A Summer in Winter

So, yeah, this is where I am.

Oh, hi! I didn't see you there!

So, many of you might be wondering just where I've been since expressing my deepest disappointment in David O. Russell's nowhere-near-masterpiece (and never-shoulda-been Oscar contender) this past New Year's. I admit, it was a very steep drop off of the map, after all. Well, the short answer is that I haven't really been seeing many movies lately, and certainly not at the three-or-four-a-week I was pulling off at my peak. Well, that's no excuse, you might be thinking, just get out there and see more! But it's not quite that easy. And that's where the long answer comes in.

As a number of you know, I left my wage-earning retail job back in mid-October, and after a brief time living off of my savings, I started looking for something new to fuel my movie cravings (and you know, basic daily needs). Unfortunately, nothing really panned out, and as a result I recently (somewhat last minute and without telling anyone) jetted off with all my belongings to Florida to stay with my family until I can get back on my feet. I'm happy to report that progress is being made; I'll be (if everything works as it should) attending classes starting this summer, and I'm already taking on odd jobs to save up some currency. I'm even getting my driver's license while I'm down here (in Boston, that was never a necessity), so it's safe to say I'll be a totally transformed individual when I finally get back to my home city and old life. In the meantime, however, that means I won't be seeing nearly as many new movies as I'd prefer, and it will be a while before I can get around to seeing things I've been awaiting for months or even years (sad face). But while I might be renting movies from the library from now on, I thought I'd take this time to catch you up on the few I HAVE seen, in the meantime. If nothing else, these blurbs will give you some insight on some films you may not have gotten around to as of yet. Besides, all the REALLY good stuff isn't expected for a short while anyway.

It's a shame everyone was wetting themselves with joy over American Hustle's undeserved Best Picture nomination, because there were some films on that list that genuinely EARNED their place without the subsequent buzz, and Philomena was one of them. Based on the true story of Philomena Lee (here played by Judi Dench), it followed her and journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) as they journeyed around the world in search of Philomena's son, who had been sold into adoption by Irish nuns while she was their indentured servant in the 1950's.

The film, directed by The Queen's Stephen Frears, generally focuses on the developing relationship between its two protagonists. And on the surface, that might appear to be a problem. After all, they're polar opposites, with Philomena the pious, naive, kindhearted soul, and Sixsmith portrayed as atheistic, overly-intellectual, and cynical. But under threat of cliches and "odd couple" tropes, Philomena manages to overcome these weaknesses, thanks largely to the strength of its leads. Dench is once again a marvel, a commanding presence on screen and largely Philomena's heart. And it's both interesting and rewarding to see Coogan excel in a serious role - after all, he rose to prominence largely as a comedic performer - as he not only plays the straight man in the relationship but also the narrative force behind the movie itself. Both actors go all out, and thanks to wry, witty dialogue their pairing is one of the best on screen in recent years.

Lovely, but I wouldn't want their winter.

But the greatest part of Philomena might be the fact that, despite painting the Catholic church in a fairly unpleasant light, Frears and his cast and crew refuse to pass judgement. Yes, the individual characters do have their say (in somewhat predictable fashion), but the film itself leaves the heartbreaking events depicted within as open to interpretation. Would God allow this kind of injustice to exist? Should the undeniably evil actions of a religious institution be forgiven? Those questions are left up to the individual audience members to decide, and that's amazingly refreshing in a world where supposedly the greatest directors of our age feel the need to constantly jam their messages down our throats (cough, Spielberg, cough). It helps make this film the masterpiece it is, and one that ought to be seen by everyone.

And the winner of the "Reminded me of Legion (and not in a good way) Award" goes to I, Frankenstein, the graphic novel-based, sci-fi epic from Aussie screenwriter-turned-director Stuart Beattie. Starring The Dark Knight's Aaron Eckhart as Frankenstein's monster, the film follows him as he survives to the modern day as an outcast caught in a supernatural war between warrior Angels and Demons. Oh yeah, Frankenstein also borrows heavily from the Underworld franchise, both in tone and - in some cases - casting. Try to keep that in mind.

The sad part is that this movie actually has some elements going for it. The conflict between the Angels and Demons is pretty fun and compelling, and most of the actors (including Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Yvonne Strahovski and Miranda Otto) are actually quite good, thought they're not allowed to stretch past their limited roles and must be content with chewing as much scenery as possible. The special effects are also amazing, each explosion and disintegration beautiful to behold and belonging on the big screen. There are only a few moments where the CGI becomes obvious, and even those are gone quickly and replaced by either real-life actors or more impressive visuals.

No, he's not ugly, but he sure can act!

Unfortunately, there's just too much working against the potential excellence here, thanks mostly to Beattie himself. Yes, the man wrote Collateral, but that's not enough to justify letting him write the screenplay to the first major film that he's also directing. When you're not a proven director, you really shouldn't be spending somebody else's money on your own half-baked ideas. His biggest problem is pacing, the story introducing a massive, truly impressive battle taking place about an hour in, only for subsequent scenes and battles to pale in comparison. Beattie simply blew his wad (and perhaps his budget) too early, and the second half of Frankenstein plays out like a ham-handed Opera of the kinda-Damned. Another, relatively minor complaint is the casting of Jai Courtney, who to this point has not earned the high-profile roles he has enjoyed these past couple of years. So far he just plays a generic tough guy, which wouldn't be bad if he wasn't being given so much to do, as is the case here.

You should really have your landlord take a look at that...

Still, I'd be hesitant to call I, Frankenstein a BAD movie. Despite it's glaring issues, it does have a cheesy, so-bad-it's-good charm about it, and the acting is MOSTLY good enough to carry it, even if the script and director cannot. The only downside is that it's all but out of theaters at this point, and those excellent special effects simply won't cut it anywhere else but the most technically advanced home theaters. So if you still can and don't mind shelling out some money on a "bad" movie, I, Frankenstein isn't as poor a selection as you'd think. If it's nowhere near you however... you can watch something else. Really, anything else.

As the Pythons used to say, "And now for something completely different." I mean, there was no way I WASN'T going to see The Lego Movie. It comes from directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who also penned the screenplay...you know, since they proved with Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and 21 Jump Street that they could actually create good movies. It's also another animated flick NOT from the three-headed monster known as PixaDisneWorks, which makes it interesting in that just three years ago ONE of those studios would have snapped this project up. It's another example of more studios getting interested in producing animated products, and while I still expect the "Big Three" to dominate that particular scene, it's nice to see other companies (in this case Village Roadshow) taking a break from their serious dramas, adult thrillers or uncouth comedies to produce genuine family features.

In what is essentially a rip-off of The Matrix or any similar stories, The Lego Movie focuses on a normal Lego guy named Emmett (Chris Pratt), who is recruited by a band of legends known as the "Master Builders" to fulfill a prophecy as "The Chosen One", who would save the world as they knew it from the machinations of the dread Lord Business (Will Ferrell). Yeah, it sounds dumb. And in ways, it IS dumb... in a good way!

Way better than Christopher Nolan's last movie...

That's because Lord and Miller really know how to pace a movie that doesn't just entertain kids, but has a lot that adults can grab onto as well. Between the catchy theme song (which I guarantee will ironically be nominated for a Best Original Song Oscar next year), colorful worlds and kid-friendly characters, you could be forgiven for thinking that this film was a childrens-only affair. But the truth is that for every piece of slapstick and every silly pun, there are nuggets for adults in both the humor and the message the movie is trying to get across. Characters are both fun and excellently-conceived, played tongue firmly-in-cheek by actors like Morgan Freeman, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett (whose Batman steals every scene) and even three characters voiced by Liam Neeson. On top of that, the amazing special effects really make you feel as though you're inside a world made entirely of tiny building blocks. The directors are talented enough to know full well when to go all-out with the effects and go more for a retro, Ed Wood-style effect to remind you the film's origins, and that's a skill that many filmmakers never seem to learn.

See, this is what happens when you don't wear your seat belt!

Sure, the basic plot is completely unoriginal. Yes, it does have some focus issues (I don't expect a Lego brand movie to be anti-consumerism, but their pro-creative stance is a bit muddled when they're clearly advertising their pre-designed kits and not just the Lego bricks themselves). Yeah, the ending is a tad predictable and more than a little on-the-nose (although that aspect of the movie I still thought to be done well). But those are really the only gripes I can find about a movie that has enormous amounts of heart and character and is suitable for both children and inner children of all ages. If you haven't seen this yet... well, it's still in theaters, though it will eventually make a great home media purchase as well. Whichever way you choose (or if you decide to do both), you won't go wrong.

The last movie I'll look at today is the RoboCop reboot, and I think I speak for everyone who has seen it when I say... It's better than I thought it would be.

Naturally, when it was announced that MGM was remaking Paul Verhoeven's 1987 sci-fi classic, there were more than a few dissenting voices. As one who is anti-remakes in general, reimagining a film like this - one that I had just looked at in 2011, and still holds up just fine when you consider the current, bankrupt state of the city of Detroit - seems more than a tad unnecessary. But just because you don't like the idea of something being made doesn't mean that the final product cannot be good, or at least different enough to justify it's own existence. And that's where the English language-debut by Jose Padilha comes in and slowly but surely blows away any of your niggling concerns.

And THIS is why you don't perform double blind tests with everything.

On the surface, the main themes of this new Robocop are the same; near-dead cop (The Killing's Joel Kinnaman) is combined with a machine, fighting crime, only to come face to face with the corruption of the people who created him. The big difference here is scale; Whereas the original was based almost entirely in the futuristic, crime-riddled Detroit (much in the same way Escape from New York reflected a future version of 1981's NYC), this movie has more of a global focus, and that's more a reflection of our time, where global events have a much more immediate an impact on US soil and culture than they did thirty years ago. In that vein, OmniCorp isn't just trying to sell AI-operated policemen, because they've been successfully been using their robots for peacekeeping operations in countries all over the globe. What they're TRYING to do is get a foothold on American soil, where the people are justifiably upset by the idea of logic-driven, black-and-white lawmakers replacing human jobs. So in this case the reason for not going all-robot isn't their obvious defects, but the fact that they're so FREE of defects, that inspires the idea of putting a man inside of a metal suit.

I'd love the smell of napalm in the morning... if I had olfactory senses.

The cast is absolutely brilliant, filled with reliable names such as Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Jackie Earle Haley, Jennifer Ehle, Michael K. Williams, Abbie Cornish, and even Samuel L. Jackson (as a hilarious Bill O'Reilly-esque TV host), though the standout might be Kinnaman, still relatively unknown outside his native Sweden. He has to essentially play three characters: one, the human, normal cop Alex Murphy, the emotionless, AI-controlled RoboCop, and the MurphyCop combination that gets screwed up on occasion. It helps that the character interactions between Murphy and the others is more fluid; the mystery of his family is never a mystery, as the idea that you could experiment on a near-dead man without the approval of the family is pretty much unheard of in this day and age. And Murphy tries to connect with them, though obstacles (his own embarrassment and pain at his situation, not to mention some unsanctioned personality modification) occasionally get in the way. Despite Kinnaman's talent, the character development for Murphy is unfortunately the weakest aspect of the movie, though it manages to work in some ways (most notably Murphy's interaction with police partner Williams), so this is thankfully an inconsistent issue, and anyway, there's so much great acting across the board that it's easy to forgive.

...Run.

The film has tons else going for it, from the impressive special effects, compelling universe, a cleverly-conveyed message, and a playfulness that is fundamentally (and necessarily) different from the original. Getting past the drastic alterations to the classic costume and the PG-13 rating (both of which I see as both signs of the times and making narrative sense, so can safely ignore) the only thing really lacking is a conversation about crime-ridden Detroit, which seems just as relevant today as it did back in 1987. But considering the larger scale of the story, even that is forgivable, when the focus is more about the differences between the US and the rest of the countries around the world. And for that reason alone, Padilha's new take on the story is 100% justified in its implementation. It's not BETTER or WORSE than the original, but did it ever have to be? I mean, come on people, this is VERHOEVEN we're talking about, not SHAKESPEARE. This RoboCop is all but an original tale, a fun, smart, sci-fi cautionary tale that will hopefully keep this franchise running for a few more decades. The only struggle now is to make better sequels than the original managed to produce. That's all I ask.

Well, I think that's enough for now. I've seen more in the past couple of weeks, but I'll tackle those in my next entry, after I spend some time in the pleasant, 70+ temps we've been enjoying down here. I hope you are all are well, and can't wait to bring you more movie talk in the near future!

... when I'm not in school or saving up money.

Red and White House

Early 2013 hasn't shown much love for action movies. There are a couple of reasons for that. First up is the fact that audiences are sick of retro action stars who haven't accepted that they don't have the same level of cachet anymore. We've seen Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham and Arnold Schwarzenegger struggling against middling turnouts in what used to be their collective wheelhouse, all the good will from the violently fun Expendables series having apparently dried up. What action we have actually deigned to watch this year was largely franchise fare, with GI Joe getting fans to the cinema and not a whole lot else. But for some reason, people came out to see Olympus Has Fallen, directed by Antoine Fuqua and featuring Hollywood's most charismatic voice (Morgan Freeman), its sharpest chin (Aaron Eckhart), and its most dashing rogue (Gerard Butler). For the record, those are three major (and sometimes underappreciated) talents in one major motion picture.

Yippi-ki Yay.

Surprisingly, what's most interesting about Olympus Has Fallen's story is that it's not exactly original; in fact, Fuqua's film is the first of two "terrorists attack the White House" stories to be released this year, with Roland Emmerich's White House Down due out this summer. That's right, folks: just as 2012 featured dueling Snow White productions, Hollywood has declared war on Washington D.C. in 2013. On a typical day at the White House, President Benjamin Asher (Eckhart) is in a meeting with the Prime Minister of South Korea to discuss the rising tensions with the nation's aggressive neighbor to the north. What follows is most unexpected, as a sudden and violent terrorist attack captures Asher and several members of his staff, securing them in a bunker beneath 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and wiping out the shocked and vulnerable Secret Service in the process. While the Speaker of the House and acting President Allan Trumbull (Freeman) attempts to diplomatically handle the situation, he's got an asset on the ground: disgraced former Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Butler), a former special ops soldier who came to the aid of his fellow agents during the attack. With time running out and a dastardly terrorist plot taking shape, Banning might be all there is between us and nuclear holocaust.

Shoot first and ask questions later.

For Butler, it's a return to ass-kicking after a few years of playing dice with his acting career. While I won't disparage his talents - the man has the ability to play drama or comedy, action or romance at the drop of a hat - rarely do audiences seem to care about his movies unless he's killing others with impunity. People seem to enjoy seeing him as an honorable man who blows shit up (thanks to my friend Anne for that coinage) and that's certainly how Olympus Has Fallen succeeds, putting Butler and his fellow actors forward and letting them carry the story. Say what you will about the movie as a whole (and I will), but the film does a good job utilizing its cast, from the trio of stars to strong supporting turns by the likes of Angela Bassett, Rick Yune, Melissa Leo and Dylan McDermott, among a slew of others.

Rocking the bow tie.

Unfortunately that's about where the only bright spot of this movie lies. While the production values are decent, and the action scenes competent enough to keep your attention, what can't be ignored is just how STUPID the script and the plot are. While you certainly shouldn't expect that the amount of political savvy here would rival the stories of, say, The West Wing, but the inanity of the story is downright silly. Fighter jets lose to a hulking super carrier because they line up perfectly with the plane's mounted machine guns. The bad guy's plans hinge on the US President making the ABSOLUTE wrong decision, and when he does his secret servicemen barely put up a fight about the ignorance of procedure. And speaking of the men tasked with protecting the leader of the free world: when the enemy is advancing under the cover of smoke and firing machineguns and RPGs, standing out in the open to get gunned down is decidedly not decent military training. It's illogical, cringe-worthy idiocy like this that ruins the flow of Olympus, and a little more time penning a reasonable script wouldn't have prevented our hero from kicking ass. Instead we're issued a needlessly hyper-violent movie where everybody is so stupid that the director assumes his audience is as well, and that they'll enjoy two hours of mindless gunfights and blatant pro-US pandering.

Glad I'm not on the janitorial crew...

Normally I'd say something along the lines of turning off your brain for a good time, but while Olympus Has Fallen manages to be among the better action movies released this year, it's still pretty damned mediocre. Being a step up from the worst of Stallone, Statham and Willis is nothing to be proud of, and Fuqua has taken some serious missteps in the time since his Training Day height. If you really, REALLY need to see an action movie before Iron Man 3 comes out next month, then maybe you can stomach the bloody, masochistic silliness that is this newest blend of repetitive explosions and monosyllabic dialogue. But if you can wait for this on DVD - or even skip it entirely - then I recommend you do so. Strong cast aside, there's just not enough reason to pay full price for a ticket, especially when you can wait just a few weeks for loads of better options.

The Ballad of a Drunkard

There are few in the United States who would not know who you were talking about were you to mention the name Hunter S. Thompson. A popular author, he is credited with the invention of "Gonzo Journalism", or planting yourself so deeply in the news story you are covering so that you are in fact the central character. His nonfiction books Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail still sell well forty years after they were first published, and are often reqired reading for anyone studying American Literature in establishments of higher learning. Known for his prolific drug and alcohol abuse, a complete inability (or unwillingness) to objectively cover stories, a deep hatred for Richard Nixon, and for his tragic suicide in 2005, Thompson has become perhaps more popular following his death than he ever had in his long career. Therefore it's almost sad that he has left no contemporaries in his wake; Gonzo Journalism has never seen a writer so regarded by the everyman, and that all Thompson might be leaving behind are his own words is all at once sad and hopeful: sad because there may never be another writer like him, and hopeful since as long as his words exist, so does his influence. But it's not his political work that we are here for today. In 1998 Thompson released his first published novel The Rum Diary to the public. After two failed attempts to adapt the book to the big screen in 2000 and 2002, bandying about such names as Nick Nolte, Benicio del Toro and Josh Hartnett, and with Thompson himself referring to the process as a "waterhead fuckaround" among other things, things finally got underway in 2007, with Bruce Robinson directing and writing the screenplay for the title, starring Johnny Depp as Thompson's autobiographical protagonist Paul Kemp.

Another adventure through sobriety

It is the 1950's. Paul Kemp has left mainland America for the beautiful shores of Puerto Rico, where he has taken a job as a journalist for the San Juan Star. The financially-challenged paper has him writing Astrology columns and articles about bowling alleys and American tourism, while ignoring major cultural stories as "uninteresting." The San Juan editor in chief Edward J Lotterman (Richard Jenkins) is only interested in selling newspapers, not telling people the news. As Kemp explores the ups and downs of this island, he is approached by unscrupulous businessman Hal Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart). Hal wants Paul to help them with his writing to build luxury hotels on an uninhabited island in the Caribbean, and doesn't care who he screws over to get it. Paul meanwhile is far more interested in Sanderson's fiance, the sultry and sexually provocative Chenault (Amber Heard), and wants nothing to do with Hal's gaudy rich lifestyle. Caught between a failing newspaper and an real love, failed novelist and rum enthusiast Paul struggles in his attempts to put words down on paper in his own voice.

Paul practices his "my eyes are up here" stare

Though English director Bruce Robinson hasn't helmed a motion picture since the 1992 thriller Jennifer 8, he manages to do a surprising number of things correctly in what is arguably his biggest ever stage. For one thing, he does a stellar job showing the gross division between the luxurious tourist sections of Puerto Rico and the island's destitute native villages. One is filled to the brim with ocean-front hotels, bowling alleys and casinos, catering to obese and gleeful white people, while the ghettos are littered with trash and broken vehicles, with cockfights and dirty children on every corner. In one otherwise notion-less scene, Eckhart's less-than-generous character shouts angrily at natives who watch his private beach from the jungle. The difference between the bright and sandy beach and the dark, foreboding jungle is so strong that you can practically TASTE the inequality present. Robinson surely knew what he wanted to portray most about this country's ownership of this small island, and from stories I've been privy to over the years there's little that has changed in the past sixty years, making this point as timely as it ever was.

Eckhart tries to teach Depp to act like a real person, to poor effect

Unfortunately, that's the best The Rum Diary can come up with, as the rest of the movie is a batch of seemingly but not necessarily connected set of scenes portraying everything from hits from psychadelic drugs to more literal hits, especially when Kemp and his associate Bob Sala (Michael Rispoli) are being hunted down by a lynch mob. A brief scene of Kemp and Sala debating who will be the next US President shows Thompson's intense dislike of Nixon, but the whole thing has little to do with the rest of the tale, a burden that many other scenes carry, especially in the film's final act. Worst of all perhaps is that Kemp/Thompson's writing voice is almost tossed aside, rarely making appearances and doing nothing to appeal to anyone other than Thompson's hardcore fanbase.

He might not be sober, but he can still drive... honest!

Speaking of which, one of Thompson's biggest fans is in fact Johnny Depp, playing a Thompson character for the second time in his career after headlining the cult classic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. However, those expecting another performance to match those of Depp's more eccentric roles will be in for a heady disappointment. Obviously Depp can't be expected to match the manic energy of characters like Captain Jack Sparrow or Edward Scissorhands every time out. However, he has always seemed overmatched playing everyman roles, with last year's The Tourist a perfect example of the wrong that can come from casting him as such. He has his moments, but there is very little reason beyond bare-bones ideals to care about this alcoholic druggie with only slightly fewer scruples than his enemies, and Depp does little to raise this character above that low bar. Another disappointment is Eckhart as Hal Sanderson, a true shame since this is usually the kind of role that Eckhart could run away with on a bad day. Instead he is far too constricted by a script that portrays him as one-dimensional cipher, part of the 1% that people will blindly lash out against on principle alone. Richard Jenkins as newspaperman Lotterman is only slightly better, with at least a small amount of depth keeping him from the gutter. Jenkins pulls Lotterman up by the bootstraps, making a character who is undeniably cruel, but with perfectly logical reasoning behind his actions. A lack of real good guys is an ever-present issue with the film, with a greasy photographer played by Michael Rispoli and a neo-Nazi scrub played by Giovanni Ribisi the closest thing the film creates as allies for Kemp. With friends like these... at least the casting department got one thing undeniable right; as one of the few bright spots in 2011's worst picture nominee Drive Angry, Amber Heard gets another chance to showcase her talents as the film's main love interest. Though underutilized, Heard makes every moment on screen count far more than any of her co-stars, and even manages to coax some of the somehow elusive charm (usually in no short supply) from Depp's performance.

"Three Men on a Bike" just doesn't have the same ring to it...

With a lackluster tale that feels unfinished, broken in some places and unnecessary in others, The Rum Diary is about as far from a good day's entertainment as one can get without being a complete travesty. There are some good sequences early on, but that good will doesn't last as the film's second half is full of incomplete thoughts, harvested from the fringes of an altered mind. This isn't the film many think it should be, and it certainly isn't the film that Hunter S. Thompson - or any author for that matter - deserves as his legacy. While The Rum Diary isn't the bad movie I'd thought it might be, its lack of drive and focus turn it into a thoroughly mediocre one. When you consider Thompson's controversial career, calling a movie based on his works mediocre is really a worse fate.

Battle for Box Office Bucks

On the night of February 24/25'th, 1942, antiaircraft batteries in Los Angeles opened fire on what they thought was a Japanese attack force over the skies of the city. In the end, nothing was shot down, and the military discounted the entire incident as a false alarm, declaring that the target in question had been a "weather balloon." The incident is known today as the "Battle of Los Angeles." Many who have studied the event question whether there was a government cover-up, as the weather balloon theory didn't quite make sense. Still others hypothesized that the unidentified aircraft was extraterrestrial in nature, and if so, wondered as to the craft's purpose. Now, almost seventy years later, we're presented with one possibility, that of alien invasion. Directed by Jonathan Liebesman, Battle: Los Angeles's trailers promised explosions, lots of gunfire and excitement when I witnessed them last year. After being disenfranchised with the unmitigated crap that was Skyline, anything that would bring back the quality of the genre to the level of, say, Independence Day, was welcome. I'd been waiting to see this film for months, and being able to see it opening day was a treat I wasn't going to squander.

Awww, he just wants to say hello! With weapons.

Veteran actor Aaron Eckhart plays USMC Staff Sergeant Nantz, a veteran marine who, true to form, is getting too old for this shit. His career marred by an ugly mission in which most of the men under his command died, Nantz is now stateside in Los Angeles, training new recruits. Now, having just turned in his resignation, Nantz is ready to go on to the next stage of his life when meteor showers start crashing down near every major coastal city around the globe. The military realizes almost too late that the meteors are an alien invasion force, and Nantz finds himself pressed back into service as the human race is set upon by a relentless foe who wants nothing more than our total extermination.

Michelle Rodriguez plays against type as a tough chick... oh, wait...

The film definitely delivers when it comes to action. The designs of the alien invaders and the chaos they bring upon the city is beautiful to behold, thanks in large part to the Brothers Strause (who make for lousy directors but sure can create great effects). The alien creatures are meticulously detailed and move realistically, even if they come off as expendable shock troops. You get chills every time they appear on screen, so effective is their use. It's a shame that the immersion is damaged by the director's insistence on using what you might call "shaky cam." Every time a tense moment comes upon us, the shaky cam comes in to make the battle sequences appear even more chaotic than it already is. Even worse are the close-ups, which render any attempt to discern what's happening on the screen fruitless. This is especially true during a particularly frenetic scene on the Santa Monica Freeway, in which almost half the soldiers in the story are killed off but we don't know what happened until afterward. The shaky cam is by far my biggest condemnation of the film, as it's both lazy and inefficient to telling the story.

By all means, now is the perfect time for ALL military forces to be in the air!

Character also doesn't get much attention here, though that's just about par for any story told from a military standpoint. Eckhart is perfectly cast as the grizzled veteran, and after this film I wouldn't be surprised to see the actor who usually goes for more dramatic films make an action or thriller run a la Liam Neeson. Still, his character is the veteran soldier whose body isn't able to take the soldier life anymore, a character played by dozens of actors over the course of Hollywood history. Name a war film, and that character appears SOMEWHERE. Beyond Eckhart, lesser actors play no less cliched roles. The fresh out of officer training Lieutenant (Ramon Rodriguez) with a pregnant wife at home? Check. The one getting married in a few weeks (R&B musician Ne-Yo)? Check. Guy suffering from P.T.S.D. (Jim Parrack)? Check. Soldier with an annoying New York accent (Will Rothaar)? Check. Token female soldier (Michelle Rodriguez)? Rookie (Noel Fisher)? Check, check. Guy (Cory Hardrict) with a dead soldier brother who just happened to perish on Nantz's ill-fated mission? BIG check! Half a dozen cases of cannon fodder later and you've got a ready-to-film military unit. That's not to say that they're not good actors, just that they don't have much to work with. It's a big disappointment when the best character you have is a Navy Corpsman from Nigeria studying to become a doctor (Adetokumboh M'Cormack, best known as Mr. Eko's brother on Lost) but you don't DO anything with that. Civilians also get a bum rap as characters played by great actors like Michael Pena and Bridget Moynahan are given little to do and are ditched at the earliest possible opportunity. That said, it's amazing how much I felt connected with the few characters allowed to do anything, even if it's just caring whether or not they died. The conversations between the characters feel real and honest, fostering that bridge. Even if the characters themselves aren't original, it's nice that they can interact with each other and their environments believably. Also, it's nice to see such a multicultural cast, especially since Hollywood was rightfully lambasted last year when so few films featured minorities and even fewer were actually promoted.

Look for next year's sequel: Battle: Cedar Rapids

The film draws from a number of sources, not the least being Black Hawk Down and Independence Day. ID4 in fact was such an obvious influence that you can visually realize where Liebesman re-shot a scene that matches one from the older sci-fi film. And in a late-film speech, I half expected Eckhart to pull a Bill Pullman and rally his soldiers by shouting "...This is our Independence Day!" Battle: Los Angeles shares many of the weaknesses from these aforementioned films, including poor character development and an over-reliance on special effects. On the other hand, it also shares in their strengths, never disappointing in the action department and being exciting to watch throughout. It delivered on all that was promised, and for that it pops in at #3 for 2011. It may have its flaws, but Battle: Los Angeles is a guilty pleasure, a popcorn film that you HAVE to see on the big screen.

Hole in One

When all is said and done, 2010 might be remembered as the year of the indie film. Seriously, in a year when so many big productions have scampered to catch every dollar they can just to break even, the indie films are raking in the dough. Winter's Bone, Black Swan, The King's Speech, 127 Hours, and Blue Valentine have all earned their share of positive critical reviews, award nominations and relative box office success even in limited releases. In fact The King's Speech, in earning over $88,000 per theater its opening weekend, had the highest gross per theater for any opening film this year, surpassing another art house winner, The Kids are All Right. But it's not just the financial successes that are worth watching: if we followed that logic, I would be running out to see Little Fockers (hint: I'm not). Sometimes it's the award nominations that direct us to something we might not have given a chance to otherwise. In this way nominations play a huge role in guiding audiences to films they might not otherwise see to drive up box office numbers and make their small film more impressive in the eyes of voters. And damned if it doesn't work. How many films have you not at first seen, only to change your mind when it gets nominated for an Academy Award? Me too, and that's why this past week I took advantage of living near a multiplex that happens to carry the occasional limited release film to see the John Cameron Mitchell-directed Rabbit Hole.

"Hello, I'm Harvey Dent and I want to be your D.A."

Based on the stage play by David Lindsay-Abaire, Rabbit Hole is about grief and mourning. It's been eight months since the death of Becca (Nicole Kidman) and Howie (Aaron Eckhart)'s young son Danny, who was killed in an accident, and the husband and wife still have a hard time reconciling the sudden loss in their life. Visits to support groups don't work for Becca, who is bothered by those who try to justify their child's death by saying that it's God's plan. Stricken by grief, she wants to rid herself of the visual reminders of her lost child, wanting to go so far as to move out of the house they love. This puts her at odds with Howie, who relishes those same reminders and doesn't want to lose the image of Danny from his mind. As the two strain dangerously apart, each makes difficult decisions and try to learn to live with the emptiness that has come in their son's absence.

Yes, there is indeed Al Green playing in the background

Rabbit Hole received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress for this film, and when you watch Kidman's performance you'll understand why. Kidman doesn't just cry throughout the film (though she does her fair share) like you might expect in films like this. She shows several sides of grief in her performance, from sadness to depression to disbelief in others' attempts to help her cope. Everywhere she looks and everyone she meets in the course of the film remind her in some way of Danny, and Kidman does an amazing job showing even the tiniest traces of the strain that such things would put on her emotions. She does the big waterworks productions to excellent effect as well, but it's the restraint in her performance that really sticks out and makes it a must-see.

For God sakes, woman, don't let him get on the topic of shrimp!

Compared to Kidman, everyone else in the film doesn't quite stack up, but closest is Eckhart as the suffering husband Howie. Unlike Becca, Howie doesn't want to let go of Danny's memory, wants the help of others both familial and stranger, and regularly immerses himself in the memories of raising his son. Like Kidman, Eckhart doesn't just mourn in one way, and he varies from subtle to loud in his work. It's only because of Kidman's stellar performance that one could say he was lacking, and he does a fine job in his understated execution. Award-winning actress Diane Weist does an amazing job playing Becca's mother Nat, who underwent a similar process with Becca's deceased brother years ago. Weist is a great storyteller and her appearances in the film, though sometimes straining, always serve a purpose to push the movie's tale forward. Other great showings come from Sandra Oh as a member of the support group Becca and Howie attend, Tammy Blanchard as Becca's insufferable and immature sister Izzy, and Miles Teller as Jason, a teen who Becca befriends over the course of the film.

Life feeling like a Prozac commercial?

Of course, there's no guarantee even award-addled audiences will want to see a film in which the main plot device is the death of a child. It's particularly dark stuff, full of bittersweet memories and encounters, and the great performances by the leads means you the audience feels the same grief they do, albeit on a much smaller scale. The film is also a bit predictable, as you can guess some events before their occurrence and the characters take a few side-trips in their emotional roller-coaster journeys that are telegraphed a mile away, though their impact on the audience is still palpable enough as to be moving. Some off-beat pacing slows down the film at parts as well, but not poorly enough to detract from the tale telling.

The weirdest hand-holding scene EVER

For what it's worth, Rabbit Hole may not be a perfect film but is still a very comendable one. Even with the amazing performances by its star cast, it however has the risk of being completely overshadowed by even the other indie films this year, not just the big blockbusters. 2010 was a big year for working small, and I hope that Kidman's performance doesn't completely get shut out by the Portmans, Hathaways and Jolies that threaten to take over during this biggest of movie seasons. I would put this one in the same category as Winter's Bone, a sterling and emotional ride that may not leave you wholly fulfilled, but definitely makes you think about life and it's many existential mysteries.