(Long Island, N.Y.) The Grey was an oddity for me. According to the trailers, it was to continue star Liam Neeson‘s recent trek away from the dramatic roles that used to be his bread and butter and towards becoming the new Charles Bronson (which isn’t a bad thing, mind you). However, much to my surprise, the opposite rang true; while Neeson has been delighting me to no end with his new ascent to the throne of bloodthirsty, bad-ass action heroes (starting with 2008’s sadistic and masterful Taken), The Grey is a beautiful, gripping, and emotional character-driven drama with some moments of tense action thrown in. It’s seriously some of the most powerful acting I’ve seen Neeson do in years, and this is a man who always brings the goods, no matter what the role.

Yes, we’ve all see the trailer where Neeson’s character, lost and alone in the snowbound wilderness, tapes broken mini-booze bottles to his knuckles and tears off like Wolverine to take on a pack of ravenous wolves, but if you go into The Grey expecting that and nothing else, you’re not going to be happy. At its heart, this is a tale of survival against the odds and how a man who has lost the will to live can, when staring death in the face, find what actually matters about life and cling to it for all it’s worth.

The plot is simple, as it usually is with a great film: Neeson plays John Ottway, a loner who hunts wolves in Alaska that threaten an oil drilling team. Ottway is tortured by the fact that his wife has left him, and constantly goes all emo by writing her letters he never plans on mailing and toying with the idea of committing suicide.

After the job is complete, Ottway takes a plane home with his fellow oil workers in a blizzard. Sadly, the blizzard does its blizzard thing and causes the plane to crash, killing all but a handful of survivors, including Ottway, who quickly draws upon his experience in the wild and assumes command. However, the small group is cut off from the world, stuck in the middle of a snowy tundra, and even worse…they’re not alone. Besieged by a pack of vicious, territorial wolves, Ottway attempts to lead his companions back to civilization before they meet their doom either by starvation, exposure, or just plain being torn to shreds by the aforementioned four-legged fiends. Hard to say which alternative is worse, eh?

The Grey is powerful, and far more harrowing than most actual horror movies aspire to be in the sense that we have ourselves a small band of people trapped in a hopeless situation, and as they trod off to their inevitable doom, director Joe Carnahan has the audacity to actually present them as living, breathing human beings with personalities and not just cardboard caricatures to be killed off one by one. It’s not like we get a deep, introspective journey into each man’s past, but we are made to care about these characters, which make their uphill battle against nature all the more harrowing; the backdrop of the beautiful yet isolated Alaskan backwoods merely serves to enhance this even more.

Neeson in particular paints a tragic portrait of a man with nothing to live for who nonetheless rises to the challenge when all hope is lost. Throughout the film we get glimpses of the times he spent with his beloved wife; a childhood tainted by a strained relationship with a distant father; and his unbearable loneliness. Yet, it is this deep pain that he draws upon for the strength to keep on going, even when all is lost. There’s a scene where Neeson’s character is about as low as you can get, cursing the indifference of a God that he doesn’t believe in, and this scene gave me chills; it really cemented the fact that this man is one of our generation’s finest actors, either when testing himself against the elements or slaughtering degenerate criminals in the seedy underbelly of the streets of Paris.

Oh, sorry. Just thinking of how great Taken was again. Where’s that rumored Taken 2, Liam?

Of course, an intense character study such as The Grey, even with Liam Neeson in the lead, needs a solid supporting cast, and standouts are Frank Grillo, Dermot Mulroney, and Dallas Roberts. Grillo’s character in particular stands out, starting out as a total jerk, which makes the eventual connection you might feel to him once you realize he’s an actual person with dashed hopes and dreams all the more poignant.

A lot of hoo-ha has been raised by bleeding heart types that The Grey is some sort of bizarre anti-wolf propaganda film; that these are wonderful, peaceful creatures that keep to themselves and never attack sweet, innocent humans, and so on. To that, I say hooey. I mean, that may be true, but really, who cares? Is Jaws in any way indicative of the behavior of real-life sharks? What about Anaconda? And let’s not forget the rats and bats in Vincent Price’s Dr. Phibes movies (man, that’s stretching it…not to mention really obscure)? There was a recent horror movie about a killer tire (yes, an actual killer tire that rolls around murdering people) called Rubber…where’s all the steel belted radial defenders? Most tires just sit there minding their own business, after all.

The point is: wolves may or may not act like this in real life, but as far as The Grey is concerned, IT’S A MOVIE. IT’S NOT REAL. And frankly, I can deal with a little negative wolf PR in exchange for such a fantastic movie. Besides, 97% of the wolf shots in The Grey are pure CG, so it’s not like real wolves were maligned in any way.

I was originally set to attend a second film after the screening of The Grey, but I found the film so emotionally exhausting that I had to skip the next movie simply to digest and recover from what I had just experienced. I honestly can’t remember that ever happening to me before – that’s the power of cinema in the hands of a talented filmmaker and an amazing cast, and why I love movies so much. Go see The Grey. Now.

(Long Island, N.Y.) FINALLY. A movie where a woman beating the living crap out of a man is actually 100% believable! I’ve been waiting years for this. If you’ve been reading my reviews for a while, you’ve probably noticed that I usually tend to be a tad on the harsh side when reviewing action movies featuring women as the lead character. No, it’s not any latent (or overt) misogyny on my part…it’s just that I can’t buy it when a bone-thin supermodel effortless destroys men in one-on-one unarmed combat who outweigh them by 100 pounds or more. It doesn’t help that these ridiculous scenes are usually accompanied by frenzied camera work and three-cuts-per-second editing to make our pretty little darling actually look like she can fight like a killer after having only taken two weeks of movie-fu training.

Today’s generation of “tough chicks” really just make me want to throw up my arms and storm out of the theater. It maddens me that Hollywood is obsessed with looks over talent, abilities, and toughness when it comes to actresses these days. As an actress, unless you’re young and attractive (or Meryl Streep), you sadly won’t get work in movies unless you’re playing something mundane like a soccer mom or a nun.

Meanwhile, guys have never had that problem…especially when it comes to action movies. Charles Bronson, rest his soul, was one of the most prolific ass-kickers on the planet back in his day, but damn, he was an ugly man. However, no one cared, because he took care of business. You’ll never see a female Bronson equivalent in a film, now or ever. Hell, when Hollywood needs an ugly woman for a role, they don’t go out and scour the Earth for an ugly actress…they find a HOT actress and MAKE her ugly. Charlize Theron, considered by many as one of the most beautiful women on the planet, transformed herself into a fat and nasty hambeast when she played serial killer Aileen Wuornos in 2003’s Monster. And she got an Oscar for it, no less.

Enter Gina Carano, women’s MMA star (and a former American Gladiator) with legit in-ring fighting skills, and when I heard that she was going to be the star of an action movie directed by Steven Soderbergh (who helmed such great flicks as The Limey with the godly Terrance “Zod” Stamp), I stood up and took notice. I mean, here was what I had been looking for all this time…a woman who’s legitimately tough; an expert in Muay Thai and other destructive fighting arts, Carano is muscular and strong-looking while still retaining both looks and femininity, which is the only reason she got an action movie to star in. I mean, let’s face it- if Carano was a dog, it wouldn’t matter how good she was in the ring…casting directors wouldn’t give her a second glance, unfortunately.

But in the end, it doesn’t matter how she looks…what matters is how she HITS. And man, can Carano hit hard. Delicate, stick-figure “action stars” such as Zoe Salanda and Mila Jovovich…please take notes.

Oh yeah, I’m reviewing a movie here…let’s get on with it. Haywire is an action flick that unfolds in the usual Soderbergh non-linear style about a member of a covert operations group employed by the American government named Mallory Kane (Carano), who is set up on a

job for a murder she didn’t commit. Soon it seems that every authority on Earth is after Mallory, who sets out in true 1980’s Action style to discover who betrayed her…discover them, and make them pay. And to that end, she kicks the asses of every man foolish enough to get in her way.

Of

course, there’s more to the plot than that, but that’s all you really need to know for now. Let’s get into what makes Haywire work so well, not only as an action flick, but as a movie.

Of course, the first thing that jumps out at you is the cast. In addition to Carano, there are appearances by Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, and Michael Douglas. And none of these are cameos…they’re all actually full roles. How Soderbergh got all these guys to star as supporting players in a movie that is essentially just a star vehicle for Carano, I’ll never know, but each of these esteemed actors turns in an impressive performance (even Tatum, who’s the least wooden here that I’ve ever seen him…he’s still a horrible actor, however). Haywire is truly an ensemble film, and worth seeing for the novelty of its cast alone.

As far as plots go, Haywire again sets the bar higher than your average action movie. Yes, the basic outline is that of a simple revenge story, but what takes us from Point A to Point B is another story. There are plenty of political cloak and dagger happenings going on behind the scenes to keep you guessing, and the story being told out-of-sequence also helps to keep the audience on its toes.

Then, there’s Gina Carano. Let’s just cut to the chase and talk about her fight scenes, shall we? First of all, there are no shaky cameras, no fast edits. Each time Carano pounds some lowlife to a pulp, each and every visceral blow is all clear and easy to see. Carano’s MMA training is put to good use, as she uses brutal, real-life combat moves (often utilizing the environment) to take on her opponents. And unlike other Hollywood action females who are automatically allowed to slaughter their foes easily and without getting a scratch, Carano usually walks away from her confrontations battered and bruised. Yes, she eats quite a few punches here (it’s still somewhat disturbing to see a woman getting punched in the face in a movie), but the thing is that she takes those punches and just keeps coming. She’s presented as being on an even level with the men she confronts, which makes Haywire’s fight scenes quite effective at getting you involved.

Of annoyance to me is the fact that some reviewers have been taking Carano to task for her acting abilities. No, she’s by no means amazing or anything, but I will say that she is 100% solid and believable in her role as a bad-ass chick out for revenge, and if she was played by a man, I guarantee that her acting wouldn’t even be an issue. After all, did anyone care if the mighty Arnold himself could act? Sly? Van Damme? Seagal? Of course not! I think most of the critical whining is, again, due to Carano’s gender- the reviewers probably took off points because she didn’t start sobbing into the arms of some guy when things got tough. You know, ’cause that’s what chicks do in movies.

Personally, I was very impressed by Haywire…and these days, it’s rare for me to walk into a movie with certain expectations and to have those expectations so perfectly met. Haywire was exactly what I needed, and exactly what I wanted it to be: a well-made movie with a complex plot, an excellent “who’s who” of a supporting cast, great fight scenes, and an impressive new female action star in Gina Carano, who I hope to see more of in the near future. Highly recommended.

(Long Island, N.Y.) Contraband is a solid yet unoriginal and unremarkable action/thriller about a criminal trying to turn his life around who is forced to come out of retirement to do “one last job.” Hey, I almost had to stifle a snicker when I typed that opening sentence, since, along with avenging the death of one’s master and the loner cop being forced to take on a new partner, the “one last job” plot device it possibly the most overused in all of Hollywood. Yet, it’s taken out and dusted off once again, this time as a starring vehicle for good ol’ “Marky” Mark Wahlberg.

Yet, the way the “one last job” element is used here is embellished by factors that push it’s believability to the breaking point, even when taken into account that this is just a movie. You see, Marky Mark plays Chris Farraday, an ex-smuggler who has begun a new life for himself by starting his own business. He’s married to Kate (Kate Beckinsale), and they and their two children enjoy a relatively happy life. That is, until her loser, degenerate, low-life brother Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) tries to smuggle drugs that he ends up destroying when faced with U.S. Customs agents. This doesn’t make his employer, street-thug mobster Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi in an amusing bit of against-type casting), all that amused, and Marky Mark has to step in to prevent Andy from getting killed, not only endangering himself, but his family as well.

The unbelievability of the “one last job” plot point comes in the form of the degree of help Marky Mark is willing to provide for his brother-in-law. Getting in touch with his old smuggling contacts, Marky Mark sets out on a cargo ship to Panama with the intention to smuggle back counterfeit money to see in the States, and in doing so, sets off a chain of events that involves running afoul of a third-world crime boss, shootouts with police, explosions, art theft, drugs, betrayal, jail, and death, not to mention the fact that the evil Briggs is terrorizing Kate and the kids back at home while Marky Mark is risking life and limb in Panama. Things go wrong at every conceivable point, the situation just gets worse and worse, and you’re left scratching your head as to why Marky Mark is even bothering going through this hell, especially when you consider the fact that Andy is a fairly worthless human being to begin with.

Of course, none of this is helped by the fact that here is pretty much ZERO character development in this movie. Seriously, none. The movie opens with the botched smuggling job, Andy goes to the hospital, and Marky Mark instantly gets the ball rolling on this insane plot to help his brother-in-law out. Now, we know nothing about Marky Mark’s relationship with Andy, or what kind of person Andy is (although, if he’s running drugs for a living, it’s pretty much a lock that he’s not an upstanding, law-abiding, community-oriented citizen-of-the-year candidate).

If we’re supposed to believe that a character would go through the insanity Marky Mark does to try to help someone, you damn well better establish that these two have a damn close
relationship…that, or at least give Andy some kind of redeeming quality, because as he’s portrayed in this movie, he has none. I mean, I’d have a hard time doing what Marky Mark does in this movie for my own MOTHER, who is a genuinely wonderful person, let alone Andy, who’s a walking, talking piece of crap. Anyone with half a brain would just cut this idiot loose and be done with him.

And yes, mom, if you’re reading this, I WOULD smuggle counterfeit money to get you out of a jam. See you tonight at dinner. Otherwise, Contraband is a tight little action movie with some good performances. As usual, Marky Mark excels at playing the type of character he portrays here: a somewhat ugly, everyman type with a rough physicality that makes the actions scenes he’s in seem fairly believable. Kate Beckinsale is actually rather good as his spunky, white trash wife, and Giovanni Ribisi is a bit of a hoot as a gangster; despite his small stature, he manages to disappear into the role and actually comes across as rather mean and nasty. Also of note is a small role featuring my main man, J. K. Simmons, who plays a cargo ship captain. Caleb Landry Jones (who you might remember as Banshee in the recent X-Men: First Class) is okay and Ben Foster is…well, also okay, I guess. Neither of their roles amount to very much.

And man, what happened to Lukas Haas? Was he always this emaciated? Yikes.

Contraband is a decent offering to be sure, but when taking into account that the theater is loaded with better films at the moment (such as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Tinker Tailor Solider Spy), you’d have to be pretty hard up to choose it over the other choices available. But if you have to choose between this and junk like the new Sherlock Holmes or Twilight movies, Contraband is the clear-cut winner. Trust me.

(Long Island, N.Y.) When it comes to movies, the cardinal rule is to always go out strong; in other words, a good ending can actually elevate an otherwise so-so film into something pretty good. Likewise, a bad ending can really just sink a halfway decent flick straight to the bottom of the toilet tank. Case in point: The Devil Inside, a little horror movie disguised as a “documentary” about a girl investigating her mother’s supposed possession by a demon.

Let’s just cut to the chase and talk about that conclusion, as that is what’s causing the most buzz about this movie; after all, people are calling it the “worst ending of all time.” But is it? It’s certainly abrupt, to the point that pretty much every single plot point is left unresolved; the fact that the filmmakers then direct you to a website to learn more about the fates

of the cast before the credits roll just adds insult to injury. But the worst ending of all time? That’s a pretty lofty claim, and while The Devil Inside’s ending really does hopelessly mar and mangle a movie I was prepared to hate but actually ended up enjoying (at least up until that point), I still say that honor belongs to a little French horror film called High Tension, whose climax was not only impossible, but it effectively destroyed the film as a

whole. The Devil Inside’s ending were merely disappointing and lazy; High Tension’s made me ANGRY.

Anyway, The Devil Inside kicks off with a lovely triple murder committed by Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley) during an exorcism performed on her. For some reason she’s whisked off to Rome to some Catholic loony bin instead of an American institute and bam, she’s forgotten. That is, until her daughter Isabella (Fernanda Andrade) decided to investigate what happened to her years later with the assistance of a documentary filmmaker named Mike (Ionut Grama), who happens to be investigating (you guessed it!) exorcisms.

So, they fly off to Rome, and when Isabella finally has her reunion with her long lost mommy who’s still residing in a padded cell, things start getting weird. I mean, she’s quite obviously possessed by some evil citizen of the underworld, as she’s speaking in different accents (and all of them foul-mouthed!), carving upside-down crosses into her flesh, and displaying the punching power of The Incredible Hulk. With the Church unwilling to even entertain the thought that her mother may be possessed and in need of an exorcism, Isabella enlists the aid of two rouge priests, Ben (Simon Quarterman) and David (Evan Helmuth), who sneak around behind the Church’s collective back, booting demons out of poor human hosts who have no other hope for salvation.

So, armed with Mike and his ever-present camera (I love these “found footage” style movies where there’s always one guy who’s always armed with a camera no matter what, and all the other characters hate him because of it), in addition to the two gung-ho priests who are determined to get concrete proof to the Church to back their claims, Isabella sets out to rid her mother of the Satanic thingy that’s squatting in her mother’s soul. Will she succeed? Ha ha…you’ll never know, as no one could be bothered writing an actual ending for this piece of crap.

And that really irks me, because up until that point, I was really enjoying The Devil Inside. No, it’s no masterpiece of horror, but I went in hearing all the negative reviews and, as a result, my expectations were below ground level. Like, in the sewers, really. But suffice it to say, I ended up being rather surprised when I was actually greeted with a tense, creepy, atmospheric flick with some solid acting and nice European location shooting. Sure, it took a little while to get going, but once Isabella finally has her first run-in with mommy, the creep factor rears its head and just doesn’t let up until the end…when everything just gets flushed. Really, shame on the filmmakers for screwing their audience out of any resolution whatsoever…that’s just low.

So, should you see The Devil Inside? Do you like horror movies? If so, then maybe you should. But do you like movies with endings? Yes? Oh…then maybe you shouldn’t. After all, getting invested in the fates of the characters only to get smacked in the face with the cinematic equivalent of someone flipping off a light switch and rolling the credits can be a pretty major bummer. Personally, I’d say that if you do go to see it, walk out right after the final hospital scene and make up any random ending in your head. There’s no way it could be worse than the one you’d get if you stick around, trust me.

Unless you imagine High Tension’s ending. Then you’re REALLY screwed.

(Long Island, N.Y.) Young Adult has a small amount of significance to me, but not because it’s made by the duo of writer/ex-stripper Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman (who made 2007’s Juno, a film I never saw), or the fact that it stars Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron as a drunken floozy.

No, you see, several scenes of Young Adult were actually filmed in Massapequa Park, which I live maybe 2 minutes from. They filmed on a street called Park Boulevard in a bar called Woody’s. Of note was the fact that Woody’s used to have cartoon character Woody Woodpecker on their front sign, something that was changed to what looks like a drunken cowboy behind swinging saloon doors to avoid any copyright issues.

I covered the filming last year for a local paper I work for. No, they didn’t let me near any of the stars or the director, but I did interview the studio’s PR lady, who was very nice, explaining why they picked Woody’s out of a billion similar dumps on Long Island. Also, the film crew had all sorts of curtains and hoses and wires and vents set up on Woody’s sidewalk and going into the bar, which I took many exciting pictures of.

Well, a year later, I’m finally watching Young Adult, and the scenes filmed in Massapequa Park amounted to maybe five minutes of screen time, tops. I did get some inner amusement as I watched Charlize walking down Park Boulevard past joints like Thai Taste, and there was a quick scene in the rear parking lot where I saw the fire department and village hall in the background, but honestly, it wasn’t that exciting. Oh, and neither was Young Adult.

It’s a story about Mavis Gary (Theron), a divorced woman pushing middle age who, out of nowhere, starts yearning for the dude she dated in high school, who is currently happily married with a baby. Despite this, Mavis is convinced that she can get him back, and accepts an invitation he sent to her to attend his baby shower (or something baby-related, I forget) back in their old hometown (who invites their high school girlfriends to things like that?). Mavis, a ghostwriter for a failing young adult book series, is also a raging alcoholic barfly with very questionable morals, and as played by Theron, is basically a clone of Cameron Diaz’s Bad Teacher character.

So Mavis heads home and starts putting the moves on the ex, who all but blows her off every chance he gets. She also re-connects with a former classmate named Matt (Patton Oswalt), who was a nerd in high school who was beaten and left for dead by the football team because they thought he was gay, and was left crippled for life, both emotionally and physically. Not very nice, I must say.

So, does Mavis destroy a perfectly happy marriage? Does she drink herself to death? Does she let her cute little poochie starve to death in her hotel room? If you really must know the answers to those questions and more, and I suppose you should go see Young Adult. Honestly, though, you’ll live not knowing the answers, trust me.

Is Young Adult a comedy? A drama? A tragedy? How about all and none of the above? Seriously, that’s the problem with this movie…it doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s billed as a comedy, but it’s not really that funny, and its dramatic elements are undercut by the fact that it doesn’t take itself seriously enough. For example, there’s a scene where Matt is talking about the ways he’s handicapped in the… um, let’s just say “the bedroom” and I couldn’t tell if the scene was supposed to be sad or if they were playing it for laughs. As a result, the scene completely failed on both levels.

Honestly, Young Adult is a tad on the boring side, but the performance of Theron is strong enough (despite ripping off Cameron Diaz as stated earlier) that I somehow managed to stay semi-interested until the end. Her chemistry with Patton Oswalt is a high point as well.

Oh, and J.K. Simmons apparently has a cameo as Mavis’ boss, but you only ever hear him on the phone, so I didn’t even know it was him until I saw the credits online when I got home.

So, Young Adult is just okay at the very best. Stripped of its five minutes of Massapequa Park-ness, it’s an odd, confused little film that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be, and that lack of focus took a film that could have been both a great drama and a great comedy (a…dromedy?) and reduced it to mere ‘eh’ status. A shame, really.

(Long Island, N.Y.) I’ve always given the Mission: Impossible films (themselves based on the classic TV series) a passing glance, but I’ve never gotten too into them. I’m not sure why…what I’ve seen is pretty solid, I like action films, and series star Tom Cruise, general battiness aside, is a good actor who seems to handle action scenes fairly well. But, despite all those pluses, the series never really grabbed me…I’m not sure why.

Well, here we are at installment number four, entitled Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, and the producers have finally done something that hooked me in: they hired Brad Bird to direct it. Now, you might know Mr. Bird’s from when he was working with Pixar, where he helmed an amazing animated film called The Incredibles. Man, I love that movie…and it was having that movie alone on his resume that made me interested in checking out Bird’s first attempt in directing a live-action flick. The result? It seems that he has as much talent with flesh-and-blood actors as he does with CG ones.

In Ghost Protocol, Cruise plays IMF Agent Ethan Hunt, out to save the world from terrorists bent on starting a nuclear war. However, Hunt is made the scapegoat of a botched operation and forced to “go underground” to complete the mission, completely devoid of support…aside from his fellow team, however, made up of government stooge with a secret William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), tech nerd Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), and butt-kickin’ babe Jane Carter (Paula Patton). Together, the rag-tag band scrapes together what high-tech gadgets they can from a hidden safe house, and set out to stop the end of the world.

Having a good director like Brad Bird, one who has already established himself as having a great grasp of balancing character and action, is really the key to a film working or not. Yes, things blow up and crazy, way over-the-top things occur, but you’re able to suspend disbelief because the action pieces are so well-done and, for the most part, original- a chase scene in a sandstorm, a fist-fight in a weird, futuristic parking garage, and the money shot scene from the commercials where Cruise scales a tower in Dubai using Spider-Man gloves are all prime examples. Renner floating around via a wacky magnetic suit is a fun scene as well.

Having a great cast doesn’t hurt, either. Cruise continues to deliver the goods, even at the age of 49…yes, the men is 49! Aside from an obvious hair dye job, the man really seems to be defying the ravages of time, easily holding his own in the film’s many action scenes. As for his co-stars and fellow IMF Agents, no, we don’t get lots of character development or tid-bits about their past, but we do get to experience their fully-developed personalities, which in a movie like this is possibly even more important, especially when they’re as likable as they are. Frankly, as good as Cruise is, he’s practically upstaged by his cohorts, especially Pegg and Patton. Renner’s good, too.

Oh, and I have to make special note of Paula Patton…in a movie landscape densely populated with scrawny, wimpy action movie chicks that we’re supposed to buy as butt-kickers, Patton stands out as a women who’s actually believable in the role. She’s still feminine, but she’s not waifish. Girl’s got curves, and they’re all muscle. I’d like to see her go head-to-head with Gina Carano (an MMA fighter who’s starring in Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming spy flick Haywire) for the crown of toughest action movie gal. Girls like Zoe Saldana can just sit on the sideline chewing on a lettuce leaf and watch.

As for the script of Ghost Protocol, it’s a bit messy and clichéd, but honestly, you won’t care. In the end, it’s a fun, fast-paced, exciting movie and a great start for director Bird as he ventures into the realm of live-action (although I wish he’s get off his butt and finally make The Incredibles 2…I mean, come on, guy). Top marks for all involved, and highly recommended.

(Long Island, N.Y.) It’s been a long time since a film has affected me this way. It’s been over an hour since it ended and I can’t stop thinking about it. That alone is automatically worth either three stars or one star by default, depending upon how good/bad a movie it is. In the case of Black Swan, director Darren Aronofsky’s follow-up to 2008’s The Wrestler, he lands in the automatic three stars category and then some, coming just shy of my coveted four-star rating by just a hair. I seriously mean that. Black Swan is something I’m feeling in my heart and gut, like falling in love with someone who proceeds to punch you in the bread basket. It’s not exactly what you wanted, but it’s completely exhilarating nonetheless.

Black Swan is the tale of Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), a dancer for a New York City ballet company who tirelessly chases the dream of landing the big role. The company’s director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), is gearing up for his big production of Swan Lake, and is looking for a dancer who embodies the duality needed to portray the Swan Queen, a role made up of both the innocent White Swan and sensual Black Swan. While technically skilled and a natural for the role of White Swan, the repressed Nina lacks the raw passion needed to pull off the Black Swan, something company newcomer Lily (Mila Kunis) comes to naturally. Nonetheless, Nina surprises Leroy with some fire when she fends off his sexual advances, and lands the part.

However, while relentlessly training for the big opening night of Swan Lake with all her heart and soul, she still can’t seem to muster the sensuality needed to capture the essence of the Black Swan, much to Leroy’s frustration. Between the intense pressures of living up to her leading role, Lily’s perceived scheming to steal her part, and the control exerted by her overbearing mother (Barbara Hershey), herself a failed dancer living vicariously through her daughter, Nina’s grip on reality starts to crack and peel. She begins to discover a dark part of herself that she didn’t know was there, but will her relentless pursuit of perfection finally put her in touch with the fervor needed to nail the Black Swan, or will it destroy her utterly?

A great deal of the awe I feel for Black Swan is owed to the career-defining performance of Natalie Portman. There’s not a second that she’s on screen that you’re thinking, hey, it’s that bland monotone queen what’s-her-face from the crummy Star Wars prequels. No. Heck, we’re talking Leon/The Professional territory here. Heck, even better. Portman as Nina never once comes across as an actress going through the motions; you lose all sense of who you’re looking at as she melts into and inhabits the role of a tortured ballerina driven to madness in the pursuit of perfection. You believe that this is a woman who has dedicated herself to training and nothing else. Her

physique, her movements, sweat, tears…all genuine.

While watching Black Swan I actually thought to myself, my god, Natalie Portman looks like she destroyed herself every minute of every day for months on end for this role. Portman reportedly trained in ballet endlessly and worked out five hours a day to get in shape, and it shows. I can’t think of any actress in recent memory who I’ve seen work so hard in a movie…and I’m not just talking physically, but emotionally as well. In fact, this is less a movie about plot than is it about a single performance, and if Portman doesn’t get some kind of major award – an Oscar, Golden Globe, or screw it, something even better invented just for her – then I’ll make her one of my own. The Chris Boyle award. Yeah. She’s earned it. No other actress can touch her. I mean it.

Of her supporting cast, the one that avails himself the most is Vincent Cassel, who really does the whole ‘passionate accented artist’ thing really well. Mila Kunis is solid, looks good, and dances well in the limited amount of time she’s given to do so, but she plays the same exact type of character she’s played

in every movie or TV show she’s ever been in: the laid back party chick. Not exactly compelling, although she does make an excellent foil to Portman’s Nina for that very reason.

What also must be mentioned is the awesome cinematography present in every single frame of Black Swan. The camerawork in the complex dance sequences is nothing short of masterful, with sometimes up to a full uninterrupted minute (or more) of close-up ballet filmed without a cut or edit. These scenes are enthralling. The rest of the film relies on heavy hand-held camera work, but not to worry; it never gets too shaky, and many unique and eye-catching shots are regularly on display.

As for the movie itself, I would have to say it’s brilliant; more accurately put, it’s a flawed masterpiece. When the film concentrates on Nina’s emotionally draining, physically backbreaking work to land the part of the Swan Queen and somehow summon the seductive qualities the role demands, it excels. But when horror elements start creeping in, it becomes hit or miss. At times the horror is intriguing, mysterious, and

wrought with symbolism; but it also manages to be distracting, confusing, and almost silly at points, causing the film to lose its focus. But even at these times, Portman manages to hold things together based on the strength of her acting alone. Okay, okay, she gets a little help from her co-stars, too.

Also an annoyance is every single instance of CG that pops up in the movie. It’s rare that any computer effects appear in Black Swan (and they have nothing to do with enhancing anyone’s dancing, it’s just scary stuff), but when they do it’s aggravating because A)

they look a little cheesy, and B) they’re not exactly of the highest quality, unfortunately enhancing point A even more.

In some ways Black Swan can be compared to Aronofsky’s previous film, The Wrestler, in the sense that they’re both about people attempting to capture glory with the threat of self-destruction ever-looming. Overall, I think The Wrestler is a better movie in the sense that it fully realized its potential; the only reason Black Swan falls short in comparison is because it dared to reach so much higher than the simpler themes at play in The Wrestler. But then again, unlike Black Swan, Aronofsky’s ode to broken-down old Pro Wrestling stars wasn’t racing through my mind non-stop for hours after viewing it, so who’s to say which film is actually better?

After watching Black Swan, my first thought…well, actually, more like my 101st thought…is that Aronofsky is following up a work of art like this with a Wolverine movie next? Well, with him at the helm, it’ll be the best damn Wolverine movie ever made, I’ll bet. And probably the weirdest.

So, Black Swan: it’s intense, emotional, original, breathtaking, crazy, and occasionally dumb, with one of the best performances I’ve ever seen by a female lead in any movie ever made. Please, please, please go see this.

(Long Island, N.Y.) You know, I kind of enjoyed the first Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes film back in 2009, even though it bore little resemblance to the stories crafted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The tale of Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.), the amazing Victorian-era super-sleuth and his trusty sidekick Dr. Watson (Jude Law) was given a modern facelift, with fun (albeit uneven) results. Now less of a complex whodunit and more of an action movie, the concept nonetheless managed to stay afloat based on Downey and Law’s chemistry, a solid story with a serviceable villain, and a great soundtrack.

The downsides of the new formula were wafer-thin character development, and the complete departure from just about everything that made Sherlock Holmes…well, Sherlock Holmes. This modern UFC fighter-style Holmes who possesses the ability to tactically plot out how he dismantles his opponents beforehand, only to make good once the fisticuffs commence is…well, odd. It makes you wonder why they even used the name “Sherlock Holmes” instead of “John Smith” or something. Oh, yeah, to cash in on the name recognition. That’s it.

Anyway, when a sequel was announced, I was interested…mainly because throughout the first movie, Holmes’ brilliant arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) was seen skulking about in the shadows here and there, which was obviously done to set up his full-on introduction in this film, entitled Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, a film that depicts his conflicts with Holmes as Moriarty attempts to start a global conflict to fuel his munitions business.

There’s also a side-plot where Holmes is distressed that Watson is getting married and no longer wants to deal with Holmes and his insanity, but of course, circumstances arise that cause them to team up one last time…until the inevitable Sherlock Holmes 3, that is.

Unfortunately, in this installment, Guy Ritchie and company decided to up everything I didn’t like about the original, and cut back on everything I did, and the resulting film is even LESS like a true Sherlock Holmes adventure…if that was even possible.

All but gone are the problem solving, the amazing deductions, and the overall gumshoe brilliance. It’s been completely replaced by MMA fights, machine guns, giant cannons, and non-stop explosions, none of which existed in the Victorian era (well, except for explosions), or Doyle’s novels (although I haven’t read them all…I suppose something might have blown up here or there, but certainly not to THIS outlandish degree). Add in all manner of sight gags and characters you barely know (or are given any reason to care about), and you have a film that fails on almost every level where the original succeeded.

And Ritchie’s take on Moriarty also heads in the same overblown direction, transforming a character who was the very epitome of intelligence, elegance, and (of course) evil into somewhat of a brutish bore trying to hatch a plot worthy of a James Bond villain. Harris’ Moriarty is almost redeemed in a pretty cool scene near the end where he engages in a chess game with Holmes that starts on a board but soon turns completely mental, but overall, the interactions between the two were rather disappointing, in my opinion. They WERE the highlight of the film, however, which speaks more about how forgettable everyone else was than anything else.

Downey’s Holmes remains as motor-mouthed, unhinged and twitchy as ever…as usual, he’s just playing himself here, although at least he’s doing so with a serviceable British accent. However, his new penchant for silly costumes and disguises, while amusing at times, ended up being fairly goofy more often than not, reducing Holmes to nothing more than a cartoon character. Law’s Watson, for me anyway, seemed to be the more interesting and believable then his partner, as was Stephen Fry, who played Holmes’ brother Mycroft (although they could have left out his nude scene. Ugh).

I’ve painted a pretty negative picture of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, and I’m not sure it’s completely warranted…as it is, it’s not that great, but there is a good level of entertainment and fun to be found, despite the departures from the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and even the original 2009 film. It’s just that those departures are so extreme in both cases that, like so many modern movies these days, A Game of Shadows becomes a textbook exercise in flash over substance. The first movie managed to finely walk that line… A Game of Shadows trips over it and falls flat on its face.

(Long Island, N.Y.) The Sitter: totally unoriginal, vaguely offensive, kinda weird, yet still entertaining and, dare I say it, even funny. It stars Jonah Hill playing Jonah Hill playing Noah, a fat college dropout who acts just like Jonah Hill does in every movie he’s ever made since Superbad.

If you don’t understand what I’m getting at, Hill just plays the same character over and over, but unlike his Superbad co-star McLovin’ (I forget his real name, nor do I care), his act doesn’t appear to have worn thin with audiences and thus, Hill still enjoys a career. However, I suspect that Hill does possess some actual acting range, buried somewhere under the nerdy wise-guy persona he’s honed over the last few years.

Anyway, Noah is a college dropout, like I said, and he’s also never held a job, so to make a few bucks and help his mom go out on a date, he begrudgingly agrees to take a gig as a babysitter for some wealthy friends of the family. Of course, all three kids turn out to be nut-jobs, each in their own unique way. But if just watching a few kids for an evening wasn’t enough, Noah also has to deal with a leech-like druggie girlfriend, and oddball drug dealer (played by Sam Rockwell, who is awesome as always), and an assortment of street thugs, weirdos, car thieves, schoolmates, and whatever else you can think of.

But if Noah is just babysitting a few kids for an evening, how does he get involved in all these misadventures, you ask? Well, it’s best left up to you to discover by actually buying a ticket and seeing the movie, but let’s just say that Noah is the last person you should ever hire if you’re expecting your babysitter NOT to load your kids into your minivan and go to the city to score cocaine for their girlfriend, only to bring the wrath of half the lowlifes in existence down upon their heads. But really, other than that, Noah is a great guy. Honest!

So, with such a film, what does one take away from it? Well, here’s a list of things I learned from watching The Sitter:

1. Adopted kids like to break your furniture, pee on your floor, and blow up your toilet.
2. Drug dealers like to hang out with lots and lots of bodybuilders.
3. Black people will like you if you let them hit you.
4. A single cherry bomb can destroy an entire jewelry store.
5. You can always tell if a child is gay if they dress nicely.
6. Cops love to steal your jewelry and drugs and then go off to party.
7. If you’re looking for someone, just drive around randomly…you’ll find them.
8. Children are insane little maniacs. All of them.
9. Drug dealers love letting strange little kids in pajamas use their bathrooms.
10. Nice, hard-working well-educated college girls like to hang out in seedy bars deep, deep in the ghetto.

Yes, there are many thought-provoking life lessons to be learned from this film. But The Sitter’s morally reprehensible and somewhat racially-insensitive core is camouflaged with a shiny veneer of wit, albeit predictable and overused wit. But it is wit nonetheless, and the actors, Jonah Hill included, all manage to be likable…not at first, but they do grow on you after a while. Yes, even the adopted kid who pees on the floor.

So, The Sitter is not fine cinema, or even decent cinema, but it still manages to be a fun, mindless little romp that displays little logic or originality, but a fair handful of humor. And sometimes, you just need to turn your brain off and laugh a little.

(Long Island, N.Y.) Ah, it”s been far too long since we’ve had a solid little espionage film thrown our way, and now we have a very good one in the form of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, a British production based on a 1974 novel by John le Carré. Now, I”m not sure how widespread the advertising will be for this one, so to make sure it won”t slip under your radar when it opens this weekend, I”m going to go against my usual protocol and give my final word on this film in my review”s first paragraph instead of its last: It”s good. Go see it.

Ok, now that we”re through with that, let’s talk about why

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is such a good movie. One, it”s the source material, and director Tomas Alfredson”s treatment of it. John le Carré”s novel is very long, dense, complicated, and riddled with spy lingo…by all accounts, it”s pretty hard to follow, and a direct film adaptation of it would be nigh-impossible unless the movie was something like 7 hours long. Wisely, Alfredson stripped the story down a bit, and while the resulting film is still very complex, the pace flows faster than in the book, finding a delicate balance between brains and brawn. One could argue that moviegoers who have not read the book might still finds themselves a tad lost here and there, but I doubt that would significantly sully the experience for anyone.

Okay, let”s get to the next reason why Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is so enjoyable…the cast. Take a look at who you”ll be gawking at on the screen this weekend: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong…the list goes on. Now, for some of my slower readers, yes, these are mostly accomplished British actors and no, none of the Jersey Shore cast shows up, but if you”re interested in amazing actors plying their craft to the utmost degree, then this is the movie for you.

You know, I suddenly realized that I”m kind of doing my review in total reverse this week. Usually, I start with an intro, then the plot recap, then details about the movie, then my wrap-up. Not this time, and honestly, it”s kind of refreshing. I might have to do this more often!

Anyway, back to the movie… it’s plot time! Gary Oldman brings his intensity and intelligence to the role of George Smiley, the right-hand man of the head of British Intelligence, a man who is known only as “Control.” After a botched operation involving Soviet agents that causes an international incident, both “Control” and Smiley are basically kicked out of the service and into early retirement.

However, Smiley is brought back to investigate a claim that there was a Soviet spy within the British Intelligence agency, which leads to all manner of cloak and dagger shenanigans where friends are enemies, enemies are friends, and before you know it, if you take even one bathroom or popcorn break, you’re hopelessly lost amid a sea of pure espionage. It’s very engaging stuff, crafting a tale involving myriad twists and turns in a dark, gritty, realistic, character-driven tale the likes of which only the British can truly muster.

It’s a shame that films of this ilk don’t come around all that often…ever since the Cold War ended; it seems that the heyday of the spy thriller went with it. But every now and then, a movie such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy comes along and reminds us of why the Soviets were only second to the Nazis when it came to big, scary boogeymen in film. Again, to echo my opening paragraph…Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy already has my vote as sleeper hit of the year. Please don”t let this one pass you by…do your part to kick the latest Twilight movie out of the box office”s top spot and see this instead. There are no sparkly emo vampires, but there IS Gary Oldman, who is far, far cooler. Trust me, kids.