*Note: The first part of this review is (relatively) spoiler-free, but I’ll include some spoilers at the end.

First off, I should admit at the beginning that I’m a fan of the Millennium trilogy, the three books that Stieg Larsson wrote before his death in 2004. The books have their faults, of course, but the heart of the series was a completely unique, fascinating, well-drawn, and unconventional heroine. I’ve seen the Swedish films as well, the ones starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist, and they’re decent-to-good adaptations of Larsson’s work. My favorite book and my favorite Swedish film apaptation is still the first one, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I know the Swedish films are often criticized, but I think the Swedish GWTDT film is excellent, and it stands up.

So, given my love of the Swedish film, I was already primed to be extra-judgy of David Fincher’s Americanized adaptation. Plus, I’ve grown to dislike Rooney Mara a little bit, considering her interviews are revealing the little fact that she’s kind of dumb and conceited. But I have to say… there was a lot in Fincher’s film that I really liked.

The basic story is… well, there’s nothing basic. Calling it a “Whodunit” or a murder mystery isn’t the whole plot, but in its essence, yes, it is a murder mystery. Rooney Mara plays Lisbeth Salander, a young woman who is misanthropic, a legal ward of the state, who may or may not have mental issues and violent tendencies. She’s blunt, she’s honest, she’s supposed to look very young and androgynous, and she’s supposed to radiate intelligence. Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, one of Sweden’s most respected and controversial journalists, who just got his ass handed to him in a libel case.

So, how did Daniel and Rooney do? Rooney was much better than I was expecting. She had the look of a haunted child, and she often looked frighteningly small and vulnerable. Her accent work was stellar – I never heard anything resembling an American accent. But! I still prefer Noomi Rapace’s Lisbeth, honestly. When Lisbeth is in danger, Noomi let you feel her terror and helplessness, and it was devastating. When Lisbeth is angry, Noomi projected the shaking, all-consuming rage. Rooney just… didn’t. Her performance wasn’t as powerful, but it was still pretty solid.

As for Daniel as Mikael… he was good. The Mikael character is at his best when he’s playing off the women in his life, and Daniel definitely came alive in his scenes with Robin Wright and Rooney. There were moments where Daniel seemed less like a journalist in over his head and more like a supremely competent British spy, though. Daniel just seems too… capable. But he was good, and at the end of the day, he’s lovely to look at, and he brought more emotional depth to Blomkvist than Nyqvist did.

My biggest problem with the film was David Fincher’s direction, and whoever edited it. The pacing was completely off in the first 15 minutes – I knew what was happening in the story, but even I was like, “WTF is happening here? Why are they introducing that character right now?” Then, in the final big action/suspense sequence, the whole thing was just a f–king mess. What could have been a series of gradually terrifying scenes were completely c–kblocked by bad pacing, bad editing and several sequences that should have been cut out of the script in the first week of preproduction. And then after that, the movie just hung around for another half an hour while they wrapped up the additional plotlines. Those plotlines had to be dealt with, of course, but Fincher really took his time and it got slightly boring.

So… I’m recommending the film, but I also think you guys should totally try the Swedish film, just because it really is a much, much better film overall. Seriously.

************SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS ****************

*Fincher messed with the story line in some little ways that I didn’t mind at all. Like, he introduced a cat to the little cottage where Blomkvist is staying, and g–damn if that cat didn’t steal all of Daniel’s scenes. At one point, Blomkvist is asleep in bed, and the cat is sleeping on his head. That was my favorite part. UPDATE: Er, was there a cat in the book? I completely forgot about it. Sorry!

*Some of you are probably wondering about the pivotal rape scene. In the Swedish film, the violence is traumatizing to the viewer, and you can really feel Lisbeth’s helplessness, her terror, her inability to fight back. The scene is so powerful, that act of violence haunts the rest of the film, and the rest of the series. The scene in this film was… well, it’s still violent and disturbing, but it was nowhere near as traumatic as the Swedish version.

*It takes FOREVER for Lisbeth and Mikael to finally get to work together, and even then, the story keeps separating them. It pissed me off – we waited for so long to see lots of scenes with Mikael and Lisbeth in the cottage, and you barely get any payoff.

*Lisbeth’s control over her own destiny was subtly taken away from book to screen. In the books, she makes several pivotal decisions that influence future plotlines. In the American film, those decisions are made by other characters – and things happen TO her, and she does less to affect her own course of action.

Promotional images courtesy of Columbia Pictures/IMDB and Empire Magazine.

OK, I went to see Moneyball with my mother yesterday, and something really weird happened: my mother is now in love with Brad Pitt. She always sort-of liked him, as is she would say things like “He’s very pretty and kind of talented, meh.” But she was having a hot flash for him in Moneyball. It helps that all of a sudden, Brad looks a hell of a lot like Robert Redford. He’s always been Redford-ish, and obviously, people have always made the Pitt-Redford comparison, but this movie… dear God, Brad looks good. So much of the movie is based on his face in closeup too – and you know what, Pitt-haters? He doesn’t look like he’s had any work done on his face, at all. His eyes are lined and baggy. His skin is sagging a bit. But he looks like what he is: a very, very attractive man in his 40s. My mom kept saying, “He doesn’t look young any more. He doesn’t look a pretty young guy now. He’s filled out, and DAMN it looks good.”

Of course, it helps that the movie was really, really good. The theatre I went to was packed, with men and women of all ages. I was surprised that there weren’t more kids there – not little kids, but like 10-13 year-olds, because I could see this being a film that would be nice for a father to see with his tween son or daughter. It’s a surprisingly clean, well-acted, charming story. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it too – it’s not some art-house flick about math and a boring general manager of a baseball team. There are some funny lines, there’s a lot of heart and sweetness, and the story was just told in a great way.

If you don’t know the basics of the plot by now – it’s just about Oakland As general manager Billy Beane, and how he challenged professional baseball by disregarding the traditional thinking of how to put together a team. Instead of listening to scouts and trying to buy the best known players, Beane hires Peter Brand, a young Yalie who convinced Beane to put together a team of misfits and undervalued players using computer analysis and cold, hard numbers. Jonah Hill (under)plays Brand brilliantly, and Joanh and Brad’s chemistry is really sweet. Jonah really impressed me – I didn’t know he could do this kind of understated dramatic role, and he just nailed it.

Other notables: Robin Wright’s role (as Beane’s ex-wife and mother of his daughter) was very simple, but she made an impression. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the A’s manager Art Howe, who… I hope wasn’t this big of a d-bag. There were also a scene-stealing performances by Chris Pratt (who played Scott Hatteberg, a first-baseman who was scared of the ball) and Kerris Dorsey, who played Beane’s daughter. She was adorable.

Oh, and if Brad doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for this movie, I’ll eat my hat. It was so wonderful to see him do this kind of mainstream, Robert Redford-ish film. I’m still giggling over one scene in which Beane, who is always eating, is anxious about a trade, so in-between calls he begins to panic-eat by shoving a handful of stuff (popcorn?) into his mouth.

Posters and promotional images from Moneyball.

Yesterday, I went to see The Debt. I was really looking forward to it, but after I saw it, I barely thought about it again. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate that the film was made – I think stories of Nazi-hunting and the early days of the Mossad are fascinating, and I wish more movies and books were out, telling those stories. But there were problems in the basic storytelling of The Debt, and in the end, the film isn’t very good.

The basic plot: The Debt tells the stories of three Mossad agents in 1967, as they are hunting “the surgeon of Birkenau” in East Germany and those same agents in 1997, as they are older and jaded. First, the cast is fantastic, and all of the actors turned in the best performances they could with a deeply flawed screenplay. Sam Worthington and Ciarán Hinds play the same character, and both were excellent, although I would have loved to see Hinds in the film more. I always think that Sam is such a meathead, but he did this quiet, dramatic role very well – his part was mostly intense looks. Tom Wilkinson and Marton Csokas play the same character – which is weird, because Tom looks nothing like Marton. Marton gives me huge Clive Owen vibes, which is to say he makes my biscuits have a party. Csokas is a sexy bitch in this film, but in the end, he’s just kind of jackass of a character.

The bulk of the story falls on Helen Mirren, and her younger version played by Jessica Chastain. Chastain does an admirable job as the completely green, in-over-her-head spy, while Helen could give depth and weight to the most asinine of line readings. The creepiest scenes in the movie involved Chastain and her work with the actor playing the Nazi, the “surgeon of Birkenau”.

As for the flaws… well, let me do this:

SPOILERS BELOW….

The failures of the plot were about the supposed “moral dilemma” of whether Nazis should be captured and put on trial or whether they should just be killed outright. There was also the “moral dilemma” of whether or not you should take credit for something that you didn’t accomplish, and take credit for it simply because no one will ever find out. The first moral dilemma is rooted in the actual history of the state of Israel – they wanted to have trials of the captured Nazis, because they wanted to show the world what had happened during the Holocaust, and because they thought war crimes trials would be the most moral and just way of handling the issue. So what’s the problem? Seeing three Israeli spies agonize over the life of a Nazi is eye-roll inducing. Is it really a moral dilemma to kill someone who murdered thousands?

As for the second moral dilemma, that of taking credit for something that no one would be able to prove otherwise – meh. That’s the part of the film that was a mess. Mirren did the best she could do, but the last twenty minutes of the film were just awful.

Oh, and my last problem with the film – the Chastain/Mirren character wouldn’t have been sent on that mission, I don’t think. She was there for a specific reason – because the mission needed a younger woman to set the trap – but I don’t buy that Mossad would have sent a woman who was so young, so emotional, and so untested on this important mission.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I was in the mood for something romantic and girly over the weekend, so I ended up seeing One Day, the film that I proclaimed, at one point, that I was never going to see. I read the book, and loved the book… up until the last third of the novel. Then I got so pissed off, I swore up and down that I wasn’t going to get involved. When the previews for the film came out, I once again swore I wasn’t going to see it, this time because Anne Hathaway’s faux English accent seemed wonky as hell, and because Jim “Pillow Weeper” Sturgess wasn’t my idea of Dexter. So… I guess I have to suck it up. I not only saw the movie, but I enjoyed it. Maybe it helped that I walked in with such low expectations. Or maybe it’s a better movie than you’ve heard.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the basic gist is: Dexter (Sturgess) and Emma (Hathaway) meet and sort-of hookup on their last day of university, on July 15. The book and the film follows Dexter and Emma on every July 15th for the next twenty years, through triumphs and heartbreaks and love and loss. As far as the film being a faithful adaptation of the book, it worked out very well. Surprisingly well, I have to admit. The kept a lot of the book in there, and they even let Hathaway have all of the funniest lines, which is true of Emma in the book. And they kept Dexter a mess, which is also true to the book.

As for the performances of the two leads… I was impressed. They had a great deal of chemistry together, despite the weird little oddness that they kind of look like brother and sister (true story – they look A LOT alike). Anne’s accent work wasn’t her best, but for the majority of the film, it wasn’t actively bad. There were only a couple of scenes where I was like, “She sounds less English and more like she’s had a stroke.” Sturgess did a wonderful job as a privileged boy who never quite gets it together, and true to his Pillow Weeper moniker, Jim cried and cried and cried. That boy can pull out the waterworks at the drop of a hat, and he’s a better weeper than Anne. But he had moments of real sexiness, and he and Anne played off of each other beautifully.

Two weird little things – Patricia Clarkson has a wonderful little part as Dexter’s glamorous and then tragic mother, and I swear, her accent work was worse than Anne’s. I love Clarkson, so that pains me. Surely they could have found a glamorous English actress for that part, right? Second weirdness: the casting of one of my favorite up-and-coming girls, Romola Garai (see her IMDB here) – she looks like Drew Barrymore and she’s one of the most talented young actresses in the UK (she’s currently starring in the new, wonderful BBC show The Hour). Romola appears in maybe many scenes later in the movie, playing an unsympathetic character that no one cared for in the book, and she made the character extremely sympathetic and lovely, and Romola stole every scene she was in. It struck me that Romola would have been a wonderful choice to play Emma, and in a few years, she IS going to be getting lead roles in Hollywood films. She’s lovely.

So, would I recommend this movie? Go see it if you’re in the mood for a romance, and you don’t mind having a good cry. It will be a good rental too.

Photos courtesy of Fame & WENN.

I know, I know, my reviews of films are always late. Sometimes I see a movie over the weekend, and I just want to talk about it, and I don’t care if it’s late in coming. So, I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love yesterday and… it wasn’t that good. Would you like the basic no-spoiler gist? Julianne Moore’s character and Steve Carell’s character are married, and in the first scene in the movie, they split up. Steve is distraught, and he starts hanging out in what must be the only cool bar in town, where all of the beautiful women in the city hang out, but only long enough to spend one night with the bar’s only young, handsome regular, Ryan Gosling. Gosling takes Steve under his wing, gives him a Cinder-fella makeover and teaches Steve how to pick up women. Chaos ensues. Early on, Gosling meets Emma Stone, and she refuses his advances (because she’s in a relationship with a completely nerdy and scene-stealing Josh Groban), but then Emma comes around and Emma and Ryan end up spending the night together… and then chaos ensues.

There were some good parts, and yes, I was actually “surprised” by the “twist”. But overall, I feel like they wasted a lot of good talent, and I really think the screenplay could have been a lot better. It was like some hack wrote a completely average and boring romantic-comedy screenplay, then someone talented came in and started rewriting some of the scenes, and then the talented guy got bored. Some of the scenes were so great, I wish the entire film had been so awesome. But it wasn’t.

The best part? Ryan Gosling, without a doubt. He LOOKED amazing and he was just… this character was like The Fantasy Man. I’m not talking about the fantasy of the good guy who will be a great husband and father. I’m talking about the fantasy of the obscenely good-looking dude who comes on to you at the bar and takes you home and you have dirty, mind-blowing sex and that’s it. Girls need that too, and it’s as much of a fantasy as the other “marriage and babies” fantasy too. Gosling got the best suits, and when he took off his gear, he just looked… like heaven. He had ridiculous chemistry with both Emma and Steve too.

The worst part? Julianne Moore. It’s become a shtick for her at this point, playing these harried, neurotic wives and mothers, and beyond Julianne’s kind of sleep-walking performance, her character just sucked. Another bad part was the too-”precious”-ness of Steve and Julianne’s 13-year-old son. His story line involved him being in love with a 17-year-old girl, and when the girl rebuffed his advances, he started stalking her. It was creepy, not cute. The same could be said of Carell’s character too – there were a couple of times where the character was just kind of gross and creepy. Rom-com FAIL.

Oh, and did you know that The Bacon is in this movie? He is. He looked great, and I liked seeing him do a smaller little part, but I still have residual warmth for him because of X-Men: First Class.

My verdict: RENT it, but only for The Gosdong. It’s worth viewing for his scenes alone. Just fast-forward through all of the other crap.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Here are some new photos of Kevin Bacon and his lovely wife Kyra Sedgwick at an event for the environmental organization, Global Green. Doesn’t Kevin look awesome? I’m in love with The Bacon all over again, just because I saw X-Men: First Class this weekend, and now I can barely function because I’m brimming over with Bacon, Fassbender and McAvoy love. So here are my thoughts on X-Men: First Class.

The basic story is how The X-Men formed as a group in 1960s. I was expecting lots of great Fassbender (Magneto) and McAvoy (Prof. X) one-on-one scenes, but that barely happened. Instead, I got a really wonderful 1960s-style action-adventure-spy film, with sci-fi mutants as sort-of CIA assets/agents. It was AWESOME. It was like an old-school James Bond movie, only James Bond is a Holocaust survivor who spends his time hunting former Nazis. And James Bond can do sh-t with metal when he gets angry.

Which brings me to Fassbender and The Bacon. I was slightly disappointed that there wasn’t as much James McAvoy as I was expecting, but they made up for it by making My Beloved Fassbender (Erik/Magento) the de facto lead. His story line drove the plot, and his scenes were the most exciting, in my opinion. He doesn’t speak English for the first part of the film, instead trying out his French, German and Spanish. It was awesome. There’s a part where he’s sitting across from a Swiss banker, speaking French and wearing an incredible beautiful suit and I actually squealed. Then there’s a part where he comes out of the water and I said, out loud in the middle of the theater, “Jesus Christ, HE’S WET NOW.” His ginger is incredible, his face is beautiful, and his acting is AMAZING. He really killed this role. He cries in a few scenes, and it’s like emotional porn. I wanted to lick his tears away and ride Magneto dong.

As for The Bacon… he was “the villain,” a former Nazi doctor who was “on the run” internationally, working his own global agenda. It was a different kind of role for The Bacon, and he killed it too. At the beginning, where he’s all Nazi-fied, he has this little mustache and he’s speaking German, and you realize “Damn, The Bacon can ACT.” I hope this is another opportunity for producers and directors to see him in a different kind of role and realize that he really can do ANY part.

Other favorite parts: Jennifer Lawrence is really, really pretty, and it was cool seeing Mystique as a little girl and as a young woman, trying to figure her life out. I enjoyed the hell out of Nicholas Hoult too – he really is a severely beautiful young man. There’s also this funky, funny ginger kid named Caleb Landry Jones who plays Banshee, and he’s just wonderful. Great comic relief, very goofy-sweet. My least favorite parts were the two weak links in the film: Zoe Kravitz and January Jones. Neither of them were ACTIVELY bad, but they weren’t good either.

Basically, this is one of the best films of the year, no doubt. I liked it more than anything I’ve seen in months and months. I made my mom see it because I’ve been talking about Fassbender for so long, and she wanted to see what the fuss was about. She likes traditional romantic comedies and British stuff, but she LOVED this film.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Over the weekend, CB and I actually met up (in the flesh!) and went to see True Grit. She’s a Matt Damon-aholic, and I’m a big fan of the Coen Brothers, so it seemed like an obvious pick. We both enjoyed the film – although I’m not sure how it fits into the pantheon of Coen Brothers films. Does it out-rate The Big Lebowski? Fargo? No Country For Old Men? Raising Arizona? Not really. It had a surprising amount of dark humor, and the acting and story were first-class… but I’m slightly unconvinced that this one will be considered one of their best. It seems more like the Coen Brothers wanting to make an old-fashioned western with Jeff Bridges, and they just accidentally made a good, crowd-pleasing movie.

The basic story (with no spoilers): Hailee Steinfeld’s character (Mattie Ross) hires US Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track down her father’s murderer. Matt Damon plays the Texas Ranger who is hunting the same murderer, but for a different crime. Hailee and Jeff are the two leads of the film – Matt’s character is a true supporting player, and Josh Brolin plays the killer, and I was surprised with how small Brolin’s part was. Anyway, the story is basically about the journey of Rooster and Mattie to find the killer. Mattie is all of 14 years old – and she’s smart, sassy, tough and precocious as all hell. To be honest, she stole nearly every scene she was in, which is remarkable considering both Matt Damon and Jeff Bridges were basically playing hilariously cartoonish buffoons to varying degrees. Mattie is the emotional heart of the film, and she has wonderful chemistry with both of her leading men.

Things I loved about the film: Hailee Steinfeld’s film debut performance is a total knockout – she deserves every nomination she’s getting. I loved that they got an actual kid to play the kid, and I love that she doesn’t come across like she’s 14-going-on-40. I also loved Matt Damon, who is a great and confident enough actor to play second-fiddle to Hailee and Jeff Bridges. Late in the film, there’s a brief scene between Hailee and Matt where they are just speaking to each other and… it was my favorite scene of the film. Sigh… I would never take Matt away from CB, but I do love him too.

Things that I wasn’t crazy about: I love some Jeff Bridges, but I lost chunks of his dialogue because of the crazy voice he was doing. Maybe Jeff decided to do his voice like that so that people would come and see the movie for a second and third time just to understand what the hell he was saying. I also thought Josh Brolin was underutilized – but that’s probably because I really like him as an actor, and I always want to see more of him. Barry Pepper also had a small part in the film, and he too was underutilized. Also – and I’m really not saying this as a spoiler, but: I wanted a different resolution. I wanted a different ending. I didn’t hate the ending, I just thought it was going to end differently.

So… would I recommend True Grit? Of course. My favorite film of the year is still The King’s Speech, but don’t go into True Grit thinking that it’s just a boy movie, or a straight western. There’s a thick strain of feminism and one of the best female performances of the year. It’s also really, really funny and completely solid.

Promotional images courtesy of All Movie Photo.

The King’s Speech is a marvel of economy. Do not go into the film expecting a BBC miniseries with elaborate costumes and set pieces, with lush scenic views of the beauty of England. The majority of the film is set in a series of small, suffocating rooms. Most of the film is trained tightly on the actors’ faces, mainly Colin Firth. Oh, and by the way – The King’s Speech is maybe the best film of the year. I’m just throwing that out there.

In case you need a refresher about the general plot, here you go: Colin Firth plays Albert/George, HRH The Duke of York, the second son of King George V. For historical context: Albert/George rises to the throne of the United Kingdom when his brother, The Prince of Wales-turned-King Edward VIII (played by Guy Pearce) abdicated the throne in favor of marrying the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. The Duke of York became King George VI, coronated in 1937. King George VI led Britain through World War II and died of lung cancer in 1952, after which his older daughter became Queen Elizabeth II, who still reigns today. Historically speaking, the film was very accurate, although I did wonder if they took some liberties with the relationship between the two brothers, the Duke of York and the Prince of Wales. From what I’ve read, the two were very close until Wallis Simpson came along, and when Edward abdicated, King George was very generous to his older brother. The film makes Edward out to be rather cruel and rather pussy-whipped. Maybe that’s true, I don’t really know.

The film begins in the years preceding Edward’s abdication, when very little was expected of the Duke of York beyond his naval career and the odd public speech. The public speech provides difficult for the Duke – he’s had a terrible, crippling stutter since childhood. Various royal-sycophant specialists are brought in to cure his stutter, to no avail. His wife, Elizabeth, the Duchess of York (played by Helena Bonham Carter), seeks out the help of a working-class, Australian speech therapist named Lionel Logue (played by Geoffrey Rush).

For the most part, the film is about Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush’s relationship, and honestly, those are the best scenes. The two men are wonderful together, and the relationship is complicated and riveting. That being said, Helena Bonham Carter is absolutely enchanting, and when she’s not on screen, you actually miss her. I wanted to see more of her – she and Colin Firth had a very easy, sweet chemistry together, which likely mirrored the real “love affair” marriage of the real King and Queen. Also, it’s just friggin’ wonderful to see Helena in a period film that doesn’t involve crazy Tim Burton costumes. She’s so pretty, and she gave a very light-yet-powerful performance as the loving wife who will do anything to help the man she loves. So much of the performance was in the closeups of her face, the emotions in her eyes.

Now, let me just say this: if Colin Firth doesn’t win an Oscar, it will be a major travesty of justice and all that is holy. Helena was wonderful, Geoffrey Rush was a joy, Guy Pearce was eye-catching and fascinating, but Colin Firth brought everything home. He needs an Oscar just for the extraordinary vocal work he did – he completely changed his voice, and his stutter was authentic, painful, half-choking, half-sobbing. Beyond the voice work, Colin was just nailing it right and left. He’s such a big man, and he was able to project a physical weakness, an extreme discomfort and “smallness” when his stutter choked him. One of my favorite parts was where Lionel was having the prince do vocal exercises, using curse words to loosen up. Hearing a string of expletives come of his mouth was so funny, so touching, so wonderful. Sigh… I love Colin Firth.

So, all in all, I would totally recommend this movie to everyone. Even kids (not little kids, but I think teenagers would like it). It’s wonderful. And Colin is going to win. He has to.

Promotional stills courtesy of All Movie Photo. Poster courtesy of Collider.

“Victory is mine, PEASANTS!!” - Goop.

Also, some SPOILERS below.

Once again, it is CRAZY SLOW today, so I’m searching for interesting stories. And then it occurred to me – Country Strong is opening in wide release today. Just how bad are the reviews? Well, they’re pretty bad. Like, “Country Strong makes The Tourist look like Citizen Kane” bad. Gwyneth Paltrow’s hopeful “comeback” lead role has a dismal 16% on Rotten Tomatoes. Her performance specifically is rubbing people the wrong way, but critics seem to have a problem with the entire film in general too. I imagine most people would have issues with a film in which a pregnancy country star got drunk and fell off the stage, miscarrying. I mean… come on. Here are some samplings from the reviews:

Toronto Star: “Much has been made of ice-queen Paltrow’s conversion to country siren, by way of a few warbles that suggests she’s really a hayseed at heart. But there’s scant sonic evidence to prove it: all of her numbers in Country Strong, including the title tune, are reduced to brief snippets, often drowned out by her band or the roar of crowd-for-hire. Paltrow’s Kelly Canter is more karaoke than country, but to be fair, it’s not entirely her fault. The many tunes in Country Strong are of such astounding banality, it’s as if they were written by caged chimps as they were driven through Nashville on the way to a medical research lab.”

Roger Ebert: “Country Strong” is one of the best movies of 1957, and I mean that sincerely as a compliment… This is a movie into which Lee Remick and Rock Hudson and Sandra Dee would have slipped without shoehorns, and Douglas Sirk would have known where to march them. Its emotions are strong and visible. Its motives are clear. Its music performances are so good, we wish they lasted longer. Gwyneth Paltrow is so beautiful and is just really so nice that she brings enormous sympathy to her role. And Hedlund’s Beau would do anything for a woman — or two women, in this case… Another thing that places this movie in the 1950s milieu is its understanding of alcoholism. It thinks being drunk comes on people in sudden spurts, like a sneezing fit, and goes away when the plot needs it to. Kelly will be waving a vodka bottle at one moment and morosely pondering at the next. She (Paltrow, that is) has a lovely scene where she coaches young Chiles on what she needs to know about sweat stains, high heels and love.”

Newark Star-Ledger: “Country Strong [is] a big musical drama with Gwyneth Paltrow as a fresh-from-rehab singer falling apart on the comeback trail. Full of self-regard, the picture even played Los Angeles last month, in order to qualify for possible Academy Awards. Confidence is a lovely thing. Sometimes. But “Country Strong,” sadly, includes everything on the best-actress checklist except a performance — unless you consider two hours of Paltrow alternating between drunken crying jags and wan country warbling something more than a privileged star showing off…I mean, a country star who miscarried when she fell off the stage in a drunken stupor? And now coos to an orphaned baby bird she carries around in a cigar box? When she’s not knocking Tony Lamas with her cute male nurse from the rehab center?”

Yeah… Ebert kind of liked it. I think he’s a fan of The Goop. But this junk sounds hideous, it really does. Not only that, it also is starting to seem vaguely offensive, like THIS is what all of those Northern Aggressors think we’re like in the South. Note to Hollywood (and Gwyneth specifically): Y’all need to actually spend some time in the South. Not everyone sounds like Britney Spears, not everyone listens to country music, not everyone drives a pickup truck, and we’re not all hysterical lushes. Just FYI. Maybe Goop should devote a newsletter to her Brit-Brit twang. Wouldn’t you love that?

Hot mess:

Yesterday, in a drug-addled haze (Sudafed and Dayquil), I took my mother to see Black Swan. It was her pick – she chose Portman and ballerinas over her pretty princess, Cinderella/Amy Adams in The Fighter. Perhaps it was just the drugs (true story), but Black Swan was a seriously good/trippy movie to watch while under the influence. If I had been stone cold sober, however, I wonder if I would have enjoyed as much. As it happened, the theatre was half-full, and I was the only one laughing at what I thought were funny jokes. Whoops!

Anyway, I don’t want this review to be spoiler-filled, and by now, you hopefully know the basics of the plot, what little of it there is. If you want a summary of the film, go here. If you want spoilers, go here. If you want reviews by a critic you respect more than me (I don’t mind!), go here. I’m just going to talk about my general thoughts, complaints and praise for the film. Since you guys seemed to like my review of The Tourist, I thought I’d do another review!

So we know that Natalie Portman, in her lead role as Nina, is considered the leading contender for this year’s Best Actress Oscar. Do I think she deserves it? Well… maybe, maybe not. I wouldn’t be upset if Natalie won, but I wouldn’t be overjoyed either. I do think Natalie was acting her ass off throughout the film. She transformed her body to the point where she just seemed like a quivering, nervous, taut muscle just about to snap. Even her neck muscles were acting. Natalie also surprised and impressed me with her voice work in the film – she was able to raise her voice just a touch higher to seem even younger, more child-like, more vulnerable. Her ballet was quite good too, not that I’m an expert. But much like the character of Nina, I often thought Natalie seemed weighed down with the technical aspects of the dance. When she performed, she always looked like she was about to cry. Was that on purpose?

My main problem with Natalie’s character was that it seemed rather one-note… yes, the bitch is crazy. What else do you have, you know? Half-way through the film, I realized that I had stopped caring about Nina’s injuries/hallucinations/anxiety/tears/trauma/drama. It was all the same after a while. And that’s the fault of the script, not Portman. Portman did the best she could with the material.

As for the other actors… well, I was kind of in heaven. Vincent Cassel took another one-note character and made it really interesting. Cassel played the director of the company, and he was at times sexy, smarmy, charming, nasty, and kind. My favorite part of the whole film was when he danced with Natalie… sigh. He’s a gorgeous dancer.

Barbara Hershey looked like ten kinds of hell, and she was very good too. Winona Ryder’s part (as the ousted prima ballerina Beth) was smaller than I was expecting, but Winona popped on-screen, big-time. There was one scene that gave me major Winona nostalgia – she’s playing sad, catty and drunk, and can just see that Winona has still got it, you know? I loved it. As for Mila Kunis… well, she was very, very good. But I’m kind of drawing back my thoughts that she’ll get an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Yes, she was good, but the role wasn’t that showy, and… I don’t know, I’m just not expecting her to get nominated.

So, would I recommend this film? Yes, but prepare yourself. There are many gross-out moments, and some really good performances. But it’s not the best film of the year or anything.

Various posters and promotional images for ‘Black Swan’ courtesy of Google Images.