——The Black Dahlia (2006)——

Josh Hartnett seems to be the go-to guy for modern noir lately, for some reason (see also: Sin City, Lucky Number Sleven). Which is perfectly fine with me. The guy seems made for the stuff. He fits in equally as well in this new Brian De Palma film about a real life murder case in Hollywood, where a girl got carved up, mouth slashed ear to ear like the Joker. Hartnett gets partnered up with Aaron Eckhart after the two of them have a boxing match before a big election to get the police more money. They become best friends, getting so close that Eckhart doesn’t even mind how close Hartnett is getting to his Lana Turner-type girlfriend, played by Scarlett Johansson. But then the Black Dahlia case comes around.

Eckhart goes off the deep end, getting too personally involved in the case, while meanwhile Hartnett’s cop digs deeper, leading him to a femme fatale, played by Hillary Swank. Things quickly escalate to a non-professional relationship, and before he knows it he’s too personally involved in the case as well. It’s all a murder mystery where seemingly meaningless puzzle pieces all seem to come together in the end.

De Palma handles the material skillfully, but without any of his usual flair. You could call it a pretty safe movie for him. I liked the movie, but at the same time I agree that it isn’t anything special. It’s got its flaws. I think it is worth a rental though.

(SEE)

(September 22)

——Jackass Number Two (2006)——

If you already don’t know if this movie is for you, then God bless you. You should know if idiots doing idiotic things for our pleasure is your bag or not by now. Some people are going to hate this movie. I mean, it is called Jackass for a reason. The fact that it is called Jackass “Number Two” instead of just Jackass 2, should give you some indication of the maturity level we are working on here.

That said, if you are really into seeing some really funny stupid-ass shit, this is the Casablanca of people making asses out of themselves for art. I was dying, watching this. I saw it with Ross on opening night with a crowd of rowdy high-schoolers. We had to have been the oldest people in the crowd. AKA, any other film and I would have torn my hair out. For once though, this was the ideal crowd to see the movie in. We all laughed and laughed and laughed. Man, I think I even missed half the things said, because everyone was laughing so loud. Not like it matters. Seeing someone get hit in the balls is its own reward. We all know that this movie will never win any awards. And yet it somehow manages to be genius. If you’ve ever laughed at a Jackass skit, see this movie.

(MUST SEE)

(September 23)

——Lucky Number Sleven (2006)——

[Note: This is an edited reprint of my theatrical review.]

A bit of fate led me towards seeing this instead of Thank You for Smoking, which I’m grateful for since I probably wouldn’t have seen Lucky Number Sleven otherwise, while I definitely would have, and did see Smoking. This is one of those movies that just surprised me by how effortlessly entertaining it was. Granted, the movie does lose a little bit of steam in its final act as it attempts to explain the first half of the story (most of which a careful viewer, like myself, has probably already guessed). But that didn’t stop me from really getting into this clever, fun modern noir. [Seeing the film the second time, it was a lot more fun to be in on the set-up and get all of the little clues they left for you.]

Josh Hartnett is Sleven, a guy with a condition that allows him to feel no anxiety, who happens to get mistaken numerous times for someone he isn’t. In the meantime he gets caught in a gang war between two old mobsters who used to be friends but now want to kill each other. He’s supposed to kill the Rabbi’s son for the Boss, who he supposedly owes a lot of money to, while also getting a bunch of money for the Rabbi, whom he also supposedly owes money to. He doesn’t have any of their money. Nor is he actually the guy that owes all of this money. Meanwhile, Bruce Willis plays a hitman, lurking in the shadows, who has definitely has something to do with all of this.

Now you better not get bogged down in plot, because if you do you’ll probably be disappointed by it’s “so-clever-it’s-too-clever-by-half” as Owen Gleiberman put it, storyline. Instead you should dig into the character work done by the main actors, all of whom chew the scenery like pros. I loved Hartnett’s spontaneous relationship with the literal girl next door, Lucy Lu, something that I was dreading going into the film but actually delivers with some of the best on-screen chemistry I’ve seen between two actors in quite some time. Their lines really pop between each other and Lu is just fantastic. It’s not quite must see, but I really do think you all should see it. This is one of those looked over comfort food genre gems.

(SEE)

——Lonesome Jim (2006)——

Jim (Casey Affleck) is very depressed. He grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere and so he spent a lot of time reading. All of his favorite writers just happened to kill themselves. Like I said, happy guy. At 30 with nothing really to show for his life, he moves back home from NYC to live with his parents and equally messed up brother after running out of money and having nowhere else to go. Life is pointless to him at this point. And then he meets a sexy little nurse/single mom, played by Liv Tyler.

For whatever reason she takes a liking to mopey Jim, and the two of them start up an unconventional romance. Meanwhile, his depression indirectly causes his brother (Ed’s Kevin Corrigan) to try and kill himself, while his loser uncle ships drugs through his sweet mother’s snack business, putting her into trouble with the authorities. While the subject manner is unusually depressing, director Steve Buscemi brings just the right amount of humor and levity to the picture, making it unusually funny and uplifting without being sappy or cliché. I really enjoyed this. It has a real authenticity to back up its more wacky situations. Even though you know it would never happen that way, you buy into it anyway. Any movie that can do that is A-OK in my book.

(MUST SEE)

(September 24)

——Kill Zone (2005)——

This is the first release from Dragon Dynasty, a company created by the Weinstein brothers and Quentin Tarantino, which is supposed to have the largest collection of kick ass Asian films out there. I’m excited to see what they come out with. Unfortunately, Kill Zone wasn’t exactly a stellar start to the series. Now if you are a fan of Hong Kong cinema you’ll notice a very overused plot thread in this movie. A mob boss (Sammo Hung) gets away with everything. The cops can’t find any hard evidence to lock him away, even though they know what he does. So the cops go bad to try and take him out. On top of that our lead cop has adopted a little girl he’s sworn to protect after her parents were killed for trying to testify against the mobsters. Unfortunately, he has a brain tumor, so he only has a limited amount of time to get his arch-enemy before he dies.

A new guy (Donnie Yen) is set to take over his police task force. He’s good and virtuous and appropriately shut out from what the other guys are doing. They go down a dark road, though, and Hung’s crazy mob boss takes that opportunity to have them all killed. Only the new guy can redeem their actions in the end.

Most of the film is pretty unspectacular. It’s only at the end, when Yen goes after Hung when things finally get interesting. There are some really good fights between the two of them (who knew Sammo Hung was still so fast?) that makes the movie worth watching for fight nuts. Everyone else, eh, not so much…

(MISS)