Written by Caballero Oscuro

Broken English is the feature film debut from a writer/director with a familiar name: Zoe Cassavetes. Yes, she’s part of the famous Cassavetes clan, daughter of John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands, sister of director/actor Nick, and she’s racked up an impressive list of career accomplishments of her own but has never helmed a full-length feature until now. She chose to partially base her debut film on her own life experiences, resulting in some welcome realism and depth to her characters. She was also blessed with shrewd casting by filling the starring role with undisputed indie-film queen, Parker Posey.

For most viewers, the sole reason to see this new film is the presence of Posey. She carries the film firmly on her shoulders and puts in another strong performance to add to her impressive repertoire. As opposed to her financially-motivated and somewhat bizarre turn in last year’s Superman Returns, this is clearly a project that Posey cares about and values as art over commerce. It’s also a rare opportunity to see Posey in a romantic vehicle, albeit one charged with an overarching theme of introspection.

Posey plays a 30-something Manhattan girl named Nora with dismal success in the romance department and an unfulfilling career to match. She’s at the point in her life where people are questioning her inability to land a sustainable romantic relationship and she’s questioning her own value as a person. She wonders how she can value herself when she can’t find anyone else who seems to value her. Although she’s reached a rather mature point of her life, she’s wracked with insecurities and doubt about her future, finding herself on a voyage of discovery to, well, find herself. There’s nothing inherently wrong with her, but in her eyes there’s not much right either. She’s constantly reminded of her advancing age and diminishing prospects by her mother (Gena Rowlands), and envies the seemingly perfect marriage of her best friend (Drea de Matteo).

After a fling with a less-than-virtuous Hollywood playboy (Justin Theroux), Nora encounters a somewhat sketchy French rogue named Julien (Melvin Poupaud) at a party. He’s a bit flighty and seemingly untrustworthy, but also soulful and extremely interested in Nora, immediately cajoling a night out with her in spite of her wishes to leave the party alone. Since Nora has been burned by Romeos so many times before, and he doesn’t seem like the most grounded of individuals, she’s wary of his slick and almost immediate professions of adoration, but eventually allows herself to be charmed by his attention. His imminent return to France doesn’t help Nora’s trust issues, and even when he asks her to leave her life behind and travel with him she finds herself frozen in her original existence, unable to embrace the sudden sea change presented to her. As the film enters its final stretch, she has to decide if she can learn to love herself in time to allow herself to be loved by another, and find out if Julien’s love is real.

Cassavetes doesn’t offer much originality in the basic plot, but gets considerable mileage out of its nuances. It’s a fairly simple love story at its core, adorned with Nora’s personal soul-searching that mostly rings true and holds interest rather than descending into self-pathos. Cassavetes drew from her own experiences as a single 30-something, and it’s particularly intriguing to imagine just how much of her real mom Gena Rowland’s part as Nora’s mom was developed from their own interactions. There are some structure problems, mostly due to an ending that feels like a bit of a cop-out after the self-discovery theme, as well as a detour overseas that runs overlong and adds little to the film other than showing off pretty landmarks, but judged as a whole it’s a solid, entertaining effort from Cassavetes and a strong addition to her family’s legacy.

Michael Moore’s new movie, just like his earlier movies, is both exasperating and exhilarating. It gets a lot of individual things wrong, sometimes very wrong: logic, an organized and complete presentation of facts, the construction of an argument as opposed to throwing out a naïve polemic full of sentimental anecdotes and non sequiturs. And yet…and yet. Moore manages to get the big things remarkably right: Sicko is often uproariously funny, and it will also likely leave you in tears. It poses a simple question and demands an answer: Why is the U.S. the only Western democracy without universal healthcare? Why are we willing to let our fellow citizens suffer?

The film seems designed to make free-market partisans apoplectic while inspiring everyone else to chant alongside the righteous. Personally I’d prefer a documentary along the lines of PBS’s excellent Frontline series, which could lead you through the history of healthcare and the arguments for and against a single-payer system, and leave you feeling like a well-informed citizen ready to make a decision. But good as it is, Frontline won’t galvanize people, get them buzzed, the way Michael Moore can. He’s about to make a very big splash with this movie. He’ll succeed in getting people talking about an important issue, one which already promises to be a big part of next year’s presidential race.

Behind the opening credits we get a few stories about the uninsured, told quickly and with bemused, ironic twists. “But this movie is not about these people,” says Moore, as he proceeds to turn his attention to people who do have health insurance, yet were turned down for treatment, often with tragic results. He then offers a whole series of these anecdotes designed to appall you and make you cry. My heart actually sank a bit during the first half hour. While some of these stories are effective, they are overlong and rather clumsily told, and Moore’s voice takes on a wheedling “Isn’t this saaaad?” tone that made me want to fight back.

This section is followed by a brief and very incomplete history of health care in the United States. Moore scores cheap points by painting Nixon as the architect of Evil Managed Care. (This may remind you of the pointless conspiracy mongering about the Bushes and Saudi Arabia in Fahrenheit 9/11.) He’s a bit more successful in describing the efforts of the doctors’ and pharmaceutical lobbies to demonize “socialized medicine,” from the 1950s right through HillaryCare in 1993.

But it’s when Moore turns to the state-run healthcare systems of Canada, Britain, and France that the movie takes off. The contrasts between these systems and our own, and the pitying, disbelieving looks he gets from Canadians and Frenchmen when he describes the U.S. way of caring for the sick, give the movie the comic and dramatic engine it needs. Yes, you can argue that Moore deliberately ignores the fact that people in these countries have to wait for months to schedule surgery, or other disadvantages of a state-run system. But fairness, schmairness: Moore makes his point, smashingly well – these countries care, and we don’t.

After this, when we get more of the sad anecdotes of people falling through cracks of the greed-based American system, they take on new power – I resisted the tears earlier in the film, but they flowed freely from this point on. The great hour of polemical entertainment in the middle of Sicko overcomes the weaker first half hour. And it even carried me through the final half hour, a grandiose and borderline ridiculous trip to Cuba with a group of 9/11 rescue workers with health problems. When Moore stands in a boat and uses a bullhorn to demand that his companions be treated at the Guantanamo prison (where the terrorism-suspect detainees, unlike American citizens, get free universal healthcare), and failing that, takes the workers to an idyllic hospital in Cuba, where they are cared for by the Kindest Doctors in the World, the filmmaker may lose some of his audience again. This is almost too much. But the points he scores earlier help make this section of the film palatable to me.

Sicko will certainly irritate health insurance and pharmaceutical companies and their congressional allies, as well as those of us who are wonkish devotees of factual argument and logical persuasion. But why should Michael Moore care? He’s going to please a large audience with this movie. They’ll laugh, they’ll cry, and they may even write their congressman or write a check to John Edwards or some other universal healthcare advocate.

Sicko may not be art, and it may not be “fair,” but it is a social phenomenon to be reckoned with – and for at least half of its two hours, it’s also a hell of a movie.

Four years ago, God appeared to Bruce Nolan, gave him almighty power and took a vacation. The movie centered on showing how tough it is to run the world and giving Bruce a little perspective on his own life. In that film we also met Evan Baxter, played by Steve Carell, a co-worker and rival on the television news show where they worked. Now, God has revealed himself to Evan, and rather than offering him perspective on his life, or giving him the almighty power, he is there to assist in a prayer to help change the world. The end result is a sweet, if frustrating, movie.

Evan Baxter has left his job as co-anchor of a news show in Buffalo, having been elected to Congress on a platform that promised to "Change the World." Now that he's won the election, uprooted his family, and bought an eco-friendly Hummer, he has to step up and make good on that campaign promise. We all know how politicians love to live up to what they said during their campaign, when winning was the only thing on their mind.

So, we are faced with an Evan Baxter who needs to find a way to make an impact on Congress, and reconnect with his family, which apparently had become second fiddle to his burgeoning career, and it does not start off too well on the family front. No sooner has he moved into his nice new office, he is being buttered up by one of the senior Congressmen, named simply Long (John Goodman), to co-sponsor a bill that would allow development on national park land.

At the same time he is approached to sign the bill, Evan receives a box of old school tools, and a pile of wood. Along with these deliveries, God, played by the returning Morgan Freeman, appears to Evan and instructs him to build an ark, a flood is coming. Evan reacts in the same way that most of us probably would — we don't believe, and try to go about our business. God is persistent, and eventually Evan gives in and begins to build the ark, much to the chagrin of his family and staff.

Evan Almighty is a frustrating movie. It is a comedy that forgot to be funny; instead it has a terminal case of nice with a small side of sporadic silly. It is not terrible, but it is not good. It falls somewhere in no man's land, in between actually being funny and being completely bland. I watched as Steve Carell struggled with a script that did not leave much room for him to stretch his comedic muscle, leaving a performance that was able to generate the occasional smile.

While the funny was checked at the door, I did like that it did have a core sweetness that did not belittle religious beliefs. Sure, it is not the best presentation of them, but it did not seem to have a cynical bone in its body when it came to portraying religion. It brings up the question of how would people react if someone came out and said that God told them to build an ark. I am sure that many of us would react the same way the characters do in the movie — the guy must be crazy. It also brings up the question of what we get when we ask God for something.

There is one scene that makes this movie, that brings it all into focus. It does not save the movie, it does not make the movie good, but it does bring some perspective, and it just plays very well with what is going on before and after. I am not going to tell you what happens in the scene, but it is between Morgan Freeman and Lauren Graham, who plays Evan's wife Joan. (Get it? Joan of Arc? Ah, forget it.) This scene is the keystone that holds it all together.

The sweetness and kind heart that the movie has is all well and good, but the movie is frustrating still. At no point does it become laugh out loud funny, which I would expect with Carell, nor does the story ever really come together. Sure, the story holds water, but why the animals? I get it, animals are funny, and the more you have, the funnier they are. It's also a Noah's ark story, it needs animals, but they seriously have no impact on anything.

Anyway, the movie has its nice moments, the core of the story brings a nice message. The acting is mediocre, save for Morgan Freeman who is just perfect for the role. Carell tries, but doesn't have much to work with, Graham does a decent job, but does not have a lot to do, and John Goodman is fine as the one-note bad guy. In supporting roles Wanda Sykes is saddled with some poor one liners and John Michael Higgins is relegated to the over the top double take. The brightest spot in the supporting cast is Jonah Hill as the creepy aid who really likes Evan. Hill is having a pretty good year, also appearing in Knocked Up and the upcoming Superbad.

Bottom line. This is a fine movie for the family, it is inoffensive and will give you a smile and a good message. Just do not go in expecting a laugh out loud comedy, or a movie that is as good as the original. Could it have been better? Definitely. Is it a bad? No. It is a movie that just sort of is. Sit back, relax, smile for a little while, and then move on.

Mildly Recommended.

Christopher Beaumont spends much of his time writing about entertainment when he isn’t sitting in a movie theater. He is known around the office as the “Movie Guy” and is always ready to talk about his favorite form of entertainment and offer up recommendations. Interests include science fiction, horror, and metal music. His writings can be found at Draven99’s Musings, as well as Film School Rejects.

I just got back a few hours ago from watching Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. My nine-year-old and I are still buzzing about the movie. Although purists will have problems with the presentation, I loved it as a longtime fan and my son loved it just because it was so darn cool. He laughed at all the one-liners at about the same time his dad did — proving the boy is getting really quick-witted or I’m not as fast as I think I am. I actually think we’re meeting somewhere in the middle, probably at about age seven.

As everyone knows from the title, this movie introduces the Silver Surfer to the movie-going world for the first time. There have been previous incarnations of the character, including guest spots in cartoon series such as Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four animated series. There was even a short-lived cartoon series about the Silver Surfer.

It’s going to be interesting to see if the movie crowd reacts any differently to the character than the comics fans. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the character back in the 1960s in pretty much the same context as he was used in the movie. When they wrote a comic book series just about the Silver Surfer, it only lasted eighteen issues the first time. Fans loved the character of tormented Norrin Radd when he was exiled by Galactus to be bound to the earth, but it was just too much of a good thing. They didn’t pick up the monthly series.

There have been a couple of comics series runs since then, but even though the character fascination is there, the longevity for the fan base isn’t. It’s almost like people love stories about people reacting to the Silver Surfer’s plight more than watching him deal with it himself.

Although the Silver Surfer’s backstory was touched on in the movie, there’s not a lot of detail. We know that he’s in servitude to Galactus to save his own world and he gave up his love to do that. That was one of the main conceits of the comic book version, that idea of noble self-sacrifice. And the fact that, despite all the power cosmic he had, he could never go home again.

It will be interesting to see, if there is a Fantastic Four 3, if the Silver Surfer is mentioned again.

As for the movie, I feel it could’ve been ripped from the pages of one of those early comics written by Stan and drawn by Jack. The feel of family was ingrained in every scene. They argued, bickered, misunderstood, hoped for, and loved each other all the way through the movie. In some ways the movie is very simple. There’s no real surprise about how things are going to turn out. There’s not supposed to be. This is the Fantastic Four. People who know the characters know what they’re gonna get in this film, and it’s delivered.

Ioan Gruffudd returns as Mr. Fantastic. Jessica Alba is the Invisible Woman. Chris Evans is the Human Torch. And Michael Chiklis is the Thing. Julian McMahon returns as Doctor Doom.

Maybe movie purists want deeper plots and characters, maybe the comics fans want an updated version of the team, but I love this version. These are the characters, more or less, that I grew up with. These are the characters, without the John Byrne dark side and without all the soap opera complications of splitting the team up and bringing in She-Hulk, etc., that I want my nine-year-old son to learn to love, too. Comics scribe Mark Waid’s run on the comics series was one of the best to come along in years. Waid really had a handle on the characters.

The whole idea of Reed and Susan trying to get married while watched by the world, invaded by the media, and dealing with their own shifting pecking order is great. Throw in the threat of a planet-devouring entity and you’ve got all the ingredients of a successful Fantastic Four movie.

The action sequences were utterly impressive. I believed in each and every one of their superpowers. In the last movie, Johnny Storm’s Human Torch abilities blew me away. But in this movie, watching Mr. Fantastic in action was a treat whether it was a serious situation or a comic one. The director (Tim Story) and the scriptwriters (Don Payne and Mark Frost) took advantage of Reed’s super-stretching abilities for comic relief a lot as well. Watching Reed get loop-legged while thinking about getting married and smashed flat behind the Thing during a fight were absolutely hilarious.

The Silver Surfer admittedly got short shrift regarding what his powers could truly do, but it was wild watching him sink through the surfboard and remain connected to it while upside down and flying at near full-speed. Movies and special effects have come a long way. Comic books used to be the only place you could go to see that kind of action, but now movies bring it all to the big screen. Of course, comics still beat them because of the monthly frequency with which they come out.

The shifting loyalties within the story played a big part in keeping me satisfied. There was never a dull moment. Something was always happening to someone somewhere. And despite how tense everything got, there was always a laugh to be had somewhere.

One of the really cool things about the movie is the full-size lobby display that comes with it. I took a picture of my son in front of it, which he thought was totally cool. You’re not going to get that in the DVD box! But we’re anxiously awaiting the DVD release because we’re ready to see the movie again.

Definitely worth seeing on the big screen.

A Mighty Heart is a tough movie to go into. Since we already know how this story ends, the filmmakers need to rely on something other than plot. The story has to be elevated somehow, the emotional quotient has to be amped up, and the performances have to carry all of the dramatic weight to make the movie have some sort of substance.

The story of Daniel Pearl is one loaded with emotion and sadness, and it would be easy for the director and writer to sit back and let the emotion of the situation carry us through. Fortunately, director Michael Winterbottom and star Angelina Jolie do not let this happen. The end result is not perfect, but it is a powerful story of love and loss in a fast changing world.

There have been a few movies over the past couple of years that told stories that we all know the ending to and proved to be emotionally draining experiences. What is tough about this type of films is that it is easy to get caught up in the real emotion related to the actual events rather than how successful the film is at telling the story and letting a finely crafted film draw out the emotion more organically.

Two such recent films are The Passion of the Christ and United 93, however neither seems like a good example of a film that relies on the real emotion, as they are both well made and powerful films, and would be in the same category as A Mighty Heart in how well they are crafted. A better example of a film in the other category would be World Trade Center, which, when viewed objectively, is rather generically directed. There is nothing special about that presentation, however the true story behind the events supplies the emotion, along with Nicolas Cage's performance. Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that films that we know the ending of need to have strong performances and strong direction to give it meaning beyond the telling of the story.

The film is based on the memoir of the same name written by Mariane Pearl, and it recounts her experiences of being in Karachi, Pakistan with her husband Daniel. Daniel was working on a story and it was leading him to meet with Sheik Gelani, a meeting which turned out to be a smoke screen as he was kidnapped by a terrorist group. However, we are not told any of his story with the terrorists, what happened when he went to meet his contact, and we never see his fate, nor the videotape that was released. This is primarily the story of Mariane Pearl and the horror that she had to deal with, and the strength of character and heart that she possesses. This is a story that is firmly centered on Mariane Pearl.

Angelina Jolie, handpicked by Mrs. Pearl, stars in the film, and gives what may be her finest performance. She is not the usual sobbing hysterical wife out of control of herself in the face of such a tragedy; rather she remains cool, calculated, and incredibly strong. She is a woman who knows what is at stake and is able to control herself in the face of such a dire situation. Jolie commands your attention with her powerful and moving characterization. I know I stopped seeing Jolie and only saw Pearl; she disappeared into the role and centered the humanity of this story.

The film is shot in a way that looks very much like a documentary. We, the audience, are like flies on the wall, bearing witness to the investigation and the various personalities involved. It is a very intimate film as Michael Winterbottom gets us right in with the actors, lots of closeups, never letting us get a breather. It is a well crafted thriller that doesn't rely on action, gunfights, and explosions, but rather the human drama involved. I admit that there were many times that I could not keep the characters' names straight, but even without knowing the names, I never had any trouble following what they were trying to accomplish.

A Mighty Heart is a triumph of a film that gives us incredible human drama, a tense story that keeps you at attention, even knowing the ending, and is, at its heart, a story of the love between Mariane and Daniel. It is a movie that does not belittle what happened, nor does it aim to make Daniel or Mariane a hero; it does give us a story that is free of the politics that you would expect to see, and also aims to put focus on the continuing ongoing tragedies that are occuring in the Middle East.

Bottom line. This is a story that was only able to be brought to the big screen due to the involvement of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and to them I am thankful. Together with Winterbottom and screenwriter John Orloff, the film is dramatic, emotional, and well crafted. It does a great job of bringing Mrs. Pearl's story to the screen.

Recommended.

Christopher Beaumont spends much of his time writing about entertainment when he isn’t sitting in a movie theater. He is known around the office as the “Movie Guy” and is always ready to talk about his favorite form of entertainment and offer up recommendations. Interests include science fiction, horror, and metal music. His writings can be found at Draven99’s Musings, as well as Film School Rejects.

Michael Moore is back with another documentary that is sure to get the country involved in another debate, which, even if you vehemently disagree with his point of view, is much better than the usual passive experience of movies. Sicko will make you think, make you learn, and hopefully make you act.

Rather than focusing on Americans without health insurance that politicians usually talk about, Moore examines those who have it. He starts with a series of sad stories about the hardships people have had with insurance companies and then interviews those who have worked on the inside, allowing them to explain the tricks of the trade of denying coverage and saving the company money. Insurance companies are business so obviously profits are their motive, but how much is a human life worth? Would you understand if a company saved $500 as opposed to performing a test that could save your life? Your spouse’s? Your child’s?

The film looks at the U.S. government’s involvement in health care from Nixon's interest in Kaiser Permanente’s HMOs once he found out they were private enterprise to Hillary Clinton’s work as the chairwoman of the Task Force on National Health Care Reform and President Bush’s Medicare prescription-drug plan, whose main supporter, Congressman Billy Tauzin, went to work for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America the same day he left Congress.

Moore compares and contrasts the U.S. health care system with those of Canada, England, and France, all of whom come out better, but who is to say how accurate it is? Just because we don’t hear any complaints doesn’t mean there aren’t any, and I know from family experience that Canada has its flaws. However, it’s hard to argue, although surely some will, with the World Health Organization ranking the United States 37th in part due to our infant morality rate and life expectancy, placing us between Costa Rica and Slovenia. If our national basketball team were that bad, sports radio would be on fire with outrage.

Moore meets with people who have gotten sick from their volunteer work at Ground Zero, cleaning up Twin Towers debris and looking for survivors. These people are patriots who have severely damaged their health in the service of their country and only received lip service in exchange from the state and federal government. With many politicians boasting about the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Moore takes these American heroes down to the detention center, reasoning it only fair that they receive health care as good as Al Qaeda gets.

Not surprisingly, they don’t get in, so they enter Cuba and go to a hospital. Moore asks that they be treated just as anyone else would, but considering there are cameras around, it’s likely that they received the best care available, and since we see no other Cuban hospital, there’s nothing to compare. Undercover cameras would have provided a more accurate picture. However with that being said, Moore absolutely should not have been able to find anyone who worked or volunteered at Ground Zero who needed his assistance. That fact is an absolute embarrassment to the nation.

As is the footage of a taxi dumping an old woman on Skid Row when a hospital decided her stay was up, unfortunately not an uncommon practice in Los Angeles. Again, hospitals are businesses, so they have to make money, but can’t a better way be found to treat people more humanely? Was it necessary for civil and criminal lawsuits and over a half million in penalties to get Kaiser to treat people better? Does a dollar really mean so much to some people?

However it’s not all tears and tragedy as Sicko has many humorous moments. An insurance company had agreed to give a young toddler who was losing hearing in both ears only one cochlear implant, but when her father wrote a letter claiming he was going to contact Michael Moore, they were somehow able to do both.

In Sicko, Moore presents his version of the story of the U.S. health care system. Even though every single person does the same, he will be chastised for it because some people have yet to realize that documentaries are op-ed pieces. Is everything presented in the film accurate and true as presented? Who knows, but while you shouldn’t trust everything Moore presents, that same standard should be applied to his detractors. Seek out information on your own and make your own decisions.