THE DARK KNIGHT RISES: Why It Might Rock, and Why It Might Not ...!

- This weekend, like many of you, I finally saw the trailer for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, and, like many of you, I promptly needed a change of pants. The trailer is amazing, no question - the sheer anticipation for the movie, mixed with the ridiculous amounts of geek-out-worthy gravitas that Christopher Nolan and co. bring to to table - make for an absolutely jaw-dropping, chill-inducing first look at next year's most anticipated movie.

And already, the fanboys and fangirls are out in full force analyzing the trailer, the prologue (playing only in select theaters prior to Mission Impossible in IMAX), and the movie in general. One thing about Nolan is - he is a man who takes risks and who does things his way. Both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight raised eyebrows with unusual aesthetics, curious casting, and stylistic choices that didn't always press the right fanboy buttons upon first glance. I think with Nolan, his movies come at you with such force, with such dramatic intensity, that it ultimately becomes pretty easy to forget about any flaws and just get swept away in the awesomeness. I mean, with The Dark Knight, I could list out dozens of individual moments, plot points, or acting choices that I wasn't a huge fan of. But I still consider the movie to be a tour de force - an amazing cinematic achievement - because on the whole it's just that badass of a film.

And yet ... take away the once-in-a-lifetime performance from Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, and you wonder if some of those nagging flaws might begin to overpower the movie's strengths. And therein lies the source of trepidation going into RISES ... what if it's not great?

I know, I know, it seems impossible. But once upon a time, it seemed impossible that Spiderman 3 could be anything but awesome. And the thing is, to me The Dark Knight is sort of like a great sports team that wins the championship. Even though they were great and succeeded, everyone's already picking them apart, finding their flaws, and wondering about their chances for next season.

So let me break it down this way: here are 5 reasons why THE DARK KNIGHT RISES might kick ass, and 5 reasons why, well, maybe not so much.

FIVE REASONS THE DARK KNIGHT RISES MIGHT BE AMAZING:

1.) Christopher Nolan

- Nolan is the #1 commodity that this franchise has. In his relatively short career, he's yet to direct a bad movie. He has an uncanny ability to take crazy-ass source material and give it weight, heft, grittiness, and a sense of real-world authenticity. He doesn't know how to make a non-epic movie, and his movies, to the last, always manage to possess a thematic depth that goes above and beyond what we typically see in big Hollywood blockbusters. Part of what made Batman Begins and The Dark Knight work so well were the layers of psychological depth and social commentary that Nolan infused them with. Nolan's also got something to prove here - that he can go 3-for-3 and avoid the problems of other big action franchises. Rest assured, Nolan wants to go out with a bang.

2.) Tom Hardy

- Very, very quickly, Tom Hardy has become a rising star in Hollywood, and it's to the point now where the thought of him facing off against Christian Bale in an epic war of hero vs. villain is enough to make film fans excited. Between his roles in Inception, Warrior, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, I am now fully onboard the Hardy bandwagon. In Warrior in particular, we got a glimpse of what Hardy-as-Bane might be like. In that film, the actor played an ultra-intense, ultra-violent fighter who overpowered opponents with sheer, unchecked brutality. Sound familiar? Hardy as Bane could very well be a villain for the ages.

3.) An Epic Conclusion

- Expanding on a point I made above, Nolan, Bale, and others have all very strongly, likely definitively, stated that this will be their last Batman flick. Now, never say never, I suppose, but in all likelihood this is the last entry in this particular iteration of Batman. With that in mind, we might get something we rarely see in superhero movies, or in the comics for that matter - closure. Batman by necessity has always starred in open-ended adventures. The villains are always captured, only to escape again. Batman is injured, but never killed. And Gotham remains as plagued by crime as ever. Little changes in the world of Batman. But what if that wasn't the case? What if Nolan's third film does change things up in a big way? Knowing that this is his last run with Batman, maybe Nolan rids Gotham of crime, or maybe he makes it into a true hell on earth. Maybe Batman is killed, replaced, retired, or maimed? Maybe, as in the comics, Bane breaks the Bat, but this time, the damage is permanent. The fact that this is likely a conclusion to this particular Batman story leaves open some exciting and unpredictable story possibilities.

4.) Surprises

- I said this movie could be unpredictable, and it's true. We still know remarkably little about the actual plot of the film, or how the various characters fit together. We don't yet know Bane's backstory - is it the same as in the comics, or altered? How about Selina Kyle / Catwoman? Will we see something similar to Frank Miller's Year One, or something totally new? Most intriguing are the story elements we still know absolutely nothing about. There's all sorts of rumors - Talia Al Ghul, for one - but it will be fascinating to see how the movie plays out. Will there be unexpected links to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises? Will villains other than Bane and Catwoman cameo? Those are the obvious questions, but then there are the more subtle surprises that pop up in these films, because Nolan tends to tell his stories in such unconventional ways. I mean, I was shocked and awed when I first saw the prologue to The Dark Knight. I thought I had some idea of what to expect, but never in a million years did I expect one of the film's most riveting sequences to not even involve Batman, instead pitting the ultra-badass William Fichtner against an army of The Joker's goons. My god.

5.) Batman vs. Bane

- One thing that excites me about this film is that it presents something we haven't really seen in a Batman movie to date - Batman vs. a villain who coud kick his ass in a fight. Sure, Ras Al Ghul and The Joker were physical threats to some degree, but Bane, presumably, is going to be a guy who forces Batman to show why he is the best at what he does. To date, we haven't really seen that. I want to see a Batman who, as in the comics, is a master martial-artist, a master strategist, and "the world's greatest detective." I am hoping that all of those elements come into play in The Dark Knight Rises, but at the least, we're more than likely in for one hell of a smackdown.

FIVE REASONS THE DARK KNIGHT RISES MIGHT BE ... NOT SO AMAZING.

1.) Nolan, Women, and Catwoman

- If you had to point to one glaring weakness of Nolan's Bat-films so far, it would have to be their relatively weak female characters. Part of the problem was the casting - neither Katie Holmes nor Maggie Gyllenhaal really felt like they fit in the universe of Nolan's films, and neither had much if any chemistry with Christian Bale. But more so than the iffy casting, the inherent problem is that Batman has never been a character that works with a conventional love interest. He's a lone-wolf, and he's too driven and obsessed to hold down a normal relationship. That's why Catwoman has always been a fun foil for Batman in the comics - she represents everything that's messed-up about his love life, in that the one woman who really gets him and who gets his Bat-signals a-twitchin' is a semi-villainous, morally-challenged criminal. I pray that Nolan gets that, and doesn't turn Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle into a more conventional love interest. Already, I'm a little concerned with the casting of Hathaway - she seems way too girl-next-door to play a kick-ass femme fatale. But even if Hathaway nails the part and is physically-convincing, it's still going to take a very skillful script to make Catwoman work as a character. Based on Nolan's track-record with female leads, I'm a little worried.

2.) The Costumes and The Voices

- Okay, some might consider this one relatively minor, but I'm a Batman nerd, so I pay attention to this stuff. But costume issues could be a very noticeable distraction from the story and action if they are egregious. If Anne Hathaway ends up looking like a biker with a bluetooth headset (as she did in the production stills), then it's going to be a lot harder for me to get behind her as Catwoman. Similarly, I'm a little concerned about Bane. Okay, in the comics he looked like a roided-up Mexican wrestler, but to my 12-year-old self he still looked super-badass. I'm a little worried that Bane now looks, well, off. And I'm also a little worried about the whole voice issue. Let's face it, Bale's Batman voice has always been a little silly, but I was able to get past it most of the time. But if he's squaring off against a similarly strangely-voiced Bane, it could just be too much. I'm really hoping that Nolan and Hardy know what they're doing in making Bane sound incomprehensibly raspy.

3.) The Arkham City Factor

- In the years since The Dark Knight, a number of new takes on Batman have surfaced in other mediums. There's Grant Morrison's comic book reimagining as Batman as a sci-fi superhero James Bond, Scott Snyder's uber-dark detective version, the goofy Brave & the Bold cartoon show, and, perhaps most prominently, the Arkham Asylum and Arkham City videogames. Those games - penned by Animated Series co-creator Paul Dini - feel like the 90's Animated Series on acid. Its reinterpretations of Batman and his villains feel classic-yet-warped, and the neon-lit, grim n' gritty aesthetic is uber-cool. Most interestingly, Arkham City places Batman firmly in a dark but fantastical comic book universe where anything goes, and it's in stark contrast to the more real-world vision of Nolan and co. And I have to say, a big part of me is sort of over Nolan's take, and wants to see a more stylized, neo-noir Batman that's more in the spirit of the comics. I'm very curious if The Dark Knight Rises may suffer a bit in comparison to the smash-hit games that have very quickly become the defining version of Batman for the masses.

4.) Choppy Editing

- It's another element of the first two Bat-flicks that people griped about, but that most were able to ultimately overlook. But it still holds true that a lot of Nolan's action and fight scenes suffered from editng issues. Nolan is great with individual images, and with creating an overall sense of epic intensity. But there's yet to be a truly standout fight scene in his Batman films. For some reason, Nolan tends to shoot most scenes in a very bold, classical manner, but his fight scenes suffer from shaky-cam overload. In a movie that promises Batman's most physical challenge yet, I'm really hoping that Nolan creates elegant, kickass fight scenes that pack emotion and drama into every hit.

5.) The Studio Pressure

- Nolan is one of the few directors that tends to have free reign to do what he wants, even in a mega-budget action film like The Dark Knight Rises. But still, with so much riding on this film, and with so much pressure to match the box-office success of The Dark Knight, you've got to figure that there were plenty of suits in Nolan's ear during pre-production and production on this one. And so you've got to wonder: to what extent will this film be purely Nolan's vision? Already, you've got to wonder a bit when you look at some of the casting. I mean, nothing against Anne Hathaway, but was she really Nolan's top choice to be Catwoman, or was it studio pressure to get a big-name female lead into the film? And we've all seen what happens in superhero films when multiple villains are shoehorned into the story - it very rarely is ideal. All I know is, we've seen plenty of big franchises derailed by misguided casting choices, studio interference, and a system in which sequels get made more because it makes sense financially than because all involved are passionate about it. And that goes both ways. For example, I'm sure that Warners and DC sense the positive fan response to what Marvel is doing with The Avengers and their interlocked movie continuity. And I'm sure they'd love to use The Dark Knight Rises as a platform to build up a true DC movie universe. But Nolan and Bale have both expressed a lack of interest in that sort of interconnectivity. So like I said, these things can go both ways. At the end of the day, you just hope that the best vision wins out and makes it up on screen. It's a minor miracle that Batman Begins and The Dark Knight turned out so great. Can lighting strike three times? We shall have to wait and see.

- So what do you think? Are you unconditionally excited for DKR? Do you have some trepidation? Are you already thinking about a new trilogy inspired by Arkham City, or Batman as an HBO series that could do a 12-part Knightfall arc straight from the comics? Or are you still cleaning up the mess you made after seeing the trailer?

THE ARTIST: Nostalgia, Cinema, and Art

THE ARTIST Review:

- Once upon a time, Hollywood was a true dream factory. In those early days of cinema, stories were told that were simple, bold, and larger than life. Movies have evolved much since the era of silent cinema, and there's no doubt that movies have gotten deeper, more complex, and more textured, as the medium constantly grows in its sophistication. Of course, the downside of that evolution is that so many movies today are sheer sensory assault. The building blocks of film - ideas, characters, emotions - often get lost amidst a sea of CGI-enhanced sound and fury. Every so often, it's nice to be reminded of the very basic magic that lies at the core of the movies - the simple pleasures that were derived from the mere act of seeing a story play out on a big screen - the magic inherent in the fact that, somehow, we find ourselves invested in these people and stories projected before us. A few weeks ago, I saw Hugo, and it was a poignant reminder of the history and magic of the movies. And now, I can attest to the fact that THE ARTIST holds within it a similar magic. This is a modern film that harkens back to the Silent Era - an homage and love letter to those old movies, but with a distinctly modern and slightly meta spin. Like many of you, I was a bit skeptical about my ability to enjoy this movie. A silent movie? Really? And as the film began, it was bit jarring, I'll admit, to readjust to this very different style of storytelling. As the movie went on though, I realized that something strange had happened - I was totally absorbed, completely invested in these characters. The Artist had worked its spell - I felt transported to another time. The movie, like those old silent films, was big, unsubtle ... and yet, I felt like The Artist was an argument for the primal power of the films of that bygone era. What was old was new again, and somehow, some way, The Artist stands as one of the best films I've seen this year.

French actor Jean Dujardin plays George Valentin, a star of silent films of the 1920's. When we first meet George, he's on top of the world - beloved by all, the king of Hollywood (or Hollywoodland, as the sign said back then). However, as the years go by, silent films give way to talkies, and George finds himself a relic of a quickly fading era. He's been supplanted by a new wave of movie stars - chief among them the vivacious Peppy Miller - played by Berenice Bejo. Peppy actually got her start in the movies when she met George as a young fan. In fact, when she was photographed planting an enthusiastic kiss on him, it set off a minor scandal that didn't sit well with George's cold fish of a wife. But Peppy's brush with fame inspired her to try her luck in Hollywood, and she landed her first role as a backup dancer in one of George's films. Soon enough, the charismatic actress was headlining early talkie films, even as George's career was dying a slow and ugly death. Refusing to change with the times, George begins a downward spiral. Will the legendary actor reclaim his mojo and shine again? And is the era of silent films, the era that George embodies, lost forever? These are the questions that The Artist poses, and the answers are funny, heartfelt, and endlessly entertaining.

Director Michel Hazanavicius has crafted a movie that is simply gorgeous to look at. The black-and-white cinematography is unbelievably done, and the artistry of many of the shots evokes an earlier time when more care was given to how every scene in a movie was framed. The Artist evokes the movies of the 1920's so completely that it really is like a time-machine, and there's something about the world that Hazanavicius creates that's just completely immersive. I was also impressed with how well he effortlessly switches from moments of bombastic drama to moments of lighthearted comedy. There really is a little of everything here - moments of true darkness, of lightness, of romance, humor, and even some action. There's also a really fascinating, subversively meta streak to the film, where Hazanavicius gets to have fun with the silent movie conceit and throw in a few curveballs, breaking the fourth wall a bit. Without spoiling anything, let's just say that yes, spoken dialogue and audible sound-effects *are* used sparingly in a way that makes sense in the context of the story - but it's done in a way that's totally surprising and clever, and even a little surreal. But one thing I'll say about The Artist, there is some kind of crazy magic to it. I can't count how many times I've rolled my eyes at cheesy Hollwood romance in films ... but something about this unabashed bigness and boldness of the relationship between George and Peppy really worked for me and had me rooting for them. Trust me, you probably don't think that, here in 2011, a silent film could get you this emotionally invested, but The Artist pulls it off.

And man, the cast here is just superb. Like most of you, I wasn't familiar at all with the two leads - but both completely shine. Jean Dujardin has so much charisma and charm that you can't help but pull for the guy. He comes off like he really is some lost film star from the 20's or 30's - he completely gets how to act in a silent film and get maximum reaction. It's a stunning performance, and in many ways it sort of blew me away. Nearly as good in my mind was Berenice Bejo as Peppy. She feels a little more modern than Dujardin's George, but she still has charisma to spare and a true million-dollar smile. There's a chemistry between them that really works, and I'm sure the comparisons will be made to the great screen pairs of days gone by. Interestingly, the supporting cast contains some very familiar faces, each of whom does a fantastic job. John Goodman is awesome as Al Zimmer, the Hollywood mogul who dumps George for Peppy. But I expected Goodman to nail it. I was more surprised by the fact that James Cromwell totally kills it as Clifton, George's loyal butler, the stalwart Alfred to George's Bruce Wayne. Who knew?

Like I said, it took me a little while to get used to the rhythms and style of the film, but soon enough I found myself lost in its black-and-white world. It must also be said that the orchestral score is absolutely phenomenal, and is practically a character in the film. The music syncs perfectly with the on-screen action to create a very different dynamic than what you see in modern movies. It's a return to the very basic building blocks of cinema, and it's a reminder at how a great story can be told simply yet still get us emotionally involved and invested. Yes, one can make comparisons between The Artist and certain classic silent films, but to me this is not simply one more silent film. More than just a relic of another time, The Artist wryly comments on the silent film era, mixing history with nostalgia and throwing in a metatextual sense of self-awareness for good measure.

The Artist is a wholly unique film that, I guarantee, is completely different than anything else you've seen in a theater this year. And yet, despite seeming like an oddity, it's got all the classic ingredients that, even today, are what make movies great - stunning visuals, fascinating characters, pathos, romance, danger, tragedy, comedy, and emotion. Some things, I guess, are simply timeless.

My Grade: A

Flying High With MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL Review:

- If there's one big takeaway from the new MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, it's this: Brad Bird is one hell of an action director, and he's made the leap from animation to live-action seamlessly and impressively. This is a guy that can clearly handle huge-scale action-adventure and do so with a potent mix of modern slickness and old-school grandeur. It's been a while since I've seen an action movie that really wowed me with the sheer awesomeness of its stunt-work, and MI4 is often breathtaking in that regard - especially on an IMAX screen. All in all, this is a super-solid action flick, with a great cast and a lot of fun set pieces. It's not a movie with any sort of mind-blowing plot or ultra-high intensity, but as a visually-stunning popcorn flick, it's aces.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol finds Ethan Hunt and his team on the hunt for a rogue villain known as Cobalt - a man who feels it is his duty to cause a new extinction event by instigating nuclear war. To do that, he's commandeered Russian nuclear launch codes, and is planning an elaborate series of incidents engineered to re-escalate old hostilities between the US and Russia. The endgame, of course, is to spark an all-out nuclear war that would "thin the herd" of humanity.

So yes, the plot, and much of the movie for that matter, is fairly implausible. But the movie is well-paced and so action-packed that it never really pauses to dwell on the politics of it all. Instead, the thrust here is how Ethan Hunt must learn to work with his makeshift squad of IMF agents, who - after being framed for an attack on the Kremlin - are now working under "ghost protocol" - aka, they've gone dark and officially, they don't exist. Hunt (Tom Cruise) must re-team with his old tech-guy, Benji (the always-great Simon Pegg), as well as with new team addition Jane (the formidable - and curvaceous - Paula Patton), and agent-turned-analyst-turned-agent-again, Brandt (Jeremy Renner). Brandt has a somewhat mysterious past with Ethan, and that's a source of tension throughout the film. But the other thing with Brandt is that he's got to re-learn how to kick ass in the field after trading in his guns for a suit-and-tie.

As far as action-movie chemistry goes, this is one hell of a team of actors that's been assembled. Tom Cruise brings his blockbuster A-game, attacking every scene and action-sequence with total intensity. Cruise infuses the film with a sense of nonstop momentum, and believably fashions Ethan Hunt as a guy who won't stop moving, attacking, chasing, or fighting until his last breath. Pegg is always perfect as a source of comic relief, and he gets off some good lines and is, as always, a scene stealer. And Paula Patton seems so at home here that it seems crazy that she hasn't been in more action films. She effortlessly kicks ass, takes names, and looks good doing it, and feels totally credible as a badass agent of the Impossible Mission Force. Jeremy Renner, of course, has very quickly become a top action star - always intense, charismatic, and with a level of psychological edge that makes him fun to watch. In this one, Renner gets to tackle some more humorous scenes as well, and he impresses with how well he adapts to the movie's lighter tone.

All that being said though, I do feel like the movie coasts a bit on the strength of these actors. I am a huge fan of all of these guys as action-movie stars, but as for the *characters* they play? I have to admit, most of these characters are pretty forgettable. Ethan Hunt has always been somewhat of a cypher - he's intense and driven, but beyond that, I don't know that he's ever had much of a personality or backstory. There's some story in this film having to do with his wife, but honestly, I'd forgotten that the character even had a wife. Patton's Jane, Pegg's Benji - neither one really has much depth for us to sink our teeth into. And Brandt - though Renner does a great job - also comes off as sort of a blank slate. Like, maybe it was just driven by the presence of 24's Anil Kapoor as a wealthy Indian playboy, but I kept wondering what this movie would be like if an iconic hero like, say, Jack Bauer was driving the action. Similarly, as a villain, I found Cobalt a bit lacking - his motives were suitably sinister, but he was also pretty bland as a Big Bad. One other thing that nagged at me a little: the fact that some awesome actors like Lost's Josh Halloway and the great Tom Wilkinson showed up for what amounted to just brief cameos. I think fans of Lost have been waiting a while to see what Halloway could do in a huge action film like this one, so it's too bad he plays such a small role. And Wilkinson - as the head of IMF, The Secretary - does little beyond utter the classic "... your mission, should you choose to accept it ..." line. Overall, what little characterization is given to us isn't anything all that interesting - there's just enough bits and pieces to give the characters something to talk about other than the particulars of their mission.

So the characters are pretty thin, and the plot a little convoluted and implausible ... but again, the reason to check this one out is the positively awesome action. Brad Bird steers the action from Russia to Dubai to India, and in each location there are one or two big highlights. Three or four of the big set-pieces in the film are just phenomenally done. The big showpiece is, of course, a crazy-ass scene in which Tom Cruise scales the sheer metallic side of the world's tallest building in Dubai, clinging to its side via a pair of experimental gecko-gloves that threaten to malfunction at any moment. The sense of size, scale, and vertigo-inducing height in this scene is incredible, and credit goes to Bird for shooting it so elegantly. And speaking of those gecko-gloves, MI4 uses gadgets and near-future tech in an often brilliant manner, with some of the coolest and most fun gadget geek-out moments I've seen in the movies in a while. Sure, the plot may at times feel implausible, but the gadgets all actually feel very plausible, and there's a huge gee-whiz factor at play here. One ultra-cool scene in which Cruise and Peg utilize a sheet-thin projection screen to play optical tricks on a guard at the Kremlin is fairly jaw-dropping, for example.

This is one that will be remembered for its stunning action. It's a nice return to giant-sized blockbuster films for Tom Cruise, and also firmly establishes Jeremy Renner and Paula Patton - I think - as mainstream action stars. Even more so, it announces that Brad Bird is the real deal when it comes to live-action action. I don't think there's enough depth here to push the film from the level of very good to great, but I do think there's plenty of reasons to run out and see this on the biggest big screen possible.

My Grade: B+

Getting to the Bottom of the SHERLOCK HOLMES Sequel

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS Review:

- The first film of this revamped Sherlock Holmes franchise was a cool, energetic flick that breathed some new life into a classic character. Director Guy Ritchie's slick sensibilities made for an odd-but-interesting match with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary creations, and the charisma and chemistry of Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson made for a truly dynamic duo. However, a lot of what worked in the first film feels strained and stretched thin in the sequel. There's still some great interplay between RDJ and Law, and Ritchie still impresses with some cool action scenes. But everything seems so self-consciously dialed-up to 11 that it all gets to be a bit much. From moment one in this film, Downey's Holmes races through every scene at full speed, overwhelming every other character and never pausing to infuse the action with much in the way of dramatic weight or gravitas. And Ritchie, well ... I'm not sure what he's going for here, but he seems to be riding the high of getting away with being edgy and experimental in the first movie. Because, here, he just cuts loose, and that's not necessarily a good thing. The editing is frantic, and the action all-over-the-place, and it's hard to say how, exactly, the ADD-addled style fits with these characters or this story. There are, as I said, some really cool things layered into the film. But I also think that some stylistic lines are crossed that only serve to undermine the movie's potential.

A Game of Shadows follows the pattern of the Batman franchise, in that the Big Bad hinted at in Part 1 now takes center stage in Part 2. And that major threat is, of course, the nefarious Professor Moriarty. In the original Conan Doyle stories, Moriarty was ultimately introduced as an archnemesis to Holmes - he was Holmes' intellectual equal, and Holmes, recognizing the threat posed by Moriarty, vowed to hunt him down and put an end to his schemes no matter the cost. In this film, Moriarty - as played by Jared Harris - is sort of Lex Luthor-ish. To the public, he's an esteemed scholar and intellectual - and he's actually traveling around Europe under the guise of a book tour. Of course, there's a much more sinister reason for the Professor to be roaming around the continent, and the movie deals with Holmes' dogged quest to unravel and foil the professor's master plan. Here's the thing - I like the premise behind Moriarty's evil scheme, but at the end of the day, it's not that complicated, and there's not much mystery or ambiguity to it. The movie tries to keep up a pretense that this is all a mystery where Holmes has to connect all these dots and make these crazy connections. But really, it's less a mystery and more a Bond Villain-esque master plan with all the subtlety of a lead pipe to the face. Now, the film tries to get some mileage out of the involvement of a mysterious gypsy woman and her brother who find themselves entangles with Moriarty, but that whole angle never really goes anywhere and is mostly forgettable. Noomi Rapace, best known as the star of the Euro-versions of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo films, plays the gypsy Madam Simza. But it's a hollow character that is hard to care much about, and Rapace is given little to nothing to work with - and, surprisingly, not even a hint of romance with Holmes/RDJ. The only other prominent female character in the film is Rachel McAdams' Irene Adler, who I was surprised to see return after co-starring in the first film. Unfortunately, Adler's role is strictly to serve as a plot device that sets up Moriarty's evil agenda.

As for Moriarty, I have mixed feelings about Harris in the role. The guy is a fantastic actor - I'm mostly familiar with him via his work on the TV show Fringe, and I'm a big fan. But there is also sort of a mismatch in styles with him and RDJ. RDJ is just such a whirlwind in this movie that he overpowers just about everyone else, including the much subtler and less over-the-top Harris. Moriarty is supposed to be Holmes' equal but opposite number, but here it feels like the two are circling around two completely different orbits. That said, Harris' performance is excellent in and of itself. And when he's finally given a chance to go toe-to-toe with RDJ in the characters' climactic showdown, it's a pretty awesome clash of the intellectual titans. It just feels, though, like Harris belongs in a more serious, less silly version of this movie.

To me though, the character dynamic that's still strongest in the film is the relationship between Holmes and Watson. RDJ and Jude Law do witty banter like nobody's business, and many of the movie's highlights - and much of its humor - comes from the rapid-fire repartee between these two. I really enjoyed - especially at the beginning of the film - the angle that Watson is set to be married, and Holmes is worried that he's losing his partner in crime to the shackled existence of domestic responsibility. Law is in many ways the MVP of the film - he makes Watson into the movie's most interesting and multidimensional character, and the moments of subtlety he brings to the mix are welcome.

Meanwhile, the best new element of this sequel is, by far, the introduction of the great Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes, brother to Sherlock. Whereas Sherlock is a tightly-wound ball-of-neurotic energy, Mycroft is wryly funny, sarcastic, laid-back, and uncomfortably comfortable in his own skin (as evidenced by an extended nearly-nude scene for Fry). Fry is certainly a scene stealer, and is a hugely welcome addition to the cast.

Getting back to Guy Ritchie though ... I'm just not sure what was going on sometimes with the direction and editing in this one. There's frankly a messy and uneven quality at work here. On one hand, the scope of this movie - with Holmes and co. on a sprawling quest across Europe - demands that the movie capture a "bigness" you might not normally expect from a film about Sherlock Holmes. But big and epic is not really Ritchie's forte, and whereas the script seems to want things to go big, the visuals never quite capture that feeling in an effective or suitably awe-inspiring way. Then again, this is Sherlock Holmes and not Indiana Jones. So I'm not sure if Ritchie is trying to reign in the script or what, but it ends up feeling off somehow. At the same time, Ritchie is trying things here in the editing and directing that I just don't think work like he might have wanted. There's one sequence in particular - where our heroes are being pursued and shot at while running through a forest - that seemed to exemplify that feeling of "um, WTF, isn't this Sherlock Holmes, and not Transformers or The Matrix?" In this sequence, there's crazy, stop-and-start freeze frames, slo-mo bullet-time, crazy whirring sound effects that seem lifted from an alien-invasion movie, and, overall, an aesthetic that just doesn't fit. And I have to question why these choices were made. In the first film, it seemed like a novel idea to have these slickly-edited flash-forward montages that showed how Holmes thought through a plan before acting on it. But what was novel then seems overused and tiresome now, and I don't see why the quick-cut visual overload used in those scenes had to be utilized throughout the entire film. It all just smacks of trying too hard, and a lot of the scenes feel less polished and also less comprehensible than in the first film. Not every movie - particularly one about a Victorian-era detective - needs to look and feel like a next-gen videogame. Point being that, while Ritchie's stylistic flourishes were appreciated and mostly effective in the first film, here it's not so much flourishes as it is the entire film being directed in overdrive-mode.

I'll say this: much of this film is carried by the still-strong, often hilarious back-and-forth between Law and RDJ. Even as things drag in the middle section, even as other characters come and go without making much of an impression, these two together are always well worth watching. And eventually, the movie rallies after slumping for a bit, and delivers a fairly kickass final showdown between Holmes and Moriarty. There's enough here that's fun and entertaining to keep the movie watchable. But honestly, after this film I'm not sure if the franchise has legs. This one spirals into too much cartoonishness and craziness, and it made me want to see things get toned down and reigned in. Back to basics. In other words, elementary, my dear.

My Grade: B-

The Truth on YOUNG ADULT, Honest to Blog.

YOUNG ADULT Review:

- The sweet irony of YOUNG ADULT is that, even as it deals with a profoundly immature protagonist, it feels, in many ways, like the most mature movie to date from director Jason Reitman and writer Diablo Cody. I loved Juno, and never understood the backlash that surrounded it. But I did worry a bit, after seeing the Cody-penned Jennifer's Body. I actually liked it a lot, but it seemed like it might be sending the divisive screenwriter down a slippery slope. Would each of her scripts become more self-conciously quirky than the last? Would her movies become so jam-packed with non-sequitar catch-phrases so as to become mere self-parody? Well, worry not. Because the script to Young Adult is fantastic - it's quirky, but in a darkly comic, painfully authentic manner. The quirk here doesn't feel invented at all - but rooted in a very stark, wonderfully cynical reality that I think a lot of people will be able to relate to. Mavis Gary - brilliantly played by Charlize Theron - is both That Girl You Know, and that little voice in all of us (well, those of us who packed up from the suburbs and moved to the big city)that says we're better than our hometown and the people we grew up with. We all try to brainwash ourselves to some extent - tell ourselves that we're special, that we have great destinies, that we're meant for big things. And Mavis Gary is here to demonstrate the flipside of that equation. That maybe the ones who settled actually got it right. Maybe there's something to be said for happy contentment versus the sort of prolonged teen angst that someone like Mavis subjects herself to. It's all there in Young Adult, and it makes for a hilarious, smart, dark, deeply authentic and lived-in movie.

Young Adult follows the aformentioned Mavis Gray as she returns to her small hometown - the fictional Mercury, Minnesota - possessed by the notion that she can somehow win back Buddy, her old high school flame. This is, of course, paying little regard to the fact that Buddy is happily married and the father of a newborn baby. But Mavis is overcome with self-delusion. She sees herself as a conquering hero who was the queen of her high school, who's since gone out to the big city (er, Minneapolis) and become a successful author, living the sort of glamorous lifestlye that her old highschool pals could only dream of. In reality, she's a mere ghost writer on a series of young adult novels well past the peak of their popularity. She lives in a small, messy, high rise apartment. She binges on fast food and drinks Diet Coke from the bottle. She frequently passes out on her bed while watching bad reality TV. She's almost 40, divorced, no dating prospects, and pining for her high school days when she was queen-bitch, dating the most popular guy in school, and generally on top of the world (here is where me and Mavis greatly diverge, FYI).

Now, it would have been very easy to fill Young Adult with stock characters, and manipulate us to root for Mavis despite her issues. But that sort of cliche-driven stuff that's typical of most movies of this sort never happens. We see multiple facets of these characters. In some ways, Mavis does have it pretty good, and in some ways, she's right to think that her hometown is pretty depressing and worth escaping. And yet, Mavis has serious moral deficiencies, among other issues. Similarly, Buddy is a pretty cool dude who legitimately loves his wife, and his wife is a legitimately cool chick who loves Buddy. Again, it would have been easy to make one or both of them a cartoon character, but Cody and Reitman wisely avoid that temptation. Patrick Wilson also does a great job as Buddy, never overplaying the part. Buddy isn't a dramatic guy, and it makes sense that Buddy reacts to Mavis with a sense of puzzlement and bemusement. Only late in the story does she act out enough to get a real rise out of him, and by that point, it feels earned.

Charlize Theron though - I think this is my favorite performance by her ever. There's something so real-feeling about it. I never felt like I was watching a glamorous Hollywood actress playing a part. Like, with The Descendents, I always felt aware that George Clooney was, sure, playing an average guy, but he never fully shed his movie-starness. Here, Charlize 100% feels like she is Mavis and always has been. It's a phenomenal acting job, one of the year's best. And one thing I was not expecting: this movie is hilarious - it's got more big laughs than almost any other movie I've seen this year. And a lot of that is made possible by the absolutely awesome comedic timing that Charlize Theron brings to the table. Who knew? Meanwhile, the other huge standout here is Patton Oswalt. Patton plays Matt, a former high-school loser who was once the victim of a brutal beatdown from a bunch of asshole jocks that left him with permanent damage to his leg and other extremities. Matt is a good source of comedy in the film, but he's also a pretty sad and tragic character. And he's a nice contrast to Mavis - she wants to go back to her high school days, he wishes he could forget them. Now I knew Patton could act - I'm a huge fan of the movie Big Fan and his work there - but this is another big, big feather in his cap. He does a great job here, and the relationship between Matt and Mavis is suitably twisted. Mavis runs into Matt upon arriving back in Mercury, and somehow, they become unlikely friends and drinking buddies. This in spite of the fact that, in all the time in high school when Matt's locker was right next to Mavis', she never once acknowledged his existence.

The direction here by Jason Reitman is understated and naturalistic. But he includes a ton of little details that really make the movie. From the Diet Coke cans scattered around Mavis' apartment to the depressing genericness of Mercury and its endless strip malls, the movie pulses with a vibe of genuine Americana. The same is true of Diablo Cody's script - it's much subtler and more grounded than what she's done before, and filled with great little character moments and details. Even the song selection, 90's references, etc. - it adds up to a movie that has a unique voice and feels fresh and original (sidenote: best use of 4 Non Blondes in a movie in some time). But everything is also keenly-observed. Going back to The Descendents comparison, the rawness here made me reevaluate that movie's glossiness a bit. This is writing what you know, that is writing one layer removed from the characters. I'm not saying one is better than the other, just that I felt like that rawness meant that, for me, Young Adult really packed a punch.

Sure, I had some minor quibbles ... I felt like something was just a little off with Patrick Wilson's character, where he seemed a little too oblivious at times to Mavis' intentions. I also wish we had seen a little more of Matt's perspective on Mavis. It was hard to tell, I think, to what extent Matt really cared for her, or was just excited that a real-live-woman was giving him the time of day. Overall though, I loved the characters in the film, the dialogue, the vibe.

I feel that YOUNG ADULT is right up there with the year's best. It dares to be edgy and dark and subversive, but what's cool is that it's all of those things without feeling forced. Instead, the whole film feels perfectly natural and real on just about every level. That to me is an accomplishment worth writing home about.

My Grade: A-

Never Sit a Sitter: A Look At THE SITTER

THE SITTER Review:

- What's going on with the state of comedy-film criticism these days? Even as various other genres slowly gain critical respectability, good comedies still get thrown into the bottom of the barrell. It's a bit different in TV, where great comedies like Community and Louie are heralded, and where even middling comedies like 2 Broke Girls receive praise. But for some reason, comedies on the big screen continually get the shaft. Unless it's a whimsical Woody Allen farce or a highbrow British film, critics don't seem to know how to talk about comedy - and so they simply dismiss it. Case in point: the recent work of David Gordon Green. Movies like Pineapple Express and Your Highness have cracked me up, and yet every time you read a review of one of Green's films, it's always some critic on his or her high horse waxing nostalgic for his days as a director of Very Serious indie dramas. Personally, I've found Green to be one of the freshest voices in comedy of the last few years. He knows how to combine hilarious dialogue with high production value - crafting comedies that contain exciting action and suspense, even as they keep the laughs coming. I also like that his comedies aren't necessarilly worried about sentimentality, or romance, or whatever. They're about being funny first, and if sentimentality fits, then fine, if it doesn't, then hey, who needs it?

Now, I'm not here calling THE SITTER a masterpiece or anything. But I am calling it a funny film with some sharp writing, fun characters, a good premise, and a fun take on the whole "into the night" genre of comedy. It's a nice little mashup of Adventures in Babysitting and Superbad, and, though not without its flaws, I'd still probably rank it as one of the better comedies I've seen in 2011.

In The Sitter, Jonah Hill plays Noah Griffith - a college dropout who's currently slumming it at home with his mom - no job, no real prospects. He likes to think that a girl he's been seeing - Marisa (Ari Graynor)- is his girlfriend, but in fact the two have yet to, really, um, consummate the relationship (you might say it's a bit one-sided), and clearly, she's still hung up on her ex, a buff kickboxing champion. Meanwhile, Noah's financially-struggling mom faces self-doubt as she looks to get back into the dating pool herself. His dad, a wealthy jewerly store owner, has long since left after an affair with (ironically) a babysitter. One night, Noah's mom asks him for a favor. Her friend wants to take her to a fundraiser, where she hopes to set her up with a guy. Only problem is, the friend needs a babysitter to look after her three kids. Despite his reluctance to babysit, Noah agrees so as to help out his mom. And that's when things get pretty crazy. After meeting the three kids who he'll be looking after, Noah gets a call from Marisa, who finally seems ready to go the distance with her increasingly-desperate not-quite-boyfriend. Only catch is that Marisa is at a big party in the city, and she wants Noah to go pick up some drugs from her (ex?) dealer in exchange for the chance to do the horizontal tango. Clearly, she's a psycho-bitch. But Noah is Jonah Hill (at the apex of his overwightness, prior to his recent slimming down), and he's got a chance - against all odds, to do the deed with Ari Graynor. And so into the night he goes, three crazy kids in tow. And as you might expect, many a hijink ensues.

Hill is one of those guys who probably gets knocked a bit for being overexposed. But the fact is, he's great at delivering a funny line, and in The Sitter, he's got a lot of good material to work with. Not only that, but he gets to play off a talented bunch of kids, as well as guys like Sam Rockwell, JB Smoove, and Method Man. Hill really carries the movie, and does a nice job of balancing the smart-ass humor with some moments that are more genuine and heartfelt. The kids are all really good though. You've got a 13 year-old boy struggling with anxiety issues, a ten year-old girl who thinks she's Paris Hilton, and an adopted anarchist-in-training from El Salvador, who may very well end running a drug cartel in his not-so-distant-future. The kid actors each play these parts to perfection, and do a nice job of working with Hill. On the other hand, Sam Rockwell is great, but his character - an oddball drug-dealer - was a little too random and ill-defined for my tastes. Similarly, JB Smoove gets in a couple of hilarious lines, but feels underused overall. I guess that after seeing the super-hilarious (and tonally-similar) 30 Minutes Or Less this past summer, it would be hard for the villains here to compare to that film's incredibly entertaining antagonists (and let's be honest, I was secretly hoping for some sort of Danny McBride cameo here that, sadly, never came).

Anyways, I felt like The Sitter maintained a really good, brisk pace, and the action and momentum rarely let up. As per usual, Green knows how to pull off some really funny, wacky, set-piece action scenes - and this one has a couple of particularly well-done car chases. I also loved the rivalry between Noah and an old high school classmate who still holds a grudge due to a long-ago incident where Noah defiled her grandmother's ashes. Some great scenes transpire between them.

I felt like a couple of things held the movie back from being 100% awesome. One thing was simply that the jokes weren't always there. There are some great bits of dialogue and some really inspired scenes, but overall I thought the movie needed a few more gut-bustingly hilarious, uber-memorable moments to really make it pop. Some moments that should have been barnburners were ultimately more worthy of a chuckle than a guffaw. As I mentioned, one of the bigger issues is that Sam Rockwell's villain doesn't always work - he feels like a hodgepodge of comic ideas thrown together, rather than one really good premise for an antagonist. I also thought the script felt a little all-over-the-place in terms of the nuts and bolts of it. Characters pop up a little too conveniently, and things tend to get resolved a little too neatly. You need some element of randomness in this genre, but sometimes it was a little less than clear why Noah was going to the places he was going. And that brings me to tone - I think this is where the movie ultimately tries a little too hard to please everyone, but suffers a bit for it. What I mean is - the film has a bit of an odd mix of crude, R-rated humor and sweet sentimentality that feels like it might belong more in a PG film. Now, I think the movie pulls it off - mostly. At the same time though, you do sort of wish that the movie had stayed consistently subversive and gone a little darker, instead of eventually becoming a more predictable "everyone learns their lessons" style of comedy.

With that said, I think back to the other comedies I've seen this year. Movies like Horrible Bosses, Bad Teacher ... The Sitter is much smarter and funnier than either, and is, to me, up there with Bridesmaids, Your Highness, and 30 Minutes Or Less as one of the year's funniest films. So sure, maybe David Gordon Green has some more somber dramas left in him. But personally, I would love to see him keep cranking out the comedy.

My Grade: B+

A DANGEROUS METHOD: Movies As Therapy

A DANGEROUS METHOD Review:

- Has there been any better director-actor one-two punch in the last several years than the pairing of David Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen? A History of Violence, Eastern Promises - together, the two have mined the depths of psychological drama, crafting thought-provoking films that are never generic, never cut-and-dried. Now, the two have reteamed again for the cerebral, strange, and captivating A DANGEROUS METHOD, and they're joined by Michael Fassbender, Kiera Knightly, and Vincent Cassell. The result is a fascinating look at the real-life relationship between Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and a sexually-disturbed patient that caused the two titans of psychotherapy to have their first meeting-of-the-minds.

A Dangerous Method is, surprisingly, a much more straightforward and less-stylized movie than what we often get from Cronenberg. And yet, I think the style of the film suits it. Because the whole movie is about the repressed desires, the hidden madness, that lurks within otherwise civilized men and women. The film explores the very thin line between doctor and patient, between scientist and subject. This is a film where Freud, Jung, and Jung's patient - Sabina Spielrein - are all obstensibly circling each other like hawks, each one gaining and losing the psychological advantage over the other under various circumstances. And it is in the conversations and exchanges and debates between them that we are made to really think about the human psyche. It's a fragile thing, and for men like Freud and Jung who thought long and hard about madness, well ... could they themselves be that far removed from it?

Still, you know this is no regular old period piece when the movie begins with a writhing, screaming Sabina being hauled off the Carl Young's stately manor to be treated for her psychoses. From the get-go, Cronenberg forces us to confront the reality of a smart, attractive woman who's gone totally crazy. And in a long, almost hard-to-watch sequence at the movie's beginning, we watch as Sabina sits in a chair, in a small, bare room, as Jung sits behind her, questioning her, observing her reactions. And Knightly as Sabina - she looks like a woman in need of an excorcism - screaming, flailing, jaw-jutted out to almost cartoonish extremes. It's an out-there, disturbing scene, but as performed by Knightly, it's pretty powerful. We're here at the very beginnings of serious psychoanalysis, and it's fascinating to see a woman who, before, might have just been tossed into an asylum, now get mentally dissected by Jung, analyzed via the "talking cure" popularized by Freud. The effect that (what would now be routine) therapy had on her is remarkable. But of course, the converse there is ... if Sabina can be helped through her madness with such relative ease, then doesn't it stand to reason that Jung could be driven to madness just as easily?

Eventually, Jung uses Sabina as an excuse to consult with the greatest luminary of psychotherapy of the time, Sigmund Freud - and Freud becomes a mentor to his younger counterpart. Freud by this time had amassed a school of eager, devout students and followers, and so while he liked and admired Jung, their relationship became prickly as Freud became annoyed with Jung's more out-there ideas. Jung was more of an idealist than Freud, hoping to cure people rather than simply analyze them. Jung also dabbled in parapsychology - telephathy, psychic abilities, etc. - and Freud felt strongly that those were flights of fancy that undermined the seriousness and credibility of their work. At the same time, Freud had a certain coldness and distance to him - he viewed anyone he met, Jung included, as a prospective subject to be analayzed, but saw himself as mostly above analysis. Jung, meanwhile, begins to realize that he is not necessarilly so far removed from his patience. He's learned to repress things and appear normal and civilized, but he recognizes that he and Sabina may not be that different. When Jung meets Otto Gross, a psychologist who believes in hedonism and acting without restraint, he's begins to question a lot of things that he formerly held as sacred truths.

Certainly, this has been a hell of a year for Michael Fassbender, who's very quickly established himself as one of the best actors out there. Indeed, his performance in A Dangerous Method as Carl Jung is absolutely outstanding. Jung is a tightly-wound man of principle who, at the same time, is brimming with barely-contained emotion. You can see this constant inner-struggle play out on Fassbender's face - he plays Jung as a man who, it seems, the gears in his head are constantly turning. There's a gravitas and power that Fassbender brings to this role that few others could have, and he effortlessly embodies the character - the accent, the mannerisms, the mentality. The same can be said for the always-great Viggo Mortensen as Freud. Viggo disappears into the role - one that's totally different from any I've seen him play before. Often Viggo plays men of action and destiny, but here he's wizened, prickly, intellectual. Knightly is also very, very good as Sabina, the Russian-Jewish patient whose childhood abuse at the hands of her father led her to develop severe phobias and anxieties and sexual disfunctions. Vincent Cassel provides an added spark as the free-thinking Otto - I mean, is there anyone better at playing smarmy and deviant?

As I said, the movie is very dialogue heavy, but the cool thing is that the conversations between Freud, Jung, Sabina, and Otto are fascinating, and even when they go on at length, you don't mind, because Cronenberg creates that feeling of eavesdropping on the conversations of two of the 20th century's great thinkers. Perhaps some of the more academic discussions can get a bit dry at times, but hey, this is Cronenberg, so the movie has a weird, perverse side to counterbalance the talking heads. Cronenberg doesn't really judge his characters - but the juxtapositions are what make the movie so interesting. He shoots crazy sadomasochistic sex scenes with a steady, clinical eye - the sex scenes are shot essentially the same as the psychoanalysis scenes in Jung's office. It all reinforces the idea that the lines between sex, life, death, doctor, patient, pleasure, and pain are all pretty blurry sometimes. And certainly, for Freud and Jung, all of these things were interrelated.

Cronenberg is one of the most interesting directors working today, and what I like about him is that his movies always leave you a little bit unsettled, even as they get you thinking about big ideas. And he's never afraid to get weird, offbeat, or disturbing to make his point. A Dangerous Method is fascinating because it's about these men of reason and logic dealing with craziness, psychosis, and madness. Making sense out of the abstract - out of dreams and visions. Cronenberg, Viggo, and Fassbender deliver another winning film.

My Grade: A-

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY: Spy Game as Chess Game

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY Review:

- There's a truly great movie buried somewhere in this one. Certainly, there's enough intrigue here to make me curious about the book on which the film is based, and the 70's-era TV miniseries (starring Alec Guinness) that received much acclaim at the time. But, frustratingly, a potentially badass spy story is muddled by some head-scratching directorial choices and an incredibly confusing narrative. As much style and atmosphere as this movie exudes, there's a real disconnect between the film's story and its storytelling style. It's a story that would likely have worked best as a precisely-told potboiler - a mystery that slowly but surely connects the dots and fits everything together like clockwork. All the ingredients are there for one hell of a Cold War spy story. But director Tomas Alfredson (the man behind the superb Let The Right One In), strangely, chooses to tell this complex story in an incredibly hard-to-follow manner. Abrupt flashbacks, sudden scene cuts, and a bare minimum of exposition creates a situation where the nuances of the story are near-impossible to follow via a single viewing.

Luckily, even though Alfredson's narrative flounders, the sense of atmosphere and tension he manages to create is extremely strong. As he did with Let The Right One In, the director sets an immersive tone, creating a constant, palpable sense of coldness, dreariness, and looming dread. The bulk of the film takes place in London in the early 70's, and the period and place is captured effortlessly - the hair, the fashions, the details all establish a particular mood and era, from moment one.

And the cast is just jam-packed with powerhouse actors. Honestly, I give all the credit in the world to the cast, because though individual scenes tend not to gel into a cohesive whole, there are, still, some damn good individual scenes. And again, a lot of that is due to how much badassery and gravitas the main players have. Gary Oldman, for one, is in fine form as our lead - George Smiley. In short, Smiley is a recently-retired British intelligence agent who's been brought back into the fold to expose an alleged mole in the highest ranks of British Intelligence (or "The Circus," as it's referred to here). A recent mission in Budapest has gone horribly wrong, resulting in the kidnapping and interrogation of a top agent (played by Mark Strong), and the death of a head intelligence officer known as Control (John Hurt). As it turns out, the botched mission led to the discovery that someone in power was in fact playing for the other team (namely, the Soviets). And so Smiley is brought in as an impartial observer, and his investigation begins, leading him down a rabbit's hole of lies, corruption, and double-crosses. But as I was saying, Oldman is a commanding presence here. Oldman tends to play crazy characters, but here his M.O. is that he's cool, calm, and collected - mostly unfazed by those out to get him, methodically going about his investigation like a great chess player slowly setting up his opponent for defeat. Oldman is joined by a veritable who's who of great British actors. John Hurt, Toby Jones (second movie I've seen him in in a week!), Colin Firth, Mark Strong, and Thomas Hardy - among others. Firth is very good as usual as a smarmy intelligence agent. Hardy is excellent as a double-crossed agent who's now on-the-lamb. And Strong is a scene stealer - as the agent who was kidnapped in Budapest, and who, after being psychologically damaged by torture at the hands of his captors, is now laying low as a schoolteacher somewhere in the countryside.

Still, with a cast this awesome, I kept waiting for some moments of true intensity to come ... but they never really did. The movie is so subdued, so methodically-paced, and so narratively all-over-the-place, that it becomes hard to really latch on to any of these characters. It just feels like this movie is underwater sometimes - like you're catching glimpses of plot, of character, of story, but never seeing things clearly. This is evident in the way that Alfredson tends to have long, lingering shots of his actors' faces, begging us to read into their slightest change in expression, and yet when key plot points are revealed, he'll jarringly cut away, just as we're beginning to process what it is that we're seeing. I sort of get what he's aiming for - and actors like Oldman and Strong excel working in this stlye - both are masters of the subtle gesture, the slight shift in expression - and it is, indeed, fun to observe them and watch and wait for clues or tells. That said, I'm all for films that don't talk down to an audience, that make us do some mental aerobics in order to put the puzzle pieces together - but this was just too much in my opinion. I mean, the movie is essentially set up as a mystery - we know that, barring some game-changing twist, one of the key officials at The Circus has to be the mole. But we're never really given clues one way or another as to who it might be. Until the very end of the film, we have no guesses as to anyone's motivations, their backstories, or the likelihood of their guilt. Meanwhile, seemingly major plot points - Smiley's fractured relationship with his ex-wife, the sexuality of his younger partner Peter, the background between Firth and Strong's characters - all are touched on but, in my mind, never addressed or explored in a way that's at all narratively satisfying. It's one thing to be subtle, but it's another to sabotage the power of your own narrative. Again, I'm not sure why Alfredson chose to tell the story in a manner that was so detrimental to the narrative flow of the film.

I express this frustration because I really wanted to love this movie, and there are things about it that really are fantastically done. I can't argue that, aesthetically, this is one of the most thick-with-atmosphere movies of the year. And the cast is just loaded with great talent that makes every utterance interesting, every exchange compelling. And yet, the cast is so strong, and the story so rife with potential, that you want to see it told in a way that 100% delivers on the promise of the film. As it is, I sort of kept waiting for the other shoe to drop from a narrative standpoint. Ultimately, few of the major revelations had as much of an impact on me as I thought they should have - it was all just too muddy and confusing. At the same time, there is undoubtedly a certain pleasure to be had just taking the movie in scene by scene, watching great actors like Oldman, Strong, Hardy, Hurt, and Firth interacting, all while wearing sweet 70's clothes and haircuts. There is a lot to like and appreciate here, a lot to drink in - but I also wonder if this could have been a real knockout, had the movie told its story in a more cohesive, coherant manner.

My Grade: B

HUGO: Scorsese Goes Storybook

HUGO Review:

- I think it's safe to say: Martin Scorsese has never made a movie like Hugo. From the director who's brought us acclaimed tales of gangsters, lowlifes, and criminals comes a film that is, in most ways, a complete departure: a family-friendly, 3D film that plays out like a storybook come to life. If you're a Scorsese fan, then what is recognizable about Hugo is its visual flair, it's gorgeous cinematography, and its epic and ambitious storytelling. But what's also conveyed in Hugo is the legendary director's deep and abiding love of movies. This is Scorsese's love-letter to cinema - a lesson about the history of - and importance of - the movies. Hugo is an ode to imagination and wonder - a stunningly-realized movie that reminds us why we love movies in the first place. Somehow, Martin Scorsese has defied expectations and created one of the year's most pleasant surprises.

The first thing I'll say about Hugo is that it's a visual marvel. Without question, I'd rank it as one of the top two or three live-action movies in terms of use of 3D. Scorsese shot Hugo with 3D 100% top of mind, and it shows - it's immersive in the way that, so far, only animated 3D films have managed. Part of that is due to Hugo's highly stylized rendering of 1930's Paris - filled with deep colors and ultra-detail, it's a sprawling cityscape less based in reality and more in dreams. But part of the power of the visuals - and of the 3D - lies in the way that Scorsese manipulates the camera - soaring, swooping, climbing, diving, floating and flying through this world. There are shots in this film - including a stunning opening tracking shot - that are quite simply breathtaking. At the same time, the framing of many individual shots is outstanding - Hugo stays true to its storybook roots, presenting us with any number of evocative scenes suitable for framing. Hugo's world, indeed, is a technicolor dreamscape that you won't soon forget.

The story here is fairly simple, but contains a number of interesting twists. Based on the book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," the film begins as the story of the orphan Hugo's ( Asa Butterfield) quest to complete the work of his deceased father. Before he died, Hugo's father (Jude Law) was a clockmaker and mechanical expert. A pet project of his, that he worked on with Hugo, was to repair and restore an old, mechanical robot - an automaton - that he'd gotten from a museum auction. Essentially an elaborate, human-like wind-up toy, the automaton was designed to write or draw messages once activated. And so, when Hugo's father is killed, Hugo is determined to finish the restoration of the machine, because he's convinced that, once wound-up, it will write out for him a final message from his dad. Hugo just needs some odds and ends - gears, cogs, springs, etc. - as well as one, more mysterious item - a heart-shaped key that fits into the automaton's chest.

Hugo's mission causes him to cross paths with Georges (Ben Kingsley) - a cranky old toymaker - whose toys Hugo steals for spare parts. Eventually, however, we learn that there's much more to Georges than meets the eye, and his connection to the mystery of the automaton is much deeper than originally suspected. Hugo makes this discovery with the help of Georges' adopted daughter, Isabella (Chloë Grace Moretz), as the two orphan children connect as kindred spirits. All the while, however, Hugo must elude the fiendish Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), a bumbling but dogged lawman who is constantly on the hunt for any wayward orphans to round up and send off to some presumably horrible orphanage.

Without spoiling anything, the eventual revelations about Georges take the film in a fascinating and unexpected direction. What starts off as a simple story about a boy and his robot soon becomes a movie about the history of movies - and about movie magic. Scorcese incorporates a mix of fiction and real-life cinema history - but even with the narrative embellishments, you'll come away from Hugo wanting to know more about the real-life genius that was Georges Méliès and his many lasting creations.

I loved the cast of this film. Asa Butterfield - wide-eyed and bright-eyed - is very good in the lead role, and it helps that he's paired with the always great Chloe Moretz. I know she's still barely a teenager, but I've already come to think of her as a great actress. In this film, Moretz impresses again, showing that she can play a more toned-down character who isn't a vampire or pint-sized assassin. The kid actors are exceptional, but the real treat here is the veterans. Ben Kingsley is titanic in this one as Georges Méliès. As we learn more about him and his story, Kingsley really gets a chance to shine. It all culminates in a thrilling final act that sees Sir Ben deliver a performance for the ages. Some of Georges' words of wisdom will stick with me - "we are all wizards," he says - and by god, I thought, so we are. I also got a thrill, and a chill, from a small but impactful role played by the legendary Christopher Lee. As Monsieur Labisse, a wizened librarian and lover of literature, Lee has some wonderful moments in the film. Talk about presence, gravitas, and presence - it doesn't get any better in movies than Christopher Lee. Ray Winstone is also excellent in a smallish role as Hugo's nasty uncle, and Michael Stuhlbarg is very good as an academic who takes an interest in Hugo's quest. Finally, Sasha Baron Cohen has a lot of great moments of comic relief. His Inspector is a lot of fun - very funny, and classic Cohen.

I guess the one knock against Hugo is that, at times, the pacing feels a bit off. The movie feels a little too ponderous at times, stretching out scenes and dialogue to the point where the storytelling can feel a bit slow. This is particularly evident in the middle of the film, where it feels like there's a lot of treading water before the big reveals and gear-shifting in the third act. Now, Hugo is so visually stunning that I found it easy to just sit back and drink in the scenery and let myself get lost in the picturesque 3D world. But, I also acknowledge that, for a good chunk of the movie, Scorsese leaves you to wonder just where, exactly, all of this is going. It doesn't help that the movie meanders into tangential subplots around its peripheral characters. The conflict between a local Parisian and an antagonistic dog. The Inspector's awkward attempts to court a local shopgirl. These scenes are amusing, but I also felt that the movie could have used some editing and streamlining. As is, it feels a bit unfocused at times.

Overall though, I found HUGO to be one of the most entrancing, captivating, and yes, inspiring movies I've seen all year. The central themes at its core - emphasizing the importance of art, imagination, invention, and creativity - are communicated with flair, whimsy, and lots of heart. The visuals are amazing - this is quite simply a master-class in visual style and imagination from Martin Scorsese. HUGO is a must-see for all ages, a unique and surprising addition to the Scorsese cannon.

My Grade: A-

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN - A Slice of Hollywood History

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN Review:

- As a small town kid that moved out to Hollywood, I won't lie, I often did - and do - fantasize a bit about meeting and befriending stars. And when I have, on occasion, rubbed elbows with a celebrity, there is always that brief moment where you wonder if you could possibly form some sort of connection beyond that of lofty star and lowly fan. Now, let's take this scenario to the ultimate extreme: it's 1953, you're a 23-year-old nobody, a proto-movie-geek living outside of London (okay, sure, your family is pretty well-connected and well-to-do, but that's mostly irrelevant if you're trying to break into showbiz). You get a job as a glorified gopher working on a film set - Sir Laurence Olivier is shooting his latest movie at the famous Pinewood studios in London, and it's co-starring none other than Marilyn Monroe. Imagine that you meet Olivier, you meet Marilyn. And somehow, someway, she takes a liking to you. She starts hanging out with you. She maybe, just maybe, FALLS IN LOVE WITH YOU. Preposterous, right? Afterall, this kid is a geeky, gawky nobody, and Marilyn Monroe is the biggest star in the world, the most gorgeous woman in the world. But, she's also a lost soul, a pill-addicted, anxiety-ridden girl pining for any semblance of a normal life. And so maybe this kid, who doesn't know any better than to talk to her like a high school crush, is exactly what she's looking for. And that's the true-life premise of MY WEEK WITH MARILYN. Well, allegedly. 100% true or not though, it makes for a great story, and for a thoroughly entertaining film.

A lot of the talk about this one has centered around Michelle Williams' turn as Marilyn. And rightfully so. It's an absolutely fantastic performance, and a surefire Oscar nominee. The physical transformation alone is pretty remarkable. Makeup and wigs and prosthetics do some of the work, but Williams captures Marilyn's mannerisms, her voice, her walk, her moves. But that's only the surface level. Beyond just the mimicry and whatnot, there's also a ton going on beneath the surface. We see the depression, angst, and volatility of the iconic star - how she would succumb to her fans and be "Marilyn Monroe," even when she didn't want to be "on." We see how she was getting to that insane level of stardom where it's hard to even be a human being, and the toll it was taking on her. We see her role as a star, as opposed to Olivier, who was an *actor.* Since this is a story told from the perspective of our young gopher - Colin (Eddie Redmayne), William's Marilyn still comes off, for all her faults and problems, like some kind of luminescent angel recently fallen from heaven. Maybe she didn't always *want* to be a star, but she just is one, innately. And again, I think that's what makes this film so fascinating - it's not a biopic of Monroe, but a look at a very specific moment in her life, as told through the perspective of an ordinary guy who happened to come into her orbit.

It's fascinating to see this moment in Monroe's life, and it's equally fascinating to see this moment in pop-culture play out on screen. The movie does a fantastic job of showing all the benhind-the-scenes drama that existed on the set of "The Prince and the Showgirl," the movie that Marilyn Monroe travelled to London to make with Olivier. She saw is as a chance to establish herself as a more legitimate actress, he saw it as a shot to be more of a Hollywood star - and the results, it seems, were often disasterous. Olivier had little patience for Marilyn's lateness, her oversensitivity, and her reliance on an everpresent acting coach to guide her through each scene of the film. Marilyn, meanwhile, felt intimidated by what she perceived to be a hostile set, and had little tolerance for Olivier's prickliness. And yet, Olivier, like every other man on the planet at that time, found himself entranced by his platinum-blonde costar, even as she infuriated him.

Speaking of Olivier, Kenneth Branagh is superb as the legendary thespian. Branagh makes Olivier into a larger-than-life character almost as fascinating as Monroe. He's a Shakespeare-quoting, tempermental, refined actor of the stage and screen who finds himself aging, still not having achieved the widespread recognition and acclaim he feels he deserves. Since Branagh himself is cut from a similar cloth (instead of making The Prince and the Showgirl, he directed THOR), there's a pretty interesting dynamic at play in his portrayal. And remember - Michelle Williams started out on Dawson's Creek, so there are some parallels there as well. Another huge standout is Judi Dench, who gets in some great lines as veteran actress Dame Sybil Thorndike, who plays a supporting role in Olivier's film. Dominic Cooper, continuing a year in which he's apparently in every other movie released, is also characteristically great as Marilyn's manager, Milton Greene (and his Captain America cohort, Toby Jones, shows up as well - this movie has quite the Marvel comics connection). I also really liked Dougray Scott (never thought I'd say that!) in his small role as Marilyn's husband at the time, the famous playwright Arthur Miller. Harry Potter's Emma Watson also has a nice supporting role as a costumer who Colin passes over in favor for a chance with Marilyn.

If there's any weak point to the film, it might be, oddly, its main character - who in many ways is a suporting character in his own story. Really, the chief role of Colin is to be our eyes and ears - through his everyman perspective, we get a unique glimpse at Marylin Monroe, at Laurence Olivier. But Colin himself ... I never found him particularly endearing. I liked him at first, when he was the wide-eyed newbie on the set of his first big film production. But there's also a certain, slightly-irritating smugness to his character. I think part of this might be the fault of Eddie Redmayne. He's good, but he just seems a little too much like British royalty or something to function as a true everyman. There's an air of entitlement to Redmayne that doesn't do the story any favors. Of course, it's a true story - based on a memoir anyways - so the movie has certain boundaries it has to work within. At the same time though, there's something a little less appealling about a preppy, sort-of-smug British kid - wide-eyed film fan or not - as being the one who somehow manages to win the heart of Marilyn by-god Monroe. This is the sort of one-in-a-million story you'd want to happen to someone truly likable and unassuming, and Colin is likable enough, but you also never *really* root for him or feel elated for him.

Nonetheless, the movie really does a great job of capturing the initial rush of being on a film set and of this kid meeting directors and actors and stars. I couldn't help but think back to my own early days as an NBC Page, and the rush of adrenaline I got realizing that here I was - a kid who months earlier had been sitting around in suburban CT - working on The Tonight Show and interacting with stars I'd grown up watching.

My Week With Marilyn really surprised me. Far from being a dreary biopic, it's a funny, affecting, excellently-acted snapshot of a particular moment in movie history - and film fans and cinephiles and dreamers everywhere should get a huge kick out of it. Michelle Williams knocks it out of the park, Kenneth Branagh is terrific, and who knows, after watching this ... maybe you'll feel like you just might have a shot with Scarlett Johansson afterall.

My Grade: A-

Danny Says Aloha to THE DESCENDANTS

THE DESCENDANTS Review:

- I think Alexander Payne is one of those directors who's easy to like but hard to love. His movies are often ambitious blends of comedy and tragedy, humor and sadness. The man has a knack for telling small-scale stories that nonetheless address the Big themes. At the same time, his films often have the glossed-over feel of a best-selling airport novel. There's not quite the same style or uniqueness that you'd get from the likes of the Coen Bros. or Wes Anderson - creatives who's movies are similar thematically, but who are much quirkier - perhaps, you might say, more visionary. So part of me wasn't quite sure what to make of The Descendants - would this be the movie equivalent of a breezy beach read with literary pretensions? Was this simply yet another attempt by star George Clooney to get an Oscar by playing an average schlub? And what's more, would this - an easy Oscar-bait sort of movie - end up stealing critical thunder from more innovative and unique fare. At the end of the day though, I was mostly pretty won over by this one. It's a well-acted, well-told tale that benefits from Payne's naturalistic style. George Clooney delivers one of his best performances to date, coming at a time when he only just recently impressed in The Ides of March (which he also directed). I think The Descendents is more than just Oscar-bait, but an emotional, funny film with something to say.

So what is the movie about? It's about a well-to-do guy, Matt King (Clooney) living in Hawaii, whose family has inherited a large swath of unspoiled beachfront land. Matt is a lawyer, and so he's been able to make a nice living for himself without depending on the money that's to be made from the sale of the family land to a developer, with plans to turn it into a resort. The same can't be said for the rest of King's large extended family, many of whom are down-on-their-luck and eagerly awaiting the profits from the sale of the land. Matt can afford to be idealistic and sentimental about the land - some of the others can't. While Matt is dealing with the family infighting, a much worse problem befalls him. His wife and mother to his two daughters gets into a boating accident, and falls into a coma, with little chance of recovery. Work and travel often kept Matt away from his wife and kids, so he naturally feels a lot of guilt about the whole thing, even as he struggles to be a good dad to his daughters - the younger Scottie and the teenaged Alex, in the absence of their mom. But all of Matt's complicated feelings about his wife and family are made exponentially more complicated when he learns that his comatose wife had been engaged in a long affair with another man, and had planned to leave him before the accident. Driven towards anger, self-doubt, and confusion by these revelations, Matt takes his daughters (and Alex's dimwitted boyfriend, Sid) on an unusual family trip - a quest to find his wife's secret lover so as to let him know about her condition, to gain some closure, and, just possibly, to sock him in the jaw.

The journey taken by Matt and his family is captivating on a number of levels. Most immediately it is, if nothing else, a pretty breathtaking tour of Hawaii. Payne takes care to depict Hawaii as not entirely glamorous - we see the congested, overdeveloped suburbs, the chintzy tourist traps, and the comically bad fashion sense of the locals (even the usually suave Clooney is dressed down in khaki shorts, sandalls, and ill-fitting polo shirts). But, we also see gorgeous beaches, stunning island vistas, and bright blue oceans. Payne directs it all with a keen eye for capturing the richness of the landscapes, and adds all sorts of interesting local color. There's a very, very strong sense of place in this film, and it adds a lot to the story. Suffice it to say, you'll be hard-pressed not to utter "I want to go to there" at some point while watching the film.

On another level, Matt's journey is a great little story about family, and about how values are passed on from one generation to another. I was thinking about the title of the film for a while after viewing, and wondering what, exactly, it meant. What, for that matter, was this movie getting at - what did it all mean? The more I thought about it, the more I gained an appreciation for the story being told here. Because what I realized was that this is a story about setting an example for the next generation. We meet Matt King at a pivotal moment. Up until now, he and his wife have not exactly set a great example for their kids. When we first meet Alex, she's drunk at boarding school, depressed, and bitter at her mother and father. Scottie is still young, but already, she's a bit of a brat - getting into trouble at school and - quite hilariously - cursing up a storm. You can see the sort of chain of negative influece at play here. With a mostly absent father and a mother who was a liar and a cheater, is it any wonder that these kids are headed down the wrong path? That's where the disparate stories seem to tie together - Matt's decision about what to do with his family's land takes on a larger meaning - it's about what sort of future he's creating for his kids, what sort of example he's giving to them. Is his the generation that ruins paradise, that creates broken homes? Or can he transcend that, and get a second chance at doing right by his home and his family? Like I said, the story is at once small-scale yet thematically ambitious.

Payne gets a lot of mileage out of a great cast. Not only does the movie feature a standout performance from Clooney, but it's also got a potentially career-making turn from ABC Family star Shailene Woodley as older daughter Alex. Woodley does a fantastic job portraying a girl in her rebellious, cynical, smart-assed teenage phase who very quickly is forced to do some growing up and gain some maturity and perspective. But Payne also makes a good call in casting some very funny actors, known primarily for their comedy work, in key roles. Rob Huebel is hilarious as Matt's whipped brother-in-law, for example. And Judy Greer - always so great on various sitcoms - is a scene-stealer as the guilt-stricken woman married to the guy who had the affair with Matt's wife. Another standout is Nick Krause as Sid, Alex's boyfriend who tags along with her and her family. Probably the movie's most cartoonish character, Sid, oddly, works because Krause's comic timing is so good. Seeing Krause's braindead teen go mano e mano with Clooney's middle-aged Matt is a lot of fun, and their interactions produce some of the movie's best scenes. Beau Bridges is also very funny as Cousin Hugh - channelling the Bridges family's innate Dudeness, Bridges is great as the stoned-out surfer who is desperate to cash-in on the impending land-sale.

At times, you can't help but wonder: "why these characters?" What is Payne's fascination with making melodrama out of the problems of the upper-middle-class? And I think that, at times, it makes his characters, and his movies, hard to love. Without the protective, ironic distance of the Coens or Wes Anderson, you sometimes think that, sure, these people have problems, but are they really all that important? Where The Descendents at times struggles is when it's trying to convince us of one of its central themes - that even in paradise, there can be trouble. Yes, Hawaii has suburban sprawl, but still ... it's Hawaii,and it's pretty amazing. Yes, Matt King's got issues, but he's still wealthy, lives in Hawaii, and he's George Clooney. And while Clooney does a fine job in the role, he still at times has that movie-star look in his eye that indicates that sure, he's playing an ordinary Joe in this movie, but at any time his character might reveal a hidden second career as an international super-spy or covert assassin. It's a tightrope that this movie walks on.

It is a tightrope, but I think THE DESCENDANTS mostly manages to pull it off. Payne ultimately does manage to find the genuine pathos, humor, and poignancy in the story of these characters, and crafts a film - filled with excellent performances - that manages to stick with you and make you think. Does he 100% nail it with an exclamation point at the end? Not sure I'd go that far. But I do feel confident in calling this a very, very good film that will likely end up as a highlight of the 2011 holiday moviegoing season. Even if you're feeling skeptical, I'd highly recommend giving this one a shot.

My Grade: A-

Investigating J. EDGAR

J. EDGAR Review:

- The big, important films of Clint Eastwood have certainly been a mixed bag. The man has a knack for finding intriguing subject matter to adapt for the screen, but Eastwood's somber, serious side can at times produce some pretty dull and boring movies. Personally, I love Eastwood as an actor in and director of pulpy Western, action and crime films. In terms of his directorial efforts, I'm partial to the contemplative yet rugged badassery of films like Unforgiven and Gran Torino. On the other end of the spectrum, I've found movies like Invictus to be dry and plodding. Luckily, Eastwood's latest effort - J. EDGAR - is an intriguing, sprawling tale that has some very interesting insights into America's recent past. It works as a fascinating look at the formation of the FBI and the rise of national law enforcement. At the same time, it's also an insightful look at the man behind the curtain - J. Edgar Hoover. Featuring a number of strong performances from an all-star cast, this one is definitely worth checking out if you have an interest in Cold War-era American history.

The film follows J. Edgar Hoover from the time he was a young twenty-something in the late 1910's, paranoid about what he believed was the impending Bolshevik invasion, to his final days, coinciding with the beginnings of the Nixon administration. The film flashes back between two primary periods - Hoover as a younger man, in the early days of the FBI in the 20's and 30's, and as an older man in the 60's and early 70's.

Anchoring the film - and having to sell Hoover as both a younger and older man - is Leonardo DiCaprio. At first, DiCaprio's take on the legendary figure is a bit jarring - with a thick, old-timey accent and a puffed-up, hangdog demeanor, DiCaprio comes off as a bit cartoonish and over-the-top. Plus, Eastwood is shooting the film in his usual minimalist, straightforward manner - making the movie's larger-than-life performances stand out a bit more than they might have in a more stylized film. Sadly, the old-age makeup used here is a bit of a distraction, in that in a couple of cases it just doesn't look natural at all. Hoover-as-old-man is workable, even if it definitely feels a bit "off" from a visual standpoint. But some of the other key characters - most notably Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson, Hoover's right-hand-man and confidante - look downright grotesque in their old-age makeup. Indeed, many portions of the movie take on a seemingly unintentionally campy - and like I said, grotesque - quality, because of just how odd the make-up looks.

But, the performances are so strong overall that I was able to look past the wax-figure makeup and still find a lot of enjoyment from the stellar work of DiCaprio, Hammer, Naomi Watts, and the rest of the film's superb cast. DiCaprio is outwardly a bit goofy as Hoover, but inwardly, there's some real depth to his portrayal. He paints Hoover as an obsessed crusader hellbent on protecting the United States from communists, insurgents, and subversives. He's also a man who prides himself on having all the information, and therefore all the power. He maintains extensive files on those who he perceives as potential threats - including every sitting president in the Oval Office during his tenure as head of the FBI. He brings science, criminology, and forensics into law enforcement in a way that they'd never been utilized before. He builds up the FBI, from nothing, into a force to be reckoned with. And yet, Hoover is a man who has secrets of his own. Underneath his outwardly rigid, puritanical personality, Hoover struggles with his identity. As a grown man, he lives with his aging mother (Judi Dench), and has a strange, codependent relationship with her. Some of that overlaps with his struggles with sexual identity. Hoover shares an unspoken bond with his FBI hire Clyde Tolson, but the two continually dance around their shared attraction for each other. Their relationship is never acknowledged publicly, and even privately the two can barely put their feelings into words - but over time, it seems, people caught on to the fact that there was a bond between the two men that went beyond friendship. All of this adds up to quite the character study, and DiCaprio does a fine job of exploring all of the different aspects of Hoover. Hammer is excellent as Tolson. And Naomi Watts is also very good as Hoover's loyal secretary Helen. The film is a great showcase for its actors. If only they didn't look so silly in their makeup.

Most fascinating, however, may be the fact that Hoover's longevity makes him a great focal point for a sprawling look at America in the 20th century. J. Edgar does a great job of showing us America's evolution as it progressed from World War I and into a new era of spies, conspiracy, and perceived threat from within. We see the rise of organized crime, the birth of national celebrities like Charles Lindbergh, and the different facets of the Civil Rights movement. And it's there in the 60's, a time we think of as a boon for social change and progressivism, that we see how far gone Hoover was - stuck in a world of black and white, good and evil. Indeed, he viewed Martin Luthor King Jr. less as an agent of cultural change and more as a dangerous radical. And again, viewing Hoover's paranoia through the lense of his own issues - the fact that he himself was sort of a self-hating "subversive" - well, it's a fascinating study of both psychology and American cultural history.

I thought the movie featured a smart, well-structured script (though it perhaps goes on a little too long), and some outstanding performances. I loved the character study and the insightful, eye-opening look at American history and the formation of the FBI. Though the film skips over some key periods of Hoover's life, the flashback/flashforward structure is utilized well. I did feel that Eastwood's directorial style sometimes felt like a mismatch for the scope and tone of the script - sometimes causing that grotesque, theater-of-the-absurd effect during some of the movie's more out-there scenes. I also have to call out the makeup as being unnecessarilly distracting in the case of key characters. All that said, J. Edgar is one of Eastwood's better movies in a while, and it's well worth checking out for anyone who's had an interest in the subject matter.

My Grade: B+