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'A CHRISTMAS CAROL'
CARREY ON SCROOGE
By Sean Chavel

Long in existence, A Christmas Carol has been played out in a number of varying budget film productions but thanks to Robert Zemeckis this is probably the most expensive, and thus, it is visually spectacular. Even if you are not an expert on Charles Dickens' 1843 tale, you can clearly estimate which parts have been updated and freshened for a new generation, and for the most part, Zemeckis' instincts are right on. Yet is it sacrilegious to say that some of the elements, old and new, are less than captivating? Regardless, the dazzling sights and sounds are aplenty, and the opening title sequence where the camera flies over the architecture of London, is exhilarating to the point that it gets you peppy for the holidays. Good cheer.

Of course, the fantastic whizzing camera with this much speed and dexterity is only possible because the movie is a blend of live action and animation. This is Zemeckis' third attempt with this device of "performance capture" where actors' body movements are transformed and interspersed into an animated world. "A Christmas Carol" is the most successful of Zemeckis' animated attempts, not because he has perfected his technique but because the story is much better than the ones for "The Polar Express" and "Beowulf." Zemeckis has always been an indisputable technical genius even back when he is in "live action." But let us not forget that while "Forrest Gump" was a technical triumph it was a much better movie than "Death Becomes Her" which ran previous to his multiple Oscar winner, which was a technical triumph as well but a bummer of a story.

Ebenezer Scrooge is the ultimate bummer of a protagonist, the kind of man who gives no hours off for his employees for good behavior nor does he spend money on his office heating system (how much could coal really cost?). The inflection and affections of Jim Carrey's voice as Scrooge is startlingly effective, either it's a great Carrey performance or a great sound editing job, or perhaps, a little bit of both. But how about that animation again? Those deep wrinkles in Scrooge's face are so damn authentic looking. The reason we care anyway is in hope that Scrooge elongates that facial tension enough to smile again, and rejoice in Christmas spirit, and drop that humbug business. It is an ideal story that begins as a bummer but reaches for rebirth for Scrooge, and audience uplift.

Supernatural forces haunt Scrooge on Christmas Eve as the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Christmas Yet to Come arrive in order to show him the meaning of Christmas, alas, the meaning of life. The Ghost of Past is the most essential of the plot stages as Scrooge gets another look at the happiness of his youth before he gave it up for sake of propriety. The rest of the movie is just as familiar if repetitive (sometimes not captivating), and it's not hard to guess that Scrooge can save himself by saving another life. Life-affirming message aside, it is really about the whooshing visual dynamics that Zemeckis brings to this oft-told tale (the excess carriage crashes are a bit much), and in spite of that, the cycles of Scrooge's journeys gets a little long.

Zemeckis has gotten lost in too much spectacle before, but this time he just barely gets things in digestible moderation. Just when you thought you have been over-wowed enough for one afternoon, you get Carrey putting on the grouch-charm that he's so good at doing; you feel love for Carrey as a performer. The clever turns by Colin Firth and Gary Oldman warm the cockles of your heart (forgive holiday journalist mushiness). As implied, the special effects are occasionally too battering, Zemeckis is a wizard who never thinks he should put down his magic wand. But to a contrasting degree, Zemeckis channels his special effects also to an endearing effect when story permits. Too much explanation on the endearing effects would be spoiling, if not untranslatable anyway to the written word, so go see for yourself.

Would Dickens ever guess that in future generations his work would get a rollercoaster for an adaptation? Would he have marveled at the special effects? Let's hope so, because they are really good and you would think Dickens was a man of humor, mirth and gratitude. Would Dickens be pleased that the spirit of his work is intact? Legend has it he hastily wrote this holiday classic simply as a means to pay the bills. But yep, the ending is heart-thumping in all the right ways. Here's another question: Will Robert Zemeckis, with his larger than life storytelling abilities, be as famous as Charles Dickens one hundred years from now? Perhaps by cinephiles.

'PIRATE RADIO'
THAT 60'S TUNE
By Sean Chavel

A movie called Pirate Radio which actually looks like it was filmed on a pirate ship, and to its detriment, goes for the handheld camera and choppy edits way too often. It's Britain of the 1960's, the days of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and so many other milestone artists. There are nearly 60 songs on the soundtrack, all played in brief interludes. But what groovy moments do these songs certainly create.

Sit back long enough and this Richard Curtis film will grow on you. It could inspire the same kind of appreciation for classic rock that "High Fidelity" and "Almost Famous" did, albeit to a lesser degree, and it features a boisterous foul-mouthed cast. Philip Seymour Hoffman, as the one American, is a DJ who in the early scenes pronounces he is going to use the F-word on the air for the very first time. He burns the tolerance of station owner and ship captain Quentin (Bill Nighy) to such a degree that Quentin ends up saying the most F-words. On the air.

These guys will broadcast anything, even a wedding that comes to board where Simon and his ugly British overbite (Chris O'Dowd) is marrying a spectacularly hot chick (January Jones) who may want him merely for convenience. Teenage Carl (Tom Sturridge) spent his earliest years in an all-boys school and is looking to lose his virginity, something that can also be broadcast in good fun except that Thick Kevin (Tom Brooke) steals away his opportunities. The very mod Gavin (Rhys Ifans) behaves the way Austin Powers would behave on the radio waves, he doesn't need inspiration but himself and maybe a reference to his zipper.

This Curtis film is full of fast-paced and bouncy episodes, and it's countered by stateside drama with Kenneth Branagh as a government minister who intends to shut the rogue station down. The extreme of how humorless his character is by turns funny, especially in contrast of the anything-goes attitude of our central cream of characters. Some may not like the fact that the film is full of musical montages, and cutaways to grooved-out radio listeners everywhere, but because it celebrates rock, I happen to like all of the musical-dramatic montages. I especially liked the way The Kinks' "All Day and All of the Night" was used in its romantic-dramatic play-out, and one of my all-time favorite songs, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum, is played loud and stirringly during a scene of ship over-flooding until the song is cut in half.

All of the playful, hip people are listening to this rogue station because the legitimate stations of that time were not allowed to play Rock. The "Pirate" gang are crusaders, they are revolutionaries, they are… smitten by how its their own exclusive league. Every week a ship of girls docks with them, they are fans and they are grateful fans, the kind that arrived at a "historical" time of peace and free love. If some of the film is far-fetched, it still works because it perpetuates the outrageously upbeat myth that the 60's was a happening watershed time.

'THE BOX'
BUTTON BUTTON
By Sean Chavel

The Box might remind you why you love suspense and hate suspense at the same time. Richard Kelly's film keeps you in suspense until you are pleading with it to tell you more. But you may hate it because you are wondering if the damn this is ever going to pay off. After awhile you get the sense that Kelly's film is going to be one of those ambiguous ones, and certainly ambiguity is one of those trademarks a cinephile can enjoy. But the mind-teasing conundrum of this uncommonly weird studio movie teeters dangerously to the point of not wanting it to be so damn ambiguous.

This strange disfigured man in a black coat shows up at the door. He delivers a box with a glass dome lid covering a big red button. Arthur and Norma Lewis (James Marsden and Cameron Diaz) have 24 hours to decide whether to push the button. If they do, they will inherit $1 million dollars tax free. But elsewhere in the world someone random they do not know will die as a result. The two of them never seem to ask the right questions about the box and its circumstances until after stranger Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) has left.

The Virginia couple, of this 1976 setting, complains about finances but lives in such a nice house that you have to assume that they are living wealthily just beyond their means of income. Arthur is an optics designer for NASA and Norma is a respectable teacher. But things could be better just like things could be better for any person belonging to the human race. They argue whether the box is a hoax, a prank. They also muster reasons as to why all that money will solve their problems for now as well as for the rest of their life. Which one of them will end up pushing the button?

So here's this Richard Kelly guy, the writer-director, who previously made such idiosyncratic sci-fi as "Donnie Darko" and "Southland Tales." He creates a number of visual motifs such as secondary characters bleeding from the nose and stone-like faces staring at the Lewis' from afar. He is a director obsessed with portals - when a character must guess the gateway to "salvation" or to "damnation" you might be arguing after the movie which entrance gateway the character chose. This is a director that not only quotes Jean-Paul Sarte and Arthur C. Clarke, but constructs a homage reminiscent to the final scenes of "2001: A Space Odyssey" while he's at it. The imagery is startling and breathtaking, and then sometimes just nonsensically weird. What's with the warehouse with a walk line of white lights actually leading to?

Strip away the spooky, cryptic elements and you have two fairly good lead performances by Marsden and Diaz bringing the right amount of guilt and vulnerability to their performances. Langella, as the sinister puppeteer, does an exceptionally good job in delivering his dialogue with equal measures of persuasiveness and supremacy. He's the kind of man who dodges matters and concerns of others with his ability to swing the dialogue in his favor. Then there is the briefcase full of money as a plot catalyst only to put the whole idea of money in the forgotten background. That's the thing about movie characters receiving large sums of money they didn't earn. Once they have it they don't need it anymore. Good health becomes a higher basic priority.

"The Box" is adapted from a Richard Matheson short story "Button, Button" from long ago. The Matheson story is simply an intriguing set up and then culminated by a wry punch line. It's a story that can be read in about five minutes. Matheson was a great writer, but Kelly is as much a respectable talent (whether you like his work or not) and especially here where he had to do a lot of creating in order to expand and amplify Matheson's miniaturized story to feature length. Kelly has such a gripping sense on science fiction that an example of his storytelling gift is when he concocts an indelibly imaginative subplot on the reasons on how Norma's foot was maimed during a freak occurrence in her teenage years.

Kelly's movie however walks that tightrope between curiosity and tedium, and I was constantly hard-pressing to bridge the symbolism together. I honestly don't know if I can say I liked the movie or not until I see it again. But the fact that I want to see it again says something, right? If you have the same kind of gravitation towards ambiguous puzzle movies you might just want to put up a fight to see "The Box." What a weird movie. Big-budget studio movies are rarely this weird.

The Men Who Stare At Goats
By Scott Mendelson

The Men Who Stare at Goats is a miserable misfire, completely draining any and all life from the rather astounding narrative that it is trying to tell. I have no idea if the stories contained are true, and that frankly shouldn't matter. The movie fails as a vehicle to uncover true-life conspiracy of the zaniest order. It also fails as a tale of absurdist comic fiction. It is a flat and often dull drudge of a film, a low-water mark for most involved (it's George Clooney's worst film ever, yes worse than Batman & Robin). The film is so bad that it may in fact be a conspiracy, a concerted effort to nullify the truth of Rossman's tale by trapping it in a film that will teach us little and entertain few. After all, as Lex Luthor famously said in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Strikes Back, "Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing; especially when no one is listening."

A token amount of plot - Based on an allegedly non-fiction book by Jon Rossman, this is a tale of the fabled 'Earth First' US Army battalion, founded in the early 80s to create warrior monks/super soldiers. Journalist Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is attempting to prove his manhood and save his crumbling marriage by losing himself in the drama of the Iraq war. Stuck in Kuwait, he stumbles upon Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), who claims to be a former member of a pioneering Special Forces unit of psychic soldiers who were training in order to acquire literal super powers and end armed conflict the world over. Through flashbacks, we see how the unit was founded by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) and then corrupted and destroyed from within by the devious Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey).

The idea that the US government would attempt to turn its fighting forces into the equivalent of the Justice League (with the powers of invisibility, walking through walls, telepathy, etc.) is an amusing one. But the film itself gives only tiny, fragmented details of how this program actually operated and what skills they attempted to acquire. The present-day narrative is completely pointless to the eventual story and we keep wanting to return to the past, which is where the far more worthwhile storytelling is being conducted. But even there, the film is crippled by the stilted, overly expository voice over from Ewan McGregor. While McGregor gives one of his worst performances, he is not helped by the voice over dialogue, which is easily the worst of its kind since James McAvoy spelled it all out for us over and over again in Wanted.

The rest of the acting is adequate, but Bridges and Spacey are constrained by the arch-types that they represent, which is in itself the film's cleverest gimmick. While Clooney immediately refers to himself as a Jedi, we realize about 2/3 of the way through the picture that the film is literally following the story arc of the first four Star Wars films. Imagine if A New Hope was interspersed with flashbacks from Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith, and you'll have a general idea of how the movie plays out. The irony of having the former Ben Kenobi portraying a variation on Luke Skywalker is not lost, but it does not excuse the otherwise fatal miscasting.

Even with the amusing gimmick and the last act, which rather shockingly ties the story into modern-day history and politics, the film is undone still by an obnoxious and inexplicable final scene. But the film's biggest sin is that it really doesn't teach us anything about this legendary experiment in peaceful war-making and it is so lacking in basic entertainment that most moviegoers will be reluctant to learn more. The film eventually takes note of a stark reality of modern journalism, that the media often does not hide the truth so much as deliver it in a fashion that will cause everyone to lose interest. Oddly enough, The Men Who Stared At Goats is a shining example of just that kind of cover-up. Like Spacey's equally odious anti-capital punishment thriller The Life of David Gale, Clooney's latest vehicle is a leftist political film that is so bungled that one wonders if its creation was a right-wing conspiracy all along.

Grade: D+

'2012'
LOWER THAN THE TOTAL BODY COUNT
By Sean Chavel

Tremendous special effects duke it out with stupid characterizations in 2012, a movie less concerned with Mayan theology than with putting on a thrill ride featuring 1,001 close calls. Massive destruction is caught with wide-angle shots and aerial shots that were made with seamless composites by a heavily geared special effects team, of course, director Roland Emmerich of "Independence Day" fame as the commandant. What Emmerich is a master of is composing fragment shots of debris and wreckage flying at the camera. Armageddon-disaster movie is his specialty, so is staging an ensemble of movie stars who narrowly dodge record-breaking earthquakes and volcanic eruptions with poise and ease.

Matters of enjoyment come down to how much you can tolerate ham-fisted dialogue and impossible contrived situations. When the end of the world is near, for instance, do you really risk your life and the lives of others to collect your poodle? Or how about planes taking off on broken asphalt runway? Emmerich, who brings tsunami disaster to India with the same large scale pluck as he does turning Los Angeles and Yellowstone Park into a ferocious volcano, is happy to go 'round the world to depict catastrophe. He also goes to China to introduce us to Buddhists and their wisdom, but there, he supplies them trite lines of pseudo-wisdom.

As the representing common man, John Cusack plays a family man fortuitous enough to break the odds, travelling from Los Angeles to China, specifically to a Far East haven, with what is either genius or luck. Only a few hundred-thousand on the entire planet have a ticket to board "the ship," the only exodus available. The ticket-holders are the rich, the ones that could afford to live on while everyone else worth less than a billion dollars will not be spared. Danny Glover as the President of the United States chooses to accept his exit with timeliness, imparting compassion for the citizens doomed.

Big chunks of the film are preposterously entertaining, and anybody remotely impressed by special effects will not be bored. Did I mention Woody Harrelson plays a bearded nut job deejay who isn't so much a nut job after his predictions come true at Yellowstone? Did I mention that Chiwetel Ejiofor as the head scientist and Thandie Newton as the first daughter of the United States are the most attractive, and brainiest two of the film? Or how about Oliver Platt as the dispassionate chief of staff who doesn't care much if his mother perishes? The dialogue for this genre, as corny as it is, has improved since the "Airport" and "Towering Inferno" disaster movie days of the '70's. Staying relational and in-the-moment, it can be simplistic and broad dialogue but at least it is always conscious of its surroundings.

The film has its share of oversights and peculiarities. In the Los Angeles destruction scenes, we get loads of shots of buildings and vehicles battered to smithereens but there are never any people in the shots. When Cusack's plane flies overhead the whole earth is collapsing but Emmerich forgot to put human bodies in there. I suppose that's cleaner for the family audience. At 2 hours and 37 minutes, the insinuation that billions of people will be doomed but can be swallowed easier when there are less people in the frame. Cusack also drives miraculously fast through non-traffic Los Angeles, a city with a clichéd amount of palm trees. I also chuckled aloud during all the references to Wisconsin, particularly when two former out-of-shape Wisconsin people who look like they have built a steady diet on McDonald's food could seem to afford a beachfront in pricey Manhattan Beach.

Aboard the ship in the conclusion, some of the survivors don't look like rich people but rather an average looking cast of extras who appear like they came from the middle class, but that observation is a judgment call. Also an oversight on how there seems to be twenty men to every female - in Stanley Kubrick's disaster black comedy "Dr. Strangelove" the president is consulted that to rebuild the human species after Armageddon there should be ten females to every male. Talk about expanded screenplay wit for a 1964 classic.

"2012" is what it is. I found the disaster stuff fun for awhile until I could no longer tolerate its banality. Despite that, I was never bored (just annoyed). But if you are going to see '2012' now or later, see it now on the big screen where the big scale disaster pieces can be enjoyed to its maximum.

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