The Turner Family

A really amazing retelling of Second World War history, Quentin Tarantino 's Inglourious Basterds turned out to be a long yet tight, riveting, and, of course, Oscar-nominated and -winning movie. Tarantino's combined filmmaking strengths, which are many, come primarily, in my opinion, from his writing and character development. I'm pretty convinced that Brad Pitt rather enjoys the roles he's offered and chooses, from Snatch to the Ocean's franchise to Basterds , Pitt often plays well the more colorful, and slightly offbeat characters, and his Aldo Raine is as quirky and fun as either  Mickey or Rusty . Christoph Waltz's character, Colonel Landa , moves so fluidly linguistically and terroristically, to make his portrayal chilling. Watching Waltz win the Oscar  on television a few weeks back, with the short Basterds excerpts, didn't really provide any insight into how analytical and ruthless Landa was, which only served to make the twisted ending, how...

Despite Michael Bay 's directorial credit, and the list of writers involved as well, the folks responsible for the Transformers sequel must have actually been a room full of dim, panting 14-year old boys. While the first iteration of Transformers certainly contained a healthy dose of sophomoric sexual voyeurism -- there's nothing personal about watching Megan Fox, clad in her Daisy Dukes , lean over the engine of a car -- Revenge of the Fallen goes well beyond any sense of subtlety or nuance: this time we again see Fox, clad in her cutoffs, performing ridiculous tasks, like airbrushing a chopper's gas tank whilst astride the saddle. And, as Tiffani has pointed out, what's with the new female acting technique of standing around with one's overplumped lips puffed out and parted? The media has lately allowed for too much emphasis on body parts, and not enough focus on story or acting. Due to the success of the original Transformers , Bay likely enjoyed considerable...

It all comes down to choices and one's own notion of fate for the tense, superb No Country for Old Men . Javier Bardem plays the defiantly un-sweet Anton Chigurh (read: Sugar), the monomaniacal, unapologetic treasure re-collector. Chigurh is written, and Bardem plays the character as a colorless robot, there's no angle or history with Chirguh, there's no understanding; the most insight the audience receives about him comes from Woody Harrelson 's character's description, the only notable Chigurh characteristic his awful haircut. (Bardem strikes into our western film awareness ten years ago with Pedro Almodóvar 's Live Flesh , as the cuckolded, paraplegic ex-cop. Because of No Country , he's now an Academy Award winner .) Josh Brolin , who plays the opposing yet equally myopic Llewelyn Moss, is the sympathetic protagonist for whom the audience has invested. Brolin, with a checkered past himself, seems readily believable as the trailer-dwelling, independent...

Tiffani commented at the outset of Blood Diamond that the movie choice was going to be upsetting, and I readily agreed, considering the realities of Sierra Leone 's civil war, and the violent opening scenes. Later, I mentioned that I felt like I was simmering through the movie, that the tension of the constant threat caused me to feel edgy the entire picture. Graphic in its portrayal of the capriciousness of African civil war violence, but ham-fisted in the relationship-building scenes, Blood Diamond had an uneven, start-stop feel. The introductory scene and most that follow with the male and female leads -- Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Connelly -- together were choppy, the meeting and the conflict felt forced, with an unnatural flow and feel to their exchanges, and I couldn't decide if it was the writing or the acting. As disagreeable as DiCaprio's character appeared, and his redemption at the film's ending lacked any sort of explained motivation, the actor seeme...

Tiffani continues to wow me with movie selections, Transamerica was a recent Friday choice and we were both sufficiently moved. Briefly, a pre-operative transsexual discovers that she fathered a son, Toby, during college (yes, that wording was deliberate). Toby needs bailing out after being arrested for hustling in New York City, so, with motivations that go unexplained -- is it duty or guilt or curiousity? -- Bree flies from California to the rescue. The bulk of the movie is made up of their road trip back west, with Bree heading home and Toby hoping to break into the movie industry. A compelling story, with gut-churning developments and dillemas, Transamerica also fulfills those with eyes for literary elements, what with the symbolism sprinkled throughout (the many hats Bree wears, the focus on the photo that Bree adjusts of the tribe of body altering tribesman, the neck lengtheners). Charming, superbly-acted (Felicity Huffman deserved the Oscar nomination and her Golden Globe ...

What begins with a plausible, funny plot, Knocked up transforms into an overly long, more serious exploration on relationships, responsibility, compatibility, and family. The initial scenes are comic enough, yet the union between the protagonists -- Alison and Ben -- continues to a less plausible (to me, at least) relationship between the two due to Alison's pregnancy. I found the Ben and Alison relationship unlikely, considering her ambition and blossoming, very public television career, countered by his dope-induced lack of momentum and immaturity, but especially as the plot moves forward and it's revealed that Ben is increasingly unable to grasp a parental level of involvement or an informed nature. Tiffani, on the other hand, saw an honesty and understanding between the leads that was refreshing and hopeful, and certainly the ending doesn't disappoint in that regards. Somewhat funny and somewhat illuminating, Knocked up tries very hard to straddle a difficult gap, and ...

Wow, a bloody throwback to the familiar slasher movies of yore -- titles like the Friday the 13th juggernaut and the Scream franchise -- Severance spins the genre British-style. Tiffani and I agreed to rent it, consulting on the phone from the video store, based solely on what was available online via Apple's FrontRow . The trailer appeared to weigh the movie heavier on the humor than the gore, and sold us thusly. Considering the gushing blood of the first scene, we knew we were in for it, and hoped the movie the kids were watching upstairs held their attention and kept them from creeping down the steps. A team-building office retreat to the outback of eastern Europe is the excuse for the seven ensemble characters to be lost and making bad decisions in the woods. Some of the scenes are outright funny -- without spoiling much, perhaps the best are the paintball extremes -- and some of the gore originates with humor, but one can tell that the director and writer were fans of th...

Augusten Burroughs' memoir of the same name, the story of his sordid, increasingly unstructured childhood is thoroughly well-acted, certainly explicitly set in its late 1970s period, and, despite the best intentions of talented television director, Ryan Murphy , only marginally watchable . The period music, wardrobe and set design, to me, while well-intentioned and researched, seemed a little intrusive and stagy. Annette Bening is a contemptible mother, Bryan Cox plays well a creepy surrogate father and analyst, I enjoy everything about Alec Baldwin , Joseph Fiennes was sympathetic and hardly recognizable from his Shakespeare in Love facade, and the lead, Joseph Cross , seemed appropriately stoically reserved. Notable, though, is how Jill Clayburgh took on a decidedly unattractive appearance, much like Vanessa Redgrave did for Venus , and was the strongest, most stable adult in the film; Clayburgh's Agnes Finch is largely responsible for redeeming the movie near the end, ...

On a whim, I rented the movie Venus on a recent Saturday night, and it was certainly a secret treat for both Tiffani and me. Among the known actors, there is a lecherous Peter O'Toole and a remarkably un-vain Vanessa Redgrave , while the unknowns include Leslie Phillips (to us at least, unknown, yet his acting career dates to 1938) and newcomer Jodie Whittaker . I would probably classify Venus as a small movie, despite the varied scene locations, because of the concentration of characters: Redgrave has, at most, three scenes, while Phillips, O'Toole, and Whittaker make up the bulk of the narrative. And each of the character's complex emotions and motives, the acting, the story, even the remarkably brusque language make for a small, yet moving film. The movie wound down around 11:30 P.M., well after our bedtime, yet we were still moved to discuss it at that late hour, and both of us were thinking of the stories and characters as we drifted off to sleep. Over coffee the n...