The Hunger Games ***½

Director: Gary Ross
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth
Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Willow Shields, Wes Bentley
Paula Malcomson, Toby Jones, Lenny Kravitz, Donald Sutherland
Stanley Tucci, Amandla Stenberg, Alexander Ludwig, Jack Quaid

One of the most disturbing realizations upon watching The Hunger Games is that the post-apocalyptic story revolves around a reality television show; meaning that yes, reality television programs are the entertainment equivalent of cockroaches and might survive much nobler art forms after the end of times. The show in this case is a twisted version of the Olympics titled "The Hunger Games", held every year by members of the Capitol to remember their violent history. During the games, twenty four men and women - between the ages of 12 to 18 - represent their districts and battle each other to death, until only one victor remains.
The movie concentrates on the 74th edition of the games and mainly follows Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) the female tribute from the impoverished District 12. Katniss is an expert hunter who has been providing for her family since the death of her father in a mining accident (event which we see exclusively through dialogue-free flashbacks), it's her deep love for her little sister Prim (Shields) that drives her to offer herself as volunteer after Prim is chosen.
Katniss, along with male tribute Peeta (Hutcherson) and their mentor Haymitch (Harrelson), travel to the Capitol guided by the extravagant Effie Trinket (Banks), where they experience for the first time the riches and luxuries they would've never dreamt of having in their districts. But this land is no Oz and serves them merely as the lavish waiting room where they await their eventual participation in the games.
Eventually they are thrown onto a field populated with deathly traps, genetically engineered critters and more terrifying: other human beings whose only purpose is to survive.
Whatever the movie needs to say about the sad reality of entertainment in our times, in which suffering and schadenfreude seem to be the one thing audiences need to be happy, isn't as disturbing as the way in which it's told.
The Hunger Games, based on the popular book by Suzanne Collins, seems to be a critique of dumbed down entertainment but going beyond the genre limitations, it actually forces us to look beyond what we think of as "entertainment".
More than addressing the ridiculousness of reality television, which if nothing else is a disturbingly precise metaphor for "efficient capitalism" (minimum effort maximizing profit), we also come to terms with how journalism has become a sort of Roman sport in its own way.
Watching the film you are more reminded of CNN than you are of Survivor, especially when it's suggested that the games are broadcast twenty four hours a day. The film doesn't try to get to the source of this blood thirst, instead it focuses on one of the stars.
As played by Lawrence, Katniss is a young woman who knows what she wants and how to get it. The hunger in her eyes goes beyond putting a piece of bread in her mouth, it speaks of revenge, hatred and manipulation. Katniss isn't completely likable and that's what makes her so fascinating to watch.
Few actresses are able to empty themselves completely in the effortless way Lawrence does. It seems to take her absolutely nothing to "play" someone. In the movie, Katniss is forced to pretend she has a crush on Peeta, if only to get sponsors who might help her win.
Watching the way in which the lovestruck young man looks at Katniss, we aren't only convinced that she is playing the part to perfection, we also begin to question the nature of emotions. Several movies fail because they think of love as something pure and divine, The Hunger Games succeeds because it understands that love after all might be nothing more than a human creation.
Directed with utmost precision by Gary Ross, the film takes on the harsh task of transforming a novel told in the first person, into a movie that deals with the machinations of a larger social scheme. Ross understands that even this kind of brutality must be entertaining and crafts a movie that feels profound without dangling on extreme snobbery. The film becomes especially effective when we realize it's a direct representation of the story being told.
Novels tell us, movies show us and The Hunger Games then quite literally becomes "The Hunger Games", as we watch actors pretend to be young people who kill each other. Unlike the gamemakers in his movie, Ross is a merciful director and he spares us the need to watch extreme violence. He also denies us the pleasure of getting to know the characters better, which could come off as cold hearted but in all honesty, when's the last time you "knew" the Olympic games competitors? This lack of intimacy makes the film feel even more realistic, its points the more prescient and appropriate. It doesn't avoid the moral dilemmas, it simply establishes that it would never be able to solve them. Does your favorite Olympic sporting event change when one of the teams or competitors comes from a poor country? Perhaps in the future our desire to entertain ourselves will be directly connected to our selfish sense of survival. The movie reminds us that even then, once it's over, we can simply look away from the screen and move on with our lives.

Short Takes: "The Ides of March" and "Rampart".

Oren Moverman was clever enough to cast his The Messenger star Woody Harrelson in Rampart: a character study that seems more obsessed with turning Woody's character into an iconic movie villain, than to actually study his character...

Set in 1999, just after the Rampart controversy sent the LAPD down a hole, the film has Harrelson play Dave Brown; a corrupt cop who has his way regardless of who he has to step on. This makes him a true movie monster and presents Harrelson with the difficult task of adding a human layer to a character that could easily become caricature. This he does beautifully; whether he's sucking on a woman's foot, beating a handicapped man or stealing from thieves, he adds a certain something that gives us a better idea of who this man might be and why he's struggling so much to preserve his decadent lifestyle.

What he doesn't give us, and this might be the screenplay's fault, is a look at what might've turned him into such a despicable creature. It's obviously not necessary to have something like this spelled out to you in a movie, but every character in Rampart feels like it was created specifically for the scenes they're in.

Woody does his best to elevate the movie from being a scenery-chewing fest but the truth is that all the rage in Dave results more frustrating than compelling.

One has to wonder why did George Clooney decide to direct and star in The Ides of March when he could've easily just ran for office. This film adaptation of Beau Willimon's Farragut North (which itself had been loosely inspired by Howard Dean's 200a campaign) works on an almost superficial level because it has a clear agenda, which doesn't allow its viewers to "think".
Clooney stars as Mike Morris, a Democratic candidate in the middle of a primary election that could have him become the next presidential candidate. Ryan Gosling plays Stephen Meyers, his loyal and cinematically idealistic junior campaign manager. When Meyers learns that Morris has a dark secret involving - of all things - an intern (played by Evan Rachel Wood) he has to decide whether to be loyal to his employer or to his morality. Which one wins isn't really important as much as it is to see Clooney execute a fine campaign ad for himself by reminding us that he will be the kind of man who, as his character says, believes in the religion of the US constitution.
By making his "villain" a Democrat, Clooney reassures us that no political affiliations will stand in the way of the common good and it's obvious that he feels best identified with Meyers (if he'd been younger he probably would've played him). Even if the film is extremely dull, Clooney has some truly inspired directorial moments (stylistic bookends, clever visual tricks, superb casting, you must see Marisa Tomei giving a delicious star turn here!) but more often than not he foregoes them to chase clichés that would work best in the insipid All the King's Men remake from a few years back, too bad he let his political interest come between him and the religion of filmmaking.

Grades:
Rampart **
The Ides of March **

The Messenger **

Director: Oren Moverman
Cast: Ben Foster, Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton
Jena Malone, Steve Buscemi, Eamonn Walker

Three months before he's done with service, Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Foster) suffers an eye injury that sends him back to the US. He's placed in a casualty notification team for the remainder of his time in the army with Captain Tony Stone (Harrelson) a harsh, detached man for whom delivering news of death is just another duty.
Will, with his baby face and sensitive grunts feels that Tony's inhuman delivery of news is a disservice to the family of people he knew in Iraq. Tony, who has never been in combat, despite having been in the army at least two decades longer than Will has the steely purpose of a robot and tells Will that rule number one in their job is to never make physical contact with the people they're talking to.
With little regard for subtle dilemma, the screenwriters (Moverman and Alessandro Camon) establish a ying-yang dynamic that in another genre would serve as comedic relief, but in an independent moody drama can only mean ominously forced empathy.
In that way we see as Will and Tony deliver news to all kinds of people, each vignette becoming a who's who of multiculturality and familiar background (to remind us of course that the army isn't just made up of people like the main characters).
Before long we also enter into their private lives and see Tony as a recovering alcoholic for whom sex with young women is both entertainment and a way to keep him grounded.
Will enters a troubling situation when he becomes interested in Olivia (an extraordinary Morton) a young widow he delivered the news for.
Before long the film shifts the importance from the families to the messengers by using unoriginal manipulation techniques.
In one scene Will does weights at the gym when his pager beeps him, he continues lifting with anger and sorrow. The exercise meant to represent the weight of the world on his poor Atlas' shoulders is merely a distraction from the fact that the people whose lives he will break into perhaps are the real ones who had no choice to make. Not to mention Will's eye condition which requires him to use eye drops that fall like tears down his cheeks when he's not supposed to cry or feel anything.
Entire families are destroyed by children who enroll and must go to wars they don't understand, but Moverman doesn't understand this.
His movie offers no possibilities for those for whom the very existence of the army and foreign invasions are a mystery.
Harrelson and Foster are quite good in their roles and bring their characters closer to the impartiality the director never bothers to.
Harrelson plays Tony like a time bomb even if the screenplay takes him to the oh so overused element of "he must have a big secret that wounded him and makes him act like this".
While Foster's troubles, we might believe, come from the fact that his ex girlfriend (Malone) is about to marry another guy.
The fascinating limbo that exists in the fact that soldiers can't return to their ordinary lives is lost in the film's big "the Army takes care of you like a family" discourse and what should've worked like an apolitical essay turns out only to be a buddy/road movie that has us waiting when Will and Tony will realize they're maybe alike, share a hug, a beer and move on to the next house.

NBR Makes Its Picks.

The National Board of Review announced its winners for 2009.

Best Film:
Up In The Air

Top Eleven Films (In alphabetical order):
An Education
(500) Days Of Summer
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Invictus
The Messenger
A Serious Man
Star Trek
Up
Up In The Air
Where The Wild Things Are

Best Director:
Clint Eastwood, "Invictus"

Best Actor:
Morgan Freeman, "Invictus" and George Clooney, "Up In The Air" (tie)

Best Actress:
Carey Mulligan, "An Education"

Best Supporting Actor:
Woody Harrelson, "The Messenger"

Best Supporting Actress:
Anna Kendrick, "Up In The Air"

Best Foreign Film:
A Prophet

Best Documentary:
The Cove

Best Animated Feature:
Up

Best Ensemble Cast:
It’s Complicated

Breakthrough Performance by an Actor:
Jeremy Renner, "The Hurt Locker"

Breakthrough Performance by an Actress:
Gabourey Sidibe, "Precious"

Spotlight Award for Best Directorial Debut:
Duncan Jones, "Moon"
Oren Moverman, "The Messenger" and Marc Webb, "500 Days of Summer" (tie)

Best Original Screenplay:
Joel & Ethan Coen, "A Serious Man"

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, "Up In The Air"

Special Filmmaking Achievement Award:
Wes Anderson, "The Fantastic Mr. Fox"

William K. Everson Film History Award:
Jean Picker Firstenberg

NBR Freedom of Expression:
Burma Vj: Reporting From A Closed Country,
Invictus,
The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellseberg And The Pentagon Papers

Top Ten Independent Films (In alphabetical order):
Amreeka
District 9
Goodbye Solo
Humpday
In The Loop
Julia
Me And Orson Welles
Moon
Sugar
Two Lovers

Top Six Foreign Films (In alphabetical order):
The Maid
A Prophet
Revanche
Song Of Sparrows
Three Monkeys
The White Ribbon

Top Six Documentary Films (In alphabetical order):
Burma Vj: Reporting From A Closed Country
The Cove
Crude
Food, Inc.
Good Hair
The Most Dangerous Man In America: Daniel Ellsberg And The Pentagon Papers

OK so they loved handing out awards this year.
All the Clooney and Eastwood love, no surprise, the NBR has always adored them.
It's odd though that "Precious" wasn't featured in any of their top tens.
Yay Carey Mulligan and "Up"!

Indie Kick-off.

The Spirit Awards for independent film have announced their nominees today. Thus they kick start the happiest time of the year: awards season.
Among their top nominees are:

BEST FEATURE

“(500) Days Of Summer”
“Amreeka”
“Precious”
“Sin Nombre”
“The Last Station”

BEST DIRECTOR
Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, “A Serious Man”
Lee Daniels, “Precious”
Cary Joji Fukunaga, “Sin Nombre”
James Gray, “Two Lovers”
Michael Hoffman, “The Last Station”

BEST SCREENPLAY
Alessandro Camon, Oren Moverman, “The Messenger”
Michael Hoffman, “The Last Station
Lee Toland Krieger, “The Vicious Kind”
Greg Mottola, “Adventureland”
Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber, “(500) Days Of Summer”

BEST FIRST SCREENPLAY
Sophie Barthes, “Cold Souls”
Scott Cooper, “Crazy Heart”
Cherien Dabis, “Amreeka”
Geoffrey Fletcher, “Precious”
Tom Ford, David Scearce, “A Single Man”

BEST FEMALE LEAD
Maria Bello, “Downloading Nancy”
Helen Mirren, “The Last Station”
Gwyneth Paltrow, “Two Lovers”
Gabourey Sidibe, “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire”
Nisreen Faour, “Amreeka”

BEST MALE LEAD
Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”
Colin Firth, “A Single Man”
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “(500) Days Of Summer”
Souléymane Sy Savané, “Goodbye Solo”
Adam Scott, “The Vicious Kind”

BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE
Dina Korzun, “Cold Souls”
Mo’Nique, “Precious”
Samantha Morton, “The Messenger”
Natalie Press, “Fifty Dead Men Walking”
Mia Wasikowska, “That Evening Sun”

BEST SUPPORTING MALE
Jemaine Clement, “Gentleman Broncos”
Woody Harrelson, “The Messenger”
Christian McKay, “Me and Orson Welles”
Raymond McKinnon, “That Evening Sun”
Christopher Plummer, “The Last Station”

For a complete list of nominees click here.

I'm particularly thrilled about Gwyneth Paltrow and James Gray getting in for "Two Lovers", I was sure it would be one of those movies everyone forgets existed come awards season.
No Joaquin Phoenix? That's got to be a joke though...

2012 *

Director: Roland Emmerich
Cast: John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Thandie Newton, Thomas McCarthy, Oliver Platt, Morgan Lily
Liam James, Johann Urb, Zlatko Buric, Beatrice Rosen
Danny Glover, George Segal, Woody Harrelson

If the law of attraction had scientific validity, then Roland Emmerich would be held responsible for the apocalypse.
Throughout his career he has destroyed the planet by way of aliens, natural cataclysms, giant reptiles and meteors; this time he goes the conquistador's way and exploits the Mayan by stating that according to their calendar the world will come to an end on December 21, 2012.
And just as they predicted, when the date arrives the planets align, the sun emits radiation that causes "the Earth's core to destabilize" and the disasters begin.
Los Angeles succumbs to a massive plate movement, Yellowstone Park becomes the Earth's largest volcano and a Tsunami covers the Himalayas.
Fortunately there's a backup plan; as G8 members have been working on the construction of massive arks to help preserve art, animals and for a billion-Euros-a-seat, the planet's finest people.
But Emmerich can't let the world go down in this corrupt hedonism and for every dirty politician like the US President's Chief of Staff, Carl Anheuser (a slimier than usual Platt) there's someone whose spirit is nothing but saintly like the President played by Glover, or the film's leads.
On one side we have Jackson Curtis (Cusack), a failed sci-fi author, working as a limo driver, who discovers about the disaster from a loon in the woods (who else but Harrelson?) and runs to save his two kids (the lovely Lily and James), his ex-wife (Peet) and her new man (McCarthy).
We also have heart-o'-gold scientist Adrian Helmsley (Ejiofor), one of the first people to discover the Mayans were right and becomes advisor to the U.S. President, only to discover that the people behind the arks don't really care about humanity (gasp!).
The predictable plot will unite their stories at one point, but before that we are subjected to two hours of terrible acting, ridiculous dialogue and more CGI than you'll ever want to see in your life.
One of the film's major problems is its need to be so big about everything; therefore Emmerich has to steal from any other major disaster movie you can think of.
There's a mini Poseidon drama (where poor Segal is relegated as a stock player), "Earthquake" like moments of cheesy tragedy, Ejiofor and Cusack trying their best to be Paul Newman and Steve McQueen from "The Towering Inferno" and even a nod to "Titanic" as the life saving arks find themselves in peril.
What this movie fails to do is connect us to the people in the midst of the tragedies. Watching Cusack's character most of the time feels as if it's taking the fun out of watching the preposterous ways in which the director can think of destroying historical monuments, especially because the whole thing might even be a manifestation of his regret about losing his family.
So Emmerich removes the morbid fun out of watching the world collapse, by preaching to us why it should be saved, through characters that never really justify their need for salvation, besides the billing of course.
What's more, for all Emmerich has to say about what makes the world such a wonderful place, he constantly does his best to remind us about our worst.
One of his plotlines includes the death of a French art curator (think "The DaVinci Code" with Thandie Newton) who is killed in a car accident in a familiar looking Parisian tunnel.
That the director chooses to kill a man in the place where Princess Diana died, isn't what's disgustingly tacky, but the fact that he states it as something "curious" is a repulsive nod to tabloid lovers everywhere.
Another moment has him getting rid of almost every Russian character in the plot; because why would a new Earth need mobsters and Russian brides he asks.
And then, in one of the film's most cringe worthy scenes he seems to suggest that reality television will not die with the apocalypse, but will become a way of bonding and learning.
Perhaps Emmerich believes his movies to be just entertainment, but deep within their plots there often lie ideas that glorify the Western world and squeeze even the last cliché out of everyone else.
The world will not come to its end because of prophecies ancient civilizations made, but because of a humanity that has the technology and resources to exalt the beautiful things we can create, yet chooses only to glorify the very worst in our nature.

Zombieland **

Director: Ruben Fleischer
Cast: Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin

After zombies have taken all over the world, human survivor Columbus (Eisenberg) is trying to reach his hometown to see if he has a family to get back to.
Not out of any special connection, but because it's the normal thing to do, as he explains in a self deprecating narration.
On the way there he encounters Tallahassee (Harrelson) a Twinkie (as in Hostess pastries) loving redneck with a special talent for killing zombies and tough sisters Wichita (Stone) and Little Rock (Breslin) with whom he forms an unlikely family.
They stick together, only after learning to trust each other of course, and Columbus gives up his original plan in order to help the sisters get to Pacific Playland, an amusement park in California that reminds them of better times.
Forget the fact that these people think a rollercoaster ride is a priority, what matters here is that the filmmakers chose this over more "important" things.
It's clear from the start that this isn't a movie a la "28 Days" and its intention isn't to use zombies as a parable for anything else. What "Zombieland" tries is to push the genre forward and trying to emulate the wonderful "Shaun of the Dead", the filmmakers end up delivering something that works more like a buddy/road movie with a pinch of zombie parody.
Never scary enough to get the most out of the genre, the movie usually relies on the zombies as means to justify its need to utter pop culture references (Harrelson's micro rendering of "Deliverance" is delightful!) and exploit the likability of the actors.
Breslin can do no bad and even when she's holding a machine gun she manages to look adorable and age appropriate, while Eisenberg brings his "I am not Michael Cera but I act and look like him" qualities to a place where you can actually identify with his too self conscious deprecating.
The movie has its moments, in fact it has one of the most memorable cameos in any zombie movie ever, which despite its hilarious finale sadly feels like it lasts too little.
But most of the time it movies around aimlessly, like a zombie...
"Zombieland" is an exaltation of everything that is geek, from cult movie references to shameful confessions about virginity it's all a fantasy for people like Eisenberg's character.
Because of this it has franchise possibilities; if this one's about the geek getting the girl, there can be a million more about how he overcomes obstacles he can be bullied for.
But for all its heart it can't help itself from making the audience expect for it to end with geek waking up from a crazy dream with a familiar wet spot on his underpants.