This Is It? He's More than a Beauty Queen From a Movie Scene!

Michael Jackson’s This Is It

**1/2 out of ****

Directed by: Kenny Ortega

Running Time: 112 minutes

It’s definitely not “bad,” but it’s not much of a “thriller” either.

Michael Jackson’s This Is It is a tribute film following the rehearsal sessions for the King of Pop’s comeback concert tour, originally scheduled for this fall but cancelled due to the icon’s sudden demise on June 25.

At certain moments, it’s an intoxicating glimpse into the King of Pop’s creative process and his captivating musicianship, not to mention a dazzling showcase of his groovy (and globally recognized) dance moves. At other times, it holds the merit of a subpar behind-the-scenes TV special.

The rights to the film were bought last August by Sony Pictures. The company received hundreds of hours of footage from rehearsals held at The Staples Center and The Forum in Los Angeles.

Kenny Ortega, director and choreographer for the concert (as well as Jackson’s HIStory and Dangerous tours, Dirty Dancing and the High School Musical trilogy) sorted through the reels with a team of editors. Some of the footage they’ve assembled is an awe-inspiring memorial to a music legend. Other sequences serve as filler, much of which is largely underwhelming.

The film is essentially the concert set list, with Jackson (and his impressive troupe of background dancers and accompanying band) performing work-in-progress variations of his greatest hits.

The strongest numbers are the ones without the flashy pyrotechnics, but the songs where the King of Pop stands solo, center stage. Up close, Jackson is simply electrifying.

While it is understandable that his vocal range and movement don’t encompass all he is capable of (this was a rigorous rehearsal process, after all), these moments feel personal and honest. The floaty “moonwalks” even seem heavier.

Also, watching a feisty Jackson work on the musical arrangement for the tour shows that he was not only a mesmerizing performer, but a stubborn perfectionist. Jackson was a creative force who had a sharp tongue and liked things his way. It was good to be the King.

Other footage is equally stunning: an elaborate mini-movie for “Smooth Criminal,” a clever black-and-white homage to gangster films, features Jackson on the run from Hollywood stars like Bogart and Cagney. It is slick, seductive, no-holds-barred entertainment.

Some of the concert’s other ambitious set-pieces are less notable. "Thriller," arguably Jackson’s piece de resistance, was recreated for the tour using 3D effects and features lots of creepy ghouls with elaborate makeup. Unfortunately, this performance contains a curious lack of Michael Jackson.

Another mini-movie, for “Earth Song,” features environmental messages as subtle as a gang of lumberjacks with chainsaws. The weight of that performance’s preachiness nearly overshadows the song’s elegance.

Furthermore, there is quite a flurry of footage of the background dancers, hundreds of whom strutted the stage for Jackson and his crew. These would make excellent episodes of So You Think You Can Dance Five Feet Behind Michael Jackson, but are out of place in a poignant tribute.

This Is It works best as a shimmery dedication to a legendary artist. It’s quite mediocre as a concert film. If Michael Jackson was still reigning as King today, the footage wouldn’t be nearly as dazzling or sensational. It only contains glimmers of his potential.

For one of the grandest and most ambitious musical icons of our times, it's debatable whether Jackson would've wanted us to see these works-of-progress (even if some of the footage is remarkable).

Much of the sans-Jackson footage should have found its place on the editing room floor. Documentary pieces of our subject and his various milestones on the domain of popular music could have been inserted instead, and would have made this memorial far more gratifying.

Some of the performances are “off the wall,” but the rest can just “beat it.” If this is really it, as the title proclaims, we’ve got a tribute for a king that’s more fit for a prince.

The Coens' Best? - Surely You Can't Be Serious

A Serious Man

**** out of ****

Directed by: Ethan and Joel Coen

Starring: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed, Sari Lennick and Adam Arkin

Running Time: 105 minutes

Jefferson Airplane’s psychedelic classic “Somebody to Love” is heard quite often in A Serious Man, the Coen Brothers’ latest cinematic treat.

As the lyrics go: When the truth is found to be lies / And all the joy within you dies / Don’t you want somebody to love? / Don’t you need somebody to love?

Replaying at several points in the film, the song accompanies the protagonist’s journey to find peace and love, but mostly understanding. It is one of the most intriguing usages of rock and roll in contemporary cinema. Like the film, the rock staple is hypnotic, sardonic and full of mystery.

A Serious Man follows our cursed protagonist, Larry Gopnik (Tony-nominated actor Michael Stuhlbarg), a physics professor with a son weeks away from being Bar Mitzvah-d.

Things are not going swimmingly for Mr. Gopnik. His wife (Sari Lennick) loathes him and has her eyes on unctuous widower Sy Ablemen (Fred Melamed). His children sneak money from his wallet for their own dastardly means. His unemployable brother, Arthur (Richard Kind), sleeps on his couch and is hiding from the police due to gambling debts.

Not to mention that one of his flunking students leaves an envelope full of money on his desk, bribing him to retake the physics midterm. His tenure is being sabotaged by a spiteful hate-mailer. His neighbour on one side is an anti-Semitic hunter who encroaches on Larry’s property, while the other neighbour is a flirtatious woman who sunbathes in the nude.

The misery only continues to mount for our unfortunate professor. He wonders: Why is all of this happening? And does Hashem have anything to say about this?

Troubled, Larry seeks the advice of a divorce attorney (Adam Arkin) and three rabbis to clear the air and find out what’s going on. He wants a reason for all the tsuris and seeks to become a righteous, serious man, hoping that clarity will come to him in the process.

Joel and Ethan Coen received worldwide acclaim two years ago for their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s sinister bestseller No Country for Old Men. This time around, the brothers have adapted something even more unsettling, bleak and mysterious, although loosely, for the big screen: the Book of Job (although there are many allusions to Biblical parables and folklore throughout).

This is quintessential Coen Bros. The comedy is as fiercely bitter as vegetables on a seder plate (this may just be the funniest existentialist movie ever made). The characters are offbeat and colourful; this time, they just happen to be Jewish.

Despite their disgruntled personalities, the Coens make sure that the Jewish characters depicted here are not stereotypes, but troubled, sensible souls living in the void of an acculturated society.

Its setting is one that the Coens are quite familiar with, having grown up in the Minneapolis suburb of bland, split-level homes and dysfunctional residents that populate this film. Their reflection of conservative religious life is dead-on, depicting the monotony of Hebrew class to the graceful furnishings of a rabbi’s office with deft precision.

As Larry, Michael Stuhlbarg is wonderful. He does not portray him as a whiner, annoyed with his absurd hard luck a la Larry David on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, but as a well-meaning if insecure individual. We feel this man’s confusion and ponder his uncertainty. Through his sympathetic portrayal, his troubles become ours.

He is accompanied by an excellent ensemble of character actors. Standouts include Richard Kind as Gopnik’s troubled brother and Aaron Wolff, in his film debut as his boy Danny - who's soon to be a man.

Like the occurrences that Larry questions, the audience is left to ponder if what they’re being shown has any rationality or purpose in the film itself. How much you appreciate A Serious Man may have to do with how much faith you have in figuring out the perplexing philosophical drama and how badly you crave an explainable resolution.

The audience is an active participator in figuring this existential mystery out, and we're glad to follow our fellow Gopnik, however bizarre or puzzling his adventure becomes.

But even if you are underwhelmed by the film’s answers (or lack thereof), you cannot deny that the Coen Brothers are still one of the most meticulous and creative filmmaking teams around. They’ve brought us a bleakly funny and engrossing philosophical mystery that ranks among their finest, up with Barton Fink and No Country for Old Men.

I mean, if you’re not willing to accept Joel and Ethan Coen as two of the most masterful filmmakers around, you better find somebody to love.

Wild Things, You Make My Heart Sing

Where The Wild Things Are

***1/2 out of ****

Directed by: Spike Jonze

Starring: Max Records, Catherine Keener and Mark Ruffalo

Featuring the “wild” voice talents of: James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, Paul Dano and Chris Cooper

Running Time: 101 minutes

Where the Wild Things Are, a feature-length adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s rousing 338-word classic, is by far the most raw, most daring and most unusual film about childhood I’ve seen in a long time.

That said, this film is certainly not accessible to all. Which is of little surprise, considering that it was brought to the screen by two of this decade’s Zeitgeist-defining creative forces: director Spike Jonze of Being John Malkovich fame (although his award mantle consists of prizes for music video and commercial work), and screenwriter Dave Eggers, an electrifying novelist whose debut ranks among one of the most beloved in contemporary literature.

That memoir was titled A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Alongside Jonze, he’s written another.

The movie begins with a frantic chase around a messy house with 9-year-old Max (Max Records) scampering after his dog. He is manic but misunderstood.

His mother (Catherine Keener) clearly tries her best to spend time with him, but she has work and a new boyfriend (Mark Ruffalo) that eat up her time. Max’s older sister (Pepita Emmerichs) pretends he does not exist, abandoning him after her friends destroy a fort he’s made.

This frustration breaks when he yells at his mother and runs away from home. Clothed in a white wolf costume, he takes a sailboat across the sea to where the Wild Things are…

These ten-foot beasts warm up to Max and crown him "King of the Wild Things." Among these troubled creatures who Max befriends are the burly Carol (James Gandolfini), the independent KW (Lauren Ambrose), the feisty Judith (Catherine O’Hara), the wimpy Alexander (Paul Dano), the trustworthy Douglas (Chris Cooper) and the compassionate Ira (Forest Whitaker).

The Wild Things are furry, tall and boldly designed, holding true to Sendak’s illustrations. The actors who voiced the beasts performed from the monster costumes, but were also filmed away from these hairy exteriors, only reciting the dialogue. These separate facial performances were later fused onto the faces of the creatures using CGI and animatronics.

Due to this technique, we can hear their excitement, see their loneliness and feel their pain more clearly. These Wild Things are more honest and believable than anything that Jim Henson’s company of artistic wizards, who crafted the intricate creatures, have made in years.

But the largest triumph of Jonze’s film is Max Records. To remember such a layered, endearing and tender performance from a young actor, we may have to go back nearly 30 years, to Henry Thomas’s Elliott in E.T.

Records is the real deal here. This was his debut performance, although not his first theatrical release, as he played Young Stephen in this year’s under-appreciated The Brothers Bloom.

With even the simplest change in mood, we can feel and understand Max’s anger, his heartache, and his yearn to belong. No matter how wild Max becomes, we instantly identify with him.

I guarantee that Records’s smile is about as ethereally beautiful as anything you’re likely to see on screen this year. But don’t let that fool you: Where the Wild Things Are is not only a wild rumpus. It is, at parts, a grim and bittersweet film. The emotional tension featured in the film’s early segments in Max’s home carry over to the island of the Wild Things.

All of the Wild Things are complicated beasts with real issues, even though some of them get less character development than they deserve.

Where the Wild Things Are will certainly have a mixed response among audiences. The offbeat directing style, the incomplete narrative structure, as well as the emotionally heavy texturing of Max and the beasts may polarize viewers who think they’re coming to see a big, buoyant adaptation.

Young children may be unsettled by the seriousness of the film. This is certainly more art-house fare than Nickelodeon fodder.

It’s raw, complicated and more radically different from any adaptation in recent years. But Max and these creatures have been infused with so much warmth and complexity, you can’t help but adore these misunderstood Wild Things.

When the characters mosh together in a big pile to sleep, you want to be right there, cozily warming up with them. This is a film so remarkably whimsical and beautifully tender, you’ll want it to tuck you in underneath your covers.

Spike Jonze, I’d like to praise you like I should. Thank you for delivering a brave and beautiful adaptation of a bona-fide classic.

And Max Records, I have those adoption papers waiting in my bedside drawer.

I Am Jack's Ten-Year Tribute to Fight Club

On October 15, 1999, Fox Studios released a controversial, big-budget drama in theaters nationwide. Yet despite taking the box office crown that weekend, the film would end up as a financial disappointment, assist in removing Fox studio head Bill Mechanic, and have critics dismissing it as “irresponsible and appalling.”

Still, a few viewers responded to the film. They were blown away by it. They thought deeply about it. They felt like they understood it because it understood them. Those few would inform their friends, who in time informed their friends, who in time would demand midnight screenings of this “irresponsible and appalling” film.

This incredible word-of-mouth, in time, would turn it into the most-talked-about film of the 21st Century. Which is ironic, given the first two rules of Fight Club are not to talk about it.

Fight Club, adapted from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel, has become, arguably, the Citizen Kane for Generation Y. It combines Salinger-esque narration with a touch of Scorsesian style, with some old-fashioned Nietzschean philosophy thrown into the mix.

For those who have never seen it, Fight Club is narrated by an automobile company employee (Edward Norton) who suffers from insomnia. He finds his emotional release by attending support groups, even though he is not a victim.

Unfortunately, he finds there is another “tourist” who attends all of the same meetings. Her name is Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter). As he cannot attain the vital release he needs with another faker around, the two agree to share the schedule.

With some extra time on his hands, he goes back to traveling around the country, checking on the legality of automobile safety for his stern boss (Zach Grenier). On a business flight home, he meets a friendly soap salesman named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) who gives our protagonist his card.

However, upon returning to his apartment, he discovers that all of it has mysteriously exploded. With nowhere else to go, our lonely narrator calls Tyler. But there’s a catch: Mr. Durden will only allow him to stay with him if the protagonist can hit him as hard as he can.

The rest is cinematic history. And purely up to your interpretation.

Fight Club's influence on modern culture and society has been quite astounding. Young audiences (15 to 35-year-old males, in particular) have enthusiastically responded to the movie’s morals, meanings and mysteries.

Not only is Fight Club a film with tremendous directing, writing, acting, cinematography, production design and sound editing (where it received its sole Academy Award nomination), it’s also a film with ideas.

Masterfully directed by David Fincher (Se7en), it's has got a lot more on its mind than its grimy, blunt title would have you believe.

The film speaks about consumerism, capitalism, nihilism, disease, violence, sexuality, feminization, trauma, personal identity, and ultimately, the human condition in ways more sordid, sharply funny and surprising than any cinematic offering I can think of.

All praise aside, Fight Club is most notable for its twist ending. Some find it brilliant, others deem it pretentious, nonsensical and silly.

The final revelation has provoked much debate. What does it all mean? How is it even possible? The film’s truest fans have found themselves re-watching the film, looking for answers to explain the final revelation in every image, every line of dialogue, every stylistic effect. Tyler Durden has turned into the “Rosebud” of 21st century cinema.

Honoured film critics and historians didn’t give the film a second glance during its short-lived theatrical release many Octobers ago. Yet, they are increasingly reexamining and evaluating Fight Club as its popularity and influence spreads through the masses.

Today, the film turns ten years old. And it’s as relentlessly provocative, thematically rich and cinematically dazzling as it’s ever been.

Here’s to ten years of breaking the first two rules of Fight Club!

Killer Cast Can't Revive Zombie of a Screenplay

Zombieland

** out of ****

Directed by: Ruben Fleischer

Starring: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin

Running Time: 85 minutes

Sitting through Zombieland is like sitting on an unsteady amusement park ride. Some of it’s fun, some of it’s thrilling, but most of it just hurts your head as it goes through the rather predictable motions.

Ruben Fleischer’s directorial debut is a takeoff on the revived zombie subgenre. But while it has a lot of guts (and gore, be warned), the film is too glorified with itself to be taken seriously and too lazy in its storytelling to keep us on our toes.

The film opens with a college student (Jesse Eisenberg) remarking that a hamburger infected with mad cow disease has started a worldwide zombie epidemic. Alive and kicking zombie butt, he is off to Columbus, Ohio to confirm that his parents have survived the vicious plague.

Equipped with a packet of “rules” for surviving the creature attacks (which become a recurring motif), he meets an ultra-violent cowboy (Woody Harrelson) whose last will is to consume the final Twinkie desserts left over in Middle America. Yes, you read that correctly.

Using the names of the places they are heading toward, Columbus (the teen) and Tallahassee (the cowboy) set off to reach their respective destinations.

During a visit to a grocery store, which involves slaying zombies and searching for two-bite sponge cakes, the men encounter con girls Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). The foursome then set out to Pacific Playlands, an amusement park that is reportedly zombie-free.

Along the way, Columbus crushes on Wichita, Tallahassee continues his obsessive craving with Twinkies, and Little Rock proves that while she may know plenty about Hannah Montana, she’s rather uneducated about the iconic films of a certain movie star (whose mansion the group settles in, but we’ll get to that part later on).

Zombieland is a film that hopes its wisecracks and amusements will distract the audience from realizing that the plot has a complexity that makes paper look thick.

The film is smarmy and self-indulgent. Fleischer overdoes the bloodspray, and screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick rely on voiceover too often to voice Columbus’s frantic need to escape the bloodthirsty creatures, not to mention his plentiful sexual insecurities.

Furthermore, too many of the situations feel contrived; Tallahassee and Columbus just happen to walk by an unlocked Hummer with a backseat full of guns. Lots and lots of guns.

The motivation to get to Pacific Playlands also feels false. It may be zombie-free, but what’s going to happen when they open the gates, allowing entry into the amusement park?

The script is as lazy in its storytelling as the zombies are in their movement.

Still, Harrelson is great fun: his Tallahassee is sardonic and brawny, but never over-the-top. He even has a few tender moments to flesh out his character before he guts the flesh out of the miserable zombies.

A minor stop at a major celebrity’s house (which we mentioned earlier) is certainly funny. But while the cameo may be inspired, it brings the film to a grinding halt, substituting plot progression for a dose of nostalgia. Of the 85 minute running time, far too much time is spent on this unnecessary section, basically done for the sake of churning out laughs and not much else.

When all is said and done, Zombieland consists of a man’s pandemonic bingeing for Twinkies and a clunky teenage romance. So much for America’s answer to the dead-on (and superior) horror parody Shaun of the Dead.

It may feature a killer performance from Woody Harrelson and a great cameo, but it lacks the creativity, energy and wit that would catapult it into the realm of classic genre parodies.

Greed, for a Lack of a Better Word, is Not Good

Capitalism: A Love Story

***1/2 out of ****

Directed by: Michael Moore

Running Time: 127 minutes

No filmmaker in contemporary cinema has ignited more debate, discussion or derision than Michael Moore.

Whether you adore the documentary filmmaker or loathe that he can ever be considered as such, you cannot deny his influence on American liberalism, as well as modern cinema.

Which gives me great pride, since his latest foray, Capitalism: A Love Story, is his most important film to date, and his best since the Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine.

His first film, Roger and Me, illustrated the effects of General Motors’ sudden closing of several Flint, Michigan auto plants, which economically crippled the town. Capitalism expands on this subject, now focusing on how American banks and their political counterparts financially devastated the lowest 95% (in terms of accumulative wealth) of their citizens.

Capitalism is defined by Moore as “a system of taking and giving, mostly taking.” Moore focuses on the woes of ordinary Americans due to this robbery, especially the sullen folk who have been evicted from their homes due to bank defaults.

They’re not the only ones with financial instability: even airline pilots receive wages more cramped than economy-class legroom, he finds.

He also exposes the “dead peasant insurance” policies, where companies cash in on the unexpected deaths of their employees. While collecting the benefits, these corporations leave none for the grieving families.

Moore originally planned the film as a follow-up to his blockbuster Fahrenheit 9/11, focusing on the state of the American poor, in light of Hurricane Katrina. This would explain why he has more teary-eyed footage of the pennyless families and examples of corporate swindles and scandals than direct answers to how the American economy collapsed.

Still, he cites how, in post-World War 2 America, Wall Street brokers sold a message of bogus prosperity to inflate the national economy. Moore further questions the Reagan years, and the ballooning of deregulated corporate spending that started when he was in office.

While he shuns capitalism and the Wall Street elites who have gambled with taxpayer dollars (he even compares the stock exchanges to casinos), is he promoting socialism? Not quite; instead, Moore prefers democratic methods for living out the American dream.

For instance, he journeys to a technological plant where the only employees are the few dozen workers who also founded the company. They receive the same wages. As well, he goes to a bakery that works along the same lines. There, assembly-line workers make over $60,000 a year.

Then, there’s that $700 billion bailout. He points out the shifty figures who earned several shifty figures and ultimately signalled the collapse of the American economy. Here, Moore does not go quietly.

While more educated viewers may find Moore’s wry voice as condescending as a fifth grade economics teacher, it would be difficult for them to deny the relevance of the footage featured near the film’s end.

This recently discovered reel is of a proposal for a planned Second Bill of Rights, addressed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In this proposal, all citizens would have a right to employment, housing, education and health care.

Much of Capitalism: A Love Story is scathing and blisteringly passionate, proudly victimizing the corrupt souls who led to the current state of the global economic peril. He also, with astonishing pride, focuses in on the change that ordinary Davids are doing to defy the Goliaths for whom they work for.

Less satisfying are the bits where Michael Moore plays, well, Michael Moore. His public stunts, such as bringing an armoured truck to Wall Street to collect the bailout billions, are grand, but sometimes come off as goofy.

Thankfully, Capitalism is much more than bold comedy: it is a layered argument against the greed and corruption of modern America. It is more than just a quintessential Moore documentary. It is tremendous and in-depth filmmaking, and should be required viewing.