SOURCE CODE Is Fun, But Has A Major Glitch

SOURCE CODE (Dir. Duncan Jones, 2011)

So Jake Gyllenhaall is jarred into consciousness on a Chicago commuter train sitting across from Michelle Monaghan who’s in mid conversation mode.

She thinks he’s somebody else, and from his reflection in the train’s restroom mirror – he is somebody else.

While still scrambling to figure out what’s going on, a massive explosion destroys the train and kills him, her, and hundreds of people. Then Gyllenhaall wakes up again, but this time in a dark chamber in some sort of laboratory with Vera Farmiga in a dark blue military suit on a video monitor.

Farmiga explains to Gylennhaall that he is on a mission to inhabit a specific passenger’s mind the last 8 minutes before the train is blown up in order to identify the bomber and thwart future attacks.

Therefore Gyllenhaall is thrust into the same scene again multiple times, GROUNDHOG DAY style.

This is a juicy premise that comes equipped with some tasty twists. Gyllenhaall, who is revealed to be a army helicopter pilot, is a smart guy so it’s fun to watch him try to figure out the suspects and manipulate the situation, all the while flirting with the playful Monaghan.

As Farmiga’s superior, a stodgy Jeffrey Wright is sternly looking over her shoulder spouting out the necessary exposition about the source code that they are utilizing: “It’s not time travel; it’s time reassignment.”

As the second film of director Duncan Jones (whose first movie MOON is seriously worth checking out), SOURCE CODE is stylishly paced, elaborately assembled, and is filled with stunning visuals, but it has one fatal flaw that is really difficult for me to wrap my brain around.

Thing is, to reveal that flaw would be committing a major Spoiler! crime, so I’ll just say that this film is close to 80 maybe 85% of a superb surreal action thriller.

It's one of Gyllenhaall's most appealing performances displaying the right amount of tension and humility. By this point he doesn't have to prove that he can carry a movie, but it's still cool seeing him again give it the "old college try."

Farmiga shows that even with her lips prudishly pursed, wearing a drab uniform, and with her hair pulled back into a bun is still collassally cute. Her performance ain't bad either - she conveys a restrained sense of urgency throughout.

Monaghan doesn't have much of a character despite being the love interest, but she makes the most of it. Wright as the handicapped "source code" scientist, is all sinister in his cold calculations in a predictable "heavy" manner, but although he's mainly a device - he's not a narrative problem like the one that keeps me from being 100% on board with this movie.

So much of this film is so good that I definitely recommend it, but that one particular plot hole (that I'm dying to go off on, again - Spoiler! city) just keeps bugging me.

I know I over-think these things, and that most folks will see it as a slick serviceable popcorn picture and go about their day, but SOURCE CODE is so close to absolute brilliance in its meticulousness that I can't help but zeroing in the one element that almost derails the entire endeavor.

However, maybe getting wrapped up in that one glitch in the system is just as much fun as getting wrapped up in the rest of it.

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CERTIFIED COPY: The Film Babble Blog Review

CERTIFIED COPY (Dir. Abbas Kiarostami, 2009)

This dialogue driven French drama has been validly compared to My DINNER WITH ANDRE, and the BEFORE SUNRISE/BEFORE SUNSET films, but it’s at its most alluring when the characters stop talking and stare off into space.

You can really get lost in the moments where Juliette Binoche and William Shimell as a couple who has just met – she an antiques dealer; he a famous writer and – hesitate before their next spoken words, and try to decide which versions of themselves they want to pursue being next.

Taking place in Tuscany during one confusing yet compelling day, we follow Binoche and Shimell as they drive to the village of Lucignano, having elaborately intertwined conversations about existentialism filtered through the lenses of art. Shimell is touring promoting his book, also entitled “Certified Copy” (or its French title “Copie Conforme”), which deals with originals and copies of art being equal.

Binoche has some issues with Shimell’s theories, but when they are mistaken for a married couple by a café owner (Gianna Giachetti), she goes with it, and before you know it their repartee is even more layered as they are now conversing as man and wife.

Directed by acclaimed Iranian film maker Kiarostami, this film flows lucidly with many scenes featuring unbroken shots that keep us successfully inside the pair’s often conflicting yet magnetic mind-sets.

As 2 people who fall naturalistically into the odd patterns of fabricating a 15 year relationship convincingly complete with ongoing issues and damaged passion, Binoche and Shimell work wonders with this emotionally fragile material.

It’s often Binoche’s movie, as her close-ups dominate and her character’s thrust is the crux of this cinematic biscuit. Shimell is harder to put a finger on, as he appears at times to just be along for the ride, but we effectively feel his concerns when trying to keep up with the undefined whims of this weird yet intoxicating woman.

The ending came abruptly for me as I had happily settled into the immersive mood of the film, and wouldn’t have minded if it went up on a bit longer.

I can’t remember the last time that happened to me at the movies.

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LIMITLESS: The Film Babble Blog Review

LIMITLESS (Dir. Neil Burger, 2011)

“Obviously, I’ve miscalculated a few things” says Bradley Cooper starring and narrating (as well as co-executive producing) this shiny new thriller that is #1 at the U.S. box office right now.

The film itself miscalculates more than a few things in its haste, but for a considerable chunk of its running time there’s some inventive camera work, and a plethora of intriguing possibilities.

Cooper, despite having a book deal, is a down and out writer living in a crappy New York apartment unable to write a single word. It doesn’t help matters that his girlfriend (Abbie Cornish) dumps him, and he’s behind in paying his rent, so when he runs into the slimy Johnny Whitworth, as his ex-brother-in-law, he doesn’t turn down a new drug called NZT that Whitworth says allows him 100% access to his brain.

NZT completely changes Cooper and almost immediately he finishes his book, learns every language, becomes a financial wizard, gets his girlfriend back, etc. He calls himself “enhanced Eddie.” Unfortunately Whitworth is mysteriously murdered, and there’s a strange man (Tomas Arana billed only as “Man in Tan Coat”) who appears to be following Cooper menacingly.

You don’t have to have read “Flowers For Algernon” or its film adaptation CHARLY to know that Cooper is going to crash and that his world could completely crumble around him. Robert De Niro enters the scene as an intimidating Wall Street mogul who wants to employ Cooper in presumably the film’s bid for a bit of gruff gravitas. A bit of De Niro’s patented indifference is what we get instead.

Some of the movie’s mis-steps after its strong set-up involve a Russian loan shark (Andrew Howard) who gets addicted to the drug himself, a merger in jeopardy with an ailing Richard Bekins who obviously is a victim of the drug as well, and the murder of a woman Cooper slept with during a crazy night he can’t remember.

Cooper, taking a break from his usual roles as an arrogant douche, is an effective leading man and his performance is note perfect even as the material falters. He is destined for much better things, and I’m not talking about THE HANGOVER PART 2.

You’ll root for Cooper even in the boring set piece fight finale with Howard’s thugs from central casting – one of the many generic elements that sink this overblown cinematic ship.

There are just too many strands here that don’t add up. Anna Friel as Cooper’s sickly ex-wife shows up for a scene of exposition then is never mentioned again, and the film also forgets Cornish for long stretches.

For all its stylish flourishes (I can definitely say it’s a cool looking movie), the film sure doesn’t use 100% of its brain.

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MADE IN DAGENHAM: The Film Babble Blog Review

MADE IN DAGENHAM (Dir. Nigel Cole, 2010)

With her awkward body language and floppy brunette bangs framing a face dominated by an overbite, Sally Hawkins is quite an unlikely movie star.

In her first major role since her acclaimed turn in Mike Leigh’s HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, Hawkins plays a fictional strike leader in a story based on the Ford sewing machinists strike of 1968.

As the character is an amalgam of a number of different women involved in the factory protest, it’s readily apparent how fictionalized this film is.

Reading the real record of events leaves me with a bad aftertaste. It’s one thing to embellish, but what went down would have more impact if it was less loosely adapted for standard feel-good formatting.

That said, it’s a competently told tale with dead on ‘60s décor, and it contains some ace acting – along with Hawkins there’s the lovably gruff Bob Hoskins as a Union Steward, Geraldine James as Hawkins’ best friend, Richard Schiff (Toby from The West Wing) as a bad guy Ford executive, and Miranda Richardson as Secretary of State Barbara Castle.

But for all its heartfelt passion about the movement fighting for equal pay for women, it’s strangely stiff with several unnecessary scenes that make it feel stretched thin.

Still, the extremely affable Hawkins has a handful of affecting emotional moments that lift the material, and make me rate it slightly higher than I would without them, so audiences may be willing to warm to her plucky determination.

That is if they can make it through the often crazy thick accents - blimey, it seems like British movies more and more need subtitles like every other foreign film.

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Aasif Mandvi Serves Up TODAY'S SPECIAL

TODAY SPECIAL (Dir. David Kaplan, 2009)

The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi gets his first leading role in this light yet lovable comedy about a frustrated New York City chef who is inspired to revitalize his father’s failing Indian restaurant.

When told by his boss (Dean Winters) that his cooking doesn’t turn him on (“where’s my boner?” is Winters’s exact words), Mandvi quits his sous chef job at an upscale bistro and decides to go to Paris in hopes of apprenticing with a master chef.

The ill health of Mandvi’s father (Harish Patel) changes his plans, and he finds himself running the run down Tandoori Palace, where the greasy cuisine of the highly unsanitary chef (Ajay Naidu) has been reliably running off patrons.

Mandvi tries to take control of the kitchen resulting in Naidu storming off, so he turns to a worldly cabdriver (Bollywood star Naseeruddin Shah)who happens to be a gourmet chef full of fortune cookie wisdom.

Mandvi jokes that Shah lifts his advice - like “the man who measures life, never knows his own measure” - actually from fortune cookies, and Shah admits that he does in one of many smile-inducing if not laugh-out-loud funny moments.

To flesh out this foodie-centric tale of a chef getting his groove back by way of the magic of the masala, there’s the spunky Jess Weixler as the love interest, Madhur Jaffrey as Mandvi’s mother, and in a small part, Kevin Corrigan as the supportive wise-cracking best friend.

While there’s nothing new about the scenario of our protagonist in the underdog world of indie film – he’s a man weary of failing in his career, not living up to the memory of his dead brother in his parent’s eyes, and not finding the right mate – Mandvi inhabits the character with a convincing soul and a humility that is thoroughly endearing.

Adapted from Mandvi’s award winning play “Sakrina’s restaurant”, TODAY'S SPECIAL isn’t very imaginatively filmed and has a very predictable formula, but it’s a film with a lot of heart, and one that’s cute – not too cutesy.

I enjoyed it as it bopped from scene to scene with a sprightly soundtrack full of Indian standards and tracks from the indie rock band Goldspot.

With this and Ed Helms’ winning role in the just released CEDAR RAPIDS, it’s nice to see Daily Show correspondents making good movie-wise.

TODAY'S SPECIAL is now playing exclusively in the Triangle at the Colony Theater in Raleigh. Check the theater’s website for show-times.

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PAUL: The Film Babble Blog Review

PAUL (Dir. Greg Mottola, 2011)

STARMAN meets SUPERBAD in this sci fi comedy that has Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the comic duo from SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ, aiding and abetting an extraterrestrial fugitive voiced by Seth Rogen.

Pegg and Frost, who also co-wrote the screenplay, are a couple of British geeks on an American vacation that kicks off with a visit to Comic-Con in San Diego before making a road trip to alien landmarks from Area 51 in Nevada to Roswell, New Mexico.

There’s a FANBOYS vibe going on as the pair are starstruck at meeting fictional fantasy novelist Adam Shadowchild (Jeffrey Tambor), whose name is a running gag throughout the film – the joke being that only hardcore nerds know who he is.

Right after stereotypical rednecks (David Koechner and Jesse Plemons) harass Pegg and Frost at a U.F.O. themed diner, our protagonists meet Paul – the CGI crafted little green man from another planet.

“He looks too obvious!” Frost protests, but our snarky title character explains that it’s because pop culture has been inundated with his image in case an encounter occurs.

It turns out Paul, a pot-smoking heavy-drinking party animal of an alien, has escaped from his 60 year imprisonment at Area 51 and is on the run from a government agent (Jason Bateman playing it perfectly straight), so Pegg and Frost’s rented RV becomes his vehicle to an undisclosed location for a spaceship pick-up.

Kristen Wiig, in one of her better performances, jumps on board the RV as a half blind trailer park manager who gets converted from her crazy Christian mind set by the outspoken E.T. and is chased by her father (John Carroll Lynch). Also on the chase are SNL’s Bill Hader and the creepy Joe Lo Truglio as clueless FBI agents.

Every sci fi movie ever seems to be referenced in “Paul”. Lines are lifted from STAR WARS, locations from Star Trek to CLOSE ENCOUNTERS are visited, and then there’s the presence of Sigourney Weaver as “The Big Guy” – Bateman’s boss who will stop at nothing to recapture Paul.

It’s a film for sci fi nerds by sci fi nerds. It’s sloppy and choppy, but it has so many legitimate laughs in it that I didn’t care that it didn’t come close to the visually stylish Edgar Wright films that Pegg and Frost cut their teeth on.

PAUL is fast-paced foul-mouthed fun with an infectious silly tone that never lets up. Although you can see many of the gags coming, they’re still funny when they land thanks to the playful platform provided by Pegg, Frost, Rogen, and director Greg Mottola.

Though I don’t consider myself a STAR WARS fanatic, Trekkie, or sci-fi junkie to any extreme, my inner star-child was greatly amused by these alien antics.

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CEDAR RAPIDS Gets Ed Helms Out Of The Office

CEDAR RAPIDS (Dir. Miguel Arteta)

This new comedy is only playing in Raleigh at the Regal North Hills Stadium 14, and it’s in one of their smallest theaters. That’s a shame because it’s a winning film that’s as charming as it is lovably crude, wonderfully carried by Ed Helms (The Office, THE HANGOVER).

The straight-laced and extremely dorky Helms is a small town insurance salesman whose boss (Stephen Root) sees as the “kid who was going places, but then…didn’t.”

When hot shot salesman Thomas Lennon (The State, Reno 911) dies from auto-erotic asphyxiation, Helms is sent in his place to the annual insurance industry convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Helms, who amusingly is having a fling with his much older former elementary school teacher (a sly Sigourney Weaver), is nervous about going, especially since he’s never left his home town or been on an airplane before.

Upon leaving, Root warns Helms to stay away from John C. Reilly as a sleazy possible client poacher, and, yep, that’s who he turns out having to room with at the hotel.

Luckily his other room-mate is the more sincere Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Clay Davis from The Wire) who uses snappy phrases like L.A.C. (Loud And Clear) and “and at the end of the day that’s N.T.S. – that’s Not Too Shabby.”

There’s also the surprisingly appealing performance by Anne Heche as another convention veteran who ferociously flirts with Helms.

So our hapless hero Helms’ goal is to win the coveted 2 Diamonds Award by schmoozing insurance association president Kurtwood Smith (most likely best known as the dad on That ‘70s Show, but I prefer to think of him as the villain in the first ROBOCOP).

But Relliy’s partying antics, the temptation of Heche, and a brewing bribery scandal may thwart Helm’s path to victory.

There are a lot of laughs in CEDAR RAPIDS, most of the clever character based variety that was so missing from the raunchy-for-the-sake-of-raunch of the recent Farrelly Brothers flick “Hall Pass”.

In fact, there have been few comedy films lately that feel like they have real empathy for the people on the screen. Helms gives us a guy whose naivety we initially laugh at, but come to laugh with as the film goes on.

He comes off like a big kid, but not like man-children in the films of Judd Apatow, he’s more about the wide-eyed giddy feeling of learning things for the first time.

In this movie that giddiness is hilariously endearing, and at the end of the day that’s N.T.S.

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