Nell Minow: January 2008 Archives

This movie starts out badly, gets much worse, and then after it is just dull for a while, it veers off into a whole new category of awful. Stay away.

The premise is promising. How do we know? Because it has been done with various levels of success before, first and best in Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, where just as a widower is celebrating his new marriage, the ghost of his ex-wife appears to stir things up. Everything that one did right, this one did wrong, however. That one had wit and charm and a storyline that was supple and surprising. This one: none of the above.

This is my third year as one of the nominators for Beliefnet's annual awards that pay tribute to the most spiritually nourishing and inspiring films of the year. Each of the candidates is presented with pro and con statements (mine is the pro for Emile Hirsch's performance in "Into the Wild"), with the awards to be decided by Beliefnet voters. Please visit the site and let us know what you thought about the nominated films and performances.

And I enjoyed Idol Chatter's list of the 10 Most Inspiring Westerns. Westerns are epic and mythic. They present stark contrasts -- cowboys and Indians, outlaws and sheriffs, ranchers and herders, railroads and farmers, gamblers and solid citizens, dancehall girls and prim schoolteachers. I do not agree with all of the choices (especially "Maverick" and "Tombstone"), but endorse with enthusiasm the selection of Silverado as the top choice. This year's 3:10 to Yuma is worth including. But why limit the list to recent films? Classics like The Searchers, High Noon, My Darling Clementine, How the West Was Won, How the West Was Won, and Red River should be seen by everyone.

"Grace is Gone" is the story of a father who cannot bear to tell his daughters that their mother has been killed in Iraq, so he takes them on a road trip to a theme park called Enchanted Garden. It was written and directed by James C. Strouse, who spoke to me about making the film.

You worked with two of my favorite actors on this film, John Cusack, who played Stanley and Alessandro Nivola, who played his brother.

John wanted to try something different. It was written pretty specifically, you could see it on the page that [his character] was buttoned down and quiet, slightly repressed, and he was excited to try that. I had a backstory for him and put him in touch with a couple of people including a man who lost his wife and has three kids. John was ready to do and came up with a lot of the performance on his own.

Alessandro is just phenomenal. That was one of the last roles we cast and as soon as he read the script he said, “Yes, I’ll do it.” He's so smart. It’s great to meet an actor who not only understands their part but the larger story as well. It’s kind of a luxury, when they understand the micro and macro at the same time. From the first take, I had very little to say because he just got it so clearly. Like his character, he was a breath of fresh air, a fun presence. The girls just instantly were smitten with him. I loved his film Junebug and I poached as many people as I could from that film, not just Alessandro but also the editor, screened the movie for Junebug’s director Phil Morrison to get his comments.

The Kansas City Star's Jeneé Osterheldt has a great column with the solution for television fans suffering from writers' strike doldrums: go to Turner Classic Movies and enjoy the classics. When Martin Scorsese met with the Museum of the Moving Image film critics group last year, he told us he keeps TCM going much of the time he is in his office, often calling in the staff to see a great shot or scene. And this is the best time of year on TCM, when they salute the Oscars with a fabulous array of classics featuring films honored with nominations, not just for acting and directing but for costume design, screenplay, and score.

Osterheldt has a terrific list of recommended classics, not just, to quote that most quotable of movies, "the usual suspects." And she quotes my dad, Newton Minow, who called television a vast wasteland, as a reminder that even without the strike, it can be a challenge to find something worth watching. Let's hope the strike is settled soon. But in the meantime, Osterheldt reminds us that we'll always have Paris, I mean we'll always have TCM, Netflix, and Amazon.

This fourth movie version of the Jack Finney story about "body-snatchers" again reminds us that the scariest enemies are not creatures with sharp talons and teeth, aliens with super-powerful weapons, or enormous dinosaurs with powerful jaws but the prospect of losing ourselves and those we love by having everything that makes them individuals erased by some sort of emotionless collective mind.

Unfortunately, it also reminds us that a scary premise and a top-notch cast are not enough to make a good movie. This movie does to the original Jack Finney story what the alien virus what-not does to the characters -- it sucks out all of the energy and spirit. Where the original earned its thrills through good old-fashioned psychological terror, this one substitutes a couple of "boo!" moments and some gross-out effects. In the original, as people slept, their duplicates grew silently in alied pods. In this one, the virus that turns people into drone-like automatons is transmitted by -- projectile vomit. Ew. And in this one, first-class performers better known for Shakespeare are covered with slime and barf on each other. Ewww.

The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers was a brilliantly terrifying film that resonated and illuminated the issues of its time. Liberals claimed it as theirs, arguing that it portrayed the consequence of soulless conformity. Conservatives said it was a parable about the dangers of communism. The 1978 version (rated PG) was directed by Philip Kaufman ("The Right Stuff") and features Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams in a post-me-decade take on individualism vs. the community. In 1994, another version, this time called Body Snatchers (and rated R) was released. That version is less a political analogy than a reflection of a teenager's conflicts over identity and separation.

And now this one which is sort of about...national security? Would it be worth it to give up our individuality and ability to feel emotions to gain what every Miss America claims as her platform, world peace? That might be worth thinking about, but thinking is something this film does not do. If it did, perhaps it could tell us how someone could avoid an impenetrable roadblock keeping anyone from leaving Washington DC by buying a ticket and taking the train. Or how sometimes the infected creatures seem to share one consciousness and other times they do not. Or why the bad guys check everyone's IDs but don't seem to notice that one of them has the name of someone from their Most Wanted list.

Reportedly, this film was retooled with new directors after an earlier version did not pass muster with focus groups, and some scary stuff was added in. It only serves to make the story more disjointed. The action sequences are dull and the story does not work at face value or as metaphor. It was a great mistake to remove intentionality from the threat, which weakens the story further. Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam, and Roger Rees look great (except when Rees is covered with slime and creeping along the floor like Regan in "The Exorcist"), but their greatest achievement as performers in this film is hiding what must have been strong emotions about appearing in this film. Someone should check the basement of the studio for pods.

Parents should know that this is a creepy thriller with graphic shots, some jump-out-at-you surprises, chases, suicide, and some gross-out effects. There are bloody wounds, corpses, adults and children in peril, and bodies covered with ooze. Characters shoot guns, crash cars, and hit each other with various blunt objects. A child gives an adult a shot with a syringe into the heart. There is brief strong language.

Families who see this movie should talk about the Russian ambassador's statement that "in the right situation we are each capable of terrible crimes." What evidence does the movie have for and against that view? How does this version of the movie attempt to reflect our times?

Families who like this movie will also like the book , the original version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the 1978 version with Donald Sutherland, the 1994 version, or The Faculty. This film continues the tradition of putting alumni of the original in small parts. Actor Kevin McCarthy and director Don Siegel from the original appear briefly in the 1978 version. And one of that film's stars, Veronica Cartwright, appears in this one as Mrs. Lenk.

A grislier exploration of some of the same themes is in Night of the Living Dead and its remakes and sequels. The classic children's book A Wrinkle in Time also deals with the same issues.

This farm team follow-up to "Daddy Day Care" puts Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Paul Raye as Charlie and Phil, the parts originated by Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garlin. Note that the ads proclaim this is "from the studio" that gave...

Aria Wallace plays Roxy Hunter, a clever young sleuth whose persistance and inquisitiveness sometimes gets her into trouble but often solves mysteries. I interviewed Ms. Wallace via email. What's the best thing about playing Roxy Hunter? I love the different...

Hal (Reece Thompson) has something say but he has a lot of trouble saying it. On the bus, he can practice asking for pizza, but when it comes to the moment and he is standing in the cafeteria line, he...

"U2 in 3D" doesn't just give you the feeling of being at a rock concert. It gives you the feeling of being a rock star. Super-big, super-close, super-clear, and super-charged, it broke the record for the most 3-D cameras used...

Raya Green (Rutina Wesley) has to go back home because her Caribbean immigrant parents can no longer afford the tuition at her tony private school. They spent that money on drug rehab for Raya's sister. But they were unable to...

Heath Ledger's death is a terrible loss. He was an actor of great sensitivity and commitment. Most of the appreciations and obituaries focus on his Oscar-nominated performance in Brokeback Mountain Dana Stevens of Slate has a beautiful tribute that emphasizes...

There is undeniable little girl appeal in this story of a big, selfish meanie of a quarterback who is tamed by the 8-year-old daughter he never knew he had. Some audiences will find it as sugary as a fruit-scented princess...

Crazy times require crazy tactics. And so just because the UN can't seem to find Bosnia's most notorious war criminal does not mean that a gonzo journalist shouldn't track him down for an interview. Based on a 2002 Esquire Magazine...

Writer-director-editor-actor John Sayles has made some of the most consistently literate, subtle, and engaging films of the last three decades, including The Secret of Roan Inish, Lone Star, Casa de los Babys, Passion Fish, and Eight Men Out. I...

This updated fairy tale has some clever riffs on “Snow White” but never makes use of the considerable talents of its star, Amanda Bynes. Sydney (Bynes) is a college freshman who wants to join Kappa, the most exclusive sorority on...

Yes, most critics love to read what our colleagues think about movies. And so I spend time just about every day on the wonderful Rotten Tomatoes website, the best place to read what everyone has to say, from Roger...

Jane has a special closet in her apartment filled with 27 dresses so ugly that only two things can be true: (1) they were all bridesmaid's dresses, and that means (2) all 27 brides assured her that they could...

Andrew Neel and Luke Meyer are the writer-directors of an exceptionally entertaining and engrossing film called "Darkon," a documentary about LARPers -- participants in live action role-playing games. Think of a mash-up between Civil War reenactors, a "Star Trek" convention,...

At age 10, following an awkward Spin the Bottle encounter, a little goth girl puts a hex on Charlie so that he will be surrounded by love but never find it himself. But it is the audience who will feel...

If Sophocles knew that this would be the result, he would never have allowed "Oedipus" to see the light of day. "Mr. Woodcock" is an Oedipal comedy about a man who loves his mother and who becomes very, very upset...

Caitlan Flanagan's elegant prose and exceptional grasp of vital detail make it easy to miss the single most important fact about what she writes -- her absence of any insight about anything outside her own experience and her own head....

At Ted Talks, J.J. Abrams spoke about his lifelong love of mystery because of its "infinite possibility and a sense of potential" and how that passion influences his creation of stories like Lost and the upcoming movie "Cloverfield." And here...

The Veggie Tales have produced a series of popular computer-animated videos for children and their families, with fruit and vegetable-inspired characters in engaging and funny stories with gentle moral overtones. Their new feature film does not mention God, as the...

Regina Hall has been the best thing in many movies that were either not worthy of her talents (the "Scary Movie" series), overlooked (Malibu's Most Wanted), or just plain awful ("The Honeymooners," "King's Ransom"). She has an extraordinary ability to...

Be sure to check out the new Beliefnet Discussion Group on the Best Spiritual Films of last year and let us hear about the movies that inspired and nourished you....

Ice Cube was once a member of the fiercely provocative gangsta rap group N.W.A. (for N****** With Attitude). He is now a prolific Hollywood producer with franchise films from R-rated (the Friday series) to family-friendly (Are We There Yet?)....

Another highlight of my visit in Los Angeles was a personal tour from Harry Medved, co-author of the wonderful Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer's Guide to Exploring Southern California's Great Outdoors. Harry drove me around Santa Monica to show me the...

Last night, my husband and I attended our first-ever red carpet event, the Critics Choice Awards, which were broadcast on VH1. It was a lot of fun, especially the end, when all of the critics went up on stage...

Watch the Critics Choice Awards hosted by D.L. Hughley tonight on VH1 and look for me in the silver dress!...

Before there were scary movies, there were scary plays. Before there were scary plays, there were scary stories. Scary has been very popular for a very long time. The top twenty box office champs are all scary, from Titanic to...

It opens with a scorching contrast of light and darkness. Alone at the bottom of a dark pit, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) stubbornly scratches and claws in the mud. High above, a pitiless sun bleaches a remote desert landscape. Plainview...

Scott Bowles in USA Today quoted me in his story about performances that should not be overlooked by Oscar voters. I'd add Joseph Gordon-Levitt (and the rest of the cast, who were all brilliant) in The Lookout and Irfan Kahn...

It is a shame that Will Smith's reasonable comments have been taken out of context and he has been forced to apologize. Here is what he said: Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing...

Writer-director Michael Davis has stripped the action movie down to its essence in a mind-blowing mash-up fueled with testosterone, adrenaline, and weapons-grade plutonium. No esoteric references in the title. No Robert McKee-mandated 10 pages at the beginning to make us...