luminary, but both the script and her characterization reaches for something more.

Zack Orth as Porter, an Art Patron Wannabe and Marley Shelton as Madeleine in ‘(Untitled)’
Photo credit: Parker Film Company/Samuel Goldwyn Films

New York City is effectively used as a character, but not the NYC that is expected. This is the New York of dusty school performance halls, domestic white wine poured at a converted warehouse gallery and the unfamiliar bohemian streets that exist in a fantasy world of insular artists. It is the New York in Johathan Parker’s universe.

For a lower budgeted film, the art direction is substantial. There is feeling in all the locations, from Madeleine’s oh-so-arty loft apartment to the converted work spaces of a mod and crazy next big artist named Ray Barko (Vinnie Jones). Most compelling is the form- over-function living space of a art patron wannabe (he’d made his money in dot coms). It’s very absurdity, especially as he’s trying to impress a date, speaks volumes without having to say anything.

But the ultimate success in this film lies in the internal and external debate that occurs within the narrative about staying true to one’s passion for creation. Does, for example, Josh really think he has a vision, when he essentially makes copies of all his previous work because someone oohed and aahed at a hotel opening?

Is Adrian really satisfied that he is a true artiste, even though his symphonies are easily dismissed and trash-worthy (in a derision hilariously provided by a Russian soprano)?

And finally, is Madeleine nothing more than a hyperbolized version of the easily manipulated wannabes and commercial agents that she easily cashes in on? It is the genius of a fully realized production that allows such a thought process to flow.

After seeing this film, I thought about my grandmother and the artwork she chose to display in her working class home in West Virginia, paintings and sculptures of religious imagery patterned after her life of faith.

Who is anyone to question those soothing images to her, and moreover what outsider can question anyone’s interaction with the imagery they bring into their own lives? (Untitled) dares to take this challenge on and comes to theorize that the journey of this short life is truly an artistic work in progress.

”(Untitled)” opens in Chicago November 6th, in limited release elsewhere. Check local listings for theaters. Featuring Adam Goldberg, Marley Shelton, Eion Bailey and Vinnie Jones, directed by Jonathan Parker. Rated “R” Click here for the HollywoodChicago interview with Adam Goldberg of Untitled.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

‘The House of the Devil’ is a Trip Back in Suspense Horror

PatrickMcD — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 11:07:55 -0600

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Halloween is the perfect time to revisit those horror films of youth, lost in the mall theaters or crackling through the VCR in a multiply rented copy. “The House of the Devil” reveres those roots and brings them back to light.

The year is 1983 and Jocelin Donahue portrays Samantha, a financially challenged student in a small college town. Desperate to leave her dorm living situation, she finds a perfect apartment right next to campus. The problem is she doesn’t have the rent down payment and has no means to get it.

Fresh Faced 1980s Gal: Jocelin Donahue as Samantha in ‘The House of the Devil’
Photo credit: © Magnolia Pictures

Enter the campus bulletin board, with a mysterious posting for a “babysitter” to make instant cash. When Samantha calls the number, a serious voice tells her how desperate he is to have her take the job.

When she arrives at the house, the peculiar Mr. Ulman (Tom Noonan) gives her a rundown of her duties. She is actually caring for an elder within the house, who never comes out of her room. She is briefed further by Mrs. Ulman (Mary Woronov), who seems most interested in Samantha’s youth and beauty.

Samantha must then contend with the creaky house, the impending eclipse of the moon and some strange discoveries to come.

Ti West’s direction, from his screenplay, connects with the elements of the horror film genre in the year he sets the film, 1983. Every noise and moan of the house and its surroundings dictate that lonelier time, before internet and mobile devices associated the ordinary college girl with the larger world.

West is obsessed with the suspense of it all, almost to a fault. Jocelin Donahue’s Samantha stands in for the babysitter in all of us, waiting for the night to end and creeping through the house in all of its hidden rooms, secret closets and unusual items. Her fresh faced innocence and ordinariness is perfect for the role, and the art direction, despite a limited budget, is appropriately early 1980s.

Mary Woronov as Mrs. Ulman in ‘The House of the Devil’
Photo credit: © Magnolia Pictures

There is an effective use of music as a foreshadowing, as Samantha is a early proponent of the Walkman – fun to see in the context of the headphone society of now – and the rock songs she listens to adds a seductive creep factor to her curious explorations.

The film also uses veterans of the ‘80s era – most notably Mary Woronov (”Eating Raoul”) and Dee Wallace (”E.T.” and “Critters”) very effectively, especially in the realm of the suspense. Tom Noonan’s Mr Ulman is a masterful centerpiece, giving build-up to the night’s potential adventures and icily creating an enigmatic atmosphere to ponder.

The payoff to all this, without giving anything away, is a Rorschach test using the style of scare factor that permeated the suspense horror of another time. It is the bits and pieces that surround the blood and avenging towards the end that give this film its flair, generating the cringe for the simple bump in the night.

This film may be most effectively shown through the dusty tapeheads of an old VCR, on a chilly and isolated Halloween night, with the lights off and the outside world turned in. The House of the Devil awaits you.

”The House of the Devil” opened in a limited release October 30th, and is also available on VOD, Amazon VOD and Xbox Live. Featuring Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, Dee Wallace and Greta Gerwig, directed by Ti West. Rated “R” Click here for the HollywoodChicago.com interview with director Ti West.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

‘Astro Boy’ is Here to Save Whatever is Left of the Future

PatrickMcD — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:18:15 -0600

Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – The cartoon universe is replete with superheroes, none more distinct than the title character in the new animated film “Astro Boy.” Based on a Japanese comic book from 1951, Astro Boy has new life in 3-D cartoon form.

Metro City is a futuristic utopian metropolis created especially to hover over the now abandoned earth (in shades of “Wall•E,” the landscape below is now a dumping ground). The city is an efficiently run model, aided by an army of robot workers, baby sitters and civil servants.

We Can Rebuilt Him: Scene from ‘Astro Boy’
Photo credit: Summit Entertainment

Dr. Tenma (voice of Nicholas Cage) is working on a new energy source derived from a meteorite. This revolutionary blue sphere can create clean energy and power the whole countryside. When the evil government leader, General Stone (Donald Sutherland), gets wind of the new power source, he wants to use it in a new weapon that will solidify him as overseer of Metro City.

Dr. Tenma’s son, a scientific prodigy, gets trapped with the destructive robot and is killed as the experiment goes awry. His distraught father decides to rebuilt him as a robot, and places the blue energy source as his heart. However, the new “Astro Boy” feels like a stranger in his homeland, and exiles himself to the dumping grounds below Metro City.

Astro Boy slowly discovers his prodigious powers in his new home, which eventually leads to a confrontation with General Stone and the robot weapon.

Weapon of Mass Robotics: Scene from ‘Astro Boy’
Photo credit: Summit Entertainment

While the visual elements, in this modern age of computer generated animation, are generally eye candy, the look and feel of this cartoon seems off and not as warm as other examples in the genre. Most successful is the depiction of the various robots, especially those dumped in the land below Metro City. The humans however, seem cobbled together from other sources, General Stone looked a lot like one of the characters from 1998’s “Antz.”

As in most modern cartoons, there needs to be a background “lesson,” and Astro Boy’s Pinocchio-like quest to discover the humanity in the robot form is a obvious nod to prejudice and acceptance. The filmmakers get points for the parallels to George W. Bush in the character of General Stone (to keep power, one must express power by a preemptive strike on the earth below Metro City). But overall this good/evil scenario has been seen and done before.

Essentially there is nothing, beyond the creative visual elements, to give Astro Boy any significance. His new family on earth are plucky orphans, manipulated by an oily character named Ham Egg (Nathan Lane) but this plot twist gets mashed up in the battle towards the end. Three wacky British robots are introduced, but seemingly forgotten. Beyond the inevitable confrontation of both the evil and his father in the end, the plot in Astro Boy is rather flat, despite visually being in 3-D.

This is decent family fare, but far from the expectations of modern animation. The boy who would be a robot is encased in a mechanical cartoon.

”Astro Boy” opens everywhere October 23rd. Check local listings for 3-D showings. Featuring the voices of Nicholas Cage, Donald Sutherland, Nathan Lane, Freddie Highmore, Kirsten Bell, Eugene Levy and Bill Nighy, directed by David Bowers. Rated “PG.”

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

‘Good Hair’ Has Chris Rock Getting to the Roots of Follicle Follies

PatrickMcD — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:38:27 -0600

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Positioning himself as a informational bridge-builder, comedian Chris Rock explores the often complex social economics of African American hair, specifically the intense styling that is a borderline obsession for women of color.

Traveling virtually throughout the world, Rock witnesses the channels of commerce, politics and even religious overtones in relationship to African American women (and to a lesser degree black men and all women) and their coiffure.

Like a Rock: Chris Rock on the Documentary Seat in ‘Good Hair’
Photo credit: © 2009 Roadside Attractions

Using a black hair stylist’s convention as a centerpiece for the documentary, Rock plays the unbelieving observer as he goes from booth to booth at the convention. The highlight of the gathering is an elaborate presentation of stylists who put on broadway-style or hip hop shows with themes that communicate the technique variations of participating rock-star-like hair stylists.

There are a several particularly shocking elements to the ‘do war. One is the expense of the “weave” (where outside hair, usually human, is woven into a African American woman’s hairline). Presented without irony are the layaway programs and budgetary sacrifices made for the often thousands of dollars that go into one expert weave.

Secondly, this obsession has worldwide implications. Most of the human hair used in weaves come from India, and the source for all the hair is tied into a ritual that have the participants actually volunteering to give it up.

And finally, the middlemen have stolen the golden goose. Rock provides a laundry list of capitalist entities making big money on styling, from hair brokers in India to Korean wig shop owners to massive corporations, with only a small percentage being African American. Black dollar power, a primarily show of strength in any culture, is being allocated away from the community.

Feel the Burn: Chris Rock Observes a Hair Straightening Demonstration in ‘Good Hair’
Photo credit: © 2009 Roadside Attractions

But through interviews with both prominent and ordinary African American people, there is a thread on how a hairstyle becomes a badge of identity. More than any other race, the point is that hair in the African American woman is almost certainly tied to soul. When boldly exposed in a laboratory setting in the film, why else would anyone endure the chemical and pungent sting of a hair relaxer?

Chris Rock’s relaxed comic persona and celebrity status certainly came in handy when pursuing the story through the interview roster. It was impressive how he communicated at all levels, whether in the urban men’s barber shop/women’s salon, Rev. Al Sharpton’s domain, giggling with pop stars like Eve or trading barbs with poet laureate Maya Angelou.

Where it didn’t seem to gel is in a conclusive statement, as if he presented all this within a court case and then left us wondering about the verdict. It seems a forgiving document, as in live and let dye your hair, but with the ramifications of who is making the significant dollars keeping these styles competitive and in front of women, it does seem to be a frivolous waste of resources.

For example, I have found a salon that cuts my remaining thinning locks for $5 a visit. Given that I can go 6-8 weeks between trimmings, that translates to under $75 a year, even with generous tipping. I suspect that wouldn’t even buy me a human hair ponytail from the Korean wig shop.

In that way Chris Rock has opened my eyes, and I will certainly take heed to protect them from that hair relaxer.

”Good Hair,” a documentary moderated by Chris Rock, has a limited release October 9th, 2009. Check local theaters. Rated “PG-13.” Featuring interviews with Eve, Ice-T, Al Sharpton, Maya Angelou, Nia Long and Kerry Washington, directed by Jeff Stilson.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

‘I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,’ Then Serve Up the Filmmakers

PatrickMcD — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:00:10 -0600

Rating: 1.0/5.0

CHICAGO – The main problem with “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” based on Tucker Max’s memoir about a hard partying, devil-may-care womanizer, is that the screenwriter (Max himself) didn’t have the cojones to go all the way.

If Max is going to relate this “based-on-fact” story, so awesomely politically incorrect, why not just take it to the limit and make it totally offensive, instead of trying to placate the “audience” with stupid – and unbelievable – happy endings and upper middle class banalities like getting married and celebrating “relationships.”

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is the adventurous story of three young lads who set out to have a grand time on friend Dan’s (Geoff Stults) bachelor party, by kidnapping him against the wishes of his intended and going to out-of-town Salem, where apparently they have a strip club where you can touch the girls all you want. That’s called prostitution in most territories, apparently except Salem.

The Boys of Bummer: Geoff Stults as Dan, Jesse Bradford as Drew and Matt Crzuchry as Tucker Max in ‘I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell’
Photo credit: Copyright © Freestyle Releasing, All Rights Reserved

Drew (Jesse Bradford) is the killjoy of the party, having just broken up with his girlfriend in the most absurd terms. But leave it to good ol’ Tucker Max (Matt Czuchry), who can out-drink and out-sex any man alive, and he’ll tell you that to your face. Or the face of any woman he’s trying to seduce.

The boy’s missteps continue in the town of Salem, where they find the nirvana of the all-touch stripper bar. Naturally Drew meets a stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold, whose patter resembles an unfunny Comedy Central Roast. Dan, meanwhile, is having too good a time, causing enough trouble to get kicked out of the club and piss off his fiancée, who just discovered that Tucker and Drew have taken him to forbidden Salem.

How will these rambunctious fellows get out of this jam?

This is the type of film that exists in a parallel universe, where saying morally offensive things to strangers, especially strangers of the opposite sex, allows for not an invitation to jail or an asylum, but smiles and certain come-ons. Beer in Hell takes care of this early, with a scene where Tucker insists he not a misogynist, but proceeds to tell members of a bachelorette party that they essentially suck. In all forms and connotations of the word.

The Bachelorette Party in ‘I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell’
Photo credit: Copyright © Freestyle Releasing, All Rights Reserved

Dan is a interesting character. He is the bachelor that is beholden to his beloved, but like every bachelor since party movies were made, he proceeds to get so blindly drunk he ends up severely beaten and incarcerated. But don’t worry, at the all-is-forgiven wedding he only has a single prop bandage on.

Drew is the luckiest of them all. Despite a penchant for saying the foulest invectives to women, manages to land a beautiful stripper – that’s right a stripper – to take him home and set him up in her sumptuous home, with her child. It’s a feel-good moment that might happen on the Planet No Freakin’ Way.

This films manages to be cruel and stupidly gross at the same time. Tucker loves to score with handicapped women, funny only to cretins. His bodily functions fascinate him as well, we’re privy to his explosive digestive problems, the second such screen portrayal I’ve seen this year (”Miss March” was the other).

Esquire Magazine used to have “now playing at the Hell Octoplex” in their year-end issue, an easy way to sum up the worst movies of the year. In the ultimate version of such a place, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell would be on every screen.

”I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” opened September 25th everywhere. Featuring Matt Czuchry, Jesse Bradford, Geoff Stults and Traci Lords, directed by Bob Grosse. Rated “R” for obvious reasons

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

John Malkovich and the Morality of South Africa in ‘Disgrace’

PatrickMcD — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 06:59:04 -0600

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – In a stark and compelling tale of naked vulnerability, John Malkovich becomes the centerpiece of the continuing battle for territory and humanity within the country of South Africa, in the newly released “Disgrace.”

Based on a novel by J.M. Coetzee, Malkovich portrays David Lurie, a Cape Town university professor who gets caught up in a career-ending scandal involving an affair with a mixed race student. Forced out of his realm, he takes up residence with his estranged daughter, a frontier practitioner living off the unyielding but beautiful country far from civilization.

Reduced to menial labor and an ascetic lifestyle, the professorial Lurie is useless when a gang of rebels raid the modest house, attacking him and raping his daughter. Forced now to deal with both his weakness and the lack of justice in the harsh territory, Lurie must come to terms with his own perceptions and face the reality of an increasing array of post-apartheid circumstances.

Father and Daughter Reflections: John Malkovich and Jessica Haines in ‘Disgrace’
Photo credit: Copyright © Icon Film Distribution

This film is all about symbols and transitions. Malkovich’s feckless white intellectual, once so formally and regimentally in power in South Africa, is reduced to a sputtering weakling in the face of tribal brutality. His daughter, played with critical balance by Jessica Haines, expresses the guilt over apartheid by becoming absolutely compliant to the new power overthrowing white ownership.

Malkovich is spot-on as a cold man in need of redemptive intervention. His characteristic acerbic nature is matched perfectly with the callowness of his burnt out academic. The way in which he icily accepts his punishment for his carnal crimes, for example, is a distinct contrast to all the warm humanity surrounding him.

The way Malkovich converts this character from lost soul to a connective presence in his world has the actor working at the height of his powers. The shift is subtle, but naturally evolutionary, and follows through up to a repeat of the apology the university was expecting, but the second time around it is sincere, humble and filtered through a changed man.

There are many layers to the film, and one of the major themes is in the relationship between men and women, whether it is the professor dominating his student, his daughter regarding the nature of her attackers or the comparison of coupling with dogs in a cage, all condemned to their own nature.

Director Steve Jacobs reveals a keen eye for the South African countryside, using the isolation of the frontier land to enhance his lost professor character with the same sense. He also effectively distinguishes the warmth of home and the father/daughter relationship before the attack, with how ugly both got afterward. Both living quarters, the daughter and the professor’s abode in Cape Town, are cold and uninviting after they’ve been invaded.

But again the film belongs to John Malkovich, who delivers a character that becomes a whole country, struggling to understand a new set of rules, and in the inevitable progression, a new way of life.

”Disgrace” has a limited release, and opened September 25th at Piper’s Alley Theater, 1608 N. Wells, Chicago. Featuring John Malkovich, Jessica Haines and Eriq Ebouaney, directed by Steve Jacobs. Rated “R”

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Steven Soderbergh’s ‘The Informant!’ Puts Matt Damon on a Wire

PatrickMcD — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:09:55 -0600

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Behind every great fortune lies a great crime, as the saying goes. In director Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant!,” he and Matt Damon carve out a satire where the “crime” becomes entangled with the larger issues of “justice.”

In this based-on-fact scenario, Damon plays Mark Whitacre, who famously cooperated in the 1990s with the FBI as a whistle blowing insider to the Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) price fixing scandal. As a high-level executive at ADM, Whitacre was privy to meetings – many that he set up – where the price of a basic food ingredient was fixed through international skullduggery.

As the pressure builds and the FBI (as portrayed through agents played by Scott Bakula and Joel McHale) needs more evidence, the increasingly erratic Whitarce begins to unravel in unpredictable ways. The closer they all get to breaking the price fixing case, the more apparent it becomes that Whitarce will assure that his backside will be protected, either through passing misinformation or his own scandalous behavior.

This is a comedy, and a quite funny one at that. When the deadly human sin of greed starts to emerge, Damon’s bloated character responds with a variety of tics and self delusions, classically illustrated by director Soderbergh with a basic narration track that exposes Whitarce’s unbalanced sanity.

His random thoughts include (as voiced by Damon) what if there was a TV show about a guy who splits into two and calls himself, and spends the rest of the hour chasing down the other?

Scott Burn’s screenplay contains other absurd gems, especially in context with the playground antics of the price fixers. And it does expose the FBI and the federal lawyers as callous, when the stress to convict the fixers becomes more important than protecting the clearly overmatched Whitarce.

The Soderbergh touch is also felt in the sly satire. The title graphics and Marvin Hamlisch score are both rooted in the 1970s anti-hero movies, so much so that a colleague wondered if Hamlisch was in on the joke.

The background casting winks at the camera as well several times, as Thomas F. Wilson (Biff from “Back to the Future”), Patton Oswalt and other familiar comedians have cameos as straight-laced authority figures and co-workers.

Where The Informant! doesn’t work as well is in the languid story pacing and superfluous nature of Damon’s character. In the film’s eagerness to indict everyone, the moral of the ending is driven home again and again, and even the expected where-are-they-now graphics as a epilogue seems extracurricular.

But in the current debate on reform in big business, a good old fashion satire where we meet the enemy, and they are us, is all the more appropriate as the real American Dream continues unwinding in the post millennium.

’’The Informant!” opens everywhere September 18th and features Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Joel McHale, Melanie Lynskey, Patton Oswalt and Thomas F. Wilson, directed by Steven Soderbergh

By PATRICK McDONALD
Senior Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

Paul Giamatti Does More With Less in ‘Cold Souls’

PatrickMcD — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 01:21:21 -0600

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – How is the best way to discover the elusiveness of the soul? For Paul Giamatti, playing himself, the key is to store the legendary organ into the deep freeze, in his new absurdist comedy, “Cold Souls.”

In what has to be one of the great challenges of naturalistic acting, Giamatti plays a character named Paul Giamatti, frantically trying to channel the depths of his new stage role as Anton Chekov’s “Uncle Vanya.”

Paul Giamatti Goes Through the Extraction Process in ‘Cold Souls’
Photo credit: Adam Bell for Samuel Goldwyn Films

Perplexed by the evasive character of the melancholy physician, Giamatti seeks a way to plumb a new sensibility out of a performance he can’t quite grasp. The chance encounter with an ad in a magazine discovers a clinic that can actually remove a person’s soul.

Emboldened by this information, Giamatti visits the facility and goes through the soul extraction – the form of it is incongruously shaped like a chick pea – and starts a journey of epic and life challenging proportions.

Through a series of maneuvering, which involves a subplot of Russian “mules” ingesting souls back and forth for an underground black market, Giamatti ends up with a poet’s soul (excellent for Vanya) while his spiritual body part winds up in a soul sweat shop back in the USSR. Claiming his essence once again will take a little traveling and a lot of mystical searching.

David Strathairn as Dr. Flintstein in ‘Cold Souls’
Photo credit: Adam Bell for Samuel Goldwyn Films

Giamatti turns in another stellar performance playing the “character” of himself. His performing decisions regarding the actions within his states of being – soulless, with a different soul and everywhere in between – is a high wire variation in mood exposition. For example, highly comic are his attempts to do Vanya without a soul, with the excitable Paul literally leaping out of his own skin.

Essential to the narrative is the Russian sidebar, where the mysterious mule named Nina (Dina Korzin) perfects an icy chill equal to winter there. All the chaos of yet another short supply of goods, in this case souls, plays out in the dreary landscape of St. Petersberg. It is the Russia that we expect, and the exaggeration lends a distinct atmosphere to the story’s gray area.

Writer/director Sophie Barthes sets up a great sequence where Giamatti’s soul ends up in a Russian actress (the procurers lie and tell her it’s Al Pacino). He then observes her enjoying his essence in a way that he can’t understand. His eyes seem to flicker and his usual hang dog expression is intensified with a surface tonality that immediately evokes empathy.

The satire of America’s feel-good solutions – soul extraction and psychotropic drugs seem not-too-subtly linked – are played through the starkness of the clinic and Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn) with gleaming sterility. The familiar vision of Russia is offered as a sharply defined contrast to the clinic, but both sides of the fence seem equally discombobulated.

The film also candidly offers a meditation on the meaning and essence of the soul. The needle-like jab of representing it like a chick pea, for example, implies that trying to give definition to what is out of reach could be a fool’s errand.

Even with a questionable and open-ended conclusion, this pondering of the soul is the victory in this film…and Paul Giamatti becomes the standard bearer.

’Cold Souls’ has a limited release on August 21, 2009, and features Paul Giamatti, Emily Watson, David Strathairn, Dina Korzun and Lauren Ambrose, and is written/directed by Sophie Barthes.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com