Movie Review: The Informant! (2009) ***

I was a little thrown off right at the movie’s start, with the sepia toning of the film. I guess it was to serve a purpose of making the film feel somewhat like a documentary and also give a sense that it happened a few decades ago. To a point, it worked too well. I got the impression that it happened back the 70s… And not until a title flashed on with “1992” did I realize the time frame. In a sense, this misconception repeated throughout the film on various levels, and this is one of the areas this film is a miss. The film, featuring a great cast headed by the talented Mr. Matt Damon, who portrays the bipolar, whistleblower, real-life Mark Whitacre, is all in all entertaining. I found the story to be engaging, at least throughout the first half of the film. But the main problem I had with this movie is that throughout the second part, I completely lost sympathy to the main character, and at that point, also lost interest in the movie. How it could have been done better would be a topic for a longer article. I do overall like Soderbergh’s movies. He is an intelligent filmmaker who understands the art of filmmaking, how to move a plot and how to engage an audience. On the Informant! however, Soderbergh allowed the main character’s delusions of grandeur, take over the plot and throw it off-track.

Movie Review: Watchmen (2009) ***

Admittedly, I am not a follower of the Watchmen comic so if you are, it may have a whole different meaning for you. Here is what I liked about the film – its dark edge and the fact that the superheroes have a dark side and are not all good. The visuals were mostly striking. The idea of the parallel reality (or alternate history) was interesting.
Here is what I didn’t like about it – it felt like it was trying to squeeze a lot of the comic’s history into a feature length, running over two hours as a result, which felt too long. So on one hand it didn’t really achieve the aim of the length while on the other hand, it made the film feel like it is never going to end. Would have been better to devise a two-part movie in which each part can stand on its own – one focused on the history, making it a present, and a second movie with the end plot as the main course. Also, some parts were very typical comic stuff while others were breaking away from the comic and I felt, as a viewer, that it is throwing me off the movie’s own logic and reality. Finally, too much was going on in terms of relationships yet nothing stuck with me after the film. Good intentions, but I feel a miss on the execution.

Movie Review: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009) ****

Given it’s a children movie I gave it 4 stars. As for myself, I would have settled for 3 stars. Yes, it’s a cute movie, well-intended, very well executed – the animation, action scenes, plot flow and character voices. Yet, some things were missing or not right. The plot is overly formulated and the message didn’t click, at least not with me – that a son needs to fail before he can earn his father’s acceptance. The rest was pretty straight forward and fine, which made it a little boring – the usual theme that it’s okay to be different and that there is no free meal – eventually one has to pay the bill… There may have been also a hidden message about our over-consuming society, where XXL is the new L… If so I give the filmmakers extra points for it. But all in all the kids will love it and the adults will too, or at least not suffer much like in so many other children movies these day…

Movie Review: Cold Souls (2009) ****

After a film about the estimated weight of the soul (21 Grams), comes a film exposing how does a soul extracted from the body looks like (various shapes, most notably like a chickpea…). But what the soul really looks like is anyone’s guess.
In this light exercise of combining comedy and philosophy, casting Paul Giamatti as his tortured self proves a good choice. The only other choice I can think of is Woody Allen but that would have been too boring… Wait a minutes – aren’t most of Allen’s movies where he casts himself, feature him as a tortured soul?...
The film suffers here and there from pace issues but overall is pretty enjoyable. It follows its own logic and the supporting cast does a good job.
It reminded me of the old Yiddish story about the Trouble Tree – how at the end each of the villagers who hung his bundle of troubles on the tree and joined the others circling it, ended up picking back up his own bundle. As the saying goes - better the devil you know…
Side note – at the theater, sitting a few seats from us, was a person that would have been hired without doubt to sit at the audience during live comedy shows on TV in the days preceding canned laughter… The guy was loudly enjoying himself endlessly… or maybe his soul was extracted, and light from a burden lifted only laughter remained…

Movie Review: Extract (2009) ***

Not a bad film, but far from being a great film either… It’s one of these films I ended up seeing as the least of many evils… Half an hour into the film I was already checking my wristwatch as to how much long will it play. There is nothing in particular bad about the movie – the plot is ok, the characters are fine and so is the directing. But it just a bore at times and loses pace. It feels more like a lazy TV drama than a movie. So if you have nothing better to see and still feel like watching a movie, this one an option.

Movie Review: Taking Woodstock (2009) ****

Interestingly enough, when I finished watching this film I was thinking of dropping it from 4 stars, which is what I felt would be its rating almost till the end, to 3 stars, given the diluted ending. But by the time I sat down to write this review, the ending grew on me and felt appropriate, even if initially somewhat disappointing. So 4 stars it is.
I feel many of those who critiqued this film badly, had unanswered expectations – that this film will revive the Woodstock experience for them (even if they’ve never been there). But it seems to me that this film, directed by the capable Ang Lee, very consciously chosen to focus on anything but the center stage. And even when the center stage is shown from afar, it is through the mist of a drug illusion, a choice I believe Lee made consciously.
Woodstock, the swan song of a generation that would shortly after turn into anything but hippies, will remain a symbol. And the film, much like the real event, has no fireworks at the end, just a fading away. Yet the film is about transformation. And once it happens, Lee underplays it which gives it a somewhat dissatisfaction ending, appropriate in retrospective.
The casting is terrific. The plot mostly works until 2/3 into the movie, when it loses steam. One sore point is the mother’s character, a holocaust survivor whose acts are somewhat overplayed. This can be wrongly read by many of the viewers, a generation who doesn’t know that such people did really exist and therefore will either take it as a joke or as Jewish stereotype, a message I do not think was the filmmakers intention. Yet the film does capture the era by using colorful characters, music, atmosphere and even timely TV news reports, and so long as you know what you are stepping into, is a worthy journey in time which may also reflect on current events (“$1 for a bottle of water?!”).