Showtimes for all movies in the area. Click here!

Review: 'Grizzly Man'

By Dan Vinson

This astounding documentary, quite simply, is unlike any other you're likely to see. It largely takes place in nature, though it is far from a nature film. Legendary German director Werner Herzog has found in grizzly bear enthusiast Timothy Treadwell a fascinating, unpredictable, larger-than-life rebel; in short, a match for the bears he lived among and studied for 13 years - before he and girlfriend Amie were killed by one in 2003.

Over those summers, July through September, only during the last five did Treadwell shoot video, still amounting to some 100 hours. And during "Grizzly Man," anytime bears are on screen, it's his footage - remarkable, dangerous footage that sometimes freezes you.

Appropriately, Herzog begins with Treadwell, crouching near a grizzly, talking to his beloved camera. He speaks about the bears and to the bears passionately and sing song-y, as if reading a story aloud to school kids (which he did in schools all around the world). Treadwell would arrive via his trusty pilot, with bear-proof barrels of provisions, water, camping gear, and hope for the best. And late every September, Treadwell would be ready in the same spot - except for once, when his pilot searched for, and found (parts of) Treadwell, radioing for help soon thereafter.

Some people (mostly close friends and former lovers) think Treadwell is a hero, while others think he was a fool who got what he deserved. An American Indian man thinks Treadwell was disrespectful - that by attempting to bond with bears, they might get used to humans, thereby falling prey to poachers. However, a professor in Alaska notes there is no problem with poaching on the Alaskan peninsula. Still, in his video, Treadwell constantly refers to "protecting," as though danger lurks around every bush. In fact, though, the peninsula is visited by a boatful of dumb guys, while a few freighters lazily dot the inlet.

Treadwell was many things in bear country: trailblazer, teacher, big kid, image-conscious (sunglasses even in clouds), stir-crazy, and probably bipolar. He's deliriously happy to be out there - even during F-word-fueled tirades against civilization and the National Park Service. "If I don't come back," he would say before each exhibition, "it's what I want." But what precisely made him take on this task, however, Herzog keeps secret, preferring to focus on Treadwell's footage and, periodically, his death. A terrifying audiotape exists of Treadwell's and Amie's death that the audience never gets to hear, and doesn't need to. Herzog's reaction says it all; you imagine the horrors - as does Jewel, a former Treadwell lover and friend - just fine.

Herzog is essentially the third main character here. He, like many documentary directors lately, appears on-screen. But he's no nuisance, and his warm, pleasantly accented narration soothes as well as proclaims. Herzog, who in 1972 made "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" and "Fitzcarraldo" in 1982, both jungle-set and starring the inimitable Klaus Kinski (who, in some screen stills somewhat resembles Treadwell), knows about shooting in the wilderness, and makes sure to point out Treadwell's techniques and talent (and how he disagrees with his romanticized view of nature).

Besides a fascinating story, "Grizzly Man," in this time of mounting natural disasters, should remind humans that, as part of the natural world (remember?), we should respect and live within nature instead of trying to defeat and defy it. Levees fail; so do fences to keep predators off Montana homesteads, not to mention tailpipe emissions. And we humans will only last as long as nature does. CV

Review: 'Lord of War'

By Erin Randolph

The question posed in "Lord of War," a film dealing with the international gun trade, seems to be: is the business of trading guns just that, or does the seller bear some responsibility in what happens with those weapons and the ammunition fired out of them?

Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage), a Ukrainian immigrant, seems to believe his profession is merely a business. In fact, he sells communist-made bullets to fascists and Israeli rifles to Muslims. He doesn't care who's firing his weapons or at whom, so long as they continue to line his pockets with enough money to keep his trophy wife, Ava (Bridget Moynahan), living the life to which she is accustomed.

Growing up in a violence-ridden neighborhood where his faux Jewish family owns a restaurant, Orlov determines that, like doctors, people will always have a need for people who sell guns, logic that pulls him into the dangerous profession. And even seeing 14-year-olds or those younger wielding guns and innocent women and children being attacked by rebels cannot tilt his moral compass enough to convince him to get out of the business. After all, he's good at it. And that seems to Orlov to be enough of a reason to keep going - even after those closest to him ultimately pay the price for his career.
That said, it's not easy to play a character like Orlov, one that is truly despicable as a person, but that the audience must continue to like at least enough to keep staring at the screen. And Cage neither fails nor succeeds in this area. He's never really been known for being a great bad-but-good guy. ("Con Air," anyone?) "Lord of War" is no exception.

For what it's worth, "Lord of War" is an intelligent movie. It probably should have been a documentary. Then perhaps the preachy moments of the film would be better justified. It's not often that Hollywood tackles a subject as tough as the international gun trade, so one really wants it to succeed. Unfortunately, the ammunition in "Lord of War" misses its target. CV

Review: 'Cry_Wolf'

By Ben Spierenburg

Owen (Julian Morris) is the new British transfer student at Westlake Prep with a long history of misbehavior. And so it doesn't take long for the stunning, cunning Dodger (Lindy Booth) to ask him to join the school's famed "Liar's Club," where Owen and his new friends have fun inventing a serial killer called "The Wolf." Then the two use the magic of e-mail to convince the entire campus that he's the one behind a recent student's brutal murder and that, of course, he'll strike again.

However, things get sticky when someone actually decides to become "The Wolf."

Scary stuff? Actually, the scariest thing about the film is how horribly campy it is, and that so many decent scripts were likely passed over in order to get this thing made. Not to mention, it's a sad day in Hollywood when a film's best acting is provided care of MSN Messenger. Scarier still, the only human to come even close to competing with the scene-stealing computer program is Jon Bon Jovi, who has cut his teeth on much better fare than this, but fails to give "Wolf" any credibility.

"Cry_Wolf" is another interminably insipid film from director Jeff Wadlow, the mastermind behind such dreck as 2004's "Catching Kringle" and 2002's "The Tower of Babble." In fact, the only thing Wadlow truly has going for him - and it isn't much - is that he's Katie Couric's nephew.

Still, "Cry_Wolf" is enjoying praise from the pre-teen set, which, anyone in show business will tell you is where the money is ($5 million its first weekend), and why so-called PG-13 "horror" movies like "Cry_Wolf" ever make it from the script pile to the drawing board to the silver screen - even in the season reserved for top-shelf cinema. It's just a shame that no one was listening when Little Red Riding Hood insisted this one was going to be vicious. CV

Review: 'The Man'

By Dan Vinson

Welcome to the world of Andy Fiddler (Eugene Levy), dental instrument salesman. He's practicing his speech in front of the mirror (imagined applause and all) before flying to present it at a conference in Detroit. He kisses his wife goodbye and catches the flight from genteel Wisconsin.

Brazen and mouthy ATF agent Derrick Vann (Samuel L. Jackson), meanwhile, is feeling the Internal Affairs heat from stolen guns and a dead partner. He sets out alone to recover the cache and cool things down. From his favorite informant he obtains the information for a meeting place - the very coffee shop in which Andy now sips coffee and reads his USA Today (what the real "middleman"-Vann himself - is supposed to be reading). Andy gets a brown paper bag shoved at him by Joey (Luke Goss), an insistent Englishman; it contains a "sample" gun and a cell phone. Perplexed, Andy looks inside and before he realizes, is waving the gun around, just in time for Vann to step in and arrest/rescue him. Now, instead of relaxing, Andy is neck-deep in Vann's sting operation.

This is the part where the viewer is supposed to think, "Eugene Levy and Sam Jackson together in a '48 Hours' kind of thing? This should be great!" And yes, yes it should. But director Les Mayfield has made something about as funny as an episode of "Still Standing" and about as remarkable as "Crossing Jordan." In fact, most TV police shows are wittier, more entertaining, and pay more attention to detail. (For instance, there's a scene involving flatulence in which, even as Vann very obviously does not crack his window, in the long shot of the car it's down completely. Note to directors: if your characters are talking about a car window, make sure you show it doing what they say.)

Andy (now known as "The Turk" -don't ask) and Vann spend a lot of time in his souped-up vintage Cadillac, figuring out the next move, talking about their opposite lives, or visiting various hoods that can provide information. Each time Andy gets a call on that cell phone, he has to meet with Joey, and despite his gaining more confidence each time, things start spinning out of control. IA is still watching Vann, and now Andy, and soon they end up in a desolate warehouse with everything at stake. Which would matter, if you actually cared. The bad guys aren't all that bad, the IA task force head (Miguel Ferrer, from "Crossing Jordan") isn't that menacing, and even Jackson's bastard-with-a-badge would hide from the likes of Denzel Washington in "Training Day." This is largely the difference between PG-13 (which apparently now allows two F-word utterances, and as many "shits" and "asses" as the day is long) and R: the R can give it teeth.

Something like "The Man" makes you fume over the potentially good movies that didn't get made because it did. Obviously, Levy and Jackson are terrific in proper, quality material, but you have to wonder here what bets they lost. Two hot topics in Hollywood are the Box Office Slump and desperately under-represented female directors and writers. How about solving two problems at once? Hire more women who could liven up the male-dominated field and make better movies, thereby packing more people into theaters. And hire new writers to produce original material instead of rehashing the same material year after year. CV

Review: 'The Aristocrats'

By Joshua Tyler

There's no way to be sure if "The Aristocrats" is supposed to be humorous. After all it's a documentary, traditionally the realm of serious things like the hating of Republicans or the mating habits of cute, wobbly penguins. What's certain, however, is that "The Aristocrats" is motherfucking fantastic at being fucking foul, fucking disturbed, and utterly fucking disgusting. In fact, it's all of that and a fucking donkey show. But despite the comedic talent packed into it, "The Aristocrats" isn't all that funny.

"The Aristocrats," we're told, is an ancient joke told amongst comedians. It's a little odd that no one's heard of it before; most stand-up comics tend toward diarrhea of the mouth. Still, it's been around forever, and evidently nearly every comic knows it. What keeps it going is how flexible it is. Everyone who tells it puts their own unique spin on it - like a game of telephone - only the setup and the punch line consistently remain the same. The basic framework is this: A guy walks into a talent agency and pitches an act. The comedian telling the joke then describes in gruesome, nearly illegal detail, the most vicious, morally bankrupt, twisted things he can imagine. Most of the time, the telling of this part of the joke involves creative uses of shit, cum and other bodily fluids. Some tellers like to mix in a little incest and bestiality, just to stir the pot. Others throw in everything imaginable, from pedophilia, to racism, to cracks about the victims of 9/11. The punch line of all this is that the act is called "The Aristocrats," and unlike most punch lines, with this joke, this is the part where seemingly no one laughs.

But the so-called big finish doesn't truly matter here, as the humor of "The Aristocrats" lies in the constantly changing setup. For his documentary, Director Paul Provenza has filmed dozens and dozens of comedians telling the joke in as many different ways as possible. Mixed in with the joke telling are their thoughts on the joke itself. What does it mean? Why do they tell it? What makes it funny? And so on, and so on. Thus, at the heart of it, the film is one joke told over and over and over again.

And therein lies the movie's problem. While the gimmick is interesting, and seeing Bob Saget get down and dirty is shocking, the joke itself isn't much of a joke - even in the hands of George Carlin, Pat Cooper, Andy Dick, Tim Conway, Billy Connelly, Richard Lewis, Robin Williams and Whoopie Goldberg. After a few dozen times, you feel braindead. Nor, save for a few outlandish creative ad-ons, is it all that offensive.

Most of the comics in the film seem to agree that the funniest telling of the joke was the version done by Gilbert Godfried at a Friars Club Roast of Hugh Heffner three weeks after 9/11. He tells his version, and the audience full of comedians goes wild. But here's the catch: they aren't laughing because the joke is funny, they're laughing because he actually had the balls to tell it. And that's really the truth of the whole imbroglio. This is a terrible joke beloved only by a certain set of people because they like the shocking absurdity of it all. Comedians love "The Aristocrats" for the simple fact that it's their own little secret, sort of like a fraternal handshake handed down from one Stonecutter to another. But held up to the harsh light of reality and shared with others who are "not in on it," so to speak, the joke is a total and utter flop.

However, that doesn't mean "The Aristocrats" is an utter failure as a movie. Despite its lack of humor, it's compelling to see the comedians at work, almost daring each other to take the joke into deeper, darker waters. This makes the film much more of an exploration into what makes these guys tick and a window into their creative process than a gut-busting documentary comedy.

And maybe, just maybe, "The Aristocrats" is looking for something deeper than a thousand ways to tell a shit joke. Maybe amongst all the Dirty Sanchezes, Donkey Punches and the salad tossings, Provenza was searching for the soul of comedy itself. Or maybe he just wanted to see if he could get Paul Reiser to say "cocksucker." CV

Review: 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose'

By Erin Randolph

Whether or not "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" will scare you will depend heavily on where your belief system lays - science or faith. If you believe in God, the Devil and real-life demons that have the ability to possess another person, then by all means, "The Exorcism" will likely scare the sin out of you. However, if demonic possession sounds like a bunch of pious garbage to you, you'll likely think "The Exorcism" is, well, a bunch of pious garbage.

"The Exorcism of Emily Rose" is based on a true story of the failed exorcism of a German college freshman, a supposed possession that was officially recognized by the Catholic Church. During her exorcism, the young woman died, and the priest involved was brought to trial for causing her death. In the movie, which takes place in the United States, the college freshman is named, obviously enough, Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter), the priest who performs the failed exorcism is Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson), and the woman charged with defending the priest, and ultimately, the possibility that demons exist, is Erin Bruner (Laura Linney).

The vast majority of the film takes place in a courtroom, making the film sometimes come off more like a long episode of a "Law and Order"-type TV show than a horror film. The only exposure the audience has to Emily Rose is through flashbacks as testimony is given during the trial. We see her go from a happy teenager who's anxious to leave behind the dotty country farmhouse she grew up in and attend university on a full scholarship, to a contorted heap on the floor, arms and legs askew in seemingly impossible positions. We see her scratching huge chunks out of walls and screaming in the most horrific of voices, and in several different languages including Aramaic, and we see her body waste away as the "demons" inside her prevent her from eating or sleeping.

There are two disparate camps at work in "The Exorcism": those who believe Emily Rose was possessed and that her only hope at survival was through an exorcism rite, and those who believe Emily Rose was suffering from psychotic epilepsy and was desperately in need of medical treatment. The movie, of course, in the name of ticket sales, would have you believe the former. Considering the main characters in the film are the devoutly religious Father Moore and Emily Rose, as well as a doubtful-but-eventually somewhat convinced Erin Bruner, the only faces we're given to sympathize with are those whose beliefs are based in faith or the possibility that faith reigns over science. The prosecutor, representing the ambiguous "people," is merely a pawn in the film, one we never get to know beyond his courtroom banter.

Still, if you truly believe in demons and the Devil, then "The Exorcism" will likely scare the shit out of you. In fact, you'll never view long, dark hallways and 3 a.m., the supposed "demonic hour," the same again. But then again, if you don't believe, "The Exorcism" will seem like a bunch of hokey drivel meant to frighten people into moral submission. The dialogue will seem trite and a bit cheesy, and the only times you'll be frightened will come from overwrought horror movie scare tactics void of real substance (such as a hissing cat).

The bottom line: if you don't believe in evil in its most religious form, the film will do nothing more than possess a few hours of your life you'll never get back. CV

Comment on this story | Return to top