Sigmund Freud, that veritable master of the mind and erstwhile liaison betwixt the dream world and our own (is there really such a hard distinction between the two?), said, “Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.” In a world where dreams are entered into volitionally, like remarkable virtual reality chambers, anything is possible, including theft, and its opposite, what the film calls Inception, a beginning and an end in which both are simultaneously evident and obscured.

Cobb (Leo) is a master of this soi-disant “inception”, a criminal of sorts, on the run from authorities and, in more ways than one, from himself, from his past, from the memories that haunt his waking and dreaming life, an admixture he can’t seem to separate clearly, as if his internal centrifuge has gone horribly wrong.

Along with his cast of oneiric bandits, played by a cast of top-notch actors, some familiar faces (Caine, Murphy, and Watanabe) and others new to the Nolan regime (Gordon-Levitt, Page, and Cotillard), Cobb seeks to infiltrate people’s minds through their dreams, colluding in and amongst their projected lives.

As we have to come expect, Leo is fantastic. His ability to draw on the melodramatic styles of his directors, to inhabit the characters he plays, and to simply speak the truth of the scene, is captivating, if not intoxicating. Christopher Nolan, the director, has surrounded Leo with a cast that both highlights the film and punctuates its very calculated movements with panache and a sense of jeu d’esprit, which is only one side to Nolan’s coin, with a backside as insidious as it is immaculately acerbic.

Dreams have a life of their own, the film seems to tell us, while reminding us that we are the authors of those selfsame dreamings: the creator and the created, enfolding on itself in an open and mysterious loop. That is the meaning of inception, after all – both a beginning and an end, at times one and the same, of a thought or feeling or desire whose provenance is lost in the labyrinthine hedges of our minds.

The film instills a sense of wonder at the world of dreams, of our dreams and the dreams of others, of another world in and of itself, a created cosmos, in which the rules may have changed, and in which the playful musings of the spirit are made manifest alongside the penumbral magic of the other side of our lunar souls. In a word: Art. All art is essentially volitional dreaming of sorts, entering into another place and time, created either by ourselves or by others, sometimes simultaneously.

Art, like dreaming, may seem, at times, to lack meaning, to be obfuscated by a misleading artist or, simply, by postmodernism, an absconding racket. Inception is neither. Inception is a work of art, discernible and impenetrable, a dream incarnate on the silver screen, and, though not quite perfect, still the best picture of the year thus far.

A quote comes to mind, something said by Luis Buñuel, another filmmaker, both enlightening and amusing, its truth apropos to Inception, and, indeed, to all art, and to all artists: “If someone were to tell me I had twenty years left, and ask me how I’d like to spend them, I’d reply ‘Give me two hours a day of activity, and I’ll take the other twenty-two in dreams.’” I think Nolan understands this as well as anyone. And I most certainly agree.

Rating: 4/4 Stars

This is the kind of film that elicits a dropped jaw, the kind that never hinges closed until the credits roll.  Food, Inc. is a much-needed biography.  It does what any basic biography must do, tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end.  The interesting thing about this particular biography is that it isn’t about a person: it’s about food – those three or so ostensibly innocuous meals we eat every day (or six if you’re Tony Horton).   Among other things, it exposes the deception of “choice”, and the interconnectedness of cattle, corn, gas prices, Jack-in-the-Box, and public policy.

This documentary is iconoclastic.  It exposes, at various times throughout, the factories (for that is what they are: factories) in America that house chickens, pigs, and cows.  It elucidates the concept of choice at the grocery store, and how the reality is far from this supposedly vast selection that is available to the consumer.  A handful of companies (at present, about four) control all the beef or pork at a given time in America, from McDonald’s double cheeseburgers to Ruth’s Chris steak to Jimmy Dean breakfast sausages.  This isn’t all inherently “bad”, but it certainly isn’t expected, and it actually has quite negative ramifications for everyone involved in meat: those who own the cattle, swine, and chickens; those who kill, pack, and ship the meat; those who eat the meat; and those who regulate all of the aforementioned processes: the government, many of whom were actually a part of the four companies I mentioned earlier (by name: Tyson, Purdue, Smithfield, and Monsanto, all of whom refused to be interviewed for the film).

From pasture (a misnomer), pig pen (another misnomer, though not as far off), or hen house (certainly misleading: more like a chicken shack), food is unethically regulated by policy makers influenced by lobbyists (not much different from tobacco lobbyists of preceding decades, as the film points out).  What does ‘unethically regulated’ mean?  Essentially, a small group of people hold all the power, causing those who have little to no authority or ability to say or do otherwise, no option but to yield to The Man.  The film presents several cases-in-point, including chicken farmers who make less than $20,000 a year being forced to take hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to pay off their ever-rising cost of production to the very companies they support by raising chickens.

Another example is in corn.  Corn is ubiquitous.  It’s in coke, candy, cereal, syrup.  One scientist interviewed from the University of Iowa estimates that 90% of the products in supermarkets today contain some form of corn.  Again: not inherently “wrong”.  But the consequences are far-reaching and negative.  I won’t delineate all the reasons why, but the film highlights the monopoly of corn distribution in America by Monsanto, who sues farmers who don’t use their corn by claiming that they use their corn illegally, shutting down all “seed cleaners” in America, whose jobs are ultimately expunged, due to mounting legal fees and an inability to fight back without proper funds, thereby virtually granting Monsanto a perpetually larger stake of the market.

The film goes into much more detail, of course, but it is persuasive, puissant, and poignant.  This dynamic film interviews the authors of Fast Food Nation, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, the mother of the child who died due to eating a hamburger at Jack-in-the-Box infected with E. coli (a sickening story), politicians, corporate Americans, agrarian Americans, and many people besides, all of whom have something to contribute, all of whom having one essential plea: know where your food comes from.  Will it make you change your eating habits?  Probably not.  But the point is not so much aimed at changing what you eat, but rather knowing more about what you eat, which in turn will hopefully result in more mindful eaters, resulting in a possible change in dietary habits in America over time.  Illuminating and highly recommended.

Rating: 3/4 Stars

Like Borat before it, Bruno can be offensive, funny, and absurd.  What the former had that the latter doesn’t, however, is a kind of social commentary effect.  Cohen has created a very funny character, to be sure, and he is extremely talented.  He wrote, starred, directed, and produced these films.  It’s no wonder that we at least pay some attention to this eccentric, bold, ridiculous human being.

The problem that this movie has is that it doesn’t do what its predecessor did so well, an exposing of stereotypes that allows us to see Americans as people who have a long way to go in terms of civil rights, discrimination, etc.  Bruno, a homosexual, goes around the world in hopes of becoming famous.  He never really succeeds, but that’s not really the point, it’s just the “plot” that he needs to make a movie ostensibly about homophobia and the sources of anti-homosexuality.  He shows us a lot of what we already know, and a lot of what Borat already showed us.

If you’re going to make a film meant to comment on social mores, you have to be careful, subtle, self-conscious even; there are so many wrong ways of going about it.  Bruno is one of those.  There are some laughs, sure, but it doesn’t reveal much about America we didn’t already know, or much about anyone that we didn’t already know.  If you find fundamentalists in any camp, the unintelligent in any area of the world, the naive, the predisposed, uninformed, or anyone with a severe disadvantage to play in your game, we are going to get some funny moments, but that’s about it.  Bruno is just funny, and at that, not even very often.  It fails on so many levels; I don’t recommend to this anyone.  Save your time and money.  If you must, Netflix it.  Otherwise, leave well enough alone.

Rating: 1.5/4 Stars

Life is lived continuously, but relived anecdotally.  We tell our own stories to others, and they tell us theirs.  War stories, embarrassments, stories about grief, loss, college, “that time when….”  These stories aren’t our entire lives, and some of them may not have affected us greatly in one way or another, but they remain in our memories, as a kind of parenthetical gesture of who we once were, what we once did, who we once knew.  Some of them are positive, and some of them are negative.  It isn’t inherently good or bad to remember more good or more bad.  But, to live realistically, to remember realistically, sometimes we need to remember both as honestly as we can.

The tag line is “This is not a love story.  This is a story about love.”  It’s pithy, and it says so much about this film, as tag lines so often fail to do.  We follow Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as he (and we) fall in love with Summer (Zooey Deschanel).  They work in the same office (for a while), and then they don’t.  They see each other, and then they don’t.  He falls in love with her, and then she…don’t.  The story is seen from the eyes of Tom, from the mind’s eye of Tom, as he retells the story of Summer, the good times and the bad.  He remembers all the things he wants to and little of what he doesn’t.  Then the other way round.  He receives advice from his adolescent sister.  In short, he goes through all the universal struggles of romance, trying to label without labeling, to love without saying love.

Summer slips through his fingers.  We know this fifteen minutes into the movie.  What we don’t know is if he’ll get her back, how he’ll do that, and what this movie has to offer in the way of unconventional approaches to the vast human commentary on love.  It’s unconventional in several very effective and affecting ways.  The fourth wall dissolves as we hear directly from three of the characters; verisimilitude disappears as live-action mixes with animation and a scene that seems pulled straight from a musical; chronology fades as each anecdote from Tom’s memory jumps hours, weeks, even months into the future and back to the past; and genre dwindles in the effulgence of a genuinely gripping story about love.

Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel have a musical chemistry, a rapport that goes beyond understanding to a kind of trust that only lovers know.  Marc Webb directs with the confidence of an experienced auteur, but without the trappings of habit.  The supporting cast is wonderful, giving the movie icing on an already mouthwatering cake.  This is a movie about the questions we ask of destiny, the ambivalent hands of the Fates, and that evasive legend called love.  This is a movie about “love, not Santa Claus.”  It’s one you should see as soon as you can run to the theatre, money in hand, ready to be floored, or melted, or astonished, or something else that’s genuine, true, authentic, human.  Fall in love with Summer all over again.

Rating: 4/4 Stars

“As of Thursday, July 16, 2009, at least 4,324 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.”  That was the first sentence from the first result of a quick, simple Google News search with the words ‘Iraq war.’  Films remind us of some of the most profound, and profoundly simple, ideas at the heart of humanity.  The Hurt Locker reminds us that people are not numbers, people are not statistics.  People are human beings, a truism which bears repeating each and every day, a truth to which war is impervious.

The opening screen of this movie is white text on black background, like the opening of every Woody Allen film, with simple italicized text that reads:

The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug – Chris Hedges

After a moment, all else fades and these words remain: “war is a drug”.  There is no period in the placard after the word drug which seems to imply that there is no end to the drug of war, and there doesn’t seem to be any hope of one, either.

A platoon of men in the Bravo Company in Iraq have approximately 40 days and 40 nights left in their rotation, and their job is to defuse the bombs (IED’s) which they encounter, as well as dismantling any Iraqi resistance in their path.  Their exact remaining duration is 38 days, we are told, but the allusion to the wilderness is, I think, worth mentioning.  Great films have great ramifications, the results of which can be both penetrating and, at times, seemingly unanswerable, indescribable, ineffable; many times this is aided by the dialogue.  The writing of this film, the dialogue itself, is fantastic, and the author of those words is relatively new to the big screen, having only one other credit to his name, In the Valley of Elah.  The gifted ear for common speech, diverse regional colloquialisms, and genuinely honest conversation is astounding.  There is a breadth of understanding in human exchange, which was at times hysterical, at times uplifting, and at nearly all times, very authentic.

This entire film drips authenticity.  Each scene seems to reveal something else about experiencing war, especially modern warfare and specifically in the Middle East, which we read or hear about, but have trouble truly understanding.  There is a subtlety which uncovers even the smallest and seemingly trivial encounters in war, like a single fly buzzing in your eyes and mouth, in the hot desert sun, when you’ve had nothing to drink for hours.  Or the relationships which the soldiers build with the people, the merchants, the children, who live and work near their base.  Or the infinite number of possible enemies, dressed in everyday clothing, holding perhaps no more weapon than a cell phone.

None of this wonderful writing would work without equally impressive acting.  And the acting exceeds expectations.  Jeremy Renner plays the main character, known for short as James.  James is an impetuous, rash, adrenaline addict, with a genius for disarming bombs.  He replaces the previous bomb-defuser, the proverbial Man in the Big Suit, as the leader of his pack, and the pack is a bit wary, both of war, and of James.  Anthony Mackie is impeccable as Sanborn, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was at least mentioned as a possible Best-Supporting Actor contender, if not in the running.

As the story progresses, and these characters are unveiled, we see that war, like any addiction, affects everyone differently, personally, almost inimitably.  Kathryn Bigelow, the director, shows a striking comprehension of the male psyche, and it is revealed time and again throughout the film.  At one point, James says to Sanborn, “Do you know why I am the way I am?”  Neither of them knows, and perhaps, in some respects, we never will know why we are the way we are, and why war, like a drug, is both lethal and addictive.  Art allows us a peek behind the veil.  But sometimes the peek asks more questions than it answers.  And the questions are more enlightening than any answer we had before.

Rating: 4/4 Stars

One of the best original stories in recent years, the saga of Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling is a story about a boy, his friends, his school, and his efforts to defeat the one figure who threatens the safety of the world.  It is a story of Good v. Evil.  It is a story that we can all relate to, and we love to hear it told.  The books have all this and more.  In order to live up to its legendary status as a contemporary classic of fantasy literature, the films must do this too.  And with this sixth installment, we find a rare thing: it actually does.

I won’t spend any time on the plot.  Let’s get right to it.  Director David Yates takes Rowling’s story and cuts and shapes where he needs to, adding a massive helping of teen romance and the undertones of a what I perceived to be a homosexual Dumbledore, which are my only real complaints with the film; I say “complaints” because, on the first matter, the teen romance, though at times genuine, was often very contrived and resembled caricature rather than true character, and because, on the issue of a gay Dumbledore, is not only not present in the books themselves, but is also mere pandering to Rowling’s post-partum sentiments in a certain interview.  So, those somewhat petty complaints aside, the film succeeds by letting this incredible story tell itself.

Harry is older now, as he is with each passing film, and the trick is to let the growing Harry create a more mature film, as each book does so deftly.  There is much romance, and we begin to see the beginnings of what readers of the books know are imminent.  The characters have grown and matured, and their relationships with one another are those of friends who not only like each other greatly, but, I don’t hesitate to say, love one another.  Their love with carry them through the end of the story, which readers such as myself see as a beautiful inevitability.

The acting is, as always pitch-perfect, and the ensemble, which includes the quirky yet wonderful Jim Broadbent as Professor Slughorn, the always satisfying trio of Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint, the brooding Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy, Alan Rickman as Snape, Michael Gambon as Dumbledore, Helena Bonham Carter, and the whole gang.  One could write at length about the perfect casting choices, the subtle turns of acting from each of these actors, and the brilliant ensemble that this cast has developed over the last decade.

There isn’t much else for me to say, for one reason, because I refuse to discuss the plot and to discuss the theme at much length would require divulging key plot points which, again, I refuse to do.  Let me suffice it to say with this very short review that this newest Potter film is well-written, emotional, compelling, moving, beautiful, and sincere.  It’s aim is to tell the story of the books with a cinematic flourish.  The cinematic flourish, here, incorporates incredible digital effects and stylized melodrama, which only aid the story.

I will leave you with one thought.  Whether you have read the books or not, seen the films or not, care about Harry Potter or not, it is nigh impossible not to feel the weight of love while watching this film.  Please see it.

Rating: 3.5/4 Stars

Coming of age, coming of age.  It’s tough.  We all have to do it.  But not all of us did it in the 80’s, which is what Adventureland aims to show us.  The plot is unoriginal, but the real heart of this film is in the era in which it takes place.  The acting is very subtle on most accounts, and the directing (Greg Mottola of Superbad and Arrested Development) leaves it all up to the actors, with story-telling as its goal.  It’s unadorned and all the better for it.

The story brings a new perspective to the old story in which a boy (a virgin) meets a girl (not a virgin) at their summer job, and they fall in love.  On the surface, it’s a simple summer romance story.  But it is lived under a new light.  In the 80’s, there were no cell phones, no internet, no iPods, and CD’s were just picking up speed.  It’s almost as if the 80’s are the 50’s in new clothes.  Life is fairly simple, but it’s within the context of the open sexuality of the 60’s and 70’s and, lest we forget, the radio anthems of the 80’s.  Put all this together, and you have a modern day retelling of the 80’s classics, like The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and a handful of other movies that helped 80’s kids through their rites of passage.  And at a time of economic turmoil and job paucity, it does carry a good deal of truth, especially for recent college graduates.

Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart have a quirky chemistry, and it works on a lot of levels; Eisenberg’s style is very reminiscent of Michael Cera, and Stewart is great as the confused, sexual, confident girl next door.  Throw in oddballs Ryan Reynolds and Bill Hader and you have a guy who actually did grow up in the 80’s acting with kids who didn’t.  The story is unembellished and straightforward, but it allows the audience member to relive his or her own coming of age in the time of their youth, and it brings a new perspective for those coming of age now, to see life as it was 20 or 30 years ago, when their much older siblings or cousins lived a life much like their own, different only in degree, not in quality.  The supporting cast is funny and has a career ahead of them if they can get noticed, especially Martin Starr and Matt Bush (the older brother from the AT&T commercials).

However, I think this movie missed its audience by a few months.  It would be a great summer movie, if it had been released in, well, the summer.  Having missed its proverbial boat, I think this will float off into the sunset without too much fuss.  Despite the fact that this will be quickly forgotten by most, it is fun, relatively insightful, and has a good bit of genuine human emotion.  Toss it in your Netflix queue, or find it at Blockbuster.  Especially if you grew up in the 80’s.

Rating: 3/4 Stars

Three words you should keep in mind: Norwegian, zombies, Nazis.  What else do you need to know?  This is a horror film brought to you by the fine folks in Norway.  It’s set in the snowy mountains, where the Nazis were stationed at some point during World War II.  They treated the residents poorly, and the residents revolted.  Consequently (I guess), some of the Nazis froze to death.  Those frozen Nazis are back for vengeance, and to claim what is rightly theirs.  As zombies.  Of course.

It borrows a lot (a whole lot) from one of the best zombie movies of recent years: Shaun of the Dead.  At some points, it just steals from it outright. But I don’t think it’s trying too hard to hide it either.  In fact, some of the scenes are so reminiscent as to seem more like a tribute to Shaun of the Dead rather than any kind of borrowing or theft at all.  There is one scene in which a man is pulled from a window by the Nazi zombies while the rest of the group looks on, one of them holding a rifle.  For all I know it’s a Winchester.  Either way, it’s evidence of the movie’s influence on the Norwegian filmmakers.

There is some element of originality, though.  They are incorporating Nazis.  As Zombies.  Attacking a group of medical students in the snow covered mountains of Norway.  But, what it does lack in originality it more than makes up for in entertainment value.  One of the medical students is hemophobic, another is claustrophobic, and all of them are looking to hook up.  It’s a recipe for disaster.  In its own twisted way.  I had a lot of fun watching it.  It’s got enough entrails (intestines used as rope) and blood-spurting (decapitation by chainsaw) to fill a hundred horror movies, and enough zombies to satisfy you until Shaun of the Dead 2.  If you like zombies nearly as much as I do, you’ll love this movie.  Horrifying, hilarious, and as far as zombies go, fantastic.

Rating: 3/4 Stars

Take all the good stuff from Garden State and Juno and a handful of other modern coming-of-age stories, and you will come close to Away We Go.  The writing/directing team of Dave Eggers and Sam Mendes is nearly flawless, and the acting from John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph is, I don’t hesitate to say, as close to perfect performances as I have seen this year.  It is full of genuine human emotion, life-affirming hope, and the beauty of finding home.

This is the story of Burt and Verona (Krasinski and Rudolph, respectively), a couple who discovers that they are pregnant, that Burt’s parents are moving to Europe, and that they have no idea where they are going to raise their child.  This all happens within the first fifteen minutes of the film.  From there, we follow Burt and Rona across North America, in search of home.  To say they run into some interesting people and events along the way is a vast understatement.

In Garden State, Zach Braff’s character says, “All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone.”  If that is a thesis, Away We Go is its antithesis.  Finding home is difficult, but not impossible.  Home, like Love, like Family, is a combination of things which go beyond words, beyond definition, beyond even description at times.  Things that begin with capital letters don’t like to be defined.  Which is one of the many reasons we tell stories in the first place.  We tell stories because they tell us what words can’t on their own.  They define the indefinable and describe what can only be felt.  Pascal said the heart and the head speak differently, with a different logic.  Stories, too, can seem to have a different logic, as well, “proving” what cannot be proven, “saying” what cannot be said.

Away We Go says a lot.  It speaks volumes on the nature of Love, the necessity of Family, and the immense importance of Home.  This movie is heartbreaking, staggering, and indeed a bit of genius.  But what else should we expect from Eggers?  It is moving, honest, and compelling.  But what else can we expect from Mendes?  It is the most well written, well directed, well acted movie I have seen this year.  And if you do not see it, you will be doing yourself an injustice.  I can’t wait to see it again.

Rating: 4/4 Stars

Woody Allen.  You always know what to expect, but you never know what you’re going to get.  Here we have the septuagenarian auteur at it again, this time with Larry David (creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm) and Evan Rachel Wood, among others, all of whom are fantastic.  The writing is so self-aware as to be narcissistic, but it works.  It is also very audience-aware, in a kind of comically tragic way, but this works too.  Woody knows what he’s doing.  And in this movie, we get to see that he probably knows what he’s talking about, too.

In Whatever Works, Yellnikoff, a stereotypical, cynical, soi-disant misunderstood genius, who “sees the big picture,” meets Melody (Evan Rachel Wood), a country-fried, stereotypical, Louisiana Southerner.  These two stereotypes live together for what Yellnikoff foresees as a short amount of time…like days.  But Melody ends up staying for a bit longer…like years.  They each learn something from one another, and despite their difference, it does seem to, well, work.  After a time, however, Melody’s Mom shows up.  Who changes.  A lot.  Then her Dad shows up.  And he does too.  These minor characters are important, but only as a means to an end.

Yellnikoff’s cynicism is typical of Woody Allen’s writing: his anti-religious humor, existentialist banter, and world-is-meaningless hullabaloo.  But: it works.  Yellnikoff is, indeed, a caricature.  So is Melody.  So is everyone else in the film, all things considered.  But it works.  Woody Allen is, I think, trying to show the truth in stereotypes.  There is profound meaning in cliches, which, according to Yellnikoff are both wretched and sometimes “the best way to make one’s point.”  Stereotypes and cliches: each has been so true for so long that we forget they really exist, that they really do speak a kind of language we all understand and even enjoy.  A cliche is, after all, just another pejorative for “truism.”

In the midst of all of Woody’s lifelong existential crisis which pervades so many of his films, we discover something new.  We meet an old friend for the very first time.  Woody Allen is, I think, a genius.  His films are pictures of the world we live in, seen from the angle of someone who probably does see the “big picture,” and is trying to show the rest of us a glimpse of it.  There is beauty in the world, but there is finitude; there is joy, but sometimes it seems like nothing matters; there is love, but sometimes we just don’t know where to find it.  In yet another great movie, Woody Allen shows us these things and more.

It’s at turns hilarious, insightful, and classic Woody.  It isn’t his best, but you should see it if you get the chance.  Because it works.  It most definitely works.

Rating: 3/4 Stars