Breakfast on Pluto
REVIEWED 01/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Feeling like a low-budget attempt at slightly remaking 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' (1947) inspired by Pedro Almodovar's 'Bad Education' (2004), set during the turbulent times of Ireland's "Troubles" in the 1970's, Cillian Murphy stars here as affectedly eccentric Transvestite Patrick "Kitten" Braden in search of his long-estranged mother - said to be 'South Pacific' (1958) actress Mitzi Gaynor's look alike - who he never knew but believes still lives in London.

'Breakfast on Pluto' is actually based on acclaimed writer Pat McCabe's 1998 novel about gender bending Gay orphan Patrick "Pussy" Braden, and screenwriter/director Neil Jordan seems to take pure delight in giving Murphy free rein to dabble with his rather wimpy character throughout. Unfortunately, this hundred and twenty-nine minute cinematic experiment in designer wardrobe changes and vague references to that era does tend to self-indulgently meander more often than not, and never quite gives the impression that it's really about anything too compelling or memorable. The entire IRA sub plot involving Patrick's friends and his subsequent detention are mere contrivances that only serve to give him something to react to whenever the actual story fizzles out again. That happens often. It's also not particularly insightful - except at reintroducing a paying audience to Glam Rock and to Britain's Wombles craze as fun detours - and Jordan's take on the story feels completely unsure of itself as a serious examination of this emotionally fragile man determined to block out the harsh realities of life with his own flaky imagination. Sure, the very few scenes where you're plunged into Braden's fantasy world are wonderfully humourous - especially when Murphy dons an Emma Peel-like body suit and saves the world from terrorists with the spritz of a perfume bottle - but, 'Breakfast on Pluto' doesn't consistently go far enough in any of the directions lazily touched upon here. As though the real star of the movie didn't show up, and this mildly interesting supporting character was quickly given the spotlight so that the film grants could be used up. As though the emasculated lilting and superficial body language are enough to keep you more than slightly amused for almost two hours. They're not. It's all done at arm's length, as a substanceless Peep Show curiosity. Maybe that's all there actually was to that culture within a culture at that time and in that place, but I doubt it was this trite or boring. Unless you're a huge Cillian Murphy fan or can't get enough of Irish Cinema, you're probably better off giving this one a pass and just reading the book.

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Beowulf & Grendel
REVIEWED 03/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

The beautifully rugged Icelandic terrain as captured by cinematographer Jan Kiesser's lens is the star attraction in this woefully meandering, fairly low budget and dubiously cobbled big screen adaptation of one of history's oldest, anonymously written and originally untitled Old English poems that was reportedly championed by Hobbit creator J.R.R. Tolkien's (1892-1973) ground breaking 1936 lecture, where legendary Swedish military hero Beowulf of Geatland (Gerard Butler; 'Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life' (2003), 'The Phantom of the Opera' (2004)) brings twelve of his bravest fighting men to save tormented Danish King Hrothgar's (Stellan Skarsgård; 'Ronin' (1998), 'Exorcist: The Beginning' (2004)) tiny, ramshackle outpost of terrified villagers from a murderous Troll named Grendel (Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson; 'Englar alheimsins' (2000), 'K-19: The Widowmaker' (2002)).

Not to be confused with the similarly titled, Robert Zemeckis animated film co-starring Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich that's due out next year, 'Beowulf & Grendel' is an over-all great looking movie, but desperately lacks any consistently compelling primary story line to keep a paying audience motivated to care about what happens to any of these mediaeval characters. Director Sturla Gunnarsson ('Rare Birds' (2001)) seems to be completely out of his depths in attempting to wrangle this crew of international talent - that also most notably includes Tony Curran ('Blade II' (2002), 'Underworld: Evolution' (2006)) as Beowulf's nightmare tormented right hand man Hondscioh, Eddie Marsan ('Gangs of New York' (2002), 'Vera Drake' (2004)) playing spittle worded Irish missionary Fr. Brendan, and Toronto's Sarah Polley ('The Sweet Hereafter' (1997), 'Dawn of the Dead' (2004)) portraying the village's wary, nubile witch Selma - and apparently ends up sitting back and letting each actor flail around in their own self-indulgent juices 'til the long over due closing credits bring sweet release. I actually blame writer Andrew Rai Berzins' screenplay for making this hundred and three-minute potential crowd pleaser such an aggravatingly amateurish cinematic sleeping pill, because so many obvious opportunities to creatively embellish the main plot while remaining true to the original poem are clearly ignored. For instance, most of the action takes place at Hrothgar's giant wooden longhouse-like Heorot, and yet you barely see any mature woodlands anywhere throughout this flick that might have supplied these folk with the timber to build such an impressive structure, as well as would have given this feature some much needed establishing scenes where you'd get to see that this remote community actually deserves to be rescued. They're just parachuted in caricatures, having picked up the Heorot kit at IKEA along the way, I guess. Even the opening shot is confusing, because it's taken for granted that psychic pills are handed out at the theatre's snack bar beforehand. You can't go by any familiarity to the original material, either. This isn't a faithful adaptation of the thousand year-old Anglo-Saxon fable, and actually cuts it short. Sure, Butler and Skarsgård do manage to invest enough natural screen presence in their roles to keep their depictions of these arguably fictional figures interesting, but there's no real background or tangible evidence of them really being in the moment that's consciously afforded by Berzins' flaccid script to help you stay tuned in or impressed by this treacherous world of lore and mythic creatures. 'Beowulf & Grendel' starts off as a weirdly foggy tale of monster huntin' knight-like valour, that suddenly becomes a mild, unfunny homage to 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' (1975) at times, before falling apart as a vague detective story that heavily relies on Polley's dreadfully bland performance as coy interpreter while Beowulf switches gears trying to figure out what's motivating gibberish bellowing Grendel to only kill Danes. Sadly, you've known all along and, by then, don't really care anymore. I'm not suggesting that more attention should have been given to humanizing Sigurðsson's teeth gnashing troll - he's extremely good by comparison to most of his co-stars here, deftly captivating your attention through subtle nuances that nicely balance out this big hairy monster's bloody rage - but, there are far too many flat scenes paired with an overabundance of unimaginative artistic license taken for this big screen turkey to be worth the price of admission. And, that's a real shame. This impressively photographed yet forgettable waste of celluloid might even have been an acceptable enough escape for older kids if it wasn't overly bloated with F-bombs and sexually explicit dialogue, so you're likely better off relying on your own imagination while reading the translation of the original poem that can be found through the Project Gutenberg website at www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/bwulf11h.htm.

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Basic Instinct 2
REVIEWED 04/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

The suspicious Thames River death of British soccer star Kevin Franks (debuting, controversial ex-Liverpool player Stan Collymore) returns his lover, notoriously manipulative American crime novelist Catherine "Woolfe" Tramell (Sharon Stone; 'Casino' (1995), 'Catwoman' (2004)), to a fog of scrutiny from law enforcement and then from painfully weak-minded Crown appointed forensic psychologist Dr. Michael Glass (David Morrissey; 'Being Human' (1993), 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' (2001)) in this aggravatingly bland cinematic chalk outline of Stone's misfired starring return to the box office from director Michael Caton-Jones ('Rob Roy' (1995), 'City by the Sea' (2002)).

The overwhelming flaw with this disastrously boring hundred and fourteen-minute sequel is that none of the characters presented are particularly captivating or remotely as intriguing as any of the actors playing them seem to think they are. Sure, 'Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction' (reportedly its complete working title) relentlessly tries to titillate a paying audience with brief scenes of dubiously simulated soft porn and vague references to its far more memorable predecessor, 'Basic Instinct' (1992), but it seems as though you're supposed to enjoy this effort based solely on the merits of the first flick and on how kind time and such has been to its admittedly gorgeous looking middle aged star. Certainly not due to the acting, which is abysmal to the point of turning this potentially fascinating psychological thriller into little more than a big screen catwalk for Stone's numerous costume changes. Everything else is just a collective experiment in how many different emotions can be depicted by blank stares. Morrissey's performance is completely flat and wasteful, failing to convince you that Glass is capable of doing his job to begin with, let alone giving you any reason to believe that he's intellectually deft enough to rub a clump of working brain cells together opposite Tramell's supposedly well honed, murderous web of seduction. Admittedly, fourteen years older Tramell isn't really portrayed as being the sharpest knife in the drawer anymore in this curiously reprised role either, but she's barely given any sort of challenge that might otherwise compel you to take notice and want to follow along. No attempt is made to thoughtfully examine the inner workings of this predatory sociopath, for instance. Brit actor David Thewlis ('The Island of Dr. Moreau' (1996), 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' (2004)) is pretty well the only cast member who obviously works hard at fleshing out his part, playing London's Detective Inspector Roy Washburn here, but he isn't really given much recognizable sleuthing to do and seems to exist simply to make you feel as though you're watching a worthwhile whodunit. You're not. You already know whodunit, anyway. Sadly, 'Basic Instinct 2' is surprisingly amateurish as a whole, also thanks in large part to writers Leora Barish and Henry Bean's unimaginatively monochromatic, single note screenplay, which needlessly drags on in a futile attempt to entertain you with dull wit and meaningless dialogue that heavily relies on unsubstantial screen presence while you wade through the boring gratuitous nudity and decidedly blue language for the tired plot twist to eventually materialize. Yawn. Warm up the nomination vote list for worst picture of 2006, because this one's unfortunately a ripe contender.

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The Benchwarmers
REVIEWED 04/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Mildly lovable suburban Californian losers Clark (Jon Heder; 'Napoleon Dynamite' (2004), 'Just Like Heaven' (2005)) the simpleton newspaper delivery guy and Ritchie (David Spade; 'Tommy Boy' (1995), 'Grandma's Boy' (2006)) the dorky Video Spot clerk take on the challenge of playing against every notoriously mean team of kids in the county along with their curiously adept landscapist pal Gus (Rob Schneider; 'Judge Dredd' (1995), 'Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo' (2005)), when multi-billionaire kid at heart Mel Schmegmer (Jon Lovitz; 'A League of Their Own' (1992), 'The Stepford Wives' (2004)) organizes the Championship For Little Baseballers And Three Older Guys as a way of inspiring prepubescent outcasts and teenaged nerds across the land, in this fairly unimpressively presented comedy from director Dennis Dugan ('Problem Child' (1990), 'National Security' (2003)).

I actually went in with high hopes for this eighty-minute flick, but that feeling soon faded when it became clear that 'The Benchwarmers' is basically 'Bad News Bears' (2005) meets 'Revenge of the Nerds' (1984) bloated with far more monotonously boring toilet humour punch lines than those two predecessors combined. It's also one of the few short feature films screened in a while that's actually felt like it went on forever, relentlessly dragging you through this mire of bad acting and lame dialogue. Sure, Heder is definitely given the majority of actual laughs - however vague - but, it's the same punch line repeated indefinitely and he's essentially playing a slightly more sociable Napoleon Dynamite for the most part, just as pretty well all of this feature's primary adult cast equally and lazily rehash old familiar territory for their sadly uninspired roles. It's a real shame that there really isn't anything new offered here, because co-writers Allen Covert and Nick Swardson's screenplay is actually chock full of obvious potential. It's great when the story suddenly veers sideways, when Gus' well-guarded secret is revealed two-thirds of the way through. Also keep an eye out for Swardson's wonderfully bizarre scene stealing moments as Ritchie's eerily pale agoraphobic brother Howie. However, not a whole lot is done with any of the traces of cleverness that do peek out from under the farting and vomiting and spitting and nipple pinching juvenile indulgences that proliferate this overly dull mess. 'The Benchwarmers' is a kids' movie that features a large number of child actors throughout, and yet wants to appeal to an older crowd by having these twelve year-olds rattle off coarse language and do gross things because somebody with cash to burn seems to think that anyone old enough to actually see this flick will think that's funny. If you agree, just hang out at the mall for free instead. Yes, there are a couple of irreverent scenes here that do push boundaries in enough of the right direction to be laugh-out-loud hilarious, but they're brief and easily forgettable by the time the closing credits roll after this picture's aggravatingly flat ending. It's the over-all story that suffers in the final cut, and since most of the jokes and sight gags fail miserably, all that a paying audience is really left with is sitting through a particularly uneventful baseball movie filled with hollow characters all vying for the camera's attention with little or nothing to make them seem interesting. Again, go to the mall instead. Full of opportunities horribly snatched from the jaws of victory at almost every turn, 'The Benchwarmers' could have easily been a hugely entertaining flick that ends up becoming a tritely contrived waste of celluloid.

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Brick
REVIEWED 05/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

San Clemente High School student Emily (Emilie de Ravin) was a very beautiful, very naive, and very young blonde in danger, and now - like a gold fish nailed to Old MacDonald's barn door - she is very, very dead, and ex-boyfriend Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt; 'Halloween H20: 20 Years Later' (1998), 'Mysterious Skin' (2004)) risks all with only a handful of hazy clues recalled from her earlier, nervous phone call to help him solve her murder that's somehow linked to the gang of a shadowy, club-footed local drug supplier named The Pin (Lukas Haas; 'Mars Attacks!' (1996), 'Last Days' (2005)), in this relentlessly esoteric yet wonderfully fascinating contemporary Film Noir from writer/debuting feature director Rian Johnson.

Clearly inspired by early Copola, Lynch and Tarantino, volumes from Pulp writer Raymond Chandler saturate this hundred and nine-minute, 2005 low key high school whodunit. Gordon-Levitt pulls in a superbly offbeat performance throughout, as a troubled outsider and amateur teenaged sleuth with suspicious connections to those in various circles, including femme fatale princess Laura (Nora Zehetner), Drama Class diva Kara (Meagan Good; 'Biker Boyz' (2003), 'Roll Bounce' (2005)), and their police detective-like Assistant Vice Principal Trueman (Richard Roundtree). 'Brick' is also a cinephile's delight in how Johnson and cinematographer Steve Yedlin experiment with oftentimes fresh camera angles in order to present this moody flick with an onslaught of visually intriguing scenes. However, it's also burdened and deflated by its weaknesses. Most notably, the dialogue, which tries too hard to pay homage to the cheesy quipish nature of its big screen Classic Crime predecessors and merely ends up making these otherwise compelling characters suddenly chirp out mouthfuls of silly, weird urban jive that's laced with ridiculously corny asides. "I'll have one eye tied watching both your arms," and, "You've been sniffing me out, like a vampire bat looking for a horse with a nicked ear," are just a couple of examples of what I mean. The dialogue doesn't ring true from these kids, almost making this picture seem like it actually wants to be taken as a dead pan, somewhat more brutal retooling of the Jodie Foster/Scott Baio children-as-gangsters flop 'Bugsy Malone' (1976) at times. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the underlying machinery of this one click along at a strong pace, and the clever juxtapositioning of genres and worlds irreverently played around with - such as when Brendan faces The Pin on his turf like something out of 'The Maltese Falcon' (1941) running parallel to The Pin's June Cleaver-like mother serving them cookies, Corn Flakes and homestyle apple juice as though these teens are going to watch cartoons later - are incredibly fun. I suspect that 'Brick' will likely appeal to young adults as a potential cult favourite, and it has the makings of possibly being cited down the road for inspiring a new breed of moviemakers in the same way that 'Clerks' and 'Pulp Fiction' are now, but more as a curious appetizer to its Silver Screen smorgasbord that's spiced in the spirit of newer independent film. Definitely check it out if you're a camera buff or a Film Noir fan, but don't be surprised if you find yourself simultaneously wincing and scratching your head at some of the tritely cheesy and convoluted dialogue.

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The Break-Up
REVIEWED 06/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Fed up with being taken for granted by her somewhat lovably narcissistic Chicago tour guide boyfriend Gary Grobowski (Vince Vaughn; 'Made' (2001), 'Wedding Crashers' (2005)), local Art gallery seller Brooke Meyers (Jennifer Aniston; 'Along Came Polly' (2004), 'Rumor Has It...' (2005)) suddenly breaks up with him in a fit of frustration in this wonderfully insightful drama from director Peyton Reed ('Bring It On' (2000), 'Down with Love' (2003)), where Brooke then deviously attempts to force Gary to change his selfish ways or lose her completely, while they're stuck sharing the same condo apartment.

This one really is an impressive film about two people wrestling with their painfully crumbling relationship, once you get over the fact that it's been erroneously advertised as being a riotous comedy. 'The Break-Up' does feature some truly hilarious moments throughout - some of which have been retooled for the ads - but, Vaughn and Aniston both most notably pull in outstanding dramatic performances here. In some ways, this one does enjoy a decidedly different type of comedy that's more European in nature, by being bereft of American-style slap stick and tossing knowing winks to the camera. It's a refreshing surprise, considering that I'd honestly expected to end up sitting through an alternatively fluffy, nonsensical popcorn flick of pedantic dialogue and familiar punch lines all capped off with a cheesy feel good ending. What a paying audience gets instead is an incredibly clever screenplay from co-writers Jeremy Garelick and Jay Lavender that unflinchingly pushes these characters into a series of deeply believable, emotionally charged no holds barred arguments that relentlessly flare up at the most inconvenient times and that result in even more damage being done than this couple intended to inflict. They each know what they mean to say, but can't properly articulate themselves and become defensive and snarky. At the same time, this kind of rarely seen full body acting deftly punctuates every wounding barb with a dash of regret in their gestures. Awesome. Even when Brooke realizes how horribly doomed she's made things, all of her subsequent passive aggressive attempts to manipulate Gary backfire - as they should - because he's still traumatized and silently grieving over their prolonged split. Their egos get in the way, making it delightfully humourous from the safety of your theatre seat. Sure, 'The Break-Up' likely cuts too uncomfortably close to the marrow at times for some moviegoers, but I thoroughly enjoyed just how smart and observant this hundred and seven-minute picture is from beginning to closing credits. It doesn't wimp out with a trite fix whenever what happens in the story goes from bad to worse, remaining truthful to these roles. However, the serious stuff is carefully well balanced by several irreverently funny supporting characters here, from Gary's inept womanizer brother Lupus (Cole Hauser; 'The Cave' (2005), 'Paparazzi' (2004)) and their socially crippled eldest sibling Dennis (Vincent D'Onofrio; 'The Cell' (2000), 'Thumbsucker' (2005)), to Gary's uselessly supportive best friend Johnny (Jon Favreau; 'Daredevil' (2003), 'Wimbledon' (2004)) and Brooke's rather gleeful brother Richard (John Michael Higgins; 'A Mighty Wind' (2003), 'Fun with Dick and Jane' (2005)). Some of their scenes are absolutely priceless. The more I reflect on it, the more this actually is an absolutely incredible cinematic achievement from Hollywood. Rent this one expecting to ride a wild roller coaster of laughs and you'll likely be disappointed, but see it as the exceptionally insightful drama spiced with brief bouts of goofiness that it is and 'The Break-Up' is definitely well worth checking out.

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Barnyard
REVIEWED 08/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

When incorrigible goof off and party animal Otis the Cow (voiced by Kevin James; 'Hitch' (2005)) is put in charge of overseeing the safety of his farm's secretly human-like menagerie of barnyard friends, he quickly realizes that him paying any attention to at least one helpful tip that his larger than life adopted father Ben (Sam Elliott; 'Road House' (1989), 'Thank You for Smoking' (2005)) has tried to teach him about leadership might come in handy, in writer/director Steve Oedekerk's ('Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls' (1995), 'Kung Pow: Enter the Fist' (2002)) wonderfully original yet slightly distracting computer animated family adventure that also has Otis awkwardly charming newly arrived heifer Daisy (Courteney Cox; 'Cocoon: The Return' (1988), 'November' (2004)) while contending with Dag (David Koechner; 'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy' (2004), 'The Dukes of Hazzard' (2005)), the malevolent leader of the dangerously hungry pack of coyotes that threaten to invade.

I had a pretty good time with this surprisingly clever ninety-minute big screen cartoon over-all, despite some of the animation feeling a little clunky at times. All of these characters being anthropomorphized - but, according to the rules stoically enforced by Ben, are only allowed to talk and act like people when no actual people are present - makes perfect sense within the context of this story, and is humourously played up for all it's worth throughout this delightfully fun morality picture. Oedekerk's screenplay truly is an original effort, capably balancing its oftentimes bizarre barnyard shenanigans with thoughtful dramatic moments from start to finish. Good stuff. That's where 'Barnyard: The Original Party Animals' (its complete title) makes its mark as a thoroughly enjoyable feature - that's somewhat along the same lines as 'Home on the Range' (2005), with shades of the extreme sports seen in 'Hoodwinked' (2005) peeking through - for school aged children and kids at heart to easily tap into. It's definitely intended for families, but there are a couple of perilous scenes that might be too intense for sensitive toddlers. However, there are also a few aspects that seem unnecessarily weird here. For instance, why does Otis and all of the male cows have udders? Of course, applying logical realism to bulls that stand upright, can strum a guitar and drive a car is clearly an exercise in futility, but them having udders while the female cows don't is unavoidably strange and tough to ignore without questioning. It's also strange that the hoodlum-sounding Jersey Cows, Otis' hoofed partners in crime at one point, have visible patterned tattoos on their "arms" when it's never explained how they might have acquired them. Additionally, the coyotes seem disproportionately large, for coyotes. Admittedly, these are minor quibbles if you're just looking to be entertained by a riotous popcorn flick that has heart. The script including simple reasons for those and a few other similar novelties and oddities probably would have fleshed out these characters a bit more, though. That said, 'Barnyard' remains on course with fresh ideas, and notably clips along at an impressive pace towards its satisfying ending for the most part. Rent this one for the consistent laughs and its fun adventure, as a slightly weird yet worthwhile contemporary story with a moral to it.

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Bon Cop, Bad Cop
REVIEWED 08/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

The first in a series of gruesome and puzzling murders targeting major movers and shakers in the increasingly Southbound Canadian Hockey League brings together prim Toronto police investigator Martin Ward (Colm Feore; 'The Wrong Guy' (1997), 'The Chronicles of Riddick' (2004)) and diametrically opposite Montréal macho cop detective David Bouchard (Patrick Huard; 'Les Boys III' (2001), 'Maman Last Call' (2005)) as unlikely partners given the task of solving those crimes before a shadowy figure calling himself The Tattoo Killer strikes again and leaves another clue who his next victim might be, in this surprisingly vulgar and vaguely entertaining bilingual curiosity from Québéc based director Eric Canuel ('Nez rouge' (2003), 'Le dernier tunnel' (2004)), that becomes more personal for this odd couple when them getting too close results in Ward's house being broken into and then Bouchard's young daughter is kidnapped.

Sadly, it's as though screenwriter Kevin Tierney simply rented every odd couple cop comedy released since 'Running Scared' (1986) or 'Red Heat' (1988) before cranking out the script for this rather stupefying big screen shambles. Almost none of what comprises the sum total of 'Bon Cop, Bad Cop' is either original or worth the price of admission. It's been touted as Canada's first bilingual police dramatic comedy, as though nobody has ever seen a movie featuring more than one language spoken in it before, that will somehow inspire hordes of moviegoers to swarm theatres from sea to sea to sea to see it based solely on this arguably revolutionary concept, with no other reason needed. Is it a good story? Story shmory, it's super cool because they speak French and English in it, man. It's the dawn of a new era of movie making. Shine up the awards. Is the acting any good? Feh, acting. Two languages, in one - count 'em - one movie. Sheer genius. The Québéc version has French subtitles for the English bits and, get this, the version playing in the rest of Canada has English subtitles for the French in it. It's absolutely mind blowing. Bring fistfuls of cash and pass out from the euphoria as you ride the wave of delirious national pride, I guess. yawn. This hundred and six minute miserable snooze fest of poor performances and regurgitated punch lines is fairly embarrassing if it's supposed to represent the best that this country has to offer a paying audience of any stripe in this day and age. For one thing, the blatant racism that relentlessly slaps you in the face in lieu of actual comedy is excruciating to sit through, and lends absolutely nothing to defining any of these lazily cobbled caricatures as likable or interesting. It basically exists in order to perpetuate - not send up - an unnecessary clash of cultures that was already boring decades ago, instead of anyone connected with this waste of celluloid bothering to rub at least a couple of brain cells together before the cameras rolled. Calling someone a "square head" and citing the Plains of Abraham? Come on. Sure, cinematographer Bruce Chun definitely manages to punch up several of the action scenes throughout, but a lot of them don't really make a whole lot of sense. For instance, you're shown a chain smoker running fast enough to catch up to and jump onto the roof of an escaping car, without him passing out or having a heart attack in the process. It's also somewhat bizarre that there don't seem to be any police stations - or much of anything else except roads and forests - between Toronto and Montréal in this fictional, provincial cross border landscape (Psst, part of it was reportedly shot in Ottawa). Yes, there are some small laughs, but they're all fleeting and forgettable. The final show down, when you see who's behind those murders, is outrageously lame and anti-climactic. 'Bon Cop, Bad Cop' might have seemed like a funny enough investment of tax paid government grants on paper - I definitely applaud Telefilm's recent rule changes that finally support Canadian box office contenders, after a generation of it primarily funding experimentally artsy cinema that's rarely interested or reached a wider general audience - but, what transpires in the final cut here amounts to being little more than the disappointing beginnings of the cinematic chalk outline of a few otherwise potentially impressive film careers that got sucked in to this rather childishly spun miasma and mire. Egoyan and Arcand are safe, for now. Wait a couple of seconds and it'll likely be all over CBC TV's roster, but you're still better off steering clear of this disappointingly rancid turkey.

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Beerfest
REVIEWED 08/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

When Colorado's Schnitzengiggle Bar heirs Todd Wolfhouse (Erik Stolhanske; 'Super Troopers' (2001), 'Broken Lizard's Club Dread' (2004)) and younger brother Jan (Paul Soter; 'Super Troopers' (2001), 'Broken Lizard's Club Dread' (2004)) taking their beloved Grandfather's ashes to Munich to be spread on the family plot during Oktoberfest results in them being publicly humiliated at the hands of their smug German estranged relatives under rich brewery owner Baron Wolfgang von Wolfhausen (Jürgen Prochnow; 'Das Boot' (1981), 'The Da Vinci Code' (2006)) iron fist during a super secret international ultimate drinking competition called Beerfest, Todd and Jan round up and train their old college pitcher chuggin' buddies in order to represent America and regain their dignity by winning there the following year, in this relentlessly dull and hugely disappointing farce co-written/directed by Broken Lizard Comedy Skit Troupe member Jay Chandrasekhar ('Super Troopers' (2001), 'The Dukes of Hazzard' (2005)), but the malicious Baron is far more interested in reclaiming the family's recipe for the best beer in the world at any cost that's eventually revealed to be in the Wolfhouse Brothers' possession.

Sheesh. I suppose that if I or anyone else old enough to legally sit through an R-rated film playing at the movie theatre these days had never actually seen any reasonably satisfying comedies that have ever been made throughout the entire history of American Cinema and Television, a paying audience might find 'Beerfest' to be consistently humourous at times. But, that's not a plausible reality. We've all seen at least one comedy. After sitting through this feature, a person who has only ever seen one funny movie before watching Chandrasekhar's latest effort here would feel like they've still only ever seen one funny movie. Much like the untalented pariah might think that wearing a lamp shade as a hat in a room full of sober people is hilarious, 'Beerfest' desperately tries to be funny in a hokey manner from beginning to closing credits. It doesn't work. Apart from a couple of brief chuckle making scenes that seem to materialize out of nowhere by accident, it's not a funny movie. It's not even a stupid funny movie rife with cheese, nor is it a lovably bad movie that's fun to laugh at as a guilty cinematic pleasure. This cast that also includes 'Club Dread' alumni Chandrasekhar and Kevin Heffernan, debuting Steve Lemme, Mo'Nique ('Baby Boy' (2001), 'Soul Plane' (2004)) and Cloris Leachman ('High Anxiety' (1977), 'Scary Movie 4' (2006)) obviously thinks that it's a funny movie that's fun to laugh at because they're all being overtly goofy and irreverent in an aggravatingly pandering "look at us being funny, we're being overtly goofy and irreverent" way, but 'Beerfest' is merely lame and time wasting and very, very sad. Sure, a paying audience can tell where all of the cues are for when the laughs are supposed to fill the theatre, but much of what resembles humour isn't convincing enough to make that happen. It's not so much that this hundred and twelve-minute coma inducing, sophomoric disaster of non-existent acting and gratuitous naked boobie shots is so outrageously awful because it borrows from and is inspired by a lot of clearly familiar material. It does and is, but most of the screenplay is surprisingly original in its main content and attempted primary punch lines throughout. This seems to be its core problem. The potential is there, but this crew fails to do much of anything perceptibly clever with it. Additionally, none of these tritely cobbled caricatures manage to be likable enough for you to care about what happens to them. How the borrowed ideas from the likes of 'Bachelor Party' (1984), 'Fight Club' (1999) and 'Eurotrip' (2004) among others are retooled here are mildly interesting, though. I like the concept of an ultra exclusive beer drinking event involving bizarre feats of athletic agility and insatiable thirst that's kept secret and exclusive upon threat of death, even if that does feel suspiciously like the basic premise for a familiar sudsy ad campaign aired during a past sporting championship on TV. The original stuff - that repeatedly and heavily relies on tepid shock value and Pantomime-like affectation - is painfully terrible. And, that's a real shame. Sorry to say it, but this review of this movie is a thousand times funnier than this movie is, and that's not a good thing.

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The Black Dahlia
REVIEWED 09/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

An impromptu stake out turned bloody shoot out at Holden Pet & Aquarium Supplies by veteran Los Angeles Police Department of Investigation Sergeant Leland "Lee" Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart; 'Paycheck' (2003), 'Thank You for Smoking' (2005)) and his rookie partner, Detective Officer Dwight "Bucky" Bleichert (Josh Hartnett; 'Pearl Harbor' (2001), 'Lucky Number Slevin' (2006)), quickly leads them to the horribly mutilated corpse of would be Hollywood starlet Elizabeth "Betty" Short (Toronto's Mia Kirshner; 'The Crow: City of Angels' (1996), 'Not Another Teen Movie' (2001)) laying a mere hundred yards nearby that the media would notoriously call The Black Dahlia Murder Case of January 14, 1947, in this oftentimes aggravatingly distracted and curiously regurgitative Noir Period whodunit from acclaimed director Brian De Palma ('Scarface' (1983), 'Snake Eyes' (1998)) that's based on writer James Ellroy's 1987 novel, in which Bleichert's attempts to follow up any leads soon finds him seduced by enigmatic socialite and Short's look alike Madeleine Linscott (Hilary Swank; 'Insomnia' (2002), 'Million Dollar Baby' (2004)), while Blanchard's increasing obsession with solving that gruesomely puzzling homicide above all else threatens to sabotage his convenient relationship with sultry girlfriend Kay Lake (Scarlett Johansson; 'Lost in Translation' (2003), 'Match Point' (2005)).

Quite frankly, the first half of this hundred and twenty-one minute movie seems to have absolutely nothing at all to do with the story that a paying audience is led to expect to see here. 'The Black Dahlia' starts out as an awkward buddy picture, overwhelmingly focusing on the amateur boxing lives of - and the growing camaraderie between - those two dapper California cops almost a year before Short's gashed and gutted body was found brutalized and cut in half at the edge of a city field. Writer Josh Friedman's screenplay seems determined to make you completely forget about the real Medford, Massachusetts-born Elizabeth "Betty" Short (1924-1947) - suggested here as being named The Black Dahlia by the Los Angeles Examiner, after the Oscar nominated thriller 'The Blue Dahlia' (1946) screen written by pulp novelist Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) - by filling the screen with essentially superfluous sub plots and titillating yet irrelevant character development, despite the fact that you've consciously bought a theatre ticket in order to see a film that has not only been hyped as being about The Black Dahlia Murder, but is also called 'The Black Dahlia'. Sitting through it is like going to a hockey game and being shown an Opera instead. Yeesh. It's really just a bloated ensemble character study that's vaguely pushed along by wisps of a potentially captivating yet entirely amateurish plot, as though someone figured this cast of talent was simply too good to be overshadowed by something as (I guess) insignificant as one of the most well known unsolved American homicides of the 20th Century. 'The Black Dahlia' fiendishly skirts the case as much as possible, while lazily telegraphing pretty well everything that you end up sitting through once Hartnett's character pulls his pants back on and suddenly remembers that there's a dead starlet's killer still on the loose in Tinseltown. Your attention is far too closely pointed at Madeleine's eccentric parents, for instance. Sure, a lot of this flick is definitely a rich feast for the eyes and an undoubtable thrill for bygone B-movie buffs. There are more than a few scenes that feel like they were purposely lifted from some best forgotten crime features of that era, making it little more than a star studded reenactment of Hollywood's less notable Silver Screen moments throughout - complete with cheesy, unbelievably stunted dialogue. And, it eventually does become clear that there's an entirely different story playing out in the background that you're only shown clues to. However, the construction of this film is so bizarre and self defeating that it doesn't take long for the screening to be laborious and relentlessly demanding. Perhaps De Palma simply didn't want to seem like he was remaking 'True Confessions' (1981), the gritty Di Niro/Duvall drama about The Black Dahlia Murder, but it's as though he wanted to revisit elements of 'Requiem for a Heavyweight' (1962) and 'Body Heat' (1981) set in the 1940's instead. It's also fairly outrageous that this movie solves the crime by a series of flukes, without really bothering to acknowledge too many facts about the actual investigation or the twenty people reportedly suspected at the time - or the arguably unimportant reality that it's never been solved. Hugely disappointing. As much as this latest version of 'The Black Dahlia' appears on the outside to look like an incredibly entertaining and satisfying thriller, it barely lives up to what's promised beyond the superficial and unfortunately is hardly worth the price of admission over-all.

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Borat
REVIEWED 11/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Sent from his small and overwhelmingly backward mountain village of Kozak by the Ministry of Culture to the "U.S. and A." on a fact finding mission to learn how his country can rid itself of its economic problems, its social problems, and its Jew problems, bigoted simpleton and Kazakhstan television reporter Borat Sagdiyev (Sacha Baron Cohen; 'Madagascar' (2005), 'Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby' (2006)) bids farewell to his hateful wife Oksana, his prostitute sister Natalia and his tiny wrinkled forty-three year-old mother, and begins shooting a documentary with renowned producer Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian; 'S.W.A.T.' (2003), 'A Man Apart' (2003)), in this unabashedly offensive and inconsistently humourous adult parody from director Larry Charles ('Masked and Anonymous' (2003)) that's adapted from Cohen's skit character seen in his popular TV series 'The Ali G. Show', where Borat's schedule of interviews in New York is suddenly sidelined after he obsessively watches several reruns of 'Bay Watch' in his hotel room and falls in love with Pamela Anderson's (as herself; 'Barb Wire' (1996), 'Scary Movie 3' (2003)) character from that show, quickly convincing Bagatov to take a doomed road trip across Virginia and Texas to California where "the real America" is, with the secret intentions of marrying an unwitting Anderson.

It would be extremely easy to simply write off this feature as being a piece of disappointingly bigoted and intellectually depraved nonsense. 'Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan' (its complete title) not only heavily relies on using shock value humour to demean the mentally disabled, women, and racial minorities, but it presents its fictitious star as a representative of an actual Eastern European country where you're shown that people live with their live stock, accept rape and anti-Semitism as normal, eat cheese made from human breast milk and are completely unfamiliar with modern hygiene. How the latter point couldn't be taken as blatant racism against foreigners is mind boggling. This isn't merely another fish out of water movie reminiscent of 'Moscow on the Hudson' (1984) or '"Crocodile" Dundee' (1986) or 'Bean' (1997), even though certain aspects of 'Borat' are similar. This eighty-five minute picture seems to be inspired by the likes of risque small screen programs such as 'All in the Family' and 'In Living Color', where it presents low brow ignorance personified for a paying audience to laugh at. The problem is, regardless of how obviously unbelievable most of the examples of Borat's and his comrades' lifestyle and opinions are here, this screenplay from Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer, and star and co-writer Cohen does unintentionally cast a defamatory shadow over the actual population of Kazakhstan - as well as perpetuates negative stereotypes against anyone who similarly speaks English with a noticeably thick Slavic accent - because Borat isn't singled out from his countrymen as being an abnormally misogynistic and socially inept individual. That's primarily what opens it up to justifiable ridicule as being a racist flick. However, even if you can get past that context in order to sit back and enjoy the comedy that results from Borat's exposure to North American culture, the actual laughs are unfortunately few and far between. Sure, when it's funny, it's absolutely over the top hilarious. It's not funny enough, though. I laughed four times. This movie simply regurgitates far too much bygone sophomoric and physical comedy and telegraphs way too many ultimately lame punch lines for it to feel like it deserves the hype afforded it. I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only moviegoer who has enjoyed watching skits featuring W.C. Fields, The Marx Brothers, Redd Foxx, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Robin Williams, Rodney Dangerfield, Andrew "Dice" Clay, and Sam Kinison, and yet 'Borat' seems to expect you to be completely oblivious regarding a lot of its laughs being obvious swipes from these and other famous comedians' work throughout the decades. Compared to the original material, much of what plays out here feels awkwardly forced and doesn't really add anything new, except for its brief bouts of lazily cobbled homo-erotic nudity that barely leave anything to the imagination. It also kept bugging me that it's never acknowledged that there's a cameraman following every move. What's more interesting are some of the Americans featured throughout who either gleefully seem to share Borat's ignorance (although, it's suspiciously unclear who are ringers reciting prepared dialogue or are bystanders playing it up for the camera) or who display what appear to be genuinely speechless reactions to his predictable idiocy. If you desperately need to believe the hype and follow the herd so that you know what everyone at the office water cooler is talking about, feel free to waste your time and money on this childishly vulgar and predominantly lame curiosity, but 'Borat' really isn't as consistently fresh nor as memorably hilarious for it to overcome its boring racist overtones as anything other than a second or third choice novelty at the video store.

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Babel
REVIEWED 11/06, © STEPHEN BOURNE
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REVIEW:

Three emotionally charged stories that somewhat revolve around the accidental shooting of American vacationer Susan (Cate Blanchett; 'Veronica Guerin' (2003), 'The Aviator' (2004)), while she's on a tour bus with her husband Richard (Brad Pitt; 'Thelma & Louise' (1991), 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' (2005)) and other sightseers traveling through a desolate and unforgiving patch of mountainous terrain ten miles outside of Tazarine, are the focus of director Alejandro González Iñárritu's ('Amores perros' (2000), '21 Grams' (2003)) intentionally non-linear yet unnecessarily baffling feature that seems to examine various forms of misinterpretation and the consequences of poor choices, where that incident is blown out of proportion by the world media as being an act of terrorism, while you watch trusted housekeeper Amelia (Adriana Barraza; 'La segunda noche' (1999), 'Amores perros' (2000)) opt to attend her son Louis' marriage in Mexico by bringing Susan's young children across the border without permission, see what happens to mischievous Arabian child Yussef (first timer Boubker Ait El Caid) and his older brother after their father gives them a newly bought Winchester rifle to protect their grazing goat herd from jackals, and are confused by learning about the seemingly disconnected and troubled life of deaf mute Tokyo teenager Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi; 'Cha no aji' (2004), 'Naisu no mori: The First Contact' (2005)).

I really had a tough time following this desperately meandering hundred and forty-two minute film from beginning to closing credits. Sure, it's obvious that Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga want to experiment with juxtaposing aspects of each story in order to create a heightened sense of disorientation for a paying audience. Unfortunately, the result is that 'Babel' quickly sinks into becoming little more than a relentlessly demanding slog over-all. The individual slices of life that emerge do offer up some intriguing moments of careful character study that are absolutely well realized by this ensemble cast, though. This is a bad movie that's loaded with great performances. Sadly, they're not enough to make it worth the price of admission. The structure of this rather dire and dour movie taken in its entirety is what continually sabotages your enjoyment of what ever takes place, particularly because the style chosen by film editors Douglas Crise and Stephen Mirrione seems too erratic and unhelpful with regards to allowing you to easily figure out how all of the pieces fit together in a linear way. This is glaringly the case concerning Chieko's story, which seems completely irrelevent to the point of being an annoyingly exploitative distraction that's never really justified within the context of those other plights. It's also unclear why sexuality needs to appear at all as it does here, with a little boy masturbating and a young girl's increasing nudity. Those and other scenes seem indulgent and damaging without tangible reason, except that perhaps Iñárritu realized he needed some shock value tossed in to off set this picture's overwhelming monotone pitch in pacing. I was bored, slowly becoming aggravated by the hints of further dynamics never being explained. For instance, Susan has abandonment issues with Richard that they never go into detail about. This movie is essentially about them, and yet you're barely given a reason to care what happens to them, other than novel wonder at seeing one of them bleed to dead while the other tenuously fends off panic and frustration. They barely talk to each other, but there isn't any background story given here that specifically indicates why. Their situation becomes world news, and yet there's barely any urgent reaction from the US/Mexico border guards when they find Susan's children returning with Amelia in the dead of night. This already splintered story merely disintegrates, the more you try to make sense of it. 'Babel' is just a small, forgettably confusing cinematic experiment that horribly fails to reach its potential and that probably wouldn't have been given such a wide release if Pitt and Blanchett hadn't been attached to it.

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