Film

Whaddaya call this sport again? Cribbage?British comedian Stewart Lee has a skit in response to the Harry Potter franchise. To quote: "People come up to me and ask, 'Oh, did you read the new Harry Potter?' And I say, 'No I haven't read it, because I'm forty f***ing years-old, no, I did not read Harry Potter And The Tree Of NOTHING.'"

But point being, there is very little point to actually reviewing the latest Harry Potter movie. The franchise is a multi-billion dollar juggernaut, and the Hogwarts tales are so beloved across the world that the creators could probably turn out a shaky cell phone-made film of the cast drunkenly slurring through a script reading around a table at the Dog In The Pond pub in rural Sussex, with Daniel Radcliffe leaving for the bathroom half-way through not coming back, and it would still be a smash.
So, considering, it's fair that this multi-billion dollar juggernaut assumes that everyone has read the books, everyone has seen the movies and so proceeds to produce material based on this assumption. It sells. Well, this reviewer has not read the series, and has completely avoided anything more than a TV preview of the movies. Hell, this reviewer thought Harry Potter and Hermione Granger were a couple.

This is ground control to Major Bowie…your son directed this movie.The previews for Moon are misleading and for once that's a good thing. This is not a space-age horror/time-warp/psychological thriller, but rather a socio-politico commentary on the present, taking place in the not so distant future.

The film focuses on the psychological ramifications of cabin fever and the bleak outlook of the onset of cloning. Sam Rockwell plays two roles-a lone astronaut about to go home in two weeks, and his clone. Revealing the clone is no spoiler; It's all set up fairly early.
Beginning with a TV commercial touting Lunar Industries, a company that makes safer, cleaner air by harvesting moon rocks, Moon veers into strange territory almost immediately. Sam Bell (Rockwell) is the sole worker on a moon outpost, in charge of maintaining all the equipment, vehicles and the moon station itself. His only companionship is a beat-up, helper robot computer (reminiscent of 2001's HAL) named Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Gerty shuffles and glides around to assist Sam at every step. Resembling a dilapidated X-ray machine, with a "kick me" sticker on his back and a yellow smiley face on a video screen to exhibit his "emotions," Gerty provides comic relief-or does he? Deception and perhaps hallucinations come into play as Sam receives mail from his wife in the form of delayed video feeds thanks to a busted communications satellite. Sam has little interest in anything but going home. But soon, one thing after another goes wrong and Sam is face to face with a cloned version of himself. Their confusion (and consequently ours) becomes the main focus as to what's next on this planetary agenda.

Animal cruelty?At the opening night screening of Brüno at the Old Mill cinema no one walked out. Not the giggling groups of teenage boys, not those engaged in middle-aged man-dates, not the hand-holding couples, not even the lady who gasped, "Oh my god" at five-minute intervals. No, the entire audience sat stalwartly through the sexual equivalent of Saw V. The mechanical dildos, the swinging penis, the champagne bottle butt plug, the anal bleaching, it was all very well received.

I don't think we can discern whether the Bend community is inured to onscreen iniquity, jaded, or actually more liberal than previously thought. Yet, there were a handful of moments when the laughter disappeared, and the audience quieted to a nervous-coughing hush-and from these moments we can learn. There are some things that can still shock, that cannot be tolerated, and so instead of the article that we had in mind (Bend's Ten Biggest Walk-Out-of-Brüno Moments) here instead is… Bend's Six Biggest Though-We-Understand-We're-Watching-Brüno-We're-Not-OK-With-That Moments.
1. The souvenir severed foot of an African elephant retrieved from an airport luggage conveyor. The illegal procurement of animal limbs for novel umbrella stands is NOT okay with the people of Bend and will be met with a dire silence. An African baby arriving subsequently in a box marked "fragile," is, however, very funny. And, with "awws" everywhere, also quite cute. From this we presume Bend to be extremely environmentally friendly.

dances with the devil in the pale moonlight. Public Enemies is bound to score some real fans, but I am sure it will make its share of enemies as well. Director Michael Mann takes a true Depression-era crime story and interprets it with ultra-heavy handedness beyond any sense of realism. As an art/crime film, this is an impressive flick, but its brooding quality breathes hollow.

Rising from Indiana crime sprees to Public Enemy number one, John Dillinger was regarded as a latter-day Robin Hood. Robbing banks that had gotten fat while foreclosing on famiy farms. But Dillinger embraced his rock-star status, exuding bravado and charisma. Yet the film plays out in one somber moment after another, as if everyone was still reeling from The Depression and acting all…depressed.
Johnny Depp (playing Dillinger) brilliantly festers in a uniquely restrained performance. Depp has the ability to slide into whatever role he takes and it was nice to see him in one that didn't require an English accent. A sorely miscast Christian Bale, gives us a one-note performance as FBI agent Melvin Purvis, pensively staring into space. We see him slip in and out of accents covering maybe five different Southern regions. Captivating actress Marion Cotillard, as Dillinger's love Billie Frechette, does a good job with a poorly written part. Billy Cruddup is convincing and entertaining as J. Edgar Hoover. There's a veritable avalanche of cameos and appearances by recognizable actors and some really well picked unknowns. Still, most characters come off empty. I don't care how many cool handheld shots you surround them with, it's hard to care for any character at all.

Or we could shoot hoops?Woody Allen's filmmaking career has been like one long, good conversation. He knows that sometimes he's been talking to himself, with the audience acting as psychiatrist, nodding and saying, "I see" in the right places. But Whatever Works is Woody's second wind-after losing track of the conversation to stumble about woozily, searching for the right bases; he's returned to form with a very funny, very smart farce-like comedy that beats out Annie Hall for quotable witticisms.

His last film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is brilliant but our enthusiasm was wary, as we'd waited patiently asking of each six-monthly release, "Is this the one to get excited about?" The assumption was that he'd lost it, and so even though his most mediocre effort can be ten times better than most of what makes it onto the big screen, fun films like Anything Else got ignored. After seeing Whatever Works, you'll want to rent Vicky Cristina Barcelona, to watch it through without holding your breath.
Filmmaking is Woody Allen's way of life, and the day he wraps one film he begins to pull together the next and as he travels from country to country. Whatever Works is as much about his place in Hollywood as it is about our place in the universe. While critics complain scripts restrict his actors, to merely impersonating Allen. This time around he cast Larry David for the central character, Boris Yellnikoff – a natural fit given that David's HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm is the illegitimate child of Allen's comedy stand-up.

if halpert went all cousin eddie. The problem after viewing the new Sam Mendes film Away We Go is that all those adjectives leap to mind - "quirky," "offbeat," "oddball" - that have been used for films like Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, and Sunshine Cleaning.

But this movie is all three of those adjectives and more. And as good as those other movies were, Away We Go treats a well-established cinema cliché (the road movie) with freshness and originality fueled by some great performances and an inventive script from Dave Eggers and Velenda Vida, the married literary powerhouse duo. What's particularly novel about this movie is the depiction of the adolescent uncertainties of an adult couple in their 30s. They are out to answer the question they ponder in the first fifteen minutes, "Are we fuck ups?"
John Krasinski (The Office) and Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live) are relatively new faces on the big screen as Burt and Verona, an unmarried and pregnant couple trying to find a place to call home. They flee their home in Denver after Burt's parents, played brilliantly by Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara, announce they are moving to Europe for two years - just a month before their first grandchild arrives.

Busting out another Blockbuster.I can't recall any other big-budget movie based on action figures, but Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen again showcases the nuts and bolts of machines (mainly cars and airplanes) morphing themselves into humongous metallic beasts. What were once just toys for kids and flimsy animated cartoons, have, yes, transformed, into big-boy-toys in the hands of multi-millionaires Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg. And with the funds to deliver high tech goods, they go all gear-head-turbo with this newest Transformers installment.

Beginning with a pseudo tribute to 2001: A Space Odyssey, our Transformers history lesson tells us that they have been on the planet since 17,000 BC. It quickly zooms ahead to a convoluted fight scene between the Autobots, lead by Optimus Prime, against the evil Decepticons, in which either side can change into behemoth gear-grinding monstrosities.

Tenacious Archery time with JB.Little boys, whatever their ages, have always loved permission to laugh at potty humor. Like baseball, number two pencils, and visiting your parents, jokes about feces and farting draw out that inner child like nothing else can. Harold Ramis recognizes this. So he wrote and directed Jack Black's new movie, Year One.

Ramis has a great resume dating back to Caddyshack and Ghostbusters. But let's face it, houses built largely of dung and gas generally don't hold up. And Year One is no exception.
But there are redeeming moments. In fact, cameos by Oliver Platt and Hank Azaria are brilliant. Azaria plays Abraham to Christopher Mintz-Plasse's Isaac. And there are bits, moments and high points where you're surprised in ways that are original and funny. And Azaria and Platt are in many of them.

Mister rabbit says, "A moment of realization is worth a thousand prayers." Management is set in Kingman, Arizona but anyone who has been around here a while knows it was really filmed in Madras. As a resident of Central Oregon and a short-term resident of Arizona, I couldn't see the resemblance at all - Madras is just too instantly recognizable as Madras. It's not the first Oregon city to play surrogate, Portland has masqueraded as Baltimore, Maryland and Aberdeen, Washington in the same way. But Madras is little more than a prop - the story could have taken place in any small town in any motel.

Management opens on the character of Mike (Steve Zahn) a motel heir in the most basic sense who is running his parents' small roadside hotel. Into his life walks Sue (Jennifer Aniston), a businesswoman with whom Mike becomes smitten. The movie then morphs into a cross-country/stalker-obsessed love story and all that usually entails: a jealous ex, kooky sidekick, ailing parents. Management attempts to put a capitol "Q" on quirky and succeeds more times than it fails. For a while, the film gropes and falters in the suspended disbelief mode, but is peculiar enough to be enjoyable. Then about midway through, it sinks into way-too-cute mode, combining heartfelt scenes with oddball comic relief. If you dig chick flicks, this is the one for you.

…without a paddle.Sin Nombre (which translates to "Without a Name") is one of those films that will stay with you for days. This brilliantly directed, acted and photographed visual masterpiece is a chase-thriller/road-movie/coming of age/love story. The film examines the power and influence of Mexican gangs in small towns that offer little beyond the lure of crossing the border. It's a simple tale bound together with complex emotional themes, and produced by two actors who have established themselves in American movies, Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna (Y Tu Mamá También).
The film features two main storylines that intersect during a train ride moving immigrants north. El Casper (Edgar Flores) is disillusioned with gang life and seeks an escape; Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) is going to cross the Mexican border from Honduras with her estranged father. Casper is running from his past with gang members in chase. Sayra is smitten with him, a combination of infatuation, necessity and the white knight syndrome-even if the knight wields a machete. The saga of twelve-year old Smiley (Kristyan Ferrer) is the movie's pivotal and most powerful secondary storyline, chronicling his gang indoctrination and efforts to legitimize himself. Immigration, while a powerful undercurrent, plays a back seat to the depiction of desperate acts to escape intolerable circumstances.