Walk the Line begins with a train running outside California’s
Folsom Prison, its chugging morphing into the thick bass of “Cocaine
Blues.” But you don’t get to hear the song, at least not yet.
Writer-director James Mangold saves that particular re-creation for the
film’s last chapter, when the late Johnny Cash gives his famous concert
at the clink. And as performed by Joaquin Phoenix, it’s as soul-lifting
as a number about doin’ drugs and shootin’ your woman down can be.

Yes, kids, we have another Ray. Nearly to the letter, actually: Walk
the Line, based on Cash’s two autobiographies and co-written by Gill
Dennis, spans roughly the same time period as Taylor Hackford’s
Oscar-winning Ray Charles biopic—the mid-’40s to the late ’60s—and also
focuses on the childhood death of a brother, followed by the singer’s
determined rise from poverty to fame, then the subsequent debilitating
drug addiction and domestic problems. It’s all capped, naturally, with
a triumphant return.

But few viewers are likely to care about the similarities in the
beloved artists’ made-for-the-movies stories. After all, this is a
story arc that even VH1 has mastered. So let’s talk leads. Physically,
Phoenix doesn’t have the striking resemblance to his subject that made
Jamie Foxx’s portrayal of Charles eerie. But he does duplicate Cash’s
world-weary stare and magnetic stage presence well enough to disappear
into the role—and without any forever-worn sunglasses to hide behind.
(His co-star, on the other hand, though sufficiently charming, might as
well have “REESE WITHERSPOON” stamped on her forehead.) Phoenix also
does Foxx one better by singing Cash’s songs himself, a ridiculously
risky move in portraying an icon whose voice was the thing.

But damn if the boy doesn’t pull it off. Phoenix’s baritone is deep,
rich, and remarkably similar to the legend’s: Close your eyes during
his rendition of “It Ain’t Me Babe” and see who comes to mind. In fact,
the T Bone Burnett–produced musical performances are thrilling all
around: “Jackson,” “Get Rhythm,” “Juke Box Blues.” Mangold loves to
plant his camera either right in front of his actors’ faces or just
behind them, aimed toward the audience. Whether it’s with Cash, wife
June Carter Cash (Witherspoon, who sings more impressively than she
acts), or frequent touring partner Jerry Lee Lewis (Waylon Malloy
Payne) onstage, Mangold’s claustrophobic style captures all the sweat,
fun, and electricity of a good live show, the audience in a frenzy, the
performers over the moon.

It’s just the kind of charged environment in which two people could
fall in love. When they’re singing together, Phoenix’s Johnny and
Witherspoon’s June certainly do radiate a chemistry befitting the
performers’ 35 soulmated years together. But offstage, the attraction
disappears—and because Walk the Line is less a profile of Cash than a
chronicle of his developing relationship with Carter, this weakness
isn’t insignificant. Cash had been a fan of hers since he was a kid,
and when they meet as peers some 20 years later, he’s flat-out smitten
by Carter’s good looks, perky personality, and quick intellect. They
get to know each other better during multi-act tours that also include
amphetamine dispenser Elvis: Cash casts stalkeresque stares and makes
“baby”-heavy requests that Carter keep him company—and that’s about it.

Cash’s onstage charisma alone doesn’t seem like enough to draw the
level-headed, twice-divorced Carter in, but as portrayed here he
doesn’t have much else to offer. A negligent family man who’s also a
hot-headed, slurring drunk and drug addict does not a thinking woman’s
dreamboat make. Even when Carter turns merciful and decides to help
Cash kick his habits, you can’t feel the love. There’s never a moment
in which it’s clear the two have fallen into that celebrated ring of
fire.

Speaking of which, Walk the Line’s worst scene is the genesis of
that Carter-penned song: In a car but too distraught to drive, she
leans on the wheel and whispers to herself, “It burns…burns…burns!”
The composition of Cash’s songs is far more exhilarating, especially
“Folsom Prison Blues,” a single that emerges quietly, with Cash bending
over a guitar and tentatively sussing out the lyrics. It’s later
performed for Sam Phillips, who’s unimpressed with the singer’s initial
attempt at gospel and demands something original. Cash, of course,
brings it—and so does Phoenix, cramming what seems like all the
animosity and despair in the world into his delivery. This scene alone
makes up for Walk the Line’s flaws, brilliantly capturing the moment
that the Man in Black was born.

Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic is also full of songs about
self-medication and death. There’s, for example, the one whose chorus
asks, “Do you ever take drugs so you can have sex without crying?” And
the cheery ditty Silverman sings at an old folks’ home, which explains
to the residents, “It’s not cold in here—you’re just dying!”

The 72-minute film is about an hour’s worth of Silverman’s stand-up,
padded with a weak story line that enables it to pass as a movie:
Silverman listens with a combination of annoyance and envy as two
friends (Brian Posehn and Laura Silverman, the comedian’s sister) talk
about their current projects. Dejected and without a real answer when
they ask what she’s up to, Silverman tells them that she’s got a
one-woman show: “It’s about, um, the Holocaust,” she stammers. “And
AIDS. But it’s funny! It’s a real opus.” Silverman says that the
show—“a musical,” she adds—is that night, then scrambles to actually
put one on when her friends say they want to come.

And lo and behold, Silverman’s show actually is about the Holocaust
(or “the alleged Holocaust”). And AIDS (“When God gives you AIDS—and
God does give you AIDS, by the way—make lemon-AIDS!”). It’s also pretty
funny, though not gut-bustingly so. The 34-year-old Silverman’s
schtick, for those who don’t know, is that she’s pretty, smiley, and
seemingly angelic—at least until the slurs, the sex jokes, and all
manner of other objectionable thoughts start coming out of her mouth.
Oh, and she pretty much cares only about herself. She was a highlight
of Paul Provenza’s recent documentary, The Aristocrats, ad-libbing a
memory of participating in her family’s lewd vaudeville act when she
was a child, her bright face dropping as she seemed to slowly realize
what really happened: “Joe Franklin raped me.”

Rape is a subject Silverman brings up again (twice) in Jesus Is
Magic, along with strippers, Martin “Loser” King, and the granddaddy of
American taboos, 9/11. Most of these jokes hit, and we learn just how
much Silverman’s delivery matters when an awkward teenage girl tries to
tell a few of them at the end of the film. There are, of course, limits
to a persona as self-involved as Silverman’s—“You’re a star,” she tells
her reflection, “and I’m a starfucker”—and it doesn’t take long for
Jesus Is Magic to find them. Once Silverman has also covered the
disparagement of Asians, Jews, and child lesbians, her shock punch
lines get progressively less effective. The skits that interrupt
Silverman’s act, written by the comedian and directed by “United States
of Whatever” bard Liam Lynch, further deflate the movie, especially a
laughless interlude in which Silverman throws a diva fit backstage and
a very weird moment that involves an animated tear flying away from
Silverman’s eye and then—what else?—acting as lubricant as a stagehand
jacks off to her performance.

But then Silverman rhymes “Gary Busey” with “dykes love pussy,” and
she’s got your attention again. The best of the songs woven throughout
Jesus Is Magic is a ’60s-bubblegum number in which Silverman is heavily
made-up and bouffanted, singing with sunshine in her voice about how
much she loves her boyfriend—until she comes across two stern-looking
African-American men just as she gets to a line about black guys
calling each other the N-word. They let Silverman off the hook, and
though this trifle ain’t perfect, you probably will, too.

copyright 2005 themoviebabe.com

Elizabeth Bennett is not a giggler. The heroine of Jane Austen’s
Pride and Prejudice is quick-witted and headstrong, capable of being
charming and even playful but more known for sharply speaking her mind,
even if it does ruin the mood. She’ll smile, she’ll laugh, but under no
circumstances will Elizabeth titter like a schoolgirl.

Unless, that is, she’s being played by Keira Knightley. Straight
from her miscasting as a bloodthirsty tough in Domino, Knightley is
charged with another girl-power portrayal in British director Joe
Wright’s version of the early-19th-century classic. And though she’s
much better suited to this role than her last, Knightley’s dippy
interpretation of Elizabeth undercuts the strength and appeal of
Austen’s character—and therefore the love/hate romance at the novel’s
center.

It doesn’t help that this seems to be the 100th recent retelling of
the story. Actually, it’s only the second direct adaptation in 10
years—the first being the BBC’s acclaimed five-hour television series,
aired in the United States in 1996—though the two Bridget Jones movies
and last year’s Bride & Prejudice also recycled Austen’s characters
and plot. Audience members who’ve grown weary of the protracted dance
between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy (Matthew MacFadyen) will probably find
it difficult to muster any renewed interest with Knightley taking the
lead.

First-time feature writer Deborah Moggach pared Austen’s complex
tale to just over two hours, lessening the class conflicts and
virtually ignoring some subplots, most glaringly Elizabeth’s flirtation
with Lt. George Wickham (Rupert Friend). She also time-trips the story
from 1813, the year of Pride and Prejudice’s publication, back to 1797,
the year Austen began writing the book. The big picture, however,
remains the same: Hysterical mother hen Mrs. Bennett (Brenda Blethyn)
wants to get each of her five daughters married off, preferably to
someone wealthy. When news that the rich Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods) is
coming to town, the sisters go batshit—their squeals get dangerously
close to being something only dogs can hear—and put on their finery and
happy faces in hope of attracting his attention at a ball. When the
eldest and prettiest daughter, Jane (Rosamund Pike), does just that,
Elizabeth tries to make nice with Bingley’s scowling friend Darcy—and
gets shut down. But because of Jane and Bingley’s deepening romance,
the now-antagonistic pair are destined to keep running into each other,
with Elizabeth acting all quippy and critical and Darcy, well, scowling
some more.

Seemingly angry instead of aloof, MacFadyen’s Darcy is a one-note
character—which makes his later declaration of ardor for Elizabeth
rather unbelievable. The flip side, of course, is that he’s hardly the
kind of guy who would capture Elizabeth’s attention. That blushing
twitter when she catches Darcy’s eye at the ball fades during their
first frosty conversation, and there’s never any demonstration of how
he goes from irritating to intriguing.

Bingley, too, is mischaracterized, though Woods’ portrayal of him as
a cheery dope at least provides some comic relief. There are other
entertaining depictions, as well: Blethyn’s chirpy Mrs. Bennett is
overbearing and unapologetic in her single-minded goal, countered by
Donald Sutherland’s Mr. Bennett, who’s content to linger in the
background of this close-knit, chatter-filled household but
occasionally serves as a slightly eye-rolling voice of reason. Among
the sisters, Pike is lovely and demure as Jane, and if 15-year-old
Lydia, who ends up running off with Wickham, is supposed to be brash
and annoying, well, Jena Malone nailed it. Also sharp in their small
roles are Tom Hollander as the unpleasant Mr. Collins, who’s to inherit
the Bennett home and would like one of the daughters to come with it,
and Judi Dench, who bitches it up as Darcy’s aunt, Lady Catherine de
Bourg.

The look of Pride & Prejudice is also impressive, with
cinematographer Roman Osin lending lushness to the film’s outdoor
scenes, from the dewy opening sunrise to the many rainstorms Elizabeth
gets caught in. And Wright’s preference for long tracking shots, the
most remarkable being an unhurried, room-to-room observation of the
tiny dramas at a party, adds the grace that his film’s protagonist
lacks. Such a pity, then, that Pride & Prejudice’s love story is—to
be fair to Knightley—mishandled by everyone involved. Even Jane Austen
would have giggled at a Pride and Prejudice that culminates not in a
marriage but in moony-eyed cooing on a dock.

The siblings in Zathura aren’t quite as fond of each other as the
Bennett sisters are. Danny, the youngest at 6 and three-quarters,
laments that he’s not as good as his older brother at such things as
playing catch. Walter, 10, agrees that Danny sucks in general, and
constantly antagonizes him by calling him a baby. Teenage Lisa,
meanwhile, prefers to ignore both brothers, sleeping into the afternoon
with headphones on even when Dad asks her to watch them. Ultimately,
though, this is a story about love—with robots, reptilian monsters, and
unfriendly spaceships that try to shoot the kids’ home into oblivion.

Zathura is author/illustrator Chris Van Allsburg’s third book to be
adapted to film, after 1995’s cool but slight Jumanji and last year’s
disastrous Polar Express. Mercifully, Zathura’s big-screen version is
closer to the former. The story, adapted by John Kamps and War of the
Worlds scripter David Koepp, is pretty similar to Jumanji’s: After the
kids’ father (Tim Robbins) steps out for a while, Danny (Jonah Bobo)
finds a weird game in the basement of Dad’s creaky post-divorce home.
He winds his discovery up with a key and then presses a red button,
which spins a counter and makes a tiny spaceship move the corresponding
number of steps on the board’s swirly path. Also, a card pops out of a
slot. “Meteor shower, take evasive action,” it reads. Walter (Josh
Hutcherson) turns away from the TV just long enough to tell Danny what
“evasive” means before fiery meteors start destroying the living room.

The onslaught, orchestrated with frightening intensity by director
Jon Favreau, isn’t the only problem the boys have: When they open the
front door, they discover they’re out in space. Frantic pleas for help
from Lisa (Kristen Stewart) are dismissed, and the next spin of the
game’s dial freezes both Sis and the upstairs bathroom as she’s making
her way to the shower. When a card pops out saying, “You are visited by
Zorgons,” you know it’s not going to be good.

And so Zathura goes, with each turn the boys take resulting in
another development, from a giant robot whose faulty programming makes
him try to kill Walter to a lost astronaut (Punk’d’s Dax Shepard)
seeking refuge in their floating house. This relay of predicaments
keeps the film’s 101 minutes moving briskly, and with enough
imaginative whiz-bang to entertain even the grown-ups in the audience.
(It’s definite PG material, though, meaning all but the steeliest small
children will probably be, well, too traumatized to drag out Chutes and
Ladders ever again.) And excepting an unconvincing sequence in which
the house is turned on its side, Zathura is aces visually, decorated
with colorful planets and fireballs so brilliant it’s almost a
disappointment when things stop being blown up.

Though the morals about broken homes, being different, and
appreciating your family are delivered rather ham-handedly—“Walter,
there are some games you can’t play alone,” the astronaut tells him—the
script is frequently sharp and funny. Shepard’s visitor, when not
spouting Hallmarkian treacle, is especially entertaining as the
sarcastic adult who takes the game as seriously as the boys do, and the
older kids get to be smartasses, too. (When Dad asks Lisa not to
describe dates as “hooking up,” she whines, “God! We never should have
rented Thirteen!”) Little Danny, not quite ready to embrace his
siblings’ pissiness but slowly catching on, gets occasional laughs from
his cute insistence that he’s not a baby, such as when he declares a
card that actually says, “Rescue stranded astronaut” reads, “Rest on
standing Astroturf.” All three young actors are suitably bratty and
completely believable as sparring siblings. If you recently made your
kids sit through The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, here’s
how to make it up to them.

Lucinda is a high-heeled vixen, nearly as quick at seduction as she is
with a quip. Supremely confident, she suffers no lack of gawking
horndogs when she and her sheer black stockings ride the El to work
every day. In other words, not exactly a role that screams for Jennifer
Aniston. (There is an obvious choice, but let’s keep her name out of at
least one article involving the former Mrs. Brad Pitt.) But though it
may take a few years and many movies to wash the Rachel out of
Aniston’s hair, her turn in Derailed is a good Good Girl–ish step. No,
Aniston doesn’t quite look as if she eats men alive when her Lucinda, a
financial adviser, meets Charles (a Closer-esque Clive Owen), a harried
ad exec and hounded family man who boards the train one morning ticket-
and cashless. But she’s alluring enough, and it’s no surprise when
Lucinda’s offer to pay for Charles’ trip leads to after-work cocktails
and a motel room.

What happens next is no surprise either, at least by
the standards of the modern-day thriller: A thief (Vincent Cassel)
interrupts the tryst, and though his assault is prolonged and brutal,
Lucinda doesn’t want to go to the police for fear of jeopardizing her
marriage. The attacker continues to harass them both afterward, using
their secret to blackmail Charles out of the loads of cash he’s saved
up to treat his sick daughter.

Swedish director Mikael Håfström keeps
Derailed, adapted from James Siegel’s 2003 novel by Collateral’s Stuart
Beattie, nail-biting and quick-moving. The tension is mostly
psychological, as Charles tries desperately to keep the situation from
his wife (Melissa George), but Håfström doesn’t shy away from violence:
The scene in the motel room will turn your stomach, guns are forever
being stuck in people’s faces, and let’s just say that the resolution
to Charles’ problem isn’t peaceful. Where Derailed lives up to its
title is with its multiple plot twists, each one strenuously contrived
enough to send what might have been an enjoyably straightforward noir
off the tracks. As much as Aniston may not want to be Rachel, it’s not
as much as Håfström wants to be M. Night Shyamalan.

copyright 2005 moviebabe.com

In The Weather Man, director Gore Verbinski has achieved the
impossible. It’s not getting another terrific sad-sack performance from
star Nicolas Cage, who has already wrenched guts in Leaving Las Vegas
and personified writerly angst in Adaptation. And it’s not taking Steve
Conrad’s doggedly miserable script and presenting it as a credible
portrayal of midlife crisis instead of a piled-on heap of melodrama.

Rather, the accomplishment is this: making Bob Seger’s Chevy-pushing
“Like a Rock” poignant again (or, perhaps more accurately, for the
first time). Yes, its initial mention—the opening line of a speech that
hapless David (Cage) gives at a gathering to celebrate his sick father,
Robert (Michael Caine)—seems a bit ludicrous. But when the highbrow
Robert, a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, plays the song while sitting
with David in his car and asks him to explain how exactly the lyrics
relate to him—well, it’s just about the saddest thing in a movie
overrun with sadness. And if Seger’s wistfulness doesn’t make you start
blubbering, it’ll at least move you to call your folks when you get
home.

Cage’s Chicago weather anchor is a functioning depressive, capable
of appearing cheery when delivering forecasts he knows are only
guesses, yet barely able to handle even small setbacks outside of the
station. Polite recognition from fans results in David’s begging them
to leave him alone. Not having enough cash to buy his dad a paper or a
cup of coffee upon request seems a sonly failure tantamount to, say,
landing in jail or getting kicked out of Harvard. But those are David’s
lesser worries: There are also Dad’s illness and his barely concealed
disappointment in David’s choices; an ex-wife, Noreen (Hope Davis),
who’s so bitter that nearly every encounter the former couple has ends
up in an argument; and two early-teens children (Gemmenne de la Peña
and About a Boy’s Nicholas Hoult) with problems David feels too
distanced to solve. Plus, people occasionally throw food at him.

David’s not completely portrayed as a victim, however—constant
screw-ups and knee-jerk reactions show that he carries a big part of
the blame for his damaged relationships. Smartly, though, the
filmmakers support David’s day-to-day travails with a running inner
monologue—often good intentions punctuated by “fuck”s—that keeps the
character human rather than irredeemably unsympathetic. And though
Cage’s hangdog gloominess permeates the movie, Conrad’s script is
frequently funny, especially in such moments as David’s reactions to
Noreen’s boyfriend (petulantly calling him a “dildo”) and his constant
analysis of his lot in life (“I bet no one threw a pie at, like,
Harriet Tubman”).

Conrad, whose last major project was 1993’s similarly bleak
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, does inject some hopefulness here, in the
form of an invitation to David to apply for a position at a national
morning show. Of course, given that it would mean a move to New York,
plus further entrenchment in an unfulfilling career (“I receive a large
reward for zero effort and little contribution,” David admits), it’s a
dubious carrot. Yet David keeps trying, however dejectedly, to make his
world brighter. “Easy doesn’t enter into grownup life,” his father
cynically tells him. But by the time David begins to make peace with
this, you’ll wish that, for him, just once it would.

In Nine Lives, misery runs even deeper, but the result may leave you
cold. Writer-director Rodrigo García presents loosely connected
slice-of-life vignettes about—yep—nine women, with a character from one
story sometimes showing up in another. It’s a device García—son of
Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez—is obviously fond of, having
previously created 2000’s Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her
and 2001’s Ten Tiny Love Stories.

The circumstances in each tale vary widely, but themes of
connectedness and the preciousness of life are heavily hammered
throughout. Each story lasts 10 to 12 minutes and is kicked off with a
placard naming the damsel who’s about to be shown in peak distress. The
gambit seems to suggest that there’s honesty here, frank Weather
Man–esque glimpses into the drama of everyday life. But many of them
feel contrived for maximum squirminess—and the result is a big So what?

One offender is a blatant Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? rip-off,
with a couple visiting the new home of their well-to-do friends. For no
apparent reason, Sonia (Holly Hunter) begins spilling bitter,
embarrassing details about her marriage almost immediately after taking
a seat on her hosts’ couch, with only the abrupt finale shutting her
up. Another portrait shows a distraught, strait-jacket-worthy woman
(Lisa Gay Hamilton) returning to her childhood home to confront her
estranged father with, it’s suggested, his earlier abuse. And the most
far-fetched story involves the reunion of a deaf man named Andrew
(William Fichtner) and his former wife, Lorna (Amy Brenneman), at
Andrew’s subsequent wife’s wake. The woman committed suicide, and most
everyone blames Lorna—except Andrew, who instead of turning a cold
shoulder chases Lorna into a room at the funeral home and signs that he
masturbates while thinking about her.

There are a couple of more realistic, and therefore more moving,
pieces here, including the anxious and terse conversation between a
middle-aged woman (Kathy Baker) and her husband (Joe Mantegna) before
she undergoes a mastectomy, and an annual mother-and-daughter (Glenn
Close and Dakota Fanning) picnic in a cemetery, though whose grave
they’re visiting is never made clear. The most gut-wrenching of these
stories, however, is the chance supermarket meeting of Diana, a
married, pregnant woman (Robin Wright Penn), and Damian (Jason Isaacs),
her old, also-married flame. Penn expresses an entire relationship’s
worth of emotions during her time at the store, from giddiness to
desperation to heartbreak, as sparks once again fly and the unspoken
suggestion of an affair lingers between them.

García films each of these vignettes with a single Steadicam shot,
which at times brings a sense of immediacy but mostly just feels like a
distracting trick. More impressive are his suddenly artful frames, such
as a mirror behind Sonia and her husband that catches the reflection of
their friends during Sonia’s diatribe. Ultimately, though, there’s not
much of a bigger picture uniting Nine Lives’ 115 minutes
together—nothing like, say, the meditation on race relations offered by
the multiple plotlines of the recently released Crash. It’s just a
collection of short stories, no more insightful or remarkable than the
melodramas you can already catch on TV.

copyright 2005 movie-babe.com