Brockett Blog

On most weekends, the sight of Sylvester Stallone sprinting in The Expendables like he was a reporter attempting the Albert Haynesworth conditioning test would be the highlight. But Edgar Wright’s direction in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World amazed me even more, especially the way he faithfully adapted content originally made for the graphic novel and gave it a cinematic life all its own.

Bryan Lee O’Malley should be the envy of any writer’s retreat the way his books found a kindred spirit in Wright. Rather than change things up, Wright trusts the material and himself to add even more visual layers of wit and humor to the festivities. In the same way that a good graphic novel uses every available inch as an opportunity to tell the story and earn a laugh, Wright does the same in his film.

Pilgrim will be a movie based on favorite moments rather than big-picture appreciation. It’s Sunday night now, and I’ve already read one listicle on why the movie “bombed” at the box office and the prospects of cult classic status on DVD and Blu-Ray. Call me old or defeated, but my energy for understanding why people might not love the same things I do has waned. Instead of converting or conversing, I want to share one of my favorite little moments that might have passed you by.

The film uses sound almost as a character throughout, with the type of video game cues that reward the knowledgeable and harmlessly fly over the head of people who didn’t own a Nintendo. Songs played by the characters’ band, Sex Bob-omb, make up most of the rest of the soundtrack. But at least one existing song sneaks its way on screen. Sex Bob-omb ends its set in Toronto, and Michael Cera brushes past his former girlfriend, 17-year-old high schooler Knives Chau. As any concert-goer will tell you, when the opening act ends the room fills with recorded music. In this case, the venue features “Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl” by Broken Social Scene just as Knives’ heart breaks once more.

Most of the time, the song you hear on screen could safely be assumed to be the result of a synergistic deal between production company and record label. But this band, a Toronto staple in a story that revels in its setting? And this song, with a melody so perfect and a title so apropos for the character?

Discoveries like these thrill me, because it gives hope that amid all the sound and spectacle there are other little connections to discover. It doesn’t immediately make for a great movie (though I did enjoy it), but the invitation to dive in to a kaleidoscopic world still ruled by purpose doesn’t have to be sent twice.

P.S. It bugged me through the film to try and place where I had seen the actor who plays the lead singer in Sex Bob-omb, Mark Webber. And a first glance at his IMDB page didn’t reveal much. But then, there it was: 2000′s Snow Day. I reviewed that movie for my college paper, and spent more time on Emmanuelle Chriqui’s burgeoning sexuality than Webber’s performance (sorry, I was 19).

After five boxes of Raisin Bran Crunch, cutting out five cardboard circles and mailing them off, I filled a giant hole in my sports DVD collection. Sure, for $5 I could have gone to Wal-Mart and received a snap case for my efforts. But I don’t care what you say, at the end of the game, in my book this deal was a winner! And one more week’s worth of cereal will give me the choice of A Walk in the Clouds, Benny & Joon, Eight Men Out, Here on Earth, Picture Perfect, Rocky II and The Sandlot. I already own The Sandlot (obvious reasons) and Here on Earth (Sobieski reasons), so it looks like I’ll say it’s so for Eight Men Out.

I know Jake Tusing. In many ways, I was Jake Tusing. While taking in Nanette Burstein’s documentary American Teen, the parallels piled up:

• regrettable hairstyles
• worse complexions
• odd mix of self-awareness and self-pity
• A to-do list that included: 1) Find girlfriend, 2) ________, 3) Achieve total happiness

Of course, there are differences. Whereas he brought flowers to the door of a new freshman in the band, I bought Valentine’s candies and set them down on a girl’s desk (passively hoping for the best). But let’s just say there were uncomfortable moments of recollection during the movie’s 100-minute runtime. And while highlighting such a character might bypass my critical eye \ and cozy up near some nostalgic soft spot, the film’s intimate portrayal of “normal” teen life in Warsaw, Indiana uncovers more substance than a dozen fictional portrayals of the same experience. The result? A satisfying documentary with every main character revealing his or her strengths and flaws, giving us a movie where finding the latter proves much more difficult.

Burstein used archival footage and some stylistic flourishes to turn The Kid Stays In the Picture into a fascinating, informative cocktail of a documentary. Press coverage of Teen indicates she did her homework to find the right blend of Midwestern lives, and the results show subjects who let go of their camera awareness while engaged in the drama of senior year. One’s eye obviously will focus on the artistic interludes that represent the protagonists’ stated dreams, and they certainly provide a jolt of storytelling substance. But the best moments are clear-eyed and without filter. For our friend Jake, that means quickly finding out that having a girlfriend doesn’t mean much when there is no relationship to enjoy. Oh, and having said girlfriend sneak out on Jake for a swimming pool rendezvous.

Each archetypical character (“the queen bee,” “the outcast”) undergoes a similar adventure under the microscope that complicates our feelings toward them as a viewer. Megan mixes her influence and vindictiveness into toxic blends, but we’re there when we see her break down at the sight of a Notre Dame acceptance letter. (Making a Golden Domer sympathetic is the forgotten 13th Labour of Hercules.) Colin’s basketball hopes get crushed under the weight of expectations and an uncertain post-high school future, but he deals with it by passing the rock less often than Eddie House. And Hannah, the wild child too big for the confines of a small town, emerges from a bad family situation to find strength … except when she’s heartbroken and won’t go to school for days on end.

The universal nature of these kids and their situation allows for the ambitious title, even if the scene scarcely resembles that of the inner-city Baltimore classroom Prez presides over on HBO’s The Wire. We don’t get jags into No Child Left Behind, or school funding reform or even a Juno-type unexpected pregnancy. And a loaf of bread might feature more diversity in color than the student body shown in this film. My feeling, though, is that those issues exist somewhere just beyond the reach of these cameras, and zooming out any more would turn the film into a morass of big themes and ideas that just wouldn’t be sustainable.

But believe me when I tell you that these complexities can appeal to just about anybody, whatever nebulous archetype you inhabited from the years of 14 to 18. But don’t fret, Jake, not all of us end up writing blog reviews 10 years after graduation. I’m rooting for you.

And if Jake was anything like me in grade school, he probably holds on to some hazy memory of opening up a textbook or encyclopedia and spying a black-clad daredevil walking between the World Trade Center towers. The whole image blew my small-town-in-Illinois, cable-less mind: New York City, skyscrapers and death-defying stunts all seemed so far away.

Man on Wire brings that event into focus with a lyrical beauty, propelled by the romantic mind of featured subject Philippe Petit. The documentary plays with the story, teasing some historical re-enactment and a jumbled timeline that offers glimpses of important characters before a proper introduction. In lesser hands, this would make for a confusing documentary trying to obscure its lack of good source material. Director James Marsh knows, however, he can get away with these flights of fancy when just sitting Petit down and allowing him to tell his story engages the audience so thoroughly.

The story itself seems like it comes from another time (a feeling somewhat consistant for me whenever encountering New York in the 1970s). Petit builds up his public performances, from slight of hand to small-scale tightrope demonstrations, with an artist’s flair perfectly suited for description in the French language. He accumulates assistants and hangers-on, who help him with these odd events. In present-day interviews, just about all of them look back with an amazed half-smile when traveling back to the days of 1974 – none more so than onetime Petit paramour Annie Allix. They fill in some of the gaps of the story, which allows for the nuts-and-bolts logistics of scoping out these man-made behemoths and setting up this spectacle.

But what I like most about it, even more than the home video footage of this amazing skill in practice, is its rejection of “Why?” Given that this is one of the five W’s of proper journalism, it’s probably not a great thing to shout from the rooftops. But for something such as this, no answer really satisfies the question. Petit says as much in the movie when explaining why he started walking the tightrope in the first place. He ended up there, in perfect balance, and kept testing himself to see how amazing the act could get. Nobody featured in the film really knows “why,” and you’ll forget you asked it at all when Petit feels his way to his spot in history.

A couple weeks ago my friends at Valet Magazine again asked me to contribute to their fine online publication, this time with a preview of some of the most notable movie releases this holiday season. The story opens with an allusion to holiday stress and escaping it all with a trip to the theater, which is based on a favorite childhood memory of mine.

My house hosted the Christmas Eve festivities every year, and such events bring out the crazy eye in my mother. When we weren’t picking up our action figures to her liking, my dad took us to the “big city” of Joliet to see a movie. Now, Father of the Bride might not hold up to the sophisticated sense of humor that sees Martin Short as some scourge of the silver screen, but the movie’s charms won us over and certainly beat certain death at my mom’s hands with a vacuum cleaner.

In any event, check out the feature here. And if geeky jokes aren’t enough, the design incorporates a variety of multimedia elements so effectively, it’s a sight to see. My hope is to see a lot of these movies and review them on this very domain name. With my Christmas shopping completed, it will be the closest I come to the holiday rush the next 19 days.

Call me a skeptic. Call me insecure. Call me call me any time. But at moments that pop culture artists have engineered to raise my goosebumps and find a direct route to my heart, I raise a final, ultimate line of defense.

There are numerous instances of this happening, but the ones that strike most vividly combine movies/television and music. I burned through the three-disc How I Met Your Mother Season 3 in three sittings, so I’m an avowed fan of the show’s running gags and late-20s life situations. Then, I press play on the season finale, with an opening set to the tune of “(Nice Dream)” by Radiohead, a song that figured into many late high school nights, falling asleep with a Discman next to my pillow.

By this time the pop culture streams should have crossed, wiping out rational thought and the critical eye in the process. But then the moat forms, chock full of alligators snapping at irregular intervals. Has the show pigeonholed my tastes? Are the songs tapping into emotions the storytelling cheats to reach? Was liking this show inevitable, just a confirmation of my previous enjoyments? Would something like iTunes’ Genius application peg that I was the target market for this soundtrack?

This self-doubting phenomenon tints my view of “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” seen last Friday among a crowd not attending the concurrent high school football games. Music blogs, themselves catering sometimes to self-fulfilling tastes, teased a soundtrack filled with talented bands lacking a measurable Q score in the culture at large. One of those songs? “Ottoman” by Vampire Weekend. The (inevitable?) Vampire Weekend backlash never reached these shores, as the band’s debut album still occupies a strong placement on my iPod when times call for tunes and not podcasts. “Ottoman” continues their string of successes, with a messy mix of lyrics and string accompanyment that brings out the best in what potential B-sides should sound like.

One must be on guard, then, not to confuse good taste in “indie” music with the type of talent needed to bring home a good teen comedy. Even bad teen comedies have their moments (says the guy who paid money to see Win a Date With Tad Hamilton), but the genre’s recent track record is spottier than the pubescent faces gathered to watch the films. Superbad and Mean Girls stand a good chance at weathering the tests of time, but the industry turned its attentions to horror and tween flicks to grab parents’ money and part-time worker wages.

Playlist, based on the book by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, manages to use witty visual cues and memorable bursts of humor to obscure a basic story premise that has been covered more often than The Beatles’ “Yesterday.” Strip away these little moments, and the movie disappoints with a too-familiar Michael Cera character and, as Radiohead sang, no alarms and no surprises. I should mention these high points, culling the good songs from the bad for future playlists:

• Director Peter Sollett stages a great scene when Nick realizes his old, superficial girlfriend isn’t the one for him. She leaves a nuclear lipstick mark on his Yugo’s windshield, and the camera subtly changes focus from the lipstick to Nick staring at the lipstick. Eventually, he turns on the windshield wipers to wash away the mark as he jets to his titular companion.
• Kat Dennings succeeds where actresses like Rachel Leigh Cook (She’s All That) failed. Though obviously a beautiful young woman, she manages to allow a morose world-weariness to obscure those facts. Instead of ditching the glasses and putting on a dress to say “I’m worthy of a boy now!” she slowly allows that side of her to emerge throughout the movie.
• Ari Graynor isn’t quite the female equivalent of Stifler in American Pie, but she provides ample evidence that the gross-out comic relief doesn’t require a Y chromosome.

But as “Ottoman” played over the ending credits, the emotional reaction to the inevitable relationship packed as much punch as a sip of 7Up. The movie sets up the streets of New York City as the setting for infinite possibilities at any hour of the day. And yet, the pairing of Nick and Norah emerges not as some classic couple brought together by fate, but as the proper course of action considering the previous shackles of their respective relationships. Nick and Norah don’t overcome heaven and earth to be together, just their own unique forms of depression and hormones. We can applaud the characters for not being stupid, but – at least in the teen comedy genre – shouldn’t we root for something a bit more grand?

Nostalgia, or at least the idea of it, fills my head these days. Walking the streets I grew up these last few months, I look out to the neighbors’ lawns and remember the pickup baseball and basketball games. And I think that those were the best of days for that particular tract of land, hoping that no one can look out at me and say the same.

In movies, nostalgia takes on the form of writers and directors working through similar feelings. For some reason, the first movie in that vein that comes to mind is Hearts in Atlantis, an otherwise forgettable Stephen King adaptation notable for the way many scenes were drenched in a light reminiscent of 6 p.m. on a mid-June evening.

Son of Rambow does not feature such a sepia haze, as it allows you to find your childhood reference points on your own color palate. And maybe that’s just a British sensibility about such things. But its restraint allows the charming and sufficiently fantastic story of two boys growing up with the help of a camcorder and John Rambo to recall a tumultuous time in one’s life and gently make fun of it just the same.

Will (Bill Milner) maneuvers his spindly little body around a home life without a dad but with a helpless grandmother, a religion that disallows television viewing and a school/social life with peers who draw their own conclusions based on that last point. Then he meets Lee Carter (Will Poulter). Considering the sticky substance at the bottom of his foot more putty than old gum, he drags Will into his world of no parental supervision. There, Will’s oppressed imagination intersects with his first experience with images in motion – a bootlegged copy of Sylvester Stallone’s First Blood. And thus, the irrepressable mind of a pre-teen boy launches.

The movie blends a subtle, Wes Anderson-like whimsy with more outright farce, but never at the expense of its characters. A montage of stunts draws the biggest laughs, both in their execution and the characters’ ideas of what it takes to make an action movie. The boys don’t know much about making a movie, but they know they want to make one. And just as the filmmakers work through their ideas of growing up through the characters, so too does little Will as his “Son of Rambow” puts on the headband to save his captured dad. That they learn something about the world seeps in through these flights of fancy, avoiding an audience saccharine overload.

The wisdom developed by time also allows for some jokes at the expense of the time period (about 1982). A near-androgenous, absurdly coiffed male French exchange student immediately becomes the most popular kid at school, introducing new wave fashion and music to the stereotypically bland British school environment. When the French boy wants to be in the movie, it allows for the evergreen coming-of-age conflicts of popularity and new friendship to remind us how quickly social circles can change in one school year.

My next neighborhood walk will take me past the shooting location of my own “Son of Rambow.” The Brocketts never owned a VHS camcorder, but a neighborhood friend did. I can only imagine what his school project originally called for, but what the neighborhood boys – mostly 10 to 12 years in age – came up with was an homage to the music video for the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage.” It cobbled together what was available at the time: four-wheelers, a daring stunt involving sliding underneath a garage door and … well, the rest is lost somewhere either discarded or recorded over. But it had to have the song playing during the beginning and ending.

We didn’t work through much other than trying to figure out how the camera worked. But I recognized a little of myself in “Son of Rambow. And not just because I was similarly susceptible to the popular culture of those crazy days of the 1980s.

Editor’s note: This story originally was published June 26, 2007.

So you’ve come in from a long day soaking up rays, to the point where your torso could be used as the Chinese national flag. With leaving the apartment out of the question, what’s on the tube? Oh no, it’s the White Sox! Turn it, before Hawk Harrelson goes into shock on-air!
Reality TV still rules the summer roost, but how about documentary films? They’re like aloe for the brain, if done right. Let’s check in on three to see how much they soothe.

Fired! — Sure, you could call an actress vain if she embarks on an entire project just because she found herself at the wrong end of a Woody Allen pink slip. But Annabelle Gurwitch stumbles upon truths both of the famous and the faceless as she helps tell the stories of people who have lost their jobs. These stories can be quite funny, as she counts funny guys like Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard and Andy Borowitz among her subjects. As her story collection hits the New York stage (making lemonade from her career lemons), she wraps with a macro view of what job loss means to Americans. What could have been a flippant lark becomes an interesting look inside a human experience some people know all too well.

10 MPH: Seattle to Boston — One can’t help but compare any long-travels documentary to the Long Way Round miniseries featuring Ewan McGregor and his friend Charley Boorman. In that series, the two actors take motorcycles on a trip from Europe to New York, encountering problems both mechanical and natural while seeing foreign lands. Because of the duo’s early adventures, the ride from Alaska to New York almost seems anti-climatic. Not so for 10 MPH, as Josh Caldwell and Hunter Weeks seek adventure on a Segway personal transport. The worst they find includes a jerk Orland Park cop and some money problems, but a lack of drama shouldn’t be confused with boring. The people they meet on their trip, who took life into their own hands in shaping their path, give the filmmakers and the film’s audience a sense of life’s constant possibilities.

Glastonbury — With Bonaroo passed and Lollapalooza rapidly approaching, Americans know a thing or two about festivals. But what about one of Britain’s hallmarks? If you lack much background knowledge about the festival, don’t expect a handy primer in this film. It shapes 30 years of footage into something that gets to the spirit of the event itself, rife with fools, freaks and some pretty good music. Footage jumps from the 1970s to today in a flowing, almost random style that can drag from some of its 120 minutes. But the music acts help pique attention, with the likes of Radiohead, Coldplay and Bjork captured on film during various years. Without narration, you’re left to make up your own mind on the current festival, which has replaced ragtag whimsy with weekend warriors and a near-impenetrable fence. Beware, though: the camera captures a lot — including hippies who probably should be wearing clothes and the family business who helps keep the portable toilets in working order.

Editor’s note: This feature originally was published Feb. 24, 2006. It was assisted by my first experiences with Blockbuster Online, which allowed for renting these movies without feeling the silent shame of taking these titles to the cashier.

Direct-to-DVD sequels offer little more than rehash

When was the last time you experienced something completely, unbelievably, knee-weakeningly original? You know, the type of idea that fueled your own creative fires because you now know them to exist?

……

OK, it’s been a while. And maybe we’re asking too much, with all this human history, to expect the unexpected when filling our nights with entertainment. But, dang it, that’s the attitude that allowed for nine Land Before Time sequels — they’ve practically caught up to present-day at this point!

You’ve heard the cynics and depressed connoisseurs talk about blockbusters and their “brand appeal,” which basically means every movie contract details contingency plans in case anyone gets the bright idea to make Wedding Crashers 2: Motorboatin’. Many of these films make it to the big screens, like the Harry Potter and Austin Powers series, or 2005’s Elektra to 2003’s Daredevil.

And then there are the runts of the sequel family. They’re the films that look up to the successful older brother admiringly, or maybe with just a bit too much emulation. No one expects much from them, other to coast on the family name and to try and not hit on an underage cousin at the family Mother’s Day party. Heck, even that might not be so frowned upon, so long as it brings money to the family.

A rash of these odd sequels gives credence to the idea these cheapie titles make money at the fringes of the major film business. And, as you’ll see, profits such as these make the opportunist smile and the optimist teeter on the verge of a weeklong bender.

American Pie: Band Camp (2006) — The fourth installment of the American Pie saga opens with a crappy cover of James’ “Laid.” Given that the original film used the original song in its trailer, it’s a self-reflexive cue for any fans of the original to lower their expectations. When the fifth American Pie (American Pie: That Monkey the Blink 182 Guys Hung Out With) opens with an elevator Muzak version of the song, you’ll know they’ve found new depths to this barrel.

This film fits into the Pie mythology by featuring the younger brother of Stifler (Tad Hilgenbrink). He hopes to follow in his unseen brother’s Girls Gone Wild-type directing success, all the while making the Cobra Kai kids from Karate Kid look sympathetic by comparison. A prank gone wrong sends him to band camp as punishment, “paying off” jokes from 1999.

The first film shouldn’t be sullied by all these sequels, even if Eugene Levy stops by here for a paycheck. Embarrassing pratfalls by likable characters eventually turned into Stifler riffing in the following two movies. This sequel tries to have it all sorts of ways – having its main character act jerky AND have him get his embarrassing comeuppance AND redeem himself in the presence of the world’s most forgiving high school girl AND disavow his Stifler-ness. And, if this just so happens to involve hidden cameras in showers, well … it’s all part of a jerk’s journey, I guess. The attempts at humor, warmth, outrageousness and sexiness all fail. Grade: D-plus

8MM 2 (2005) — The major problem with 1999’s 8MM was that watching a family man (Nic Cage) descend into the world of illegal pornography depicted such depressing filth that viewers needed to take a shower equal to the movie’s length afterwards. And no one has four hours to spend on a middling movie that makes you yearn for the days when holding hands represented your goal with the opposite sex.

And so, borrowing a page from the Cruel Intentions 2 playbook, 8MM 2 jettisons the stars, increases the skin quotient and bats at thematic strings like a shadowboxing cat. Actually, according to some Internet Movie Database information, the film’s working title didn’t even mention an 8MM connection — they just tacked on the name for better filming through branding.

David (Johnathon Schaech) and his well-to-do fiance find their stay at a foreign hot spot resulting in a romantic entanglement more French than Hungarian. But the three-way somehow ends up caught on film and conveniently e-mailed in segments for proper blackmail. The rest of the movie seems to depict the diplomat’s efforts to avoid a “Gary Hart situation” for his fledgling political career. This allows the film to delve into a somewhat sedate Hungarian underground community, at least compared to dealing with someone looking like James Gandolfini in the original. All the lighting and plotting resemble something akin to Cinemax’s finest Friday night programming, but on a higher budget. And while the fianc» comes to grips with almost enjoying this trip into the supposed gutter, the film’s absurd twist ending almost makes sense. Grade: C

Wild Things 2 (2004) — Spending money renting this film just means you’re paying for the privilege of someone spitting in your face. It’s a sequel that relates to the original like an American Idol contestant warbling an off-key rendition of “Respect” relates to Aretha Franklin’s version: it tries to emulate all the significant features with none of the talent.

And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it added more spice to its south Florida brew. But, no. For some reason, the sequel demands even the film’s behind-the-camera situation carry over for the “2.” One of the actresses obviously uses a body double, almost as an homage to Neve Campbell’s refusal to act sans top, during a tired recreation of the original’s steamy sex scene. For a low-budget movie whose main horndog audience will recognize such shenanigans, it just doesn’t make sense. Like using Chinese actresses in Memoirs of a Geisha or something. Wait …

The film also inducts another member of the “Midlife Crisis in High School All-Stars.” Leila Arcieri plays the bad influence schemer patrolling the school halls at the ripe age of 31. And people say there aren’t any roles for older actresses. Grade: D-minus

Wild Things Diamonds in the Rough (2005) — And while you’re wiping away the spit from your eyes, the third movie in the Wild Things trilogy kicks you in a very uncomfortable spot, steals your movie rental money and then makes fun of your mom for raising a kid with hope for such a movie. It’s greatest hits time: old girls supposedly in high school, a conveniently lurid “school” activity for the Florida Everglades region (this time, a diving team), a “shocking” sex scene that uses a body double and plenty of double crosses. The staid screenplay features more mold than a forgotten sandwich left in the Florida humidity. A detective connects the second and third installments, but you’ll be forgiven if you don’t exactly remember. He’s stuck in his own version of Groundhog Day, where pouty girls seek an inheritance, turn on their lovers/friends and seek the same perfect crime. The only greater crime might be greenlighting Wild Things 4. Grade: D

Editor’s note: This feature originally was published Jan. 27, 2006 and was co-written with Josh Albrecht. Sadly, it was the feature’s final installment, which started after talking about all the weird stuff found in Entertainment Weekly’s final box office tally for the year before. We’ve since had to find different ways to come to grips with Kenan Thompson’s career.

I’d like to thank the HGDCPA
{Take ONE hands out its annual Toscars

Last February, Take ONE introduced its first-ever Toscar awards. With this time of year being a hotbed of awards show activity, Take ONE couldn’t resist to hand out these unofficial and very suspect awards again. The Take ONE staff makes up the Hollywood Greater DeKalb County Press Association and will take into account film and television with a list of zany, if not prophetic, categories. So, without further ado …

The Surely You Jest Award: The movie Stealth brought in $76.9 million.
“How Does He Have a Career?” Award: Kenan Thompson repeats in this category as he is still on Saturday Night Live.
The Jamie Foxx Award (awarded to the person that the media demands an award be given to): George Clooney
Most Underrated Film: Because of Winn-Dixie
Most Overrated Film: Fantastic Four
Television’s Most Wicked Cool Character: Jack Bauer of 24
The O.D. on Peeps Award for Too Much of a Good Thing: To The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers, for featuring unrated DVD cuts that drag on interminably like they were the LOTR: Return of the King of comedy. Even if it adds an extra boob or two, an extra 10-plus minutes just isn’t worth it for the otherwise-hilarious comedies. Let that content stay in the deleted scenes — where it belongs.
The Fanboys, Know Your Roles and Whine About It On the Internet Award: To Herbie: Fully Loaded, which earned about $144 million featuring a pre-deflation Lindsay Lohan. It more than tripled the total box office of fellow brand-extension but critical darling Serenity ($38 million).
Most Viable Form of Title Punctuation Award: To the hypen (Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Monster-in-Law), which beat out strong competition by the colon (Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story) and the ampersand (Kicking & Screaming, Wallace & Gromit).

Editor’s note: This review originally was published Aug. 2, 2005.

In a film and time ravaged by the ugly, hopeless trench warfare of World War I France, the strongest character in A Very Long Engagement might be the polio-stricken girl who defends her hope of a love not dead from nonbelievers … and herself.

Adapter and director Jeanne-Pierre Jeunet creates a film (French in English subtitles) that manages to both capture war and whimsy with an omniscient hopscotch flair for storytelling. The director reteams with Amelie star Audrey Tautou to tell the story of a young woman who refuses to believe her fianc» died in a trench battle’s “no man’s land.” Through letters, calls, arrogant private investigators and happenstance, both Mathilde and the audience piece together the events: Five soldiers are condemned on suspicion of self-mutilation, in suspected attempts to escape the war with hand injuries. Instead of a firing squad, they must cut through the barbed wire and dodge machine gun fire, grenades and airplane attacks in a fateful struggle for life.

The wartime scenes reek of a fatalistic stench, and the director balances this with the interesting backstories of the fellow condemned and those who survived them. A hooker-vigilante deals with her lover’s death in ways more unique than any Scream sequel and Jodie Foster even appears as a woman who stands between two friends.

With the Mathilde character’s strength, the balance carries through, a true example of life’s comedy and drama coming together in all its interesting ways.

Grade – A