The Hurt Locker

It’s funny how the best film made about our current Iraq conflict has been directed by a woman. I mean this in a completely nondiscriminatory way. It honestly is a blessing that, from what I can gather, it took a female mentality to truly understand this war.

The Hurt Locker is the first masterpiece of 2009. Director Kathryn Bigelow, most famous for her über-entertaining, macho-surfer romp Point Break, has crafted an instant, contemporary, war-film classic. This is the Iraq War film for people who don’t like Iraq War films.

Baghdad. 2004. We’re focused on an elite Army bomb squad unit. Three guys, with huge balls. They get the call, go investigate the bomb, locate the bomb, and send the squad leader in to defuse it. The other two stay back, giving succinct directions, and looking out for snipers or human detonators watching from afar. Sure, they strap on giant suits meant to protect them from a bomb blast. But we soon learn that those suits, more often than not, prove to be fruitless.

The movie opens with an incredibly suspenseful, heart-pounding sequence. When the scene was over, I was hoping to catch my breath. But I didn’t. Not once. For two hours. This is a film that truly grabs you by the throat in its first scene, and does not, for a second, let go. Even in the soldiers’ downtime, there is still danger on the horizon, lurking in a wrestling match taken too far, or some lost gloves that provoke questionable thoughts.

The movie stars Jeremy Renner as the adrenaline junkie squad leader. He’s a bit of a thrill seeker, sure, but he’s the best at what he does. Plain and simple. Renner, a fine actor as is evident in North Country, 28 Weeks Later and the Assassination of Jesse James, delivers an Oscar-caliber performance. His Staff Sergeant James doesn’t have long monologues or depressing speeches. He, like the movie, lives in the moment of the job. From finding the bomb to dismantling it. It’s the best acting I’ve seen so far this year.

The rest of the three-man crew is made up of Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty. You may remember Geraghty as the skinny, scared soldier in Jarhead that Jake Gyllenhaal pulls a gun on. If you don’t remember him, then you will after this. Mackie has been delivering solid work since his breakout in 8 Mile as a challenging rapper. Since then, he’s contributed standout roles in She Hate Me, Million Dollar Baby, Half Nelson and Notorious, but he’s never been better than as the aggravated, by-the-book Sergeant Sanborn, the perfect match for Renner’s rugged, on-the-fly daredevil . Look for a Supporting Actor nomination. There is also a trio of terrific cameo appearances, they may be hard to spot, but I give those actors credit for lending their one respective scenes to such a small, indie film.

The Hurt Locker was written with brutal authenticity by journalist Mark Boal, who spent some time in Iraq with a bomb squad. The details have paid off. Boal’s script is unlike any other war film I’ve seen. There’s no throwaway, morale-boosting banter. No excessive meandering into tired plot details. Everything we need is right here, every scene is essential.

If I’ve done my job, then I’ve convinced you that this film is worth seeing. That it’s worth driving dozens of miles out of your way to an independent theatre for. I’ve done my job if you believe the fact that The Hurt Locker is best film I’ve seen so far this year.

Every war has a defining film (or two). For my money, Paths of Glory takes WWI, The Thin Red Line encapsulates WWII, The Deer Hunter is Vietnam, and Three Kings nails the Gulf War. Add The Hurt Locker to that list. Add it to another list as well, the shortlist for this year’s Oscar contenders. A+

Funny People

Judd Apatow, the comedic genius who’s basically controlled American film comedy for the past four years, follows his contemporary classic that is The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and the equally hilarious -if not more endearing- Knocked Up, with Funny People, a mistitled, confused mess.

Successful comedian George Simmons (one-time real-life Apatow roommate, Adam Sandler) falls ill with an evidently incurable bout of cancer. Lonely in his mansion and uncompromised fame, George recruits Ira (Seth Rogen), a struggling comedian, to be his assistant/joke writer.

So, that’s the movie, right? Funny man-child discovers himself via a deadly disease and learns the true meaning of friendship. Well, that’s the first hour. I’m not giving anything away by saying that George survives the cancer and then makes a sole goal to get back his ex-girlfriend of 12 years, who’s now married with children.

So, now we have a new film. Funny man-child tries to reclaim lost love but finds he’s actually more of an asshole than before. Such false plot lines fill the entire film. There’s a humorous scene when Ira makes an iTunes playlist for George. They laugh and mock the songs, but suddenly, a slow song comes on and the two stare at each other… are they going to cry? Hold each other? Make out? It’s never a good sign when you laugh through a scene that isn’t meant to be funny. But when such scenes are played with zero-to-no believability, it’s hard not to chuckle.

Don’t get me wrong, Sandler does good work here… at times. But overall his performance is misguided. If you’re expecting the kind of revelatory Sandler that was in Punch-Drunk Love, you’d better keep looking.

Funny People begins well enough, but quickly loses its stride and overall tone. There are a few spirited cameos, sure, (namely by a foul-mouthed Detroit rapper), but they can’t save the film. In fact, by the time the very talented Eric Bana and Leslie Mann (real-life Mrs. Apatow) show up for some third act silliness, the film is far past redemption. Sorry to say that Funny People just isn’t that, well… funny. C-

Orphan

If you’ve seen the poster for Orphan, you know that there is something “wrong with Esther”. And yes, believe me, there is something most definitely wrong with Esther.

Horror films, next to musicals, are my least favorite genre. But along with Drag Me to Hell earlier this year, 2009 is proving to bang out some frightful and intelligent ones. The best part about Orphan is its R rating. It doesn’t try to hide behind the teenage friendly PG-13, or carry a go-for-broke R (a la Hostel or Saw). Instead, we live with a family how they would normally live and talk. Basically, the rating helps with the overall believability of the picture.

Kate (Vera Farmiga) and John (Peter Sarsgaard) want to adopt a child after having lost one several months ago. They already have two kids of their own, but now they feel it’s time for another. In comes Esther, an incredibly polite, incredibly proper Russian girl. On the surface, as with most child-terrorizing horror films, Esther seems perfect, and it’s no surprise that it doesn’t take long for things to go very wrong.

There are several mysteries surrounding the little girl, and why ruin those here? The fun of any well-made horror film is letting yourself be scared, not read about all the frights in a spoiler-friendly review. Having said that, the only real faults I have with the film are in its ending, which I obviously can’t explain, but after you see the film, then we can talk about it. Don’t get me wrong, the end is good, but there were a few details I was forced to laugh off.

I’d recommended Orphan based solely off of Farmiga’s performance. I’ve been a great admirer of hers since she starred in the super small film, Down to the Bone, playing a coke-addicted mother in middle town America. (If you haven’t seen that film, find it, it convinced a little guy named Scorsese to cast Farmiga in The Departed.) She brings to Orphan a torn apart mother who slowly loses her grip on what’s real. It’s a performance of sheer believable desperation. If the Academy had any balls, they’d throw her a Best Actress nomination. B+

My Favorite Scene: Sleepers

Warning: Critical plot details will be divulged in this post. The ending will be spoiled.


Sleepers, Barry Levinson’s criminally underrated film, is the best movie I have ever seen that chronicles the after effects of victimization. The plot, briefly, is the true story about four Hell’s Kitchen teens who pull a childish prank that goes very wrong, nearly killing an innocent man. The boys are sent up for a year to a juvenile home for boys where they are subjected to random, yet frequent, physical and sexual attacks by four guards.

Flash forward 15 years. Two of the boys have grown up to become gang leaders who abuse drugs and murder at random or for money. Those two bump into the head guard (Kevin Bacon, in his best screen role) from way back and blow his brains out. Another boy, Michael (Brad Pitt), has grown into a lawyer and takes the case against his two friends. Why? To get them off. All of this is narrated, rather marvelously, by Jason Patric, the last of the four boys.

This film is full of lasting scenes. The two minute, unbroken shot of Robert De Niro (a loyal priest to his neighborhood boys) as he listens to Patric describe the horror they endured at the juvenile home, comes to mind. But the shining moment of the film is its last one.

As the four friends, along with their pal Carol (Minnie Driver), sit around a table in a private room of a New York restaurant, Patric, via narration, briefly goes through the fates of each man. The two killers, he says, died gruesome deaths only years later, never leaving their life of crime, even after receiving a shot at redemption. Patric says of himself that he was promoted at his newspaper job, covering the entertainment beat, but the haunting realism is found in Michael’s description.

Patric says that Michael has now moved to the Irish countryside. He no longer practices law, and he has never married. Then, with one of the most subtlety genuine lines of narration I’ve ever heard, he tells us that Michael lives quietly and alone. “He lives quietly and alone.” There is something about those five words, taken directly from Lorenzo Carcaterra’s memoir, that says it all. That one sentence embodies everything that goes along with being victimized.

People subjected to abuse can go several ways. That’s what makes Sleepers such a fascinating story. The boys all experience the same crimes, yet they all deal with them differently. Whether it was to express themselves physically with violence. Or to bury the pain down as deep as it can go, almost denying it ever happened, or to continue life elsewhere, away from everyone you know, quietly and alone. It’s only one line of dialogue, but that line has stayed with me over a decade after having first watched the film.

Please, if you’ve never seen Sleepers, find it. Rent it, put it in your Netflix queue, or buy it off Amazon for $7.99. Either way, you won’t be sorry, and who knows, you may even discover something about yourself.

Food, Inc.

Food, Inc. is one of the most horrifying movies I’ve seen in years. And with a PG rating, that’s saying something.

I went into this film with my laymen’s understanding of food. Processed food, whether it be fast or junk= bad. Organic food= good. But believe me, the deceit runs much deeper than that.
With the help of food geniuses Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser, director Robert Kenner helps expose the food industry with this searing documentary. After watching the film, I’m surprised Kenner had the audacity to even bring the subject up. Here’s what I mean.

A running figure in the documentary is a middle aged mother who lost her young son to e. coli. Her child, you see, simply ate a bad burger and died 12 days later. No justice has come of this in the years since, so the mother is now a food safety advocate trying to pass Kevin’s Law, which would make food companies test for poor meat more thoroughly. But here’s the fascinating part. In one interview clip, director Kenner, off camera, asks the mother what food she eats. Simple question, right? Wrong. The mother kindly refuses to answer, saying that she will certainly be sued by the food bosses, simply for saying which food she enjoys.

And that’s just 30 seconds of the movie. Throughout the rest of the film, I learned more than I have in a slew of recent documentaries. And that’s the wonder of this film, it doesn’t use a catchy gimmick (Super Size Me) or try to pound its cause into your head over and over and over (An Inconvenient Truth), instead it presents its information, and lets you decide how to handle it.

The underlying message of the film is simple: know what you eat. Really, know. But it isn’t that easy. There is a heartbreaking segment with a poor family who drives through Burger King almost daily. Why? Because three items on the dollar menu can fill you up for cheaper than fresh vegetables at the grocery store. And that’s the point. The carrots need to be cheaper than the chips. A

Note: I stopped eating red meat two years ago due to the content I saw in a 20 minute documentary that takes place in a Parisian slaughterhouse. And while the images in Food, Inc. aren’t nearly as repulsive, they’re enough to turn you off chicken.

Brüno

Here’s the thing about Sacha Baron Cohen, no matter which eccentric character of his he’s playing, he only gets one single take at each scene. One shot to make the trick work. You can’t reshoot a prank, you can’t get those genuine, appalled reactions from the gullible participants more than once. And this is why, despite whether or not you find him funny, Baron Cohen is the funniest, most respected comedian in movies today.

Brüno is just as outrageous as you’ve heard. Instead of a racist, anti-Semitic, Kazak journalist, we now get the extremely gay, tight-clothed, Austrian fashionista, Brüno. Brüno, much like Borat, is so idiotically lewd with his comments and actions, that he doesn’t even bother caring who he offends. It’s his clueless remorselessness that makes him hysterical.

The plot structure for the film is very similar to Borat. Brüno gets excommunicated from the fashion world in his native Austria, only to scurry to America with one goal, to become famous. But who cares about the plot, you came for the gags, right? Have no fear, Baron Cohen and Borat director Larry Charles go way beyond what you may be thinking, so far that I’m stunned as to how this film got an R rating.

Which brings me to a good point. If you are sexually conservative in any way whatsoever, then save your money and skip this film. Even the most hip, liberal minds will have dropped jaws in several scenes. Scenes that I will not ruin here. The fun of these films is shocking you into what you never see coming, so I’ll let you unravel them yourself.

For me, the gags aren’t what make Baron Cohen’s films memorable. I sincerely thought Borat did a great job of exposing racism, prejudice, and sexism in middle America. Likewise, I think Brüno does a great job of unveiling America’s obsession with fame, not to mention their general homophobia. A scene involving mothers auditioning their babies for a photoshoot is by far the most disgusting thing in the film. In another, I watched in horror to a crowd’s reaction of two men making out in cage-fighting exhibition. We they duped? Sure. But does that justify their reaction? God no.

Bottom line: is Brüno better than Borat? No. Is Brüno cruder? Yes. Do they both fulfill their jobs of discovering hidden prejudices in our apparent “post-racial” nation. You bet. B+

Moon

There isn’t a whole lot you can say about Moon without giving too much away. The plot takes a pretty serious twist early on, and it’s far more entertaining to try and unravel the mystery yourself than have me ruin it here.

Sam Rockwell is terrific as an astronaut who is only weeks away from having his contract up after a three year stint on the moon. His job is to keep Earth powered with resources that machines collect from the moon’s surface. He’s been up there a long time, all alone, with only his thoughts and ugly facial hair.

The film has a unique concept, but pays distinct reverence to a few too many sci-fi films. Kevin Spacey voices a robot that is nearly identical to 2001’s HAL-9000. Even though Spacey’s robot doesn’t try to kill the passengers, most everything about him is the same. But consider it an homage more than a steal. The director, Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie), knows that he is coping from Kubrick, but he does it with style. It’s also impossible to not consider how good this film looks. With only a $5 million budget, Jones does a very good job at making Moon look and feel real.

Rockwell, one of our best actors, explodes on the screen in what I assume will be yet another overlooked performance. He’s sustained a vastly multi-genre’d resume all while keeping us enthralled. From Confessions of Dangerous Mind to Matchsctick Men, from Snow Angels to Frost/Nixon, he’s one of the wittiest guys around. Give him some credit. B+

Public Enemies

Michael Mann, the single greatest living director of crime dramas (Thief, Manhunter, Heat, Collateral, Miami Vice) is thankfully back with a gangster tale that is unlike anything you’ve seen from the genre so far.

How can you make a movie about the most notorious American of the 1930s and not have it riled with clichés? I’m not sure, but Mann sure as hell knows. There isn’t a frame of unoriginality in Public Enemies, in fact, it’s far from what the Blockbuster crowd may be expecting. But more on that later.

John Dillinger spent most of his early life in jail, which acted as his schooling for criminality. (It’s funny, you know, that our jails actually make better criminals.) In jail, Dillinger met a slew of crooks just like him and once released, they wrecked havoc across the country, robbing banks that he felt had been unfair to the common man during the Depression.

As Dillinger, Johnny Depp delivers some of his best career work. Keeping a cool, restrained demeanor, he makes Dillinger not only likeable, but scary as hell as well. Take note, for instance, every scene Depp has with Marion Cotillard (Best Actress winner for La Vie en Rose two years ago), who plays Dillinger’s love interest, Billie Frechette. In those scenes I actually thought Depp was in love with Cotillard. His intensity bleeds through his every word. There is a moment when Cotillard is being apprehended by authorities and Depp gets out of a car, wanting to stop it, but knowing he can’t. It’s the scene that gets actors nominated for Oscars.

Dillinger was being pursued by clean-cut FBI agent Melvin Purvis, played here with familiar greatness by Christian Bale. In fact, Purvis himself was being pressured by a little guy named J. Edgar Hoover (a brilliant, Oscar-worthy Billy Crudup) to catch Dillinger, breathing down Purvis’ neck at the slightest slip-up.

If you’ve seen a Michael Mann movie before, you know the guy can direct a thrilling action sequence. But, that isn’t his main concern. He is more concerned with the story of his characters, who they are, what they want, how they want it, etc. Having said that, Public Enemies has a slew of spectacularly staged action scenes (the most thrilling of the year, in fact) but it isn’t an action movie. It’s a film that focuses on human drama, on a few short months in Dillinger’s life, which means no backstory at all.

It’s also the best looking film of the year with cinematographer Dante Spinotti shooting in gorgeous HD, a technique Mann has mastered with his recent films. The costumes are great, the dialogue is hidden yet snappy, and the gunfights will pin you to your seat.

Even if you already know what happened to Dillinger, you’re in for a fresh look at how it went down. In addition, Public Enemies boasts a denouement (n: resolve after the climax) that left me speechless, and could very well earn Cotillard another Oscar. Get ready to be blown away. A

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Here’s some good news: you don’t have to pay to see the new Transformers movie. Why? Because you can do it yourself at home, it just takes a little direction.

Here’s how. Get the youngest child you know (preferably age 3-7), and sit them down on the kitchen floor. Next, get a tween, middle school couple (preferably ages 12-15) and stand them next to the kid. Next, surround the kid with as many pots and pans as you can. Then, instruct the couple to start arguing about petty shit that doesn’t matter. Finally, tell the kid to bang away on the various cooking instruments and VOILA! you have the new Transformers movie.

That’s about as deep as this movie gets. Sure there are enough computer effects to make your head numb, but nothing you haven’t seen before. No, in fact, Michael Bay’s new film is easily one of the worst movies I have seen, of this or any year. There isn’t a stitch of substance to it.

Plot? Who cares. Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox run around the world with the "good" robots to try and stop the "bad" robots from taking over the world. Apparently, you see, the robots were on Earth way before us pesky humans, and they have hidden the top baddie (aka The Fallen) in an Egyptian pyramid. So, for the next two and a half hours you get enough horrible dialogue to fill dozens of mocking YouTube clips, more slow-mo action than a cartoon, and insanely offensive antics that, I guess, Bay finds funny.

Take, for instance, the way he first shows Fox. We pan from behind, moving in slowly on her rear end, hidden by short shorts, bent far over a motorcycle. What the hell is Michael Bay saying about the objectivity of women? Am I the only one that notices this? Next, take the two idiotic robots that talk in offensive, “ghetto” slang. Sure they’re funny, if you’re a moron.

The saddest part about this pointless franchise is that so many people go to see these films, so they aren’t going away anytime soon (although, Bay released a statement saying that he would not direct a Part 3). Regardless, there are plenty of other movies out there that can amuse you with effects (Up), give you better action (The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3), show you real human drama (Away We Go) or introduce you to a lifestyle you only thought you knew (Public Enemies).

Take your pick, but please, do yourself a favor and skip Transformers, a jumbled, incoherent, action-figure mess. F

Away We Go

Each Sam Mendes film deals with the theme of isolation. The longing to escape, to flee, to become someone else. His latest, Away We Go, is no different. So it is with great pleasure to announce that Away We Go is unlike anything Sam Mendes has ever done.

What if Scorsese made a musical? What if Wes Anderson helmed a Holocaust drama? Their essence would be there, their tone and feel, but the subject matter and style would be completely different. That’s Away We Go. Instead of Thomas Newman’s smooth, cunning score, we get a slew of folksy (yet appropriate) songs from Alex Murdoch. Instead of Conrad L. Hall’s (American Beauty, Road to Perdition) and Roger Deakins’ (Jarhead, Revolutionary Road) shadowy, intense cinematography, we get Ellen Kuras’ open, bright lens.

The beauty of this film starts with Mendes’ bold choice in actors. Leads John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph are known for television comedy (The Office and Saturday Night Live, respectively) but here, they both show remarkable depth and genuine heartfelt emotion.

“Are we fuckups?,” Verona asks Burt one cold evening. At first, you’ll think yes, but the truth is, they are anything but. The couple is excited about having the child Verona is six months pregnant with, but they long for something more. When they find out Burt’s hilariously bewildered parents are moving to Antwerp, the couple decides to trek across the country, in search of a new place to call home.

Their ventures take them to Phoenix, Madison, Miami and even Canada. We get the zany co-worker (Allison Janney, remember her as the emotionally dead mother in American Beauty?), the way-too-out-there friend (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and other family and friends that take Burt and Verona in for a brief stint of time. But the transcendental highlight of the film is when our sturdy couple goes to Montreal to visit some old college friends (Chris Messina, Melanie Lynskey). There, we discover an impossibly happy, albeit mixed, family who all help take care of each other. But things aren’t exactly what they appear. In this chapter, Messina delivers a monologue inside a faux strip club that will leave you speechless. It’s poignant, perceptive and amazingly real. Messina (who you’ve seen as Rebecca Hall’s smart, conservative, and clueless boyfriend in Vicky Christina Barcelona) should get a Supporting Actor nomination based solely on the delivery of that one speech. Classic stuff.

Thank writers Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida for giving Mendes such a great blueprint. In all honesty, I can’t say enough about this picture. It kept me laughing, longing, and guessing until its last frame.

Away We Go is bound to be compared as the “Little Miss Sunshine of the year”, “the Juno of 2009”, “the little indie wonder that could”. Problem is, it’s better than those films; in fact, Away We Go is the most emotionally satisfying movie-going experience I’ve had so far this year. Let it take you. A

OSCAR! OSCAR!

Yes, I am aware that it is entirely too early to start talking about the race. But this is news that must be announced.

The Academy recently said that they will nominate 10 films for Best Picture this year. This goes back to an old Oscar tradition of the ‘30s and ‘40s when nominating 10 films for the top prize was standard.

I imagine this change comes after last year’s Best Picture race, which was heavily criticized for not accepting films from different genres, (The Dark Knight, Wall-E, etc).

How do you feel about this? Is 10 too much? Will it split votes? What surprises will we see that we wouldn’t see if there were five? I know one for sure: expect Up to make the cut.

And so it begins…

Tyson

Is it possible for a person to win Best Actor, even though they are playing themselves, in a documentary? Watching Mike Tyson tell his story in his own unflinching words is no less exhilarating than watching one of his own fights. When Tyson recounts that he learned to fight out of necessity, talking slowly as he fights back tears, stating: “After that, I knew no one was ever going to fuck with me again,” I dare you to not be moved.

James Toback’s Tyson is a film of remarkable candor and depth. You may be suspicious that Tyson would favor himself and leave out details that would incriminate his character. Think again. After just a few short minutes into the film, it’s clear that Tyson’s biggest critic is Tyson himself.

With remarkably honest detail, Tyson remembers his troubled youth in Brooklyn, where he got picked on and beat up regularly. But after that first street fight (the circumstances of which involve a horrifying story about a pigeon), he knew he was out for blood. In and out of jail dozens of times before he was 13, Tyson was given a shot by Cus D’Amato, an old white guy who took Tyson in and treated him like a son. D’Amato taught young Tyson the ropes; the mechanics of fighting, the attitude, the hunger, everything to shape a brilliant fighter.

So as I’m watching the film, which uses swift split-screen and voice-over editing, my one thought was: when do things go wrong? If there is a moment that Tyson started to decline, it was with the passing of D’Amato. In the years following D’Amato’s death, Tyson became the youngest champ ever, slept with hundreds and girls, contracted STDs, blew millions of dollars, and became the vulgar, unstoppable Mike Tyson that many of us recognize today.

But prepare to have your judgments overturned. Tyson admits taking advantage of women, but denies the rape of Desiree Washington, which landed him a three year prison bit. He admits having anger issues, but still found it inappropriate when wife Robin Givens called him out on Barbara Walters. Hell, Tyson even makes you understand why he chomped on Evander Holyfield’s ear (well, sort of).

The point is, this is an honest account of a deeply misunderstood and conflicted man. And believe me, you don’t have to be a boxing fan to enjoy the picture. In fact, there were several older, white women in the audience with me, and our tears fell just the same. A-

Up

How is it that the most adult films over the past few summers have been Pixar animated? This isn’t going to be a normal review. I’m not going to describe the plot or the awesomeness of the visuals (especially in 3-D). Instead I’m going to focus my attention on one particular scene. Because, quite frankly, that’s all you need to know.

Up is unlike any animated movie I’ve seen. Wall-E got damn close, but Up actually made me care. I actually got emotional. I was stunned. Here’s how.

About ten minutes into the film there is a wordless montage that displays a man’s life. The scene, set to Michael Giacchino’s sure-to-be-Oscar-nominated score, is poignant, perceptive, genuine, heartfelt, sad, funny, and effortlessly beautiful. I saw the film six days ago and since then I have been trying very hard to think of a better, more accomplished montage sequence from any film. Ever. And guess what. I've come up short (the quiet, controlled boxing montage in Million Dollar Baby is close, though). The Up scene lasts for around ten minutes and deals with issues that young children won’t understand, and that I wouldn’t dare spoil here. It’s worth the price of admission alone. If this scene was in any live action drama, that movie would be nominated for Best Picture, without a doubt. In short, this is the best sequence I’ve seen so far in any movie this year. Behold a thing of wonder. A-

The Hangover

Todd Phillips, who made the frat-pack famous with Old School, returns with a similar, if not a slightly funnier version of thirtysomethings gone wild.

The plot for The Hangover couldn’t be more packed with clichés. Four buddies head to Vegas for a night of bachelor party debauchery. They wake up, remembering nothing, only to discover that the groom-to-be is MIA. Boring. But the fun of the film is when it deviates from your expectations.

The first hint that this romp may deliver beyond your prospects is that it starts with the end. Then conveniently retraces most of its steps. Another hint is the fact that not a single frame of this film is dedicated to watching the guys get wasted. Think of it as the Reservoir Dogs of drunken hysterics. By not showing us what actually went down, the film plays like a genuine hangover, as the audience tries to put the pieces together right along with the characters.

So, yes, there are a few things that stand out here, but the laughs, for the most part, are pretty plain. Bradley Cooper (the dick boyfriend from Wedding Crashers) cements himself as the next-big-thing, shooting to the A-list with his black suit and slicked-backed hair. Ed Helms (The Office) steals some laughs with a missing tooth, but it’s Zack Galifianakis as the dim-witted brother-in-law that takes the cake. Almost every line he has is delivered with precise comic timing. You’ll be rolling in your seats when Galifianakis questions the authenticity of Caesar’s Palace, or tries to justify his wearing a fanny pack.

If for no other reason, I’ll recommend the film for its closing credits montage. Those ending shots have been stealing most of the film’s buzz, and for good reason. They are easily the funniest moments I’ve seen on screen so far this year. Don’t leave early. B

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

Tony Scott first started his now patented, zip-zoom, head-inducing style of filming with Man on Fire, a film I like very much. But he wore that style out with Domino and especially with Déjà Vu. Now Scott is back, toning down his blazing, repetitive cinematography, with The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, a completely decent action thriller.

The film, a re-vamp of the 1974 cult classic, casts a sturdy Denzel Washington as a train dispatcher, who finds himself quickly, and violently, in the center of a hostage situation. You see, a badass John Travolta has hijacked a train, parked it in an underground tunnel and demanded $10 mil in an hour, or else people start to die. Basic plot, nothing new.

What propels this film above your standard summer flare, are the performances. Washington is great here, putting on a few pounds to really understand the desk worm. James Gandolfini, as the post-Giuliani, post-9/11 mayor of NYC is cunning and smart, leaving Tony Soprano way behind. The rest of the supporting crew is good as well, but it’s Travolta that steals the show. With his shaved head, prison-tattooed neck and manic energy, we totally believe him every step of the way. He’s a villain that talks the talk (as they all do) but he walks the walk as well (which many never do).

The camera may zip around a bit too much, and the music can be annoying (I mean really, how many different remixes of Jay-Z’s “99 Problems” can you put into a two hour film). But I’d say that the Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is the best action fare out there right now. B