The 11th Hour
dir. Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners
Leonardo DiCaprio produced and narrates this documentary about
environmental collapse. You’re forgiven for assuming it’s the sort of
abject offering an acolyte would make to his sage—you know, an
expensive token offered in exchange for Al Gore having referred to him
as “my friend Leo” from a number of prominent daises.
But never mind that. Leo shows up in a couple of quick shots,
looking pudgy and worried, and then he makes way for the experts.
The 11th Hour is dedicated not to Al Gore or to any other
prophet, but to information—loads of it. I don’t know what the
average shot length is here, but I’d hazard a guess that it’s half that
of a normal documentary. Cascades of disturbing images (oil fires,
exhaust, floods, famine-hollowed people, forest fires) pump up your
adrenaline, and then you’re dumped into the laps of such eminent
scholars as Stephen Hawking and such best-selling authors as Bill
McKibben. There is the occasional spurt of New Age nonsense, but the
film moves so fast you won’t be irritated for long. And though this
method may sound ADD, some of the sound bites are essays unto
themselves.
Structured as a history of human civilization, the film takes
evolution for granted (no small blessing in this era of tight-lipped
IMAX pseudoscience) and tracks the population explosion through the
industrial revolution to today. Quickly dismantling conservative
efforts to downplay global warming, The 11th Hour moves on to
more specialized topics, like the threat of ocean stagnation and the
relative merits of energy alternatives. The concrete and warring policy
proposals that crowd the end of the film are exactly what you were
thirsting for at the end of An Inconvenient Truth. This isn’t
just a good movie; it’s a smart one. And that’s about the highest
praise I can give. ANNIE WAGNER
2 Days in Paris
dir. Julie Delpy
Romantic comedies have become so routine, so processed, so horribly
unfunny, that Julie Delpy’s hilarious and astute 2 Days in
Paris carries a jolt of surprise. The movie follows
Franco-American couple Marion (Delpy, the most unaffected of pretty
French actresses) and Jack (Adam Goldberg, in a major comic
performance) on a stopover in Marion’s hometown. Those who think it’s
another Julie-Delpy-and-scruffy-American-in-Europe-walk-and-talkathon,
à la Before Sunrise/set, are wrong. Here, the
writer-director-star is more interested in dissecting the specific ways
cultural and linguistic differences trip up relationships than she is
in playing up wistful romance or City of Lights nostalgia. The Paris
that Marion and Jack encounter isn’t that of moonlit strolls along the
Seine (amen!); it’s a real city, teeming with noise, tension, music,
strange food, assholes on the metro—and, to Jack’s dismay, many
of Marion’s exes, as well as her eccentric family.
2 Days in Paris is about how Jack reacts to this whirlwind
tour of his girlfriend’s past, and how Marion navigates the collision
of her two worlds. It may sound modest, but the movie catapults itself
into another class thanks to a lived-in quality (the
writer-director-star is herself a Paris native who has been stateside
for 15 years) and a furious comic rhythm. Delpy, finding cores of truth
in clichés about Ugly Americans and temperamental Frenchies,
writes dialogue that’s a delirious blend of bawdy French farce and
Woody Allenish neurosis. As for she and Goldberg, who apparently used
to be an item, they just might be the prickliest, most luscious screen
couple we’ve had in ages. And so what if the writer-director-star
indulges in a few cutesy Amélie-esque flourishes? Delpy
has made something rare: a romantic comedy that feels spontaneous and
handcrafted, rather than shat out by a studio and a couple of stars.
JON FROSCH
Resurrecting the Champ
dir. Rod Lurie
Blatantly uplifting in intent, Resurrecting the Champ is
rescued from bland melodrama oblivion thanks to sharp performances from
Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Hartnett. Jackson plays “Champ,” a one-time
contender whose path post-fighting ended on the streets of downtown
Denver. Long forgotten and assumed dead, Champ—who fought under
the name “Battling” Bob Satterfield—is unearthed by reporter Erik
Kernan (Hartnett), whose unimaginative copy (“A lot of typing, not much
writing…”) has kept him sequestered in the back of the sports pages
of the Denver Times. Believing Champ’s hard-knocks story will
be his big break, Kernan pitches a long profile above his pay grade,
pens the article of his career, and is launched into the limelight.
Then things turn ugly.
For a flick saddled with all the usual “based on a true story”
trappings, Resurrecting the Champ turns out to be surprisingly
effective. Director Rod Lurie (The Contender) occasionally
relies on too many Raging Bull–inspired popping
flashbulbs, and his blocking inside the ring could use work, but for
the most part he keeps his direction low-key and unobtrusive, allowing
his actors to breathe substantial life into their characters. It helps
that Jackson keeps his usual bombast well in check, and his play with
Hartnett—whose performance in Brian De Palma’s The Black
Dahlia was one of the film’s few highlights—is natural and
smartly understated. Mix in support from Alan Alda, Kathryn Morris, and
an unrecognizable Peter Coyote, and it all adds up to a feel-good drama
that won’t make you feel overly manipulated for caring.
Resurrecting the Champ proves that square, earnest movies not
only survive, they can still hit all the right spots. BRADLEY
STEINBACHER
September Dawn
dir. Christopher Cain
The most blatant piece of anti-Mormon propaganda since Napoleon
Dynamite (gotcha!), September Dawn is a soap-operatized
account of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, a horrific 1857 event in
which one early Mormon settlement trickily murdered an entire wagon
train for no reason. In a meaningless coincidence referred to as
“ironic” by many dumbasses, the massacre occurred on September 11. The
movie contends that Brigham Young himself (Terence Stamp, sporting a
beard of pleasant ringlets) ordered the killings. Modern-day Mormons
take the opposite position. Mitt Romney is deeply annoyed.
But don’t worry, Mittzles! The aggressive absurdity of September
Dawn discredits the shit out of all your mean Latter Day haters.
First of all, it’s narrated by a BABY (a literal infant!) who,
admittedly, doesn’t remember much: “But I remember feelings!” Um, ‘kay.
Worst writing ever. Then there’s Jon Voight, as a crazy person,
who—when he’s not busy bloviatin’—rides around in his
Mormon buggy (OF DEATH) and cries about dead old Joseph Smith.
Next we have Smith, played (in flashbacks) by that raven-haired
cherub of the Sci Fi Channel, Dean “This is a joke, right?” Cain (son
of director Christopher Cain).
Speaking of Napoleon Dynamite, September Dawn also
stars, weirdly, UNCLE FUCKING RICO, whom I love but cannot take
seriously. And I’ve never laughed harder than during the final massacre
montage, when Jon Voight’s huge red face, shiny with righteous rage, is
superimposed over an endlessly repeating loop of babies being stabbed
in the head. There’s also a really stupid love story, a
horse-whisperin’ Morm (“I think that boy does speak horse!”), and the
most clichéd death scene in the history of death.
Aaaanyway, long story embarrassing, these filmmakers earnestly
believe that their movie makes a statement about modern-day religious
extremism. Whatever. Only a very special film could reap hilarity from
hitting a baby with a sword. September Dawn wins. You lose.
LINDY WEST
The Nanny Diaries
dir. Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini
Like the ridiculously successful The Devil Wears Prada, the
chick flick The Nanny Diaries assumes, first, that you want to
see how the upper sliver of society lives, and second, that you hunger
to see its corrupt morals torn to shreds. What looks like explosive
class hatred turns, inevitably, into a pathetic defense of bourgeois
values. Big surprise, I know. But The Nanny Diaries is from
the filmmakers of the craggy American Splendor; it stars
Scarlett Johansson and Laura Linney. I had hoped for something
interesting.
Johansson plays the luscious Annie Braddock, a recent college grad
from New Jersey who’s trying to avoid landing a job in finance. She’d
prefer to work as an anthropologist, and in a cutesy but harmless
effect, the people she encounters on the streets of Manhattan are
zapped into natural-history dioramas. One day, while walking in Central
Park, she saves a little boy from imminent death and is rewarded with a
job as a live-in nanny for a rich, heartless bitch named Mrs. X (Laura
Linney).
Life in the X household is awful! The kid is the worst, Annie isn’t
allowed to date the hot Harvard grad from upstairs, and her mounting
lifestyle lust is making it difficult for her to relate to her token
black best friend (Alicia Keys). Soon enough, however, Annie falls in
love with the adorable kid and begins to sympathize with Mrs. X, who is
being cuckqueaned (the antiquated female equivalent of being
cuckolded—I’m trying to bring it back) at every turn. Complicated
feelings ensue, but nothing, in the end, can erase the fact that the
rich are criminally negligent, kids suffer under the care of temporary
nannies, and if you don’t spend at least half the day coddling your
child and teaching him French, you’re a bad mother. ANNIE WAGNER
