Charlie Bartlett (2007)

A movie's success is often measured by its degree of originality. Certainly, being well made and/or thought provoking can't hurt its chances, but ultimately, the reason to see a movie is for that little something new. What have they done differently? What haven't we seen before? This is especially true in the teen comedy genre - one formulaic and meandering almost by nature.

It seems director Jon Poll missed that memo before filming Charlie Bartlett. The film isn't entirely unlikable, but it sure does its best to seem that way. By offering up stale, second-rate versions of situations we've already encountered in similar movies, Poll and writer Gustin Nash turn what could have been promising into a disappointingly average flick.

We all know kids like Charlie Bartlett. He's that kid in high school who just wants to be popular, but who wants it so badly that his goal gets out of hand. Whether through our own personal experiences or through the countless teen comedies featuring similar protagonists, we've gotten to know people like him. There's also the misunderstood tough guy who turns to bullying for a fleeting sense of self-security. Oh, and the creepy, anonymous and possibly suicidal nerd and, of course, the sweet young girl who struggles with a parent on the school faculty. Been there, seen that.

That's the trouble with Charlie Bartlett - its characters and their conflicts are all so familiar to us going in that they come off even more mundanely than the first hundred times we saw them . The film wants to triumphantly win us over - the way Charlie (Anton Yelchin) wins over the world in his dream sequences. But instead we're left struggling to combat boredom as we would in an overly-long history class.

Which is not to say the movie's a total loss. If it can't uplift us through the emotional victories of its protagonist, we at least get the occasional chuckle from its fish-out-of-water satire as wealthy Charlie and his mother (Hope Davis) simultaneously adjust to his life as a public school student. Mischief and poor judgment have led to Charlie's expulsion from boarding school, and the obliviousness with which the Bartletts attempt to tackle their new arrangements is not only hilarious, but surprisingly accurate.

It seems that Poll thought this slightly redeeming quality, along with Yelchin's charisma and the mere presence of Robert Downey Jr. as school principal Nathan Gardner, would be enough to carry the movie to success. Those two work well enough together to carry Charlie Bartlett on their backs for a while, as Gardner contends with Charlie's mischief throughout the movie. Unfortunately, their luck runs out, and this overly-recycled take on the high-school comedy genre simply doesn't work out the way you'd hope.

1.5 stars out of 4

New format trial...

Apologies for the absurd delay in posting. It won't happen again, at least not until I get back to school.

I've been thinking of trying a new rating system. The "out-of-10" rating is gone, and I'll rely strictly on stars. The reason? Numbers, I've grown to realize, only make things more difficult. They invoke comparisons between movies that have no connection whatsoever to each other, and really just make things more difficult. A star system gives a broader scope of evaluating a movie's success, allowing one to express like or dislike for a movie without unnecessarily viewing it in terms of another movie's rating.

Just giving it a shot. Hope it works. And now...

Citizen Kane (1941)

"He who prides himself upon wealth and honor hastens his own downfall" -Lao Tzu

Few film protagonists embody the lesson of this proverb more than Charles Foster Kane. Throughout Citizen Kane, his rise to improbable glory is rivaled in significance only by the bitter end he meets. Despite the illusion of "having it all," Kane is a character who starts and ends his life in the same manner - with nothing. The slow degradation of his reason and relevance throughout the film, coupled with the alienation of those around him, render his wealth and power a moot point.

Take, for example, the crown jewel of his fortune - the palace of Xanadu. Designed (but never finished) for his second wife, Xanadu casts a pall over the film right from the start. The gloomy opening shots of an empty fortress silhouetted on the smoky island background set the tone throughout the film.

Kane dies shortly thereafter, but it's not until the rest of the film unfolds that the circumstances of his life become apparent. It's essentially a series of extended flashbacks, as those formerly close to him tell their accounts of how a man on top of the world lived his life so as to leave this world unstable and alone.

The small boy who became heir to a silver-mining fortune transforms into a man (Orson Welles) unsure of a direction in which to channel it. Immediately, hints of an uncertain future present themselves. He drops into and out of several prestigious colleges, before finding the mysterious wisdom to invest in a small New York paper, the Inquirer. For the first several years, they lose $1 million a year, yet Kane could not appear to care less. You don't exactly know what's coming, but little clues like these suggest a bitter ending for the sleazy, yet somehow likable millionaire.

As he builds his empire, Kane's years on top are spent erratically. He woos the top editors from a rival paper into defection, only to travel to Europe and spend lavishly on vintage pieces of sculpture and other artwork. He marries a wealthy young woman, only to jeopardize the stability of their relationship through an ill-advised campaign for political office. And as everything unfolds, the audience is left uncertain how to react. Welles' charisma begs us to feel sorry for him in the wake of each new catastrophe, but the habitual deference to his own massive ego and its poor decisions makes us realize he has it coming every time.

It eventually all comes full-circle in Xanadu, in a scene that is simultaneously the film's most wrenching and its most memorable. Scene after scene of noticeable decay in Kane's relationship with his second wife, Susan (Dorothy Comingore), result to his eventual discovery of her plans to leave. "You mustn't go," he begs her. "You can't do this to me." And like Susan, we see right through him as he reaches the point of no return.

"You don't love anybody," she retorts. "You want to be loved! That's all you want!"Everything - his fame, his relationship - is about Kane. Things meant to be mutual become singular; life's supporting cast is mere afterthought. There are hints at this as the distances between Kane and those close to him widen throughout the film, but it's not until this scene that we're really hit and left pondering the natures of wealth and power, and how they influence those upon which they're bestowed.

The film's contributions to and influences on modern cinema are too many to count: innovative camera angles, use of miniatures...the list goes on. But what everyone will remember is the establishment of a Hollywood renaissance man in Welles. As a director, producer and co-writer, he worked to create a truly remarkable film that would acknowledge the past as well as shape the future. But as an actor, he did one better - creating a character who we both envy and pity, whose fate will haunt us forever. Simply unforgettable.

4 stars out of 4
9/10

American History X (1998)

It is one thing for a movie to document change in its protagonist, and not a very rare thing at that. We've seen it hundreds of times, from Schindler's List to Into The Wild and even as recently as There Will Be Blood. Such transitions are usually where films get their gusto, as they result, perhaps, in a loss of the character's normalcy, but ultimately make the characters deeper and more compelling.

However, it is another, much rarer thing entirely for a film's protagonist to change and then effect the same change in others. It's more powerful, more satisfying; whatever the character's motivation for change was, it's powerful enough to spread contagiously. It's this sort of change that director Tony Kaye evoked in American History X, the story of a Neo-Nazi and white supremacist in modern day Venice Beach, California. It's a gripping, powerful story, one equally as likely to uplift you as to break your heart.

Edward Norton gives a stunning performance as Derek Vinyard, the young man initially smothered by his prejudices after the murder of his father, a firefighter, in south central Los Angeles. His actions and appearance (shaved head, numerous tattoos advocating the Nazi Party and "white power" slogans), make him our main point of focus (or is it engrossment?) as the movie unfolds. And given his performance, this may not seem like a bad thing, but in reality the movie's as much about his younger brother, Danny (Edward Furlong), who seems poised to follow the same path. The two characters are equally vital to the film, thanks to writer David McKenna's flashback-oriented system of storytelling.

Through an early meeting with Danny and his high school's black principal, Dr. Sweeney (Avery Brooks), we learn of Derek's imprisonment for the murder of two black gang members, and of how closely Danny appears to be following the same path. His paper on Hitler's "Mein Kampf," forces Sweeney to establish a daily one-on-one class for Danny, called American History X - more an attempt at reform than a history lesson.

As his brother's release nears, Danny's similarities become striking. He hangs out with the same racist kids, decorates his room with the same Nazi propaganda. His head is shaved, and he's even gotten his first racially-tinged tattoo. But when Derek arrives back home, he's not impressed. Something about his character is different - his motivation for life seems to be coming from a different place. But it's not until he breaks up a party of white supremacists to save his brother that any of this is confirmed. His days of racism and bigotry are over.

What follows, as a frustrated Danny demands an explanation, is an emotional, multi-leveled flashback. It brings into light the things we'd wondered about throughout the film: how bad things had gotten in the Vinyard house, the exact details of Derek's crime. The most important piece of the puzzle is Derek's enlightening experience in prison, told unabridged as he attempts to convince Danny not to follow the same path.

The ending unfolds a bit abruptly, but it's one of the more hard-hitting conclusions in recent memory. The film is not only deeply saddening, but also thought-provoking. It makes you really ponder the sources of such unhinged, uncontrolled anger as we see portrayed on screen. And, as you'll see, the reality of it might come as a surprise.

3 stars out of 4
7.5/10

The Dark Knight (2008)

Traditionally, in the superhero and comic book film genre, there's a pretty clear definition of who or what is "good" and "evil." A superhero has his antithesis, his supervillain, and they'll spend probably 95% of the movie eschewing vital components like plot and dialog to duke it out and see which side will prevail. And now, for the second time in as many weeks, we stumble across a film out of that genre that throws that logic aside and opts to go its own way. And fortunately for us all, The Dark Knight does with far more competence and thus far more success, all but obliterating the other such film - the disastrous Hancock - from our memories.

If you think about it, director Christopher Nolan's never been one to adhere to tradition. With 2000's Memento, he gave us a protagonist with no short term memory, who ultimately unlocked a completely new perspective on the detective caper. 2005's Batman Begins saw him reinvent the legendary caped crusader - breathing new life into a franchise that suffered from poorly realized villains who were impossible to take seriously and the ultimate low - a dreaded benippled Batsuit - among thousands of other shortcomings.

But with The Dark Knight, he's done one better. Using the same series as his template, Nolan and his team have managed to completely redefine the superhero genre as a whole. It's more than just action-packed, clear-cut "good" and "evil" designations that even the most non-witted of moviegoers could figure out; here he's taken the two qualities (personified ultimately in the extremes of Batman and the Joker) and blended them into the middle ground, among regular, less drastic versions of themselves. It becomes a thinking-man's film, one with a stunner of a script that, in addition to telling a story, makes us reconsider our notions, values and applications of "good" and "evil."

Gotham City is Batman's town. Has been for as long as any of us can remember. Whenever criminals manage to elude the police force, he's there lurking in the shadows, ready to restore order. It's sort of automatic. He's embraced while simultaneously taken for granted, as much a superhero as a fleeting thought in the heads of Gothamites. But suddenly, their relationship starts to become strained. The city has elected a new district attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who has cracked down on crime and earned near-universal admiration, including from both sides of the Bruce Wayne/Batman persona (Christian Bale).

In Dent, the city seems to have found what it's really wanted all along: someone with the same nullifying effect on crime, but realized in a likable public figure to whom people can relate. So even as Batman's role is reduced, the heads of organized crime still find themselves wallowing into desperation and desperately in need of a catalyst.

And it's here that we meet the Joker. Think it's going to be Jack Nicholson's tongue-in-cheek Joker from Tim Burton's original film? Think again. Nolan's realization of Batman's arch-nemesis is one of the most compelling antagonists in movie history. Combine his superb writing along with Heath Ledger's flawless performance, and you get more than a mere "bad guy;" you get a true villain - nearly as difficult to resist as he is to read.

This Joker's really been there. His green hair is greasy and unkempt, his makeup invoking feelings that skip mere uneasiness and land closer to utter doom. The tales of his facial scars differ each time he tells them, as Ledger orchestrates seamless personality shifts from comical to psychopathic. But what's truly haunting is his motivation by chaos. Money and power don't matter; all the Joker seems to want is for everything - be it the physical Gotham City or even more conceptual entities, such as its hero's anonymity - to be destroyed.

Thinking about it only makes the concept scarier, but at the same time, you can't take your eyes off him. With each new crime, he leaves Gotham wondering who he's working with, and for what. Such is his effect that the only emotional certainty is a sudden anger and resentment towards their beloved Dark Knight. As the Joker becomes more powerful, Dent seems to become less and less relevant as the city drifts back into Batman-land. Unfortunately, Bruce Wayne wants no part of it; he's convinced that a strong Dent equals a strong Gotham. Or does he just want out?

"You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain," Dent tells him at one point. As it unfolds, it's mere small talk at a dinner party, but it's quite astonishing as to how significantly the movie's further developments all come back to that one resounding line. Can inaction, even if brought on by irrelevance, condemn even the best men to villainy? Gotham seems to think so. And consequently, we leave with Batman cast in a far different light than we've ever seen him in before. "Good" versus "evil" is no longer absolute, left instead to become a subject to interpretation.

The result is a film that transcends its oft-meandering genre. It's not enough too just sit back and observe; the movie demands that we open our minds and turn our experience into an active one. And sure, there were a handful of negative elements spread throughout, but nothing enough to completely negate the ultimate movie-going satisfaction fostered by witnessing something as revolutionary as this.

And though the movie takes its name from its long-revered hero, this time around it's all about the Joker. You simply can't get enough of Ledger's performance. When he's on screen, it's all you think about; when he's not, all you can do is wonder when he'll be back. It's saddening to think that Ledger will never again dazzle us as he does here, but that difficulty is lessened once you realize he saved his greatest performance for his last. As The Dark Knight unfolds, it's easy to forget that the we're not watching a murderous psychopath, but just a regular man acting as one. If that's not the mark of an Oscar-worthy performance, then what is?

3.5 stars out of 4
8.5 out of 10

Aliens (1986)

How do you follow up one of the greatest science-fiction films ever made? Let's look at the poster for Aliens for our answer. To start, you change the director, replacing Ridley Scott with Terminator veteran James Cameron. Add in a few, OK - hundred more of your extraterrestrial antagonists and cap it off by giving your heroine a complete character makeover, with a gun. Should be a recipe for success, right?

Well, to an extent. As sequels (or sci-fi/action movies in general) go, you can't find much of anything negative to say about Aliens. Seven years and several key developments after its predecessor, you find that there are a handful of areas (plot, special effects and action sequences in particular) in which the sequel surpasses the original. But in spite of the advancements that were made, the style changes were too numerous, and the several small victories aren't enough to generate that big win - the one that elevates it past Alien as the franchise's best.

We open with Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) drifting unconsciously along in space, as per the conclusion of the last film. After her rescue, lawyer/professional scumbag Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) informs her that 57 years have past since the events aboard her ship, the Nostromo - the destruction of which temporarily loses Ripley her space flight license. However, after contact is lost with the colony aboard planet LV-426, the site of the first film's extraterrestrial encounter, she's coaxed back into action and travels with Burke as part of a rescue team to investigate.

After meeting their team, composed otherwise entirely of a colonial space marine unit, one thing becomes clear: we've said good-bye to pure sci-fi and have moved into more of an action film environment. Gone is the intelligent, calculating crew of the Nostromo, replaced instead with a reckless bunch of über-soldiers (Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn, etc.) whose collective M.O. of "shoot first, shoot some more, then investigate" sets the film's overall tone. The thinking man's Alien film has past; this one's for pure adrenaline junkies.

The team lands on LV-426 and immediately discovers a young girl named Newt, who eventually forms a mother-daughter-like bond with Ripley. It's these sort of added depths in the role, along with the grace with which Weaver realized them, that contribute to the franchise's advancement. The majority of Alien saw Ripley as one crew member of seven aboard the Nostromo, whose cool thinking and sharp decision making saw her emerge as a heroine at the end. Here, she's got that distinction from the start, but must also tackle protecting Newt and winning over her new team in addition to strapping on a gun and kicking some alien ass.

Oh yeah...the aliens. Seven years of special-effects enhancements clearly worked wonders for the franchise. When the aliens strike here, they do so mercilessly. To start, there are more of them (hence Aliens being the title, as opposed simply to Alien 2), and they appear to have developed new breeds. And where the original alien walked, these things run, jump, climb and, most importantly, pursue. It's no longer the humans hunting down the aliens; the hunters have become the hunted on LV-426. A new level of peril emerges in the franchise, to the audience's delight. The showdown between Ripley and the film's main newcomer, the Alien Queen, is a real treat - a showcase of action, stunning effects and pure good-over-evil bravado.

But at times, it's all just a bit much, and it feels like they tried a bit too hard. You kind of start to miss the quiet, more haunting sort of film the first was when thrust into the endless spectacle of the second. Aliens ultimately makes one think of another high-profile sequel from a franchise 15-odd years down the road: The Matrix. The two series both started the same way - with films that succeeded by means of effortless confidence. They sucked their audiences in and won them over without even appearing to try. Both of their sequels got bigger, placing greater emphasis on both the action and the antagonists. And while Aliens has nowhere near the disastrous results of Reloaded and Revolutions, it still doesn't quite match up to its predecessor. A very entertaining film, to be sure, but in the end, Alien is still top dog.

3 stars out of 4

7.5/10

Vertigo (1958)

What drives obsession? How do we go from being attracted to something to being completely consumed by it? People may praise Alfred Hitchcock's landmark film Vertigo for James Stewart's haunting performance as obsessive detective Scottie Ferguson, or for its stellar production value (Which makes you wonder if films set in San Francisco can possibly turn out poorly), and both deserve kudos. But the film's greatest asset is its ability to invoke those two fundamental questions in its audience. While it's not quite the "masterpiece" Hitchcock dubbed it, Vertigo was certainly good enough for him to toot his own horn.

Scottie's slow descent into madness over the course of the film is what keeps us watching, despite his never having been that normal to begin with. An early sequence reveals his development of acrophobia and, eventually, vertigo - to the level that merely standing on a stool in his friend Midge's (Barbara Bel Geddes) apartment is an ordeal. The two have combined to force him into retirement, until an old friend coaxes him out of it to investigate strange behavior in the friend's wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak.)

Madeleine's allure is mysterious, but her behavior even more so. She'll visit the Legion of Honor every day to look at the same painting, only to follow it up with visits to the grave of the woman depicted in it. Her automatic movements, along with the slightly misty quality of the film while she's on camera almost puts you in a trance - not unlike the one she appears to be in. Yet the more erratic her behavior, the deeper Scottie falls for her as his investigation transforms into infatuation. And just when you think you've got a handle on what's going on - they change it up and throw you a curveball.

Unfortunately, there are some lulls after that curveball - and once the mystery's gone, the film's not quite as immediately captivating. But from a conceptual standpoint the second half is a proverbial feast, for Scottie's haunting personality change gives way to those two foundational questions. They'll leave you pondering for days ahead, which is something to treasure coming from a film.

3.5 stars out of 4
8/10