The Color of Money

"The Color of Money" has disaster written all over it. It's an unnecessary sequel to the much-loved classic "The Hustler," which starred Paul Newman as an ace pool player. This time around, Newman is a mentor to the frequently irritating Tom Cruise. (Here he sports a ridiculous haircut and twirls his cue around like a samurai staff. It's not hard to imagine why he took the role.) Behind the camera is Martin Scorcese, who typically works on passion projects, not studio-hire stuff like this.

And yet "The Color of Money" sings, thanks to the pairing of Newman and Scorcese. Newman is literally the perfect actor for this role, possessing all the poise and self-assurance needed to sell himself to both Cruise and the audience. Scorcese brings his signature verve and energy to the pool hall, turning potentially dull or hackneyed scenes into visual thrills. (Although it must be said that Scorcese's longtime musical consultant/composer, Robbie Robertson of The Band, contributes a dreadful score.)

Beyond the technical stuff, "The Color of Money" works thanks to its unorthodox plot. This isn't your typical sports movie, where a young up-and-comer takes on a longtime champion/asshole. Instead, "The Color of Money" is about the conflict between passion and pragmatism. A born competitor, Cruise is only interested in destroying the competition. But as Newman teaches him, constant winners can't make much money in pool; pretty soon, no one wants to play them. To make money, a hustler has to deliberately lose for a while. Then, once his competitor gets too cocky, he brings his A game to win back his money and then some.

That's a profitable hustle, but it's contrary to the spirit of the game. And that's what "The Color of Money" is about--not who wins, but what the mentality of the players is. It's a sports movie where the outcomes don't matter. Pretty refreshing.

Drive Angry

I'm not usually a fan of the "so bad it's good" argument for films. Don't get me wrong--bad movies can be hilarious at times. But once the novelty of their awfulness wears off, you're just stuck watching a crappy film.

"Drive Angry" is an excellent example of this. The first 30 minutes have plenty of funny moments. Many of these revolve around 47-year-old, balding Nic Cage evidently being irresistible to women. His ridiculous badassery reaches its peak when he shoots about ten men while having sex with a woman. Did I mention he is smoking a cigar while doing this? And that he takes a swig of Jack Daniels immediately after the shooting? And that, just before firing, he tells the woman "I never disrobe before a gunfight"?

After that hilarious scene, though, the movie settles down and becomes a standard bad action movie, with plenty of drivin' and shootin'. There are lots of dumb plot twists. But once we've adjusted to the fact that the director went to the Michael Bay School of Filmmaking, it stops being funny and starts getting dull.

"Drive Angry" reflects a troubling trend in movies: films that are terrible, but get a pass because their creators know they are terrible. This is how "Drive Angry" gets a 45% rating on Rotten Tomatoes despite being one of the most poorly conceived and executed movies of the year.

Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have spearheaded this trend with movies like "Grindhouse". Tarantino is so talented that he can take a bad movie premise and elevate it to something greater. But Rodriguez and most of his peers just use the "so bad it's good" excuse to churn out crap. The trend has even extended into music, with awful self-aware acts like LMFAO and Ke$ha.

Sigh. I shouldn't have to make this argument, but here goes. If I draw a stick figure, it's a bad drawing. It doesn't matter if I know the drawing is bad. It's quite possible that the director of "Drive Angry," Patrick Lussier, knew exactly how stupid his movie was when he made it. But that doesn't make his film any better. You can't have your cake and eat it too. And you can't make a bad movie and be celebrated for it.

About Schmidt

If you looked at his filmography from the last nine years, you'd never know that Jack Nicholson was one of the greatest American actors. He's increasingly indulged in outsized roles like the villain in "The Departed" and an unrepentant misogynist in "Something's Gotta Give".

These roles require more outward emotions and bravado, which may seem paradoxical; wouldn't an actor slow down as he aged? But in fact, it requires a lot less energy to deliver this type of performance than the sort of subtle, nuanced work he did in the 1970s.

All of this makes Nicholson's 2003 performance in "About Schmidt" so significant--it represents the last time he really gave a crap. It was the last time he actually tried hard, as opposed to looking like he was trying hard. And the results are fantastic. Playing a recently retired executive, Nicholson gives us a man going through the motions while showing his contempt and frustration beneath the surface. He nails subtle details, like the character's slow, lumbering gait. He also flexes his comedic chops, giving some wonderfully underplayed deadpan reactions.

As good as Nicholson is, though, it shouldn't obscure the rest of Alexander Payne's typically wonderful dramedy. Payne moves effortlessly from the mundane to the moving to the hilarious. Schmidt deals with his nagging wife, goes on an educational road trip ("I met a Native American today, and boy did he open my eyes. Those people got a raw deal."), and meets his daughter's wacky new in-laws. (Four words: Kathy Bates' nude scene. Let me assure you, though, that a few seconds of pain are well worth it for a film this good.)

Things happen, but nothing really changes. And that's what makes the movie so heartbreakingly honest. A more standard indie film would have seen Schmidt turning over a new leaf and becoming a better person. But Schmidt is too old to hit the reset button on his life. He's not going to magically change his relationship with his wife of 42 years or his thirtysomething daughter. Payne and Nicholson give us plenty of laughs, but they insist on making us face the awful truth.

Celebrity

Like many later Woody Allen movies, "Celebrity" has a good premise and poor execution.

First, the good: the film's theme is our celebrity-obsessed culture, a topic that hasn't been explored with seriousness in many films. Allen asks how people who essentially do nothing, such as someone taken hostage, can become famous. He lampoons Jerry Springer-like talk shows where skinheads and blacks fight to entertain audiences. He posits a world in which everyone is a celebrity. All of these points seem even more relevant 13 years after the film was made.

Now, the bad: just about everything else. The plot is based on the romantic exploits of a divorced couple. Frequently, this sort of storyline provides the anchor for Allen's films. But here it's utterly arbitrary and tossed off. The man, played by Kenneth Branagh, gets a blowjob from an actress, nearly beds a gorgeous model, dumps a loving girlfriend, and gets dumped by a footloose actress. Sure, whatever. Meanwhile, the woman, played by Judy Davis, is initially far more traumatized by the divorce. Yet she ends up married to a wonderful man. The lesson? In love, it all comes down to luck. Allen has made this point more interestingly in probably ten other films.

Branagh has the "Woody Allen surrogate" role here: he plays the nervous, insecure character that Allen would have played in younger days. The strange thing about Woody Allen surrogates is that they all play their roles exactly as he would have, gesticulating and stammering. Allen apparently gives very little instruction to his actors, so they may simply be taking their cues from his old films. Or they may have seen how successful the first Woody Allen surrogate, John Cusack, was in emulating him for "Bullets Over Broadway." Trouble is, Branagh is no John Cusack. Cusack managed to appear sufficiently nebbish for "Bullets," but Branagh is too ruggedly handsome to convincingly appear insecure and indecisive.

Many critics commented that Allen's films became more caustic and serious in the wake of his messy divorce. The reality is sadder: Allen was still trying to go for silly laughs, but he was starting to lose his comic touch. One scene in "Celebrity" is especially telling: Davis goes to a prostitute to get a lesson on blowjobs. The hooker then nearly chokes on a banana. This is the type of throwaway scene Allen has always used for comedy, but it's so unfunny that viewers were probably just puzzled.

Like almost all Woody Allen films of the last 30 years, this one looks great. And like most of his films, it's filled with talented actors. But while Allen has the artistic freedom to get the crew and cast he wants, he's been increasingly unable to utilize them in recent years.

Analyzing the Boomers for the 5 Millionth Time

Everything seems to be going to hell lately. To pick just a few examples: Our economy figures to sputter along for many decades to come, as the middle class shrinks and the nation becomes hampered by medical expenses. Our politicians and press are growing ever more rancorous and partisan. Music and movies seem to be growing ever more homogenized.

But maybe this is all normal. Maybe what we grew accustomed to in recent decades was an aberration. After all, the economic growth America witnessed from 1950-2000 was basically unprecedented. And for most of our history, newspapers were essentially partisan rags and politicians played pretty dirty, using political machines and voter fraud to climb to power. As for the arts, our nation has never been known as an artistic hotbed. The number of historically great American artists is downright embarrassing when one considers the size of our nation.

Let's take the last problem. It seems that the 1960s and 1970s in particular are revered as a golden age for American entertainment. I always resist such nostalgia--usually those who indulge in it are just unwilling to seek out the many great artists working today. But the fact that they have to be sought out does say something. It seems clear that talented artists, particularly musicians and filmmakers, got a lot more exposure in these decades. They also got a lot more money for their projects, which often allowed them to make much grander works.

But why was this? Was the Baby Boomer generation really this much more gifted than the rest of us? Were they really so much better at appreciating talent than other generations?

There were two opposing forces at work for the Boomer generation. First, they grew up in relative comfort. Having endured the Depression and World War II, their parents were not messing around. They took advantage of the opportunities offered by the GI Bill to create safe, stable homes for their kids. And their diligence paid off: the war left America as the economic growth engine for the world. Born with all these advantages, the Boomers were better off than any other generation of youth in history.

But while the Boomers had all they wanted, they could not do all they wanted. They were expected to follow in the footsteps of their parents. (Consider: in 1920, women received 20 percent of all Ph.Ds. By 1963, that number had dropped to 9 percent.) But because they didn't have to suffer through the Depression, they didn't understand why they had to get the same old boring jobs and follow the same old boring rules. They took material comfort for granted--America was now prosperous enough that they could--and started pursuing happiness with abandon. Why couldn't women and minorities have equal rights? Why couldn't people have sex with whoever they wanted? Why couldn't they take drugs whenever they wanted? (Some of their causes were more just than others.) The fact that the government started forcing young men to fight in a pointless war only added to their questioning of authority.

All of this unrest spilled over into pop culture. Why did a pop song have to be three minutes long? Why did a movie have to have a wholesome and good protagonist? Why couldn't music be more intelligent and indulgent than the Dave Clark Five? Why couldn't movies be just as experimental as any other art form? Listening to Hendrix and watching "Bonnie and Clyde" became another form of protest for the Boomers. And record labels and movie studios had no choice but to respond, since young adults have no kids, no mortgages, and therefore plenty of disposable income.

It was all fun while it lasted. But by the late 1970s, the party was over. The Boomers began to fall in line. They realized that making a buck wasn't so bad. They also clung to the art of their youth, as every generation does. (In fact, the late 1970s are a perfect example of our predicament today. This era was filled with great bands, from the Talking Heads to the Clash to Joy Division, that most Americans don't know anything about.)

Meanwhile, with the economy sleepwalking (thanks to some overzealous government policies and a couple of oil crises), corporations were becoming more cutthroat. Merging and union busting became the trendy management techniques--they still are to this day. Mergers were particularly harmful to artists. Radio station playlists were programmed to within an inch of their life, preventing any breakthroughs by bands without corporate sponsorship. Movie studios were taken over by men who knew nothing about filmmaking, resulting in crap like "Top Gun."

And now here we are. We still have tons of great artists. But bands like Spoon and the Arcade Fire, which should be hailed across the nation as Great American Bands, are unknown to most of the country. Talented directors struggle to drum up money for the expensive filmmaking process. (It took Derek Cianfrance seven years to secure financing for "Blue Valentine." The movie eventually earned back its budget ninefold.) And so most people consume variations on the same themes: Auto-Tuned divas, mindless rom-coms, "CSI: Albuquerque." This shouldn't be surprising. But it's still more than a little sad.

Blue Valentine

The man-child. He's become a comedic cliche. His goals in life are to consume Doritos and play Xbox while high-functioning women ensure that his life doesn't fall apart. Like any comedy archetype, it has a ring of truth to it: guys usually don't want to grow up.

That can be hilarious in the right context. But it also has very serious consequences, as Ryan Gosling demonstrates with his wonderful performance as Dean in "Blue Valentine," a terrifically rendered portrait of a marriage in crisis. Dean is awfully charming, but he can't quite seem to behave like an adult. He drinks too much, he handles his emotions poorly, he twists his wife's words instead of taking her arguments seriously.

From all that, you would think that Dean was the reason his marriage is failing. But it's to the film's great credit that there is no one culprit. In fact, for most of the movie, Dean is the one struggling to keep things together. His wife Cindy (Michelle Williams) married him in large part because she had been impregnated by a jerk she couldn't stand. Dean's affections sparked the relationship and helped keep it going. But one person's love can only do so much.

All of this is largely implied. Dean and Cindy's emotional issues are revealed patiently, naturally. The film also hints at how they've come to be this way. Both are the product of unhappy marriages. Dean's father is a janitor, indicating that he doesn't come from the genes of go-getters. Cindy's father is emotionally abusive, which may be why she started having sex at 13 and seems to fall for the wrong men.

This is storytelling done right. Director Derek Cianfrance is clearly a major talent. But it would all fall apart without the two leads. Gosling and Williams lived together for a month to develop the tension and conflict which comes out on screen. Both helped to develop characters whose actions are frequently deplorable yet completely understandable. Gosling, in particular, is witty and clever and irresponsible all at once. He can be funny, but his immaturity is also more than a little sad.

The King's Speech

"The King's Speech" is a well-made, well-acted historical drama. Its plot is innocuous and inspirational. In other words, it's a prototypical Best Picture winner.

What makes "The King's Speech" work is the chemistry between Colin Firth, who plays Bertie (later King George VI) and Geoffrey Rush, who plays his Australian speech therapist. These are two fine actors at the top of their games. Watching Rush push Firth to overcome his stammer and become a skilled public speaker is genuinely fun.

Unfortunately, they are ill-served by the simplistic storyline. Bertie is like a dog who was abused as a puppy: emotionally vulnerable, but pure and good. His elder brother David, who ascends the throne before he does, is more interested in banging his ex-hooker girlfriend than in confronting Germany. (In real life, Bertie favored appeasement just as much as David did until shortly before the war. Yet the story makes it appear as though Bertie knew all along the threat Hitler posed. But the filmmakers can't be bothered with silly little details when they're trying to be uplifting, now can they?)

Nonetheless, "The King's Speech" is a fine film. I don't begrudge it the Best Picture win. The real travesty was Tom Hooper's victory for Best Director. Hooper created a well-made British historical drama. If he was the best director of 2010, then Lone Scherfig should have won for "An Education" in 2009 and Cary Fukunaga should win in 2011 for "Jane Eyre."

It's not just that Hooper won over a more deserving candidate. It's that all of the nominees were more deserving than him. The Coen brothers' style is now so familiar that we can easily take it for granted, but only they could have made the funny, grim, charming "True Grit." David Fincher saved "The Social Network" from being a boring talkfest with skillful editing, inspired casting, and a terrific score by Trent Reznor. David O. Russell spiced up the fun, conventional "The Fighter" with plenty of personal touches. Darren Aronofsky made the rather silly "Black Swan," but he showed off some bravura filmmaking flourishes that will be emulated for years to come.

All of these movies are more creative and inventive than "The King's Speech," and they all relied far more on their respective directors for their success. As Manhola Dargis once said, "Let's acknowledge that the Oscars are bullshit and we hate them." So why do we still care so much about them?