By Tom Lynch
50. “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” Shane Black, 2005
49. “In America,” Jim Sheridan, 2002
48. “The Lives of Others,” Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006
47. “Pan’s Labyrinth,” Guillermo del Toro, 2006
46. “Best in Show,” Christopher Guest, 2000
45. “Michael Clayton,” Tony Gilroy, 2007
44. “The Dark Knight,” Christopher Nolan, 2008 Read the rest of this entry »
Über-sqüirmy and generally uncomfortably scattershot, “Brüno” is no “Borat.” Where Borat functioned both as a naïf and as a send-up of Western perceptions of the otherness of small countries with odd customs and readily misspelled names, Brüno’s embodiment and disembowelment both of the drive to be famous for being famous and of the most heinous notions of gayness veers from outrageousness to puckishness with little consistency. There’s laughter, but no real feeling of fun. Even with the impression that this master practitioner of twenty-first-century “Candid Camera”‘s gimmickry is working with many fewer real subjects and many more improvisers working in sub-sub-Christopher Guest fashion. Sacha Baron Cohen may have developed a taste for the adrenaline of confrontation, but he likely can’t go much farther with the three characters he created for his British TV series. It’ll be interesting to see what he gets when the mantel of culture warrior falls away and he has to rely on a genius for situation and non sequitir in what will surely be much better movies, movies that don’t rely on shock and a desire to provide a bawdy, distorted, disdainful mirror to the world. Since the movie is a grab-bag of jokes, many reviews will spoil the pong of gags whether sly or disgusting, but the baiting of presidential aspirant Ron Paul is particularly strange, both in Paul’s willingness to suck up to Brüno for press time and in Paul’s spluttering reaction to what ensues. 80m. (Ray Pride)
RECOMMENDED
In a sequel to “Night at the Museum,” Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) returns as a steward of museum specimens and a seeker of his true self. Writers Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, the duo who earlier wrote “Herbie Fully Loaded,” adapted Milan Trenc’s 1993 children’s book “The Night at the Museum” for the 2006 film. Larry was then a failed inventor of gizmos. Perennially evicted, this divorced dad also failed to show up for Parent Career Day at his son’s school. He got an $11.50-an-hour job as the night guard at a New York City museum where historic wax figures, toy soldiers, taxidermized animals and a dino skeleton came to life every night, thanks to an ancient Egyptian gizmo. Now Larry is a wildly successful purveyor of gizmos who risks blowing a big deal with Wal-Mart, so he can repatriate his old museum pals after they’re crated and trucked to the archives in D.C. Read the rest of this entry »
RECOMMENDED
As much as I get itchy during movies by Christopher Guest, I am endlessly entertained by documentaries that are fully factual but have subject matter and characters that suggest a mutation of his improvisational wickedness. “Anvil! The Story of Anvil,” a documentary about three decades in the life of a “Spinal Tap”-like heavy metal band that even has a drummer named “Robb Reiner” (Rob Reiner directed “Tap”), was made by screenwriter Sacha Gervasi (“The Terminal,” “The Big Tease”), who just happened to have been a roadie for the band when he was a teenager. “Anvil!” is almost too true to be good, but when it’s good, it’s very, very good. After its debut at Sundance 2008, there were several studio-indie people who kept asking all and sundry, what did you think? What did you think? They were wild for it but couldn’t get their bosses to bite. (The bosses in question no longer have those jobs). Funny and stirring without ever truly mocking the long-held ambitions and musical mediocrity of Torontonians Steve “Lips” Kudlow and drummer Reiner, “Anvil!” is a portrait of obstinacy, determination, identity, stupidity and ultimately, unexpected delight. Of their fistful of fans that never grows, Reiner is unintentionally hilarious and heartbreaking when he says, “I can sum it up for you in three words. We have shit management.” Gervasi’s a bright and trenchant onlooker, knowing when to let well enough be, including when Reiner invokes what became of family members at Auschwitz. It’s one of 2009′s best releases to date. 90m. (Ray Pride)
RECOMMENDED
It’s the shit, okay? Modestly made Aussie mock-doc “Kenny” (2006) takes the tropes of Christopher Guest’s now familiar, oft-wearying semi-improvisational shtick and drags them through the cistern with small, likable comic results. As directed by Clayton Jacobson and written with his brother Shane, with many other Jacobsons on hand, “Kenny” is the story of an affable plumber who maintains porta-potties at public events. More of an edge, a la Ricky Gervais, would have made for a different sort of comedy, yet good humor and ample badinage help the comedy overflow. Political implications are largely underplayed for a healthy helping of kind-hearted Kenny. “As far as smells go, your body’s only in shock for the first seven to twelve seconds. After that, you quickly get used to it.” (Reportedly, the sanitation company seen on screen largely financed “Kenny.”) 99m. (Ray Pride)
Not as zingy as his first semi-improvised comic mock-doc, “Incident At Loch Ness,” writer-director Zack Penn’s “The Grand” allows his actors a chance to chisel comic fineries with character consistency, if not always agreeable comic results. Unfortunately, the subject’s card playing, which like sex and infidelity is always a more interesting topic to those with hands in the pot than those outside. While there are bits from Woody Harrelson, David Cross, Dennis Farina, Cheryl Hines, Richard Kind, Ray Romano, Gabe Kaplan and Chris Parnell that miss and hit, I kept my eyes open for “The German”—Werner Herzog in another tasty passage of gleeful self-parody. Still, unlike recent Christopher Guest offerings, I didn’t feel like I needed a shower immediately afterward. There’s silliness here, but not much spite. 104m. (Ray Pride)
