Nothing I've seen over the past week or so rates as chaff -- which is a blessing in itself. The films below, which may not have made my "wheat" list, are still worth a watch for various reasons.
Receiving two-to-one negative
reviews, WAR. INC. turns out to be better than you might expect but not enough so to qualify as "good." What it does right is to take many of the particulars of our Iraq war and turn them into fodder for a satire on the uses of war via a new middle east endeavor. As the similarities build, often via funny/nasty juxtapositions, you'll be entertained and jogged, but after awhile, the heavy plot coincidences grow a bit too much. The cast --Cusack(s), Tomei, Kingsley, Ackroyd and Hilary Duff -- is excellent and well-used, and certain scenes (the kidnapping/video-ing of a reporter) recall recent history in a most troubling manner. But the movie outstays its welcome, even though, right up through the finale, it is filled with off-and-on-the-mark satire, jolts and laughs.
Colin Hanks is so very real as a pasty-faced, slightly flabby but very smart stalker that this alone makes viewing Eric Nicholas' ALONE WITH HER worthwhile. The story, too (how easy it is to legally obtain all the equipment you might need for a good "stalk"!) is timely and necessary. And for at least half the 78-minute running time, events and characters are so well wrought that you'll be hooked. Then melodrama sets in, and with it some over-the-top plotting. Still, the movie has the courage of its convictions, and that's worth something these days.
Since no one yet has been able to solve the Israel-Palestine problem, why would we imagine that Adam Sandler could manage it? That he adds some ideas and laughs to the situation will be welcomed by some. In YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN, Sandler still insists on repeating his jokes far too often, and around half of them don't work. But when they do, it's bracing. And yes, the guy is learning to act and play characters (Spanglish, it seems, was no fluke).
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The time and place -- Egypt in the late 1950s -- is captured to perfection in OSS 117: CAIRO NEST OF SPIES and lead actor Jean Dujardin manages to be sexy, dumb, funny and sophisticated (not an easy combo for most guys). But the timing is often off, and there's a lot of repetition (the lights in the chicken house, the men frolicking on the beach), so by the end, this one is pretty much a 50-50 proposition.
Laura Dunn's documentary THE UNFORESEEN is poetic, and this alone makes it stand out from the crowd. Its subject, too -- the selling (and selling out) out of a particular area of Austin, Texas, to developers is (or was) timely. And while Dunn makes her points and generally holds our interest, she distends her story too far. I appreciate that she gives what seems like more than equal time to her developer, however. He sure can't claim liberal media bias with this one.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young will have a place in the hearts of my generation till we're gone, I suspect. And so Neil Young's film of the group's reunion tour, CSNY DÉJÀ VU, can hardly miss with us seniors. I'd love to know how younger crowds look at it, however. We get some clues during the movie itself, as Young interviews some youngsters, some of whom are not positive. He also gives naysayers their due in the negative quotes from reviewers of the tour from around the country. If there is nothing much new here (except a few songs and the younger generation), there is little that's boring, either.
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