As outspoken as I was against Spider-Man 2 I have maintained that Spider-Man 3 will be the best of the series if only because it couldn’t possibly get worse. All the existential, what-does-it-all-mean relationship/work/saving/sitting/sniffling angst of films past, all the moping and dating and delivering pizzas, all in the past and, most notably, all leading up to a more mature, more empowered and confident superhero that doesn’t need to question why he’s Spider-Man but, rather, what he’s going to now that he is Spider-Man. By allowing his id to takeover, Spider-Man finally gets to have some fun with his powers. My god, real fun! And for most of the ride, so was I. The Faustian allure of the dark symbiote substance (also known as The Toby McGuire Personality Enhancer, or TTMPE) --a welcome new Spiderman arc-- represents the first real step forward in the series because it gives Spider-Man a shot at being proactive for once in his dreary, work-a-day life. Sure this Black Power movement comes come with a price (this is Spider-Man after all so how could it not?) but it also comes with enjoyment.

     The story deals with a black sludge entity that comes from outer space (oooookay) and attaches itself to Peter Parker, making him a real (fun) ass-hole in the process. Parallel to this is a botched series of wedding proposals to Parker’s longtime love, a continued rivalry with Harry Osborn and the Venom/Sandman’s origin stories. The cast, as usual, I’m meh about. Toby Maguire is usually so passive and laconic as Peter Parker that his portrayal usually lands somewhere between Bressonian blank slate acting and Razzie worthy detachment. Not this time though thanks to the TTMPE. Then there’s Kirsten Dunst as the resident girlfriend. A vortex of fun, this character comes close to eviscerating Parker’s confidence in an attempt to make herself feel better. Spider-Man is finally trying to gets his balls back and Mary Jane’s “This isn’t about you, it’s about ME” pettiness is spectacularly annoying. This sense of sidekick entitlement, by the way, is what ruined Superman Returns but, luckily, unlike Clark Kent, Peter Parker doesn’t listen. And when Parker (or, at least, his new suit) slugs MJ after making sexy time with his peppy lab partner (Bryce Dallas Howard in yet another amateurish performance), the theater erupted with laughter. Okay, it wasn’t the whole theater it was just the section of the theater that I was in--more specifically, the seat I was in. Whereas impotence relating to dating and loss of power issues crippled this character in the impossibly overrated Spider-Man 2, Parker just lets it all go over his head this time around by smirking, wearing his boyish hair down and saying things like “they love me” and “I guess I’ve become something of an icon” even before acquiring his suit. 

     Speaking of icons, along with Parker’s inflated ego the film also tends to preen about. This comes in the form of numerous shout-outs to previous Spidey films and a general vibe of self-awareness. “Where do all these guys come?” from Parker says, wondering about the unusually high number of villains in this film (he’s not the only one). Also front and center is the mocking of Spider-Man and MJ’s first kiss, closure on my theory that MJ was a really bad theater actress in the second Spider-Man, Peter Parker making fun of the clumsy self serving patriotism of first film by saying he grabbed a photo moment while “climbing up a flagpole,” another great Bruce Campbell cameo and my personal favorite, the return of Cake Girl. Her scene, consisting of feeding Parker oatmeal cookies (“with nuts!”), is a gem.  

     On to the villains of the piece. Seems like this franchise is in danger of falling into the same death trap that the Batman films did. The presence of three villains clutters the narrative but this actually works in favor of the film. How is this possible? Simple: more bad guys on screen equals less time we have to spend with Parker’s domestic toils. It’s such a truism that the only good thing about Spider-Man 2 was Doc Oct and while Green Goblin Jr., Sandman and Venom don’t possesses the gravitas of one Alfred Molina, they do add up to a strange but somehow compelling tri-fecta—one after another’s obsessive pursuit of Spider-Man led me to question if this was an action movie or a gang bang.

     The weakest link here is Sandman (a stiff Thomas Haden Church) who is too malleable (pun intended) for my liking. After failing to thoroughly explain HOW or WHY Flint Marco became Sandman in the first place, the film makes matters worse by attempting to get to know Marko’s sensitive side, what with the sick kid at home, mortgage payments and the killing of Parker’s uncle (yada, yada). This amounts to less time spent on the two more potentially interesting characters.

     Call me out of touch but I found James Franco as Goblin Jr. to be quite good (…in a bad sort of way). Early on Harry Osborn (James Franco) undergoes major head trauma after a particularly rough nighttime romp with Spider-Man (he, he) and he spends the rest of the time in a blessed out state of short-term-memory-loss dumbness. I loved Harry’s empty smirks, random giggling, and rousing third act actions. When a waitress ask Harry how his pie is, he croons “it’s goooood” with a stoner’s delight. And as for Venom, hum, I’m not quite sure how I feel about him in this movie. Venom has always been an interesting foe the sense that he represents Parker’s Lacianian shadow-self, an inverted symbol of a superhero. But this most interesting of villains feels a bit tacked on. A villain unto its self, however, the black TTMPE symbiote suit is entirely successful and represents the kind of Spider-Man I want to see when I go to a Spider-Man film. It makes the Spider a Man of action, enjoyment and aggression over the usual gambit of cuddling, wining and mumbling. And when Spidey ultimately sheds the suit by tearing it off and inadvertently passing it on to his newspaper rival Eddie Brock (a miscast Topher Grace), the film looses its bite which is ironic because all Venom does in this movie is bite.

     Sam Raimi directs this third Spider-Man with as much sloppiness as arrogance. It’s like he’s figured out the formula and is coasting on its success. The odd thing is that Raimi’s laidback, haphazard, self-referential approach kept things interesting for me. With the formula in place, Raimi didn’t even bother to hire a screenwriter like Michael Chabon to add dimension (and thank god for that because pretences of “dimension” ruined the first two films), he wrote the damn thing himself along with brother/Darkman screenwriter Ivan Raimi. I have a feeling that this is as good as a Raimi Spider-Man film can get and while suited wonder has finally directed himself a decent Spider-Man picture I can only hope that if there is to be a fourth film --and you know there will—Lara Ziskin and co. will shake things up by finding a new director (David Fincher was attached before Raimi and should re-attach as quickly as a symbiote suit) and maybe even a new Peter Parker and MJ. I say this half out of my dislike for the franchise and half out of my surprised enjoyment of the third film.

     In short, I like Spider-Man 3 precisely because it doesn’t try as hard as the first two. Spider-Man 3 is not trying to tell a good story or even a profound one; it is simply (…and for once…) trying only to be an enjoyable Spider-Man movie. That’s all I ever wanted.

     Continuing the red-hot streak of WWE-produced lameness, the one thing “The Condemned” can boast about is the fact that it’s better than “See No Evil” and “The Marine.” That’s kind of like bragging about “Bloodrayne” being Uwe Boll’s best film but, still, it’s something.

The gimmick goes something like “Ten will fight, nine will die.” Sounds, uh, fun and all but correct me if I’m wrong, isn’t that the same as “2 men enter, one man leaves,” the “Mad Max” mantra? As far as the concept goes, I have a soft spot for films about people stuck in a restricted setting, trying to survive as they get from A to B. Add an element of authority figures watching the characters via rats-in-a-maze imagery and you have a clean narrative that crackles with visceral energy as the audience function as the surrogate, god-like watcher. From “Running Man” to “No Escape” to “Battle Royal” to “Saw,” even, a nice way of putting it is that “The Condemned” comes from a fertile tradition of what I call 21^st Century Darwinist action. Another way to put it is that the film savagely extracts all the action potential from the genre while leaving out any nutrients. In this respect “The Condemned” is more on the level of the death-on-TV film “Rollerball.”  But not the original version—oh, no, I’m talking bout’ the remake with Chris Klein!

The most direct inspiration for “The Condemned” appears to be a 2001 Japanese cult film called “Battle Royale.” Let’s compare the plots, shall we? “The Condemned” is about a high stakes/concept reality show where death row inmates (lead by the American good ol’ boy Stone Cold Steve Austin) are rigged with explosive devices, dropped on a deserted island and told that the last one remaining brute will receive a full pardon. To keep things unpredictable, a helicopter periodically drops duffel bags full of cool weapons. Then there’s “Battle Royale,” a film about a Totalitarian inscribed media event that sends a group of students (rigged with explosive devices of course) to a deserted island wherein they must battle to the death with the sole winner receiving  --yup-- a pardon home. Oh, and the helicopter duffel bag drops are in there too. So, then, the only discernable difference here is that one film has Stone Cold’s shiny bald head and shinier fake convict boobies (that’s right, according to this film every third world death row female inmate has them) while the other has that chick from “Kill Bill” castrating rapists. Call me old fashion but I’ll take the latter.

While existing in a fantasy world, these films come from a very real place that’s symptomatic of deep seeded issues with television and our increasing reliance on the seductive but soul deadening media image. These films put out the idea that our fascination with reality television is rivaled only by our anxiety towards television’s ability to render reality, a human’s very existence, into a blip. We worship pixels and, somewhere deep down in there, we’re mad as hell about this. So how does “The Condemned” address such pressing concerns? Directly. The bad guy is a sleek corporate devil (Robert Mammone) who plays god with prisoner’s lives and makes declarations like “nothing’s real” and, my personal favorite, “people like to watch violence!” I guess Bane McEvil is right and all but take a look at what the film is saying through him. The heavy-handed moral is that enjoying violence is bad and that human life is valuable. A valid point but we’re being told this while watching a violent film with a high death count! And when this film goes as far as to include howling funny lines like “maybe we [the viewers of the show] are THE CONDEMNED” it becomes abundantly clear that the WWE should leave the action-movie moralizing to “A History of Violence.”  While the above films listed found time to explore such notions while still being decent action films, “The Condemned” never reaches critical mass with the ideas it’s putting out there because it doesn’t believe in them itself. Instead, it wallows in its moralizing tone without ever coming close to understanding it.

It’s unfortunate that this film had to cast someone that, um, sucks because a different actor could turned the dumb action and naive preaching into a worthwhile guilty pleasure experience. Big surprise, but the star the film settles on, Stone Cold Steve Austin, has no emotional range and even less of a sense of humor about himself. Playing a character named Joe Conrad (yes, the film is presumptuous enough to evoke the name of the “Heart of Darkness” author), Stone Cold grapples lines like “game on!” or “let’s dance, ass hole” with a wrestler’s bravado, but the “actor” really looses his way when the film requires him to talk SERIOUS with his wife or act human for that matter in scenes where he feeds helpless rats (“Count of Monty Crisco?” argh, more literary allusions) and avoids killing the other condemned inmates (because killing is wrong, you see, even for an actor whose name is fricken STONE COLD!). Look, I’m not expecting a nuanced prison performance for this sort of film (Nick Cage didn’t need that on “Con Air”) but, geez, “The Condemned” could have at least let us have some fun by putting someone like Jason Statham in lead and, if you got to add a wrestler to preserve the WWE name, Stone Cold as the heavy. As is, “The Condemned” seems to be aware of Austin’s weaknesses and spends an increasingly large amount of time compensating by checking in with ancillary characters like his family (Stone Cold’s busty wife watches this execution webcast in a neon bright bar that looks like a rejected “Coyote Ugly” set design), the FEDS as they attempt to track down the illegal game, and the internal drama within the reality TV death crew. When you’ve got a film about people on an island killing each other why check in with anyone? Far too often as the inmates are killing each other off screen, the film is killing time on screen. These distractingly tangential subplots dilute the film’s otherwise bearable (but far from great due to a lack of originality and sense of humor) “Most Dangerous Game” concept. But it’s hard to be surprised about these matters considering the performer’s signature move is drinking beer really fast. I imagine there’s not much a film can do with that asset unless we’re talking about a sequel to “Beerfest.”

Another attempt to fill in the acting vacuum left by Austin’s sub-Hogan suckatude is to pair up the wrestler with the reliable big screen heavy Vinnie Jones. As an aside, who would have ever though that Vinnie Jones would be thrown into an action film to lend credibility to the performances?! This is the most incongruous wrestler/actor combo since Roddy Roddy Piper and Keith David wrasssssled their way through “They Live.” But those two pulled it of with a lot of kitsch charm. Just about the only thing these two jabronis pulled was my leg. 

Right now there are three movies in theaters that fill the same function as “The Condemned.” Watch “The TV Set” for its deft commentary on the sorry-ass state of a television culture that feeds on an empty reality TV mindset. Watch “Disturbia” to get a sense of the horrific allure of watching others. And, of course, check out “Grindhouse” to get your b-movie thrills on. And, for the hell of it, why not throw “Battle Royale” on your Netflix queue to see this exact same concept done better. As directed by newcomer Scott Wiper, “The Condemned” comes up short in all aspects except for its cool concept… which is stolen and not exclusively focused on. Whoops. The only thing left to say is that someone should have wiped better.

     For anyone who has had to sit through all two and a half hours of "Bad Boys II," this film gets our pain and turns that adverse memory into pure frenetic laughter. "Hot Fuzz" is not a parody of cop movies so much as it is a gleeful celebration of cop movie tropes and blokes. A film that satirizes cop films brilliantly but stands on its own for its ingenuous plot (loved the running and gunning "greater good" third act) and surprisingly effective character types. Simon Pegg shows his comic range as the eye squinting super cop Nick Angel who plays by the rules while all Nick Frost needs to be brilliant is to be Nick Frost. Combine the two and you have, well, another vaguely homoerotic buddy movie the likes of "Sean of the Dead." Nothing wrong with that. 

    With a script by actor Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright ("if you're thinking of seeing this movie alone...DON'T!"), every line pops with cheeky entendres and ingenuous word play. Pegg’s character has OCD (more like ocPD) when it comes to following the letter of the law. The fastidious Angel is funny in a Robocop shooting people for smoking in non-smoking area kind of way (rent "Robocob 2" for that gem). While he doesn’t get to silence smokers, Angel does go after underage drinking in a laidback town pub. He asks the hooligan for his birth date. “May 12th" the kid says. “What year?” Angel asks, cocking his eyebrow ever so slightly. “Every year” the kid responds. Also played for big laughs are instantly amusing sight gags involving a human statue, a brawl in a miniature town, a beer moustache, Chunky Monkey ice cream (don’t ask), house plants, cranberry juice, oversized plush toys used to distract pirate talking thugs, a landmine checked into evidence and of course a priceless homage to Keanu Reeves’ overacting. Everything, right down the way Pegg writes in his police notepad, if funny here.

     Alongside the playful script, Edgar Wright directs this big fish in a small pond comedy with all the bravura of a great symphony. I'm not embellishing when I say that this is one of the best-directed comedies in recent years. It ranks alongside "Punch Drunk Love," the first half of "Three Kings" and "A Fish Called Wanda" in terms its stylistic embrace of humor. Wright’s kinetic filmmaking contributes so much to the comedy that the camera itself becomes a mechanism for the jokes. Endlessly amusing match cuts where, say, one character gets cut down by a serial killer while the film cuts to another as he falls into his chair, or flash cuts that depict Nick Angel’s sulking transitory movement after he’s been demoted from the bustling big city to serve in the Podunk countryside, or all those swooning camera movements that come alive through their quotations of Michael Bay’s over-drive ineptitude. Not a minute went by when a character didn't say something funny or Wright didn't do something funny with his snarky vision. More often than not both would occur at once! Let me put it to you another way: if Guy Ritchie had talent as a filmmaker and a sense of humor as a writer, he would make a film as good as "Hot Fuzz."

It must be surveillance month. First, “Disturbia” came out (reviewed by Joe Tucker) then “The Condemned,” and now here we are with “Red Road.” Films about surveillance are proliferating in a wide range of genres these days, and for good reason— not only are WE being watched more, but we’re watching more ourselves. While I’d just as soon forget skeevy titles like “Cherry Crush,” “The Condemned,” and the overrated German Oscar winner “The Lives of Others,” recent films such as “Cache,” the “Rear Window”-lovin’ “Disturbia,” and even Year Zero, a Big Brother concept album by Nine Inch Nails, all add up to create a pattern that is as revealing as it is disturbing. “Red Road” fills in an even more specific niche within this genre by focusing its gaze upon the slow minutia that comes with living vicariously through the electronic eye.

In a year when headlines like "FBI criticized for Patriot Act use" are commonplace and the scopophilic thrall of Youtube is ubiquitous, a film like “Red Road” negotiates the bland grey area of government surveillance. The film’s unique, slightly apolitical addition to the genre is that it manipulates the concept of surveillance as a way of engaging with the protagonist’s inner turmoil (the film is similar to Wender’s “The End of Violence” in this respect).

I’m a Cannes film festival junkie. And when I heard last year that newcomer Andrea Arnold’s film “Red Road” was a surprise hit that surpassed higher profile filmmakers such as del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” and Almodóvar “Volver” I was instantly intrigued. Thinking, for an instance, the title was some sort of an homage to The Shining (Red Rum; which, if you see this film, could have totally been an appropriate title), I was even more fascinated when I read a blurb in Sight and Sound that “Red Road” was a mystery about a woman who watches cameras for a living and one day gets “involved.” With only that to go on I’ve been waiting for this film to come stateside for over a year. As it turns out, though, the only more tedious than waiting for “Red Road” to come out is watching it play out.

Jackie (Kate Dickie in the best performance so far this year) works at the City Eye Control Room in Scotland. She spends the better part of her day viewing a multiplicity of city cameras feeds that range form shots of pedestrians walking their dog to local teens loitering. Every once and a while Jackie’s roving eye even spots a crime in progress and her job is to zoom in to “capture” the perpetrator. One step removed from the human element, though, Jackie saves the day without expressing so much as a smile. Then one day the human element enters back into her life when she is disturbed to see a face she knows (the face belongs to Tony Curran by the way). Jackie proceeds to track this man’s movements electronically but quickly abandons her gods-eye-view perch to get in on the action physically. A cool effect that the newcomer Andrea Arnold (who got off to a great start by winning a Best Short Film Oscar a few years back) gets across is that, as this solitary woman follows her target, the audience gets an odd feeling that we’ve been here before and that’s because the streets she stalks on foot are the same ones she had been doing so by eye in the control room. I love how the line between this woman’s tangible physical reality and pluralistic electronic realities get blurred. Who is this unknown white male? What did he do to Jackie? And as Jackie picks up pieces of rocks and glass before tracking his every movement, what are her intentions? While man is quite imposing, Jackie’s snake like stillness and calculating demeanor turns out to be even more menacing. Forget about the man, not knowing what Jackie is up to gives the film it’s edge.

As the narrative takes its time unraveling, what also unravels is the plausibility of the connecting story threads. When “Red Road” transitions from a film about a watcher to that of a follower (which parallel each other closely) it looses its hypnotic allure and eventually, as we find out Jackie’s motives, lapses into a dreary family drama. Still, there’s a lot to admire. Arnold segues from the sterile and cramped Mise-en-scène of computer room to the open, sullied streets of Glasgow and it’s made deliberately clear through the filmmaker’s style that both are unsettling in different ways. What unites the two worlds is a dead but charged stillness that fills the air like static electricity. The landscape this filmmaker captures resembles a Lynchian dystopia full of decayed beauty, hypnotic sound design and stark urban poetry. A pivotal sex scene in which foxes howl outside while Jackie gets intimate inside a stranger’s apartment particularly stands out for its haunting qualities. As do the countless lyrical shots of rubbish, urban blight and floating bags that captured by the eerily ubiquitous city cameras (“American Beauty” only wishes it could have been this poignant).

While such tones are effective, the narrative ends up reducing the film’s visual expressiveness into something banal. To a large degree the story’s success hinges upon how the surveillance aspect of the film and mystery/personal drama relate to each other and, sadly, gorgeous shot compositions and Dickie’s brilliant performance as a woman who lives a hollow existence only mends this inconsistent narrative to a certain point. First and foremost, the fact that Jackie works in the Control Room at the exact time this mystery man comes back into her life is an incidental and almost random facet of the larger plot relating to this woman’s tragic past. In a film that strives for realism, not buying into such a major plot detail proved to be a huge setback for me. It kills me to say this but “Red Road’s” surveillance subplot exists merely as a contrivance or a provocative way to get the viewer into the story, that, once there, finds itself abandoned along with the audience.

  The TV Set is a specialty film. It’s a film that tracks the development of a television show pilot. The title does not refer to an actual TV set but a production set. That’s it. No frills, but a lot of fun. You may not like it. Answer these questions to find out if you might. Do you love films about films? Did you enjoy The Larry Sanders Show? Does David Duchovny’s deadpan droll amuse you? Do you know who Jake Kasdan is? I’m assuming your answer was yes to at least one because you’re still reading, so…

     In his latest role (few as they are), David Duchovny plays a neurotic writer (what are the odds?!) that tries desperately to hang on to the artistic integrity of his show while simultaneously remaining optimistic to the demands of corporate suits, public taste and his pregnant wife. The bearded, slouching actor whips out a nice, conflicted performance that doesn’t lapse into parody or Gene Wilder-esq hair pulling antics. His laid back neurosis is of the internalized variety and manifests itself in the form of chronic back pain, persistent eye rubbing and a priceless, constipated wince that becomes plastered on the poor guy’s mug half way through the shooting of his show and never goes away. This is the Woody Allen role Duchovny never got to do, but should have.

Chronicling Duchovny’s journey, writer/director Jake Kasdan gives the film a nice hand held vibe that is more reminiscent of some of our better single camera sitcoms (Arrested Development) than false indie coolness. Kasdan is one of the great (hidden) talents on the American comedy scene. But, beyond springing from famous writer/director Lawrence Kasdan’s talented loins, luck has never been on this kid’s side. He got his ass kicked on Freaks and Geeks (canceled mid season) and the underrated 90210 satire about actors playing characters on a fictional teen TV show, Grosse Pointe (an obvious inspiration for this film), went over most viewers heads. When he migrated over into film, his luck has been even worse! The admirable Orange County didn’t find the audience it should have and, worst of all, his brilliant noir comedy Zero Effect has been reduced to a sub-cult movie status. Now that he’s made a film about a helpless writer being oppressed by the forces of mediocrity, consider The TV Set a cathartic story from a guy who’s earned the solipsistic right to bitch a little.

     Network logic like “’Slut Wars’: let’s face it, if you can’t sell 13 sluts in the Caribbean, you’ve got problems” is both funny and rather useful in its function of making fun of modern trends like the popularity reality shows over narrative storytelling. That line, by the way, is delivered by Sigourney Weaver, who gives a strong performance as the flighty but passive aggressively forceful network honcho that stifles Duchovny’s vision with inane demands like not making a funeral scene seem so sad. “But… it’s a funeral!” Duchovny pleads. Such moments make Weaver’s character from Working Girl look like a softie. With ursurbic lines like “you don’t want to be too original,” the joke, that network execs are blinded by the allure of advertising, is an old one to anyone familiar with, say, Network, but Kasdan makes such meta-filmmaking conventions palatable by injecting an undercurrent of pragmatism. Weaver and her even-headed network partner played by Ioan Gruffudd are, after all, just doing their jobs and we can often see their point—especially in clever scenes where focus groups and research gathering sessions prove that numbing television dumbness is what the average television viewer wants. Furthermore, the antagonistic suits aren’t the sharks form Swimming with Sharks but, rather, dedicated working folks that just happen to be more interested in ratings then their own family... or breathing for that matter. The protagonist becomes resigned to the concept that the product comes before the art and the semi-defeatist position The TV Set takes is that it’s the writer’s job to not so much to fight the system and prevail but manage and minimize the corruption of his creation. Doesn’t sound sexy but at least it’s honest.

     Also admirable is how Jake Kasdan follows the making of this fictional show into the hell that is post production. Too many insider Hollywood films languish in the seductive energy that hectic shooting schedules offer but in doing so they often miss the finer subtleties involved in post production haggling. This film takes matters into the editing room and network meetings and is stronger for doing so. As Duchovny keeps giving the suits what they, his creative impetus becomes systematically dismantled, piece by piece. And this comes at the cost of making him richer. Which isn’t a cost at all if you think about it; hence the central irony. Yes, Duchovny realizes that “I’m making the world more mediocre!” but his subsequent actions are surprisingly realistic and give some interesting insights into how crap shows and films might not have started out that way. With this sentiment, the film draws a line in the sand, taking a firm if not necessarily reactionary stance towards the state of modern television. The bittersweet tone feels justified coming from one of the talents behind Freaks and Geeks.

     While admirable, the film is not terribly accessible. Or ambitious for that matter. Solipsistic is a word I used earlier and it’s the right word here. Jokes about audience quadrants, reality TV ratings numbers, clip reels, and Jonathan Silverman may not amuse many. Even the clichés, like the obligatory moment where the title of the writer’s show The Wexler Chronicles has to be changed into something inane like Call Me Crazy!, are mildly amusing. Still, Kasdan’s causal approach and honest voice keeps the film cruising along at a comfortable pace. “The TV Set” is not earth shattering but it hits the right notes—hum, “hit” too exciting a word for this film. Change that to: The TV Set lightly tapes the right notes. Because I’m into this genre, that’s good enough for me.

     I was recently lamenting Robert Rodriguez’s “bad influence” on Quentin Tarantino. My logic followed a reasoning that went something like: first he stole Steve Buscemi, then he had QT do that pee antidote in Desperado, then he did the music to Kill Bill vol. 2, then he squeezed a few more pennies from QT by advertising (but, really, exploiting) this “guest director” on the overrated Sin City, and finally he seduced my all-analog QT with digital. And I'm not even going to mention how Rodriguez showed up my man Tarantino with his section of Four Rooms. And, now, here we go again for Rodriguez has convinced Tarantino into “sharing” a flop with him. Worse yet, the superb Death Proof now has to settle for being Tarantino’s 6th film with a big ol’ asterix (that's almost worse than the asterix next to his writing Oscar). This makes me mad. Mad enough to separate the two films. If only I could do the same with the BFF filmmakers.

Planet Terror
     Look, I love zombie films. Perhaps the only thing I love more is apocalypse films. Combine the two and you have the potential for greatness on par with Omega Man, one of my all time favs. But you also have the potential for a mess on par with, well, take your pick: how about Doom? This film rests smack dab in the middle. Half inspired, half insipid. Robert Rodriguez's irksome Sin City-izsms (gurgling sax playing, gravity defying action, noir-lightness), grandiosity, obsessive castration anxieties (balls, literal balls, play a major role), and corny sense of humor (see also: balls) never amounts to anything substantial.

    Planet Terror is the cinematic equivalent to pre-faded jeans. Neither a true guilty pleasure noir an all-out convincing zombie flick, this indecisive section of Grindehouse is sloppy. And I’m not talking about sloppy in Rodriguez’s overly aware look-I’m-pressing-a-button-that-scratches-up-my-digital-film way. The sloppiness is all in the execution, no pun intended. The design is sloppy (the sets look like ass). The look of the film is sloppy (the visual effects are not bad enough to be campy and not good enough to be dazzling). The acting styles are as choppy as they are sloppy (xept for Earl McGraw). And the story --all kinds of sloppy-- bites off more (human flesh) than it can chew. From the insane doctor (Josh Brolin) to his needle throwing vamp of a nurse/wife (Marley Shelton), to the swarthy biochemist who collects testicles for no apparent reason (the somehow awesome Naveen Andrews), to an Osama Binladen hunting marine (?!) played by a famous actor, to Rose McGowan's go-go dancing curves, to the diminutive guy from Six Feet Under playing a bad-ass (not a joke), to the busty pop singer Fergie for Christ's sake (wish that was a joke), Rodriguez has enough characters here to last three zombie movies.

     The film is about a biological virus that spreads through a small town like horror movie viruses tend to do and causes everyone to turn into infected zombies. What other kind is there? Let’s see, we've got exploding jello pustules, rotting flesh, grinding teeth, groaning, slow moving, the whole deal. This sounds fine and all but the filmmaker cannot sustain the premise(s) and, by the end, reverts to cliché and hollow action instead of camp. The film's outré sense of humor certainly made me laugh (all I’m saying is, don’t give little kids guns) and the macabre death scenes, replete with exploding heads and severed limbs, gave me fond memories of pulp like Dead Alive, but this is not a Peter Jackson horror comedy. It's not even up to Shaun of the Dead's level of ironic jauntiness. And not even on par with the underrated flesh-eating comedy Cabin Fever (Eli Roth, by the way, directs a segment in this film and has a cameo in Tarantino's section). Or, for that matter, the director's own From Dusk Till Dawn. As for Romero and John Carpenter, ha, forget about even comparing the two because there is no comparison. Like these (better) titles, Planet Terror also makes use of zombie clichés that consists of characters stuck in a compound, city, house, etc. trying to make their way out to a safe haven such as the ocean (so Dawn of the Dead), but unlike these films, gone is the sense of purpose or place. I didn't think it possible, but the zombies here are more aimless, mindless and lack more personality than usual. And the humans aren't much better off.

     Senior Roberto, zombie movies are simple enough. Don't mess them up with excessive characters and subplots. Ever since Once Upon a Time In Mexico you tend to (over)direct genre films as if they all need to be sprawling epics. Still, I’ll give you this: you're film is not as bad as I make it out to be (that's my zombie weakness talking, I reckon). And this: Rose’s machine gun leg is inspired business. And, finally, this: your trailer for the fake movie Machete is easily the best thing you’ve done since that section in 4 Rooms (if only Planet Trailer were the trailer and Machete were the feature!). As the bad guy pleads for mercy, the ass kicking Priest sidekick, played by Cheech, croaks, "God has mercy...(cocks gun)... I don't" before taking the bad guy down. It doesn't get much better than that. So let me leave you with this thought: maybe the fact that some of your best work is under half an hour is saying something.

Death Proof
     I can tell Quentin Tarantino needed to get this film out of his system. Well, not this film but this kind of film. By that I mean a light, frothy, meaningless jaunt that people won’t hold up to as high a standard as Pulp, Kill Bill or especially Jackie Brown. With its leisurely pacing and hang-dog approach to serial killer thrillers, Death Proof practically screams “please don’t value me” but the more it does, the more I didn’t listen because there’s just so much to admire--enough to make me look past the faults. QT’s approach takes the fem-ferocity ethos of Faster Pussycat Kill, Kill and bounces it off the director's fondness for road trip thrillers like The Hitcher/Vanishing Point and as a bonus, the tasty last moments are reserved for some classically empowering Kill Bill-style revenge action with the most perfectly abrupt freeze-frame ending possible.   

     Opening on a shot of a woman's toes (so QT), the film follows four girls for what seems like an eternity as they hang out in a car, talk, talk, talk, go to a bar… AND DIE! Then the film switches gears so to speak to follows four more girls as they hang out in a car, talk, talk, talk, eat for a 10 minute, unbroken shot, then… well, something more exciting happens. There's some primo Kurt Russell nacho eating action in between but that's about it. The plot, of course, is serviceable in that it's only around to set up characters, kill them, establish a killer who gets off on speed and twisted metal (Cronenberg would be proud), set up more characters (so now we know what's at stake) and indulge in one final, orgasmic blacktop showdown that makes Road Warrior look like go-carting. Unlike Rodriguez’s section, QT keeps the narrative uncomplicated and there’s a certain kitchen sink charm in the way he drags things out in the first half only to drag-race in the second. Plus, the cold/hot structure maximizes the B-movie sadism.

     This paragraph is reserved for how cool Kurt Russell is. He’s cool. Cool enough to make me forget he wasn't so cool in last year’s Poseidon. Cool, like, Big Trouble In Little China, Escape From L.A. and Breakdown cool. Russell plays Stunt Man Mike, a --you guessed it-- stunt man who wears an all too appropriate Icy/Hot jacket and stairs at young-things as they frolic in the muggy summer heat. But the thing is, once Mike opens his mouth he's not as scary as one might think. When he talks to the girls he’s sort of a big nerd and scenes like the one where he has talks 70s TV with a  bunch of nonplused twentysomethings or has sneeze coming and can’t quite let it out is not meaningless—it denotes, first, his (and QTs) out-of-touchness and, second, his impotence. But when in his car, he's the baldest mother in town. The character's Norman Bates psychology and idiosyncratic mannerism remains elusive but that's for the better because this isn’t that kind of film.

     Beyond Russell reprising the scruffiness of Snake Plissken, the film’s one major flaw can be located in terms of the other actors. The film is essentially about two sets of girls. One set the victims, the other the victors. There are a total of eight female characters (nine if you count a spiffy Rose cameo, which I won’t) and most of them don’t quite fit here. The gals gabbing is almost distracting enough to make me not hear how great the dialogue is. What's more, these annoying birds over gesticulate and look all over the place after line readings as if thinking to themselves, did I sound cool there? They are overly earnest one line and unconvincing the next. These actresses just didn’t come across as comfortable with Tarantino’s verbal rhythm method (ha!). Look, QT’s dialogue is like Shakespeare; anyone can read it, sure, but few among us can actually sell the lines, Branniagh-style. And I don’t buy that the atrocious acting is deliberate. There's good-bad acting and bad-bad acting. I know the diff, okay! Yes, this is a B-movie but other than Russell, the characters don't have much allure until the last twenty minutes (could this be intentional?). I won’t blame the performers as much as I’ll blame the casting of them. From Sam Jackson to Robert Forester, QT is famous for finding just the exact right actor for his part. You watch someone like Uma Thurman owning the hell out of Kill Bill and are convinced there can be no other. This is the first time the director has failed to cast one of his films to its fullest and, boy, it shows. Luckily, though, not enough to hurt my overall experience. The fact remains that Tarantino cast the film in order to suit his affections. I’m going to go easy on him however because on one of those counts I can't blame the guy. I too am under Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s spell (she plays the stuntwoman dressed like a cheerleader), transfixed by her expressive saucer eyes and, shame of shames, even catching myself watching Final Destination 3.

     While my affection for all things zombie apocalypse is in unrivaled in the cinema, my allegiance lies with this film instead; not through genre identifications but, rather, a filmmaking style and approach. My fondness for a filmmaker apparently is stronger than that of a genre (auteur over genre... hum, there's something to that). Simply put, QT knows how to make a compelling story, even when there’s not really a story to speak of as is the case here. That’s talent! Call the film slow or boring all you want but the director can hang out with his characters like no other and can put them into motion just as effortlessly. In that respect, Death Proof is like the Kill Bill saga in reverse which, ha!, is another lame car pun. With this modest, unabashed micro-film the filmmaker has freed himself from the pressures of quality and the liberation is a refreshing thing to watch. Death Proof is like a great driver revving his engine before the big race.     

Result...
     Having recently gone to a “real” grind house double feature at the New Beverley I can certainly say that this film captures the look of these films but, when taken as a whole, not the spirit. Foggy print, stiff seats, the musky comic book nerd from The Simpsons sitting next to you, an odd mold-meets-candy funk in the air, and noting but violence on screen. This stuff can’t be artificially manufactured, though Tarantino and a bevy of fake trailers such as Don’t (Edgar Wright, B+), Thanksgiving (Eli Roth, B+), and Machete (Rodriguez, A-) come the closest. That being said, Grindhouse is a strange and fascinating compendium of styles, tempos and film geek effusiveness. That nobody wanted to see it is fascinating to me because the audience who loves real Grindhouse films call it a piece of corporate phoniness while younger viewers didn’t know what the hell to make of it (this proves to me that there is no way to watch these films without irony and definitely no way to make them without). More than paying homage to or capturing pop culture’s past, Tarantino and to a lesser degree Rodriguez have attempted to create its present. This proved problematic because people of my age and younger have never seen a real Grindhouse flick and, ironically, after watching Grindhouse, we still haven’t.

  This film fetishizes the phallic. Sweat, hair, mussels, musk, brass, balls and crimson skies, too. Told in the form of CGI onanism, the film fearless plunges head first into the age long battle between the West and East. And for the hell of it, it's also an epic fantasy film in which the enemy is imbued with demonic powers, astounding numbers, and glowing eyes. As the Greeks hold their ground against "Asia's endless hordes," who are depicted as monsters (literally, monsters!), these Spartan Greeks stated mission is to protect all of Europe from the eventual destruction that the East poses. Overkill? You bet. Is this film critiquing the West's provocation of the Middle East or is it a "fascist" film about preserving ourselves against them as we fight to the bloody end. Having not read the comic by Frank Miller (he of Sin City and Batman: Year One fame) I must admit to not knowing (or caring) and, in place of adding any extratextual or ideological meanings to the film as many are doing (insert eye-rolling here), being completely swept up by the provocative visuals and nationalistic fervor set to the constant hum or war drums. The way I figure, just weeks after the vacuous comic book doozie that Ghost Rider I’ve grown to appreciate a comic book movie with a vision, a message and an attitude. Simper Fi-ght!

     "GIVE THEM NOTHING... BUT TAKE FROM THEM EVERYTHING!!!" In every sense of the word, 300 is a film that exists in a perpetual caps lock state. Every sound bite of a line is spoken with a weighty baritone while every movement and spear thrust is exaggerated to its manly excesses. "They look thirsty" a Greek Spartan growls to his commander while facing hundreds upon hundreds of armor clad Persians. "WELL, THEN, LET’S GIVE THEM SOMETHING... TO DRINK!!!" is said as if it's the most natural response in the world. And, in this film's reality, is it. Personally, I got a kick out of this style and found myself laughing at how hyperreal this film is. I mean, really, who's taking this film seriously? Take a look at Gerard Butler's grinning maw and phallic spear positioning and tell me there's not something funny (and homoerotic) about that?

     I don't mind saying that Sin City was overrated. Heresy, I know, but the film seemed to coast on the fact that it’s a comic book movie that looks like a comic book movie. Rodriguez hid behind comic book, or, pardon, "graphic novel" visuals and wallowed in its empty pulp storyboards that signified nothing beyond its own excessive devices. 300, while just as empty in many respects, feels like it's about something. It is also the more visually successful of the two. Moreover, this sword and sandals film is not attempting to be a melodrama like Gladiator and it's not a sallow history lesson like Alexander. Think of it more in the Victor Mature sense of the word as a campy B-movie. It came as a surprise to me that the film was directed by Zach Snyder, who did a hell of a job remaking Dawn of the Dead. That remake, however, was criticized by me for neutralizing all of George Romero's political subtext and rendering the zombies mere flesh tinted ciphers. 300, while inviting modern day readings into the historical subtext, does not necessarily commit to anything solid either. Nor does it offer solutions to the problems that out two cultures face. Nor should it.

     Gerard Butler stars as the King of Spartan. All bearded, bronzed and six-packed-out, the character is an amalgamation of Kratos from PS2's God of War and a giant bolder with sandals. The actor's hyperbolic bravado and theatrical posturing/muscle flexing really sets the tone for this hyperkinetic epic. That the film attempts to humanize the every day-ness of Grecian life, this stands as its one true fault because any attempts to do so through flash-backs or scenes aimed to familiarize the audience with the King's family, small as they are, feels clumsy and unnecessary. We all know that Snyder wants to get back to the action and, you know what, so does the audience. The rest of the cast --unknowns unless you're a David Wennim fan-- do their part without ever getting in the way of the plot. Which brings me to the central question: what plot? I'm not sure I really saw beyond the whole 300 Greeks vs. 1,000,0000000000 Persians angle but, again, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. I admire the utilitarian, workmen like ethos that went into the creation this film. With stylization at a premium, plot becomes secondary anyways.

     With Dawn of the Dead and now 300 under his belt, Snyder's ability to gravitate towards the popcorn essence of the material is hard to criticize. While there is an undeniable emptiness to it, there is a sense of pure visual excitement that fills the void.

"A beast approaches, and it was Leonidas that provoked it." So says the narrator, whose function is to preserve the valor of the 300 soldiers into the Western cannon. This notion quickly announces itself as the spirit of the film. Yes, a "beast" does approach but it is also true that King Leonidas feeds off of the discord that comes with it while hiding behind his shield of democracy. He is both defending his people and putting them in danger. The Spartans believed that the natural state of humanity was at war. And the Persians were no different. Are things any different today? This worshiping of the fighting is sitting uneasy with many but the truth is that one doesn't go to see 300 without knowing exactly what 300 is. In this respect I really must hand it to the marketing of this film. The $70 million non holiday opening indicates to me that everyone who wanted to see this film, saw this film, and that all those people got, more or less, exactly what they came for. Blood.

     Only a director with clout could get away with a film like Zodiac. As luck would have it David Fincher has clout. With this film Fincher proves once again that he is a master. However, unlike previous efforts where the filmmaker wowed audience by showcasing his knowledge of suspense (Seven), action (Fight Club), puzzles (The Game) and claustrophobia (Panic Room, Alien 3), this new project finds Fincher indulging in facts and data of all things. As un-sexy as that sounds (and, boy, does it), Fincher turns a film about paperwork, procedurals, and patience into a weapon that cuts deep and leaves a mark. Zodiac may be slow moving and meticulously designed but it is entirely surefooted in its attempt to assemble and deconstruct --file by file, witness by witness-- the gripping Zodiac murder mystery. But not the mystery itself, no, this film is after the obsessive personalities who chase the enigma from behind a desk. Drunk reporters, pudgy cops, and compulsive boy scout cartoonists represent an unusual array of heroes for this piece. Like the Zodiac killer, who stands apart for being able to “break the pattern” of serial killers, so to does Fincher with serial killer conventions.

The film opens with a bang, literally, as the audience is thrown into this story through the eyes of two of the killer’s victims. As two teens sit in a car, they wait in terror as a shadowy figure stalks them. And the audience waits with them. In these early moments the Zodiac strikes his prey in a calm and calculating manner reminiscent of a number of recent pseudo-psychological serial killer movies such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning or Hannibal Rising. But unlike the recent string of schlocky slasher movies, this is the rare kind serial killer film that is able to play by its own rules. In fact, by the end the audience knows less about the killer then when the film started. Fincher’s tactic of tantalizing the audience with first person accounts of the gruesome killer only to withhold his presence as the film progresses and time passes allows the conditions surrounding these strange murders to be abstracted as they buried under mounds of paperwork and futile detective work. So don't let the adds fool you, this film is not the follow-up to Se7en you were hoping for when the news broke that David Fincher was going to do another serial killer film last year. Instead, this is something far better: a genuinely involving detective yarn.

This film is no more about the famous Zodiac killer than All the President's Men is about Richard Nixon. In addition to narrative similarities with Pakula's groundbreaking film about reporters doing their jobs, Zodiac plays out in a style reminiscent of Sean Penn's underrated The Pledge in the sense that both films show how the futile search for "truth" in a chaotic world can consume ones life. The madness in these films is located not in the subversive act of killing but in a general feeling of angst shrouded by an ever present unknowingness. Not being able to cathartically experience the sort of cosmic movie justice that normally passes for horror realism is jarring from a genre standpoint but quite rewarding for someone looking for new entries into an old subject. Tangently “about” a serial killer yet told through the eyes of serial killer hobbyist (Jake Gyllenhaal), the story arrives to the conclusion that it's the search for the killer --and the subsequent effects of this journey-- that is a lot more maddening than the identity of the killer himself.

Sprawling yet strangely subdued, the film moves along at a leisurely pace but never forgets to work up our interests by presenting small bits of evidence that feel thrilling as they unfold but are actually, on the surface, rather mundane. For instance, Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), whose obsession with the details of the Zodiac case reaches Howard Hughes-ian levels, discovers a lost bit of information that the cops missed. The killer, it seems, revealed to a psychologist's maid years ago that it was his birthday. The camera suddenly closes in on Gyllenhall's youthful face (with a glimmer of neurotic darkness shadowing his eyes) as he deduces the exact day and, from there, a possible suspect. Such a simple detail is able to get the heart racing more so than even the early scenes depicting the killer.

Here is a film sustained by artists with grand aspirations more so than box office expectations. In addition to Fincher's ability to render this unusual story mesmerizing, a number of other elements come together to make this film fly. The script by James Vanderbilt (based on Robert Graysmith's book) crackles with wry wit and smooth dialogue, the cinematography by Harris Savides is luminous with a sun-faded 70s glow by day and deep contrasts by night, and the casting is sheer brilliance. Subtle choices like putting Anthony Edwards in the role of a secondary investigator, the dependable Brian Cox as a media savvy psychologist, and Elias Koteas as a tired local sheriff blends well with the meatier roles inhabited by Jake Gyllenhaal as the puzzle solving savant, Robert Downey Jr. as the sardonic reporter he works with and Mark Ruffalo as the lead detective in charge of hunting down the elusive Bay Area killer. The later three make up a fabulously offbeat trifecta in which cartoon drawings, coke binges and a strange lust for animal crackers bring forth tasty bits of character depth. There is a scene late in the movie where, years after the killings, Graysmith tries to convinced the retired reporter played by Downey Jr. to co-write a book. The reporter has burned out on the case and faded into a hazy remnant of his lively former self. As Robert Downey Jr. sits there gulping vodka and doing coke lines in a way only Robert Downey Jr. can, the nearby television is blazing the hot new technology of the era, Atari's Pong. The more Gyllenhaal tries to communicate with this man the more he (and us) realizes that the BONG, BONG, BONG sound emanating from the system has neutralized all sounds and meanings. This reporter has been destroyed by the case and technology isn’t making his life any easier.

Zodiac is as obsessive about constructing details as its principal protagonist played by Jake Gyllenhaal. So much so that this idiosyncratic project comes across as one of Fincher's pet projects. This film is so blissfully focused on the case that nothing else seems to matter. This is taken to the extent that the 1960s and 70s backdrop becomes drowned out and muted in the presence of this case. Such historical tunnel vision allows the film to probe its subject matter with maximum incisiveness and the filmmaker’s ability to hone in on the specific subject matter indicates that he is not just a dazzling stylist (as many determined, and rightfully so, after Fight Club), but a nimble storyteller as well. Think about it, this is a film about one of the most famous unsolved crime in American history. Wait, UNSOLVED? Yes, and it is quite bold that Fincher tackled this subject and refrained from including the obligatory showdown where a protagonist stairs into the maw of evil-incarnate and lives to tell about it. Fincher has figured out that that understatement can be as powerful as blood if positioned the right way and he has found the perfect vehicle in which to express this impulse.

While the languid pacing and protracted time line represents a departure of style for Mr. Fincher, the film is just as riveting as his more accessible efforts. From god's-eye-view shots following a fatal cab trip the Zodiac is taking to zippy news paper headlines montages ("Zodiac Strikes Again!") that appear soon after, to slow yet eerie scenes set in front of nothing more than a stack of papers, the film strikes the perfect balance between intrigue, stylization and content. In this respect it is clear that Fincher has grown as a filmmaker. After watching his latest masterpiece there is every indication that this upsurge of creatively will continue to evolve as the years go by. A few days ago, the Internet Movie Database's daily movie poll asked the question, "Now that Martin Scorsese has won an Academy Award for directing, who holds the title of 'Best contemporary American director who has never won a Best Director Oscar?'" Shuffling past choices like Tim Burton and Spike Jonze with a snicker, I thought about choosing Fincher for a long while before eventually settling on Quentin Tarantino. I wonder, though, how much longer will I be able to say that with such confidence?

     Ghost Rider is the kind of film where, to review it, all one needs to do is include a picture of it. Take a moment to gaze upon the flaming-with-awfulness screencap to your right. Got it? Sure you do… cuz what’s there to get? This is a superhero film about a Faust-in-leather hero who gives up his soul to be a chopper driving vigilante who fight against the son of the devil in the moonlight. The superhero in question is played by Nick Cage, who, after his howling turn in Wicker Man, is in some sort of crazy-insane phantom zone of sublimely over-the-top acting. As Cage, playing Johnny Blaze (just one in a long line of classic Cage movie names, on par with Memphis Raines), “changes” he looks to the heavens screaming in pain while indicating (and not subtly mind out) an undercurrent of sadistic pleasure. If the Hulk merely “like it” when he turns into a killing machine, then Cage must LOVE IT. If ever there was an actor who could over-act the point where we believe that his face was indeed burning off, Cage is the one to do it. His non ironic embracement of Johnny Blaze is marvelous. Partly because he is so refreshingly committed, and partly because he’s so committed in a film that’s so bad. I’ve never seen someone sell a superhero quite like Cage does here. And if you’re not willing to buy what the actor is selling; well, then, he’ll force you to take it.  

     Ghost Rider, in case you care, was directed by Mark Steven Johnson. Besides the above picture, the fact that Johnson directed this picture is all you need to know about Ghost Rider. Who is this fine gentleman of the arts you may be wondering? None other than the auteur who crafted that subtle superhero drama called Dare Devil a few years back. And this poor Ben Affleck film had to wait all those years for another to come along and match its, uh, unique craftsmanship. Well, it’s now official: Ghost Rider has just relieved Dare Devil of its duty as the worst superhero film of our time. Except, instead of the so-bad-it’s-bad quality that the bumbling Devil put out there, this film somehow manages to convert superhero lameness into (unintentionally) campy fun with a center so gooey with awkwardness that I’m half inclined to assume that this is a postmodern critique on bad superhero tropes. It’s not, though. The filmmaker’s vision is just so shoddy an ill at ease that it only seems like nobody could really make a superhero film this bad and still have a job, let alone a fifty million opening weekend. In one scene Johnny Blaze’s girlfriend is seen at home. In this one glimpse of her private life we are given, what is she seen doing. Standing in her bed room and staring at one of her dresses. And not just staring but getting angry at it for some reason. To this film, that represents character development. 

     As a superhero action film, Ghost Rider is blunt, bumbling and moves along at a jerky pace. Another typically out of place scene involves Blaze soon after he has “turned.” Intended to show this vigilante’s “dark” side, Ghost Rider is a-ghost ridin’ along and, of course, he happens to spot a burglary in progress. Not sure how, on account of the no eyeballs fallacy, but, pay no mind. After using his brilliant deductive logic to determine that this hooligan is indeed “baaaaadddd!,” Johnny Blaze’s flaming skeleton lifts his bony finger and while holding it for what seems like an eternity, he grunts “you… guilty!!!” before sucking the man’s soul and sending him to hell. Upon hearing me call this really dumb, those fans of the comic may say, ah but that’s what the real Ghost Rider would say. To which I would reply: well, then, comic must also suck. Except for, maybe, the deliberately mundane superhero in Mystery Men that throws spoons at evil doers, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more useless superhero, filmically speaking. Ghost Rider, as a character, is ridiculous in his lack of functionality. If the theory of Darwinism extended to the superhero branch of humanity, this guy would have gone extinct before the species of whale that had legs. Here’s a guy that wears leather, has no skin (or brain underneath his empty skull), and is always on fire. But only at night, you see, because, ech, the moon has something to do with something else. As a teen Johnny Blaze sells his soul to the devil to save his dad from cancer (only his dad dies five minutes later in a motorcycle mishap) but then spends the whole movie as an adult fighting the devil’s son (an awful Wes Bently) for some reason. As bored as Toby McGuire’s superhero performance in Spiderman may appear to have been, at least the dude could shoot webs. All Ghost Rider shoots is bad lines as he fights Biblical baddies that not even Constantine would bother with.

     But, the thing is, Ghost Rider’s human self is an amusing departure from the usual superhero in disguise films I’ve seen. Cage plays Johnny Blaze as a stoned, manic depressive Evil Knievel stunt driver who drinks jelly beans out of a wine glass, gulps hot coffee right out of the pot, watches movies with chimpanzee's doing karate, listens to romantic The Carpenters tunes while moping around and reads lines like “I feel like my skull is on fire but… I’m good” with an Elvis accent. Call this performance whatever want but I call it brazen. Johnny Blaze dreams big, too. After a remarkably straightforward (and funny) flashback showing Blaze’s father telling a young Blaze of the noble family aspirations of using the family bike to “jump over... HELICHOPTERS,” Cage does the family name proud by doing just that. The scene in which this happens doesn't make much sense but I love how reverent it is (the people making this film really thing that jumping a dozen helicopters is a deep accomplishment). The dopy Blaze may perpetually exist in an out-of-it state but he treats his job serious and his curse dead-serious. When his love interest (played by the oddly shiny Eva Mendes and her cleavage) calls Blaze “nothing but a Carney” in a fit of anger,  he sulks around until she apologizes.  

For whatever its worth, I’m going on record in saying that the film is worth seeing. For starters, Cage’s conviction to this character is one for the books. And as the closer, the film is worth a look if only so you can say you saw it; thus bonding yourself with others over the precious mutual experience of seeing a film so immeasurably bad. Some sort of club should be enacted in order to honor this film.

     Like the fine, cold, and calculating government surveillance operator in charge of watching over a subversive artist, everything in The Lives of Others goes accordingly to plan. Here is a polemic about the preciousness of personal space and identity that, rather ironically I should think, has no identity itself. And there’s not even a hint of deviation from this film’s sober and rather obvious <in caveman voice> cold-war-bad worldview. Not a hint of ambiguity, either, as the film’s characters, one the watcher and other the watch-e, live out their lives (of others) like an avatar from The Sims and a bored player who’s been in front of the keyboard for too long.

     The Lives of Others is this year’s obligatory foreign film “sensation.” The film is even breathing down the neck of (the infinitely more lively and human) Pan’s Labyrinth for the Foreign Film Oscar. This is what I call a foreign film for people who don’t like foreign films because it’s so easy to read, so black and white in terms of ideology and so linear in terms of plot mechanics. You walk away from this film it feeling like you’ve seen something; and all proud of yourself for being able to read subtitles. In one pivotal scene, the artist, on the verge of being blacklisted, looks for a missing Bertolt Brecht book. It turns out the agent watching him took this book while installing hidden microphones in his apartment. But for what reason? Suddenly, film holds on a shot of the cold agent reading the book. His face softens. We discover along with the man that literature has melted his cold German armor. Go art! More than anything, the film is about this agent’s journey into feeling-ness. His increasing obsession with the precision that goes along with his soulless job (sousing out anti-communist liars) finds itself confronted by a flurry of humanism. Reminiscent of The Conversation and with trace amounts of the voyeuristic thrill found in Rear Window (minus all of Hitchcock’s pizzazz and wryness), this film, instead, is closer to Another Stakeout in its voyeur inscribed falseness.

     With all the parts are there and accounted for it’s hard to find fault with the filmmaking, per say. As directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck this is a confident work. The story movies like clockwork, the editing is concise and Donnersmark’s steady filmmaking style is most assured. But precision filmmaking will only get a film so far. Sometimes, a well made film isn’t a good film. The protagonist’s arc in particular doesn’t feel organic and this, I’m afraid, disrupts any hope of authenticity that the film had. I never bought into the crucial turning point of the story. After years of loyal duty to the East German party line, the watcher Captain Gerd Wiesler (played by Ulrich Mühe), undergoes a life altering change of heart by, well, finding his heart. He then decides to cover for the subject he’s surveying by not including his subversive dealings in his official transcripts. The Capitan, in other words, becomes an artist in his own right by creating a fictionalized “normal” life for this man on paper that his supervisor can read—this form of resistance is, of course, the film’s metaphorical signpost for the fall of communism. But why do this? I would normally be willing to accept such a plot device as a necessary conceit, but the film doesn’t even bother to give the slightest indication as to why this artist’s “secret” particularly stands out (other than it needs to for the metaphor to work). Equally confounding is the explanation for why the Captain would be silently persuaded to put his life and job on the line to become a techno guardian angel that keeps an unknowing soul out of trouble.

     This film is sterile and plastic-covered in its preachy moral discourse and artificially engendered bouts of human melodrama. Sadly, like most of German cinema of this day that makes it stateside (from Run Lola Run to Goodbye, Lenin to Head On to Uva Boll), The Lives of Others has all the distinctness of a government sanctioned trinket made on some sort of German culture assembly line.