Transformers: Dark of the Moon *

Director: Michael Bay

Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

John Malkovich, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Frances McDormand

Condemning a Transformers movie for its lacking qualities has become as expected as having the very same movies squeeze every penny from the entire world population when they are released. What is it about Michael Bay's destruction extravaganzas that results so appealing and entertaining to people from China to Chile?

In theory it could be our everlasting desire to see our world being blown to pieces but perhaps when it comes to a Bay movie, it might be something else, perhaps all we want to see is how deeper will he sink cinema as an art form.

This is of course a rather snobbish theory and probably has nothing to do with what actually goes inside audiences minds as they watch Transformers: Dark of the Moon, a movie so preposterously bad that it can only be described as an exercise in extreme bad taste. From its historical revision premise that attributes the entire space race to a mysterious lunar landing caused by the Autobots, to its waste of perfectly good thespian talent (Frances McDormand, the bills must be raking up if you're in this), the film constantly pushes buttons in just how mediocre and shamelessly inefficient a movie can be.

Most of the story centers once again on the charmless Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) who has been dumped by Megan Fox's character and is on the rebound with British import Carly, played by the oh-so-stunningly-beautiful Huntington-Whiteley.

How the average looking Sam gets these beauties? One can never say and this is even alluded to in a cringe worthy scene where his own mother (Julie White) asks him if it's because he has a big dick.

However, the more clever the movie thinks it's getting, the more perversely putrid it gets. By casting Dempsey as a villain for example Bay assumes he's bending some sort of genre conventions and pushing the boundaries of summer movie magic, when the truth is that he doesn't know how to design a character, much less direct an actor with enough subtlety and nuance to make us believe their back stories and emotional motives.

You may say, we don't go for Transformers for the emotional content but even as a spectacle, the movie remains derivative and rather ugly looking.

For all its fanfare about state-of-the-art CGI and 3D, the film looks like more of what we got in the first installments, with the robots' transformation only being slightly more impressive than the lust with which Bay shoots them in their car incarnation. Crap, after all, looks the same in two or more dimensions.

Worst of all might be the ideological content of the film, because for all its talks of alien forces and non-country specific references, Transformers are essentially a reactionary representation of the United States of America. Bay, who isn't the cleverest cookie in the political cinema jar, tries to turn his robotic giants into saviors of the planet, when all they really do is provide him with an easy way out of saying things like he thinks them.

In this one, the outrageous imperialism of the robots is obvious when after pretending to leave the planet (Bay tries to make them both saviors and migrant martyrs) they return and Optimus Prime declares how they will go against the law in order to defend freedom.

This idea isn't only disgusting because in the previous installment Bay gleefully destroyed the entire history of the Middle East but because in this, of all years, the idea of military invasion and the perpetuation of military colonies results completely tacky.

But fear not, Bay doesn't only offend the international community. In the film's centerpiece he uses the city of Chicago as a playground for destruction. With some scenes disturbingly recalling the attacks of September 11, you can't hep but wonder where exactly does this man fail to see how much he crosses the line.

Bay is like the conservative teenager who decides to join the army because a videogame taught him how cool it would be to kill people. Then again, what can you expect from a man who in one moment has an octopus-like robot performing something that resembles bukkake on poor Huntington-Whiteley's character?

Red **½

Director: Robert Schwentke
Cast: Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren
Mary-Louise Parker, Brian Cox, Ernest Borgnine, Karl Urban
Richard Dreyfuss, James Remar

Red has got to be one of the most fortunately cast unfortunate movies ever made. When you got the likes of Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren starring in a graphic novel adaptation you expect it to be brilliant or at least guilty pleasure.
The truth is that Red is none, it's more of a by-the-numbers thriller that under-uses its fascinating cast.
Willis stars as Frank Moses, a former black-ops CIA agent who's pulled out of retirement when agency members begin hunting him for a mysterious reason.
All he knows is that whatever's going on has to do with a secret list compiled by a reporter and that he has to keep an eye out to save Sarah (Parker) the phone operator he's developed a crush on.
Trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together he visits old friends including his mentor Joe (Freeman having more fun than he seems to have had in years), paranoid Marvin (a scene stealing Malkovich) and former wetwork agent Victoria (a sexy, luscious Mirren).
The movie then uses them in an assortment of situations that never achieve the kind of twisted lunacy you could get from having Helen Mirren and John Malkovich shoot machine guns together.
For all of its call to insanity and rebellion the film actually plays it very safe. It's always a delight to watch actors at the top of their game and when the veterans surprise you, it's also great to see Urban get some time in the spotlight, his turn as obsessive agent William Cooper is all kinds of wonderful. The one missing link in the cast is Parker who is totally miscast here, her part called for someone who played the part fully and gave herself to the insanity of it all, in the vein of Madeline Kahn in What's Up Doc? while Parker here seems selfconscious.
There's really not much to elaborate on Red without making it sound like it's a movie that should've delivered brilliance and without taking away the few merits it does have.

Disgrace **

Director: Steve Jacobs
Cast: John Malkovich, Jessica Haines
Antoinette Engels, Eriq Ebuoaney, Fiona Press

Like its leading character, "Disgrace" likes to think it works on different, supreme levels when it's usually just hiding its nature behind a facade.
Malkovich stars as David Lurie, a literature professor in Cape Town University, who starts an affair with one of his students (Engels).
He's discovered and forced to resign after he refuses to indulge the school's board with public humiliation (he does tell her from the start that he's willing to take the affair as far as he wishes).
The problem, which might go undetected by some, is that he's white, she's not and it's post apartheid South Africa.
After this he goes visit his daughter Lucy (Haines), she lives in a farm in the middle of nowhere with her dogs, a rifle-that's never been used-and Petrus (the magnificent Ebuoaney) a black man who bought some land from her property and has started to build a house.
David feels that this place isn't safe for his daughter and his notions become reality when one day they are attacked by three men who do unspeakable things to them.
After this event the movie turns into a facile attempt to try and rationalize Africa, the apartheid and the personal sins of the characters.
The problem is that director Jacobs never really knows where to draw the line between what is symbolic and what is not.
But really, you can't blame a movie that from the very start uses Lord Byron as a premonition (or is it an excuse?) of what will come to happen later on.
When describing Lucifer, Lurie tells his students that the poet described him as a creature who "doesn't rely on principles but on impulse and the source of his impulses is dark to him".
Therefore he becomes "a thing" who "lives among us, but is not one of us". With this poetic reading the movie tries to justify itself.
It also tries to impose upon us a moral dilemma as Lucy refuses to seek justice for what happened to her and the screenplay begins to compare it with what her father did with his student.
But how is consensual sex between two adults-despite the ethical student/teacher problem-any similar to brutal rape?
The movie tries to explain us this relation by pointing out how whites and blacks in Africa lived under different codes of morality. As if crimes can be justified by anthropology.
Perhaps they can be understood if one chooses to judge each culture by their own ideologies, but then what does this say of how we should perceive these characters?
Haines gives a very good performance even when she must convey someone who comes off looking irrational most of the time. The actress gives her the dignity necessary to make her undertake an unnecessary burden (is she atoning for the sins of her father or of the entire white race?) and she's good enough to avoid falling into the clichés that come included by making her character a lesbian (subjecting to the sexual will of men gives the plot forced gender role questioning).
The movie has good intentions, even when it tries too hard to be as cerebral as it is emotionally engaging and Malkovich gives one of his greatest performances as the sleazy, but deeply human, Lurie, but the truth is none of the characters seem to understand each other's choices, in the very same way the audience won't understand the movie's.

Changeling **

Director: Clint Eastwood
Cast: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich
Jeffrey Donovan, Amy Ryan, Denis O'Hare, Colm Feore
Jason Butler Harner, Michael Kelly

Based on a true story, "Changeling" explores the strange case of Christine Collins (Jolie) a single mother living in Los Angeles whose son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) disappeared on March 10th 1928. After reporting her case to the Police Department she received notice five months later that her son had been found; upon the reunion she claimed that the child who had come back was not her son.
This led to her being committed into a mental institution by orders from LAPD captain J.J Jones (Donovan) "you're in shock and he's changed" is his reasoning, where she was kept without proper charges, turning Collins' case into a fairly unknown piece of civil rights history that led to severe changes in the police.
Debating whether to concentrate on the struggle of a mother or the uncovering of a historical piece, Clint Eastwood ends with a film that is certainly entertaining but shemfully aimless.
Once again reducing everything to extreme opposites, Eastwood divides his characters between the bad and the good sometimes pushing situations into the territory of selfparody.
When asking for references from people who knew Walter, Christine approaches his former teacher played by Pamela Dunlap who squeezes all of the Judi Dench within her in a few minutes making for a bizarre occasion of actors being too conscious about when to act, while Walter's doppelganger (Devon Conti) would seem more adequate for yet another remake of "The Omen".
In the same way Eastwood grabs the police with the intention of showing us that Rodney King was nothing new and trying hard to ridicule the idea of LA as a city of dreams or angels.
He desperately wants us to root for Christine and most of the things that happen to her feel more like the way to martyrdom, than the account of an actual human being.
Jolie's performance doesn't help either way, her features too exotic for the settings, she tries her best not to pout too much, give sensual looks or abuse her sexual voice leaving us with absolutely nothing.
She is not subtle, she simply is not there. Jolie lets the story happen to Christine as opposed to having her be the driving force of the plot. Approached by a pastor (Malkovich) who wants to make her a heroine, she immediately goes to his office where she just sits and listens while Malkovich chews the scenery, she pretty much gets lost in the decor. When she is in the mental asylum it's as if she's completely forgotten about her missing son and just concentrates on the "insane" experience. And in the final sequence where she needed to muster some of the post-Obama optimism, it seems she just wanted to get it over and done with. This doesn't mean that her performance should've been a that of a big drama queen, but at least of someone who cared about just anything.
Besides she isn't onscreen as much as you'd think she would and this proves that Jolie's most respected, if not respectable, work comes when her director and editor know just when enough is enough.
In the same way Donovan lingers between bad and cartoon villain, Ryan as a fellow asylum inmate is underused even if her character is the only one who for a second seems made out of flesh and blood.
In "Changeling" the conception of acting is that you should repeat the same line three or more times, while raising the tone, changing the enunciation and looking fierce.
Therefore Jolie's performance consists of her repeated versions of "I want my son back", while wearing simply fabulous hats.
And in the technical department the film more than makes up for most of its flaws; the art direction is stunning and very detail oriented (the roller skating in the phone operators' room is a brilliant touch), Tom Stern's cinematography steals the show, it seems that being allowed by Eastwood to photograph things in something other than blue or gray-ish filters paid off superbly and the film presents us with sepias, reds, very noir-ish blacks, some blues and a postcard like view that might be the worthiest thing in the whole movie. Even in the final "Chinatown"-esque scene where Eastwood's odd jazzy score (think "Misty" and a very famous Charles Trenet song from where he obviously drew "inspiration" from) drowns everything, there is a sense of loss becuase of the visuals. With its look he gives the movie a strange sense of nostalgia despite the horrors hidden in the era.
But besides the barely there ensemble what hurts the film the most is a battle between the power of the story and the director's conception.
Eastwood here seems to have some trouble related to misogyny because for most of the film, even when the dialogues, plot and intentions seem to make us root for Christine, the director has a hard time making us feel that; the lines and events seem to make her be the responsible one because of the actress and her director.
When Christine says "I promised Walter I'd take him to the movies" it doesn't work like normal, reasonable guilt, it plays out like the reaction of someone who is a bad mother because she left the house in the first place.
Eastwood's Christine thinks her place should've been at home with her kid, making her feel bad for her career and while Jolie tries to follow instructions, by the end you can't help but feel she comes out looking like a more virginal version of Roxie Hart (a scene where she delights herself with Oscar predictions is nothing short of morbid).
"Everybody knows women are fragile, just emotions, nothing upstairs" says Ryan's character and with that she sums up what seems to be Eastwood's conception as well.
Because while the men aren't written or portrayed any better, it's the women who often look like parodies; an evil nurse comes straight from "Saw" and Christine's passiveness makes it obvious that for Eastwood, Penelope could've never been the heroine in "The Odyssey".
Whenever the film centers on Christine her scenes come off looking as if they don't belong, watch how in a key scene she is rescued by another character just when she's mid-faint. Her sequences are the kind Mary Pickford would've been perfect for.
The men come right out of a Raymond Chandler film adaptation and if you take into account the slight time difference between both currents it's like mixing water and oil.
On one part there's innocence and movie cliché, on the other the darkest of human nature seen in contrast with the law; if you don't find middle ground for them to share (like it's done in "The Night of the Hunter") the movie will be like a tug of war where nobody comes out winning.
Eastwood tries for this and in a trial sequence he decides cross-editing would add up to the tension instead coming off with a mess of perception.
It is in moments like these when the usually detached, sober Eastwood comes off looking as vulgar and sensationalist.

Her Sugar is Raw.

"I'm not fussy, I eat what you put in front of me."
- Marie (Madonna) to the Clown (John Malkovich) in "Shadows and Fog".

Burn After Reading ***

Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cast: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich
Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, J.K. Simmons, Brad Pitt

Gym employees Chad Feldheimer (Pitt) and Linda Litzke (McDormand) find a disc containing information they assume to be highly classified CIA information.
They link the disc to former CIA analyst Osbourne Cox (Malkovich), who has just been fired from his job and has decided to write his memoirs, to the disapproval of his wife Katie (Swinton) who is having an affair with Treasury agent, womanizer, Harry Pfarrer (Clooney) and has decided to divorce Osbourne.
Dim witted Chad sees the opportunity to get a reward for the safe return of the information, while Linda would finally get the cosmetic surgeries she desires in order to enter the next stage of her life as she sees it, but when they get rejected by Osbourne they approach the Russian Embassy unleashing screwball comedy that gets as dark as the Coen brothers can deliver.
"So we don't really know what anyone is after" goes CIA superior (J.K. Simmons who is in the film for two scenes but might be the ones you remember the most) when one of his employees briefs him on the actions of the other characters. Truth is we really don't know where anything is going, which doesn't diminish the joyful rush of the ride.
"Report back to me when it makes sense" he asks later on with no better results.
Aimlessly, but not purposely, throwing their characters into the plot like mice inside a labyrinth, the Coens seem to be having the time of their lives (and with reason considering their previous film) also providing the ensemble with some of the most entertaining roles they've played.
Clooney, who now seems part of their filmography is at his underrated best, playing a man who has found in sex the thrills he's lacking in his married life. What's wonderful about his character particularly is that the Coend don't turn him into a dislikable sex fiend, just as someone who is looking for what he needs in all the wrong places but has a real soul.
If the Coens planned to create characters exemplary for their idiocy, their plan backfires as they can't help but inject a certain amount of sincere emotional ache in all of them.
When we find Harry is building a gift for his wife we can't help but go aww, when we see what the gift is (where Clooney's eyes sparkle with puppy like fervor) we cringe while we go aww and when he leaves his lover's house offended, sex pillow under his arm, we know this could very well represent his heart.
Malkovich, at his neurotic best, is the poster boy for upper middle class failure. An alcoholic in denial, he moves into his yacht where he drinks and does aerobics as he plans his comeback to the world that shunned him. You laugh at him more than with him, but Malkovich doesn't really care, he's like a human version of Tom the cat.
Swinton is magnificent combining her ice queen qualities with an irresistible sex appeal. With Malkovich she reminds us that familiarity breeds contempt as she is disgusted by everything he does. Swinton doesn't even need to roll her eyes to let us know her apathy.
Pitt's Chad is a genius comedic creation, as the actor vanishes into this bleached blonde muscle machine who smiles when he has no other way of defense.
He never stops chewing gum or moving to what one can only assume is some sort of 90's Eurotrash piece on his iPod, he is ditzy and, scarily reminiscent of some political juggernauts (one whose picture is featured in the film), harmlessly likable.
McDormand's Linda is also some sort of small miracle, the actress absolutely devoid of any vanity becomes this insecure woman whose lack of self esteem comes off as a bizarre, almost admirable determination. "I've gotten about as far as this body can take me" she says and can you really blame her for seeking options instead of just moping?
The Washington D.C. in this film is some sort of bubble where bureaucracy and patriot paranoia gets in the way of common sense.
Everyone seems to think they're part of a bigger picture and with this the Coens (with a wicked eye for comedic detail) poke fun at the mindless fear that pervaded post 9/11 America, Carter Burwell's selfonsciously selfimportant score does a brilliant job highlighting this.
But they also deliver an acute observation of how people face aging; you might very well argue that "Burn After Reading" is a midlife fantasia, both for the Coens who have become filmmakers of whom one expects only great cinema amidst their undeniable flops and of all the characters to whom their actions, as idiotic as they result, might be their last chance of making a difference for self and country.