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'Cachè'

By Dan Vinson

Movie Trailer

The opening shot is trained on a particular doorway, though you don't know that yet. Cars and pedestrians move across the field of vision, and eventually someone comes out of the house. Then you hear voices and the screen begins rewinding. Cut to a living room where a couple is warily watching the first anonymous videotaped surveillance of their comings and goings. They don't know what's going on anymore than you do. Welcome to the cinematic shock therapy of Austrian director Michael Haneke.

This problem belongs to Georges and Anne Laurent (Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche) and their son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky), who reside in this unnamed French city where Georges hosts a weekly book analysis on TV and Juliette is a book editor. Being a pre-teen, Pierrot mostly sulks and hangs out with friends. Wrapped in (what looks like) a disturbed child's drawings, the tapes arrive with increasing frequency, but what do they mean? Neither Georges nor Anne knows anybody, save for Pierrot and buddies as a joke, who might do this. And the police are no help; much like here in America, until there's a very specific threat you just have to endure.

George and Anne, though unnerved, go about their lives and careers. They see each other only in the morning and evening, they go out of town when necessary for work, whoever discovers another tape calls the other. One night, with friends over for dinner, Georges answers the doorbell and finds yet another tape at his feet. Anne has already spilled to their friends so, thinking it will be more shots of their block, Georges pops it in. But this time, it's his childhood home.

So Georges now thinks he might know who the culprit is (though his intense dreams suggest he's known since the beginning), but he won't tell his wife until he's sure, which, of course, causes a major rift. It seems his parents hired an Algerian couple to help run the household, and they had a son about Georges' age. He figures quite shockingly into the present story, but to say much more would spoil this layered and disquieting film. Just when an answer seems to present itself, another shoves it aside. Just when you get used to the static, sometimes subjective shots of cinematographer Christian Berger, Haneke throws another curve. It's up to the audience - as it was in Haneke's 2000 film, the similarly themed "Code Unknown," also starring Binoche as a woman named Anne - to adjust and decipher what they're seeing. As their lives implode, Auteuil and Binoche effectively display outrage, fear, and sometimes, daring.

Shooting in 2004, Haneke (pronounced "Hannukah"), who won Best Director at Cannes last year, couldn't have known how prescient his story would be. Last November, protesting their virtually systematic marginalization from French society, Algerian Muslims rioted across the country, and now, as the film bows in the United States, there's an illegal government surveillance scandal, not to mention, lingering racial wounds.

Though it's clichè to reference Alfred Hitchcock, blending Hitch's masterful foreboding with the tendency of European filmmakers to recall French New Waver Jean-Luc Godard's famous axiom about films needing a beginning, middle and end, but "not necessarily in that order," approximates "Cachè's" unsettling mood. (And a complete absence of music also enhances this.) Generating as many questions as answers, it keeps you guessing until the fiendish final moments. Keep your eyes peeled. CV

'The Hills Have Eyes'

By Rafe Telsch

Movie Trailer

Aremake of the 1970s Wes Craven film, "The Hills Have Eyes" takes place in an abandoned desert area of New Mexico. The Carter family takes a wrong turn and discovers just why that area of New Mexico is abandoned. The government used it for nuclear testing decades before, causing mutant effects in the people who refused to evacuate the area. The mutants ambush the Carters' vehicle, leave them stranded in the middle of nowhere, and slowly assault them, dividing and conquering as the stupid family members dutifully play the part of typical horror movie victims, falling prey to each of the mutant's clever schemes.

Director Alexandre Aja brings the same passion and vision to "Hills" that he brought to his first horror film, "Haute Tension." "Hills" is incredibly gory, pushing its "R" rating as spikes are driven into the heads of mutants and family members, dogs are disemboweled, parakeets become tasty beverages, and actresses Emilie de Ravin ("Lost") and Vinessa Shaw ("Melinda and Melinda") are virtually raped on screen. The movie is a visual nightmare in a good way, likely to make even hardened horror fans turn squeamish as Aja tosses details in the audiences' faces. Aja extends this method of directing to non-gory parts as well, maintaining camera shots just long enough to be awkwardly uncomfortable, and then a little bit more, on oddball characters like the mutant-affiliated gas station owner responsible for sending the family down the wrong road.

As a second film, "The Hills Have Eyes" carries on the visual promise Aja showed in his first. This is a director who isn't afraid to push boundaries. As a scriptwriter, though, Aja still has some room for improvement. There are a few pacing issues with the film that move it from being a steady assault to mere gore and brutality. But pacing problems aside, this is a well-designed film with a level of intensity that could give gore-hounds and horror fans everywhere something to talk about for decades to come. CV

'Failure to Launch'

By Erin Randolph

Movie Trailer

Is it still worth watching a movie if the plot is completely laid out there from the get-go and if the ending is painfully obvious well before the film even starts? Apparently so, for some, as the prevalence of romantic comedies hitting the big screen doesn't appear to be waning anytime soon.

"Failure to Launch" is about as romantic-comedy-by-numbers as films of that ilk get. And for fans of that sect, this film will meet their expectations.

Tripp (Matthew McConaughey) still lives with his parents, which wouldn't be such a problem if he weren't 30. In all other areas of his life - except, of course, his love life - he's got it together, a good job, a nice car, loyal friends, a mother who still makes him a hot breakfast in the morning. Yet he hasn't been able to fly the coop - which apparently is termed "failure to launch," at least by Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker).

It's Paula's job (literally; she's hired by the parents) to get these clingy mama's boys to move out of the house for good. She pretends to be the girl of his dreams; if he likes "Star Wars," she likes "Star Wars." She motivates, provides support, and ultimately, supposedly, he moves out. However, Paula has no love life of her own, just her work, and hardly seems qualified to judge.

Regardless, Paula is hired by Tripp's parents (Terry Bradshaw and Kathy Bates) to, well, you know. Tripp and Paula go on dates, they have a good time. Everything seems on track. But, well, you know, things don't exactly go as planned. Throw in a few inane and pointless run-ins with Mother Nature, a curmudgeon best friend for Paula, a couple bachelor friends for Tripp, a gentle plot surprise that will throw a wrench in the whole plan, and (tada!) the breeziest of breezy comedies is born.

And it's awfully breezy. Almost painfully so. The only real redeeming quality of "Failure to Launch" is its cast, which is surprisingly bright for such a dull storyline. However, it's not enough to save "Failure to Launch," which probably never should have been launched in the first place. CV

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