THE FOUNTAIN

Kat and Tyler: lll.5

The Fountain juxtaposes three stories, which follow the powerful romance between the two main characters, performed by Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, across time periods 500 years apart. The first relates the mission of Conquistador Tomas, sent by the beautiful queen Isabel to discover the Fountain of Youth, lost somewhere in the Mayan Empire since it was vanished by God from Eden. Upon finding the Fountain, embodied in a mysterious tree, Tomas may take the hand of the Queen in eternal marriage. In the second story, Tommy begins to discover the medical secrets of a long forgotten Central American tree as his wife dies slowly due to an untreatable tumor. Five centuries later, Tom finds himself travelling through open space with a tree that allows him to extend his life indefinitely, despite lacking food or water.

Each one of these stories is charged with remarkeably honest performances, subtle details and stunning imagery. Together, they create an insightful tapestry of the meaning of loss, mourning, and the hypothetical of eternal life. It is then unfortunate that the interconnections between the stories are unclear and generally convoluted, ultimately weakening the message and impact of the movie. The combination of three different genres, historical fiction, drama and futuristic sci-fi, does not produce the expected results, but instead left me confused. There is not a clear understanding of which is the central story and despite careful observation it is still difficult to assess the connections between Hugh Jackman's characters. As the movie progresses it appears that the first story with which the movie started may in fact be a fictional narration by Tommy's wife Izi, as she is dying of a tumor. This sems hard to believe given the vivid character of the 16th century story and the centrality given to it, but more so because it does not represent the experiences of Izi, who finds herself acepting the inevitability of death while Queen Isabel is sending the Conquistador to save Spain from the chains of death. Additionally, it is not completely clear whether the astronaut is the same man as the doctor, reaching the last moments of his existence after five centuries alive, or whether it is another fictional creation, this time in the mind of Tommy as he tries to cope with mortality.

The Fountain is a beautifull collection of images that shows Jackman's quest to save the woman that he loves. I particularly enjoyed the relationship between the two characters, expressed by subtle details, such as morning kisses, gentle baths and loving looks, as well as vivid colors and moving performaces. Weisz is remarkable in this movie, particularly in how she expresses emotions without uttering a word. She is absolutely breathtaking. Even more central is Hugh Jackman, who succeeds in providing his most honest and thoughtful performance to date.

The result is a movie that builds high expectations and hypnotizes the audience with breathtaking images, remarkable acting and thoughtful direction, but ultimately fails to deliver on its promises of being a classic film. Contrary to Roger Ebert's suggestion in his review of this movie, it does not reach the level of much better crafted works such as Magnolia or Babel.

Most importanly, it fails at providing a unique message on the profound issues it attempts to address. It is difficult to fully connect with the main character's evolution, because it feels unreal, rushed and unpolished. While it successfully conveys the fear of losing what is most dear, in this case beautfifully embodied by Weisz, it then fails at demonstrating how to let go by giving mixed signals about what may come next. The movie loosely interchanges the concept of living eternally after death and of an absolute void. While thre are hints at religion, especially from the innitial quest for the Fountain of Youth, it is also unclear whether a supernatural force has a role in their lives or not. The result is understandably frustrating, particularly from a philosophical standpoint.

Despite its frustrating shortcomings, many of which have been made clear by critics across the world, The Fountain is an ambitious cinematic effort, which is ultimately moving, insightful and enjoyable.

- Kat and Tyler

KOLYA

Kat & Tyler: lllll

A charming and simply irresistible movie in the traditional of other great classics such as Cinema Paradiso and Life is Beautiful. Set at the end of the Cold War, Kolya tells the story of a middle-aged Czech bachelor who's forced to take care of a little boy after his mother, who the bachelor agreed to marry for a hefty pay, decided to leave everything behind and go to Germany. This most unlikely of fathers, who spends his days performing the cello at funerals and sleeping around with a nice variety of women, is then forced to cope with a child who speaks no Czech. Not surprisingly, soon the child is drawing nothing but coffins and innocently playing with lingerie lying around in the apartment. Perhaps most importantly, the movie is remarkably honest, while at the same time shining with magical moments that continue to captivate us and melt our hearts long after the movie ends.

Everything is Illuminated

Kat & Tyler: ll.5

American Splendor

Kat: lll.5
Tyler: llll

The Departed

Kat: lll
Tyler: lll.5

Marie Antoinette
Kat & Tyler: ll

After the Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation, this movie was a big disappointment. The emphasis on the costumes and the flowers did not compensate for the suffocating vacuum in content. Although the movie is inspired by the East Asian style that made Lost in Translation distinct, Marie Antoinette feels hollow ad ultimately irrelevant. It still receives both stars because it is visually beautiful, but lacks the substance or momentum to take the beauty somewhere.

A Good Year

Kat and Tyler: ll.5

Happy Endings

Kat and Tyler: l.5

American Dreamz

Kat: l
Tyler: l.5

American Dreamz let down even my low expectations of it. This "explosive comedy by the Director of 'American Pie' and 'About a Boy", was an implossion of tragic proportions, with a lot more "American Pie" than "About a Boy" but little of the witt, bite or spark. Its limited potential at being a clever parody, exposing the ironies of national politics, foreign affairs and pop culture was far from fulfilled. Instead, it juggles a convoluted story that is ultimately shallow, tasteless and uninsightful. American Dreamz, or "Dreams with a Z" as the performers often repeat, feels like a cheap teen comedy with an immensely silly plot and equally pathetic subplots. It failed miserably next to other recent comedies, such as "Saved" or even "Mean Girls", which tried to be much less but achieved much much more.

Unfortunately, the parade of Hollywood Stars, Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Mandy Moore and Willem Dafoe fail miserably at giving the movie its necessary spark. Instead, you will find them in some of their most uninspired performances. This is particularly the case with Dennis Quaid and Willem Dafoe, who attempt to make an obvious parody of President Bush and Dick Chenney. The president is a mindless puppet who can barely read a newspaper and can not distinguish the "Iraqistanis" from the other "A-rabs", while his right hand man dictates his actions through an ear piece. But the parody has no bite and leaves no insight. The president is shown as a good hearted man (wtf?) who finally stands his ground for what he believes, and his cartoonishly evil advisor hides in the shadows in shame.
Generally poor and sometimes atrocious performances further undermine the story. In the end, a couple of mindless laughs do not make up for the waste of time.

- Tyler

Bobby

Kat and Tyler: lll

Deja Vu

Kat and Tyler: ll

CASINO ROYALE 007

Kat: ll.5
Tyler: lll

Casino Royale begins explosively. With a powerful black and white segment, the new James Bond is introduced as one with far less hesitations about pulling the trigger and far more well deserved marks on his face. After a cold blooded and unexplained murder we move into a strikingly different mood. Bond finds himself in Uganda, chasing a man across a construction site and leaving an excessive amount of collateral damage behind. It doesn't take long to realize that the emerging Bond is splitting off in a new direction from a tired franchise. Daniel Craig is not your mother's Bond. He is not the Bond that a girl would even think about taking home to Mom. He is however, someone she would most likely want to lock away in her bedroom. A very bad boy type of guy. He replaces the clean cut, smooth talking and sensitive agent, for one that is explosively aggressive, practical about killing and emotionally scarred. Seeing the dead body of a woman he was kissing the night before, he turns away expressionless. It becomes clear that women are sometimes not even a sexual tool, but can be used for information and disposed of with less emotion than for a dented car. The expectations begin to rise for fans of a more raw and complicated, DeNiro as "Taxi Driver" type of character.

This movie promises a lot in the beginning, but falls short of delivering. Although it is enjoyable, it is far from Oscar worthy. The failure of this movie does not lie with the acting, the photography, or the soundtrack. It lies with the script itself. There is a slight problem when the villains of the movie start playing musical chairs leaving the audience confused as to who is really Bond's arch nemesis. In my opinion, the first hour of the film is loads of fun but, in the second half it starts to decline finally plummeting in the end. It is very anticlimactic. The writers were unsure as to where to take the franchise and thus the script is left with too many loose ends.
- Kat
Nevertheless, there may still be hope for this new, more raw Bond. A better crafted script that better represents the threats to international security in the 21st century and the type of agent required to effectively deal with these threats, may serve as the foundation to a captivating revival. Obviously wine, great food, the latest Ferrari, a sun soaked Mediterranean beach and a beautiful woman have always been part of the 007 tradition. But the relatively more complex and challenging woman in Casino Royale is one of several hints of a more spiced up European Dream taking over. It will be a challenge worth taking to make the new Bond more grounded in reality and yet soaked in the unmistakable style of 007.
- Tyler

The Return
Kat and Tyler: l

The Return: as exciting as watching grass grow... but grass has more substance. Although it was marketed as a Ring-type movie, it falls short of being scary or merely interesting. The bottom line is, the movie was a definite failure and deserves less than a paragraph. The script was forced, shallow, biteless and predictable. For the first half of the movie we were confused with the floating and directionless story; for the second half we knew all the answers and could not care less. The performances and character development were equally flat and unmoving. The only possible highlight was the moderately interesting imagery. The marketing was also relatively successful. The somewhat atractive trailer and website bear practically no ressemblance to the actual movie. Take our word, it is most definitely not worth it.

Little Miss Sunshine
Kat and Tyler: llll

Little Miss Sunshine is one of the most endearing and crowd-pleasing movies we have seen in a long time. This independent, off beat and underproduced little gem, achieved what few movies can. It provided a beautiful portrait of what it really means to be a family and stand by each other, despite all the inevitable dysfunctionality. If this family can make it, any can.

Everything starts as one broken family decides to take a trip across the country so the little girl of the family can be at the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. It is hard to imagine or describe the chaos of things that this little adventure sets forth. As increasing obstacles begin to pile up, only their capacity to hold on to each other and work relentlessly to fulfill their mission will save them. While their beat up volkswagen van can barely keep up with the pace, their drive is tireless. As they come closer to their destination the pace turns into an unstopable rollercoaster leading up to one unforgetable ending.
The film is remarkably honest and heartwarming. Probably what stands out the most is the rich character development of the cast. Each character seems to fit perfectly into a cycle of love and hate. The beautifully crafted script is really the base of a captivating and movinng story. It most defenitely deserves four very bright stars.
- Kat and Tyler

BABEL

Tyler: lllll

It is only rarely that a five star movie is made, totalling maybe a handful each decade. Babel forms part of a masterful body of work of the Mexican Indian film director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who has placed himself as one the most relevant film directors alive. In the tradition of Amores Perros and 21 Grams, Gonzalez Inarritu crafts a challenging and insightful view of human existence as defined by the distinctions of space, time, class and language. Not limiting himself to a traditional movie structure, Inarritu utilizes distinct cinematographic tools to phrame the story. While Amores Perros is divided into consecutive stories of life in Mexico city, connected by the parallel lives of dogs, 21 Grams is composed as a collage of chronologically scattered scenes, Babel symultaneously relates three stories across different corners of the world. Although there are slight manipulations of time, the main structure of Babel is defined by the relationship and contrasts of the stories across space.

One of the most notable features of the film is the use of visual and sonic tools to maximize the experience of each story from the perspective of the characters. The story in Japan for example, centers around a teenage deaf-mute girl, whose condition provides her a unique yet isolating position. The film depends on the expressiveness of her face and a variety of tools to effectively narrate this story. In a different corner of the world, two competitive brothers set out to shoot at jackals, yet after naively shooting at a bus of European and American tourists, they unleash a devastating set of events. The recently scarred American couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett) will have to hold on to their lives and each other in the remote corners of Morrocco. Perhaps most moving for me given my Latin American background, is the story of an honest and humble Mexican immigrant (Adriana Barraza) who decides to take the two white children she has babysitted since they were born south of the border with her nephew (Gael Garcia Bernal). While shocking from a practical legal point of view, the necessity to be at her son's wedding and the understanding that she is merely travelling a few hours to see her family may make her much more sympathetic for the audience. The profoundly raw and traumatic experiences of the different characters not only creates a beautiful dramatic tapestry, but more importantly, come together to reveal shocking similarities and interconnections between them.

To conclude, Babel is a carefully and masterfully well crafted piece of work. It brings exceptional actors to remarkeable levels of realistic expressionism. Although the style of the film is inherenlty raw, the use of light, color and sound allows the audience to perceive the experiences of the characters in uniquely intimate and moving ways. Once again, Gonzalez Inarritu has provided his audiences not only a great film, but a new perspective of expressing human life through the art of film.

- Tyler Paris.

BORAT (Counterargument)
Tyler: lll.5

There are few occasions when Kat and I substantially disagree on a movie, and this is one of them, hence I will present my counterargument:

Suddenly Borat, a British comedian turned Kazak reporter, began appearing on tv screens everywhere, from Jon Stewart to CNN. When it finally arrived at the theaters it made an explossive amount of money. Shows were sold out throughout DC and the buzz was unstoppable. To begin with, my expectations before entering the movie were virtually none. I expected an insensitive and profoundly offensive attack on culture and intelligence. To be honest, my original expectations were not fully dissappointed. However, there is still much more to Borat than may meet the eye. To begin with, even Kat was cracking up for most of the movie, with an almost non-stop expression of WTF and "this can not be happening". A lot of the movie is simply hilarious. While those moments were scattered, they were able to remain inprinted and Borat's commited quest to his virgin in L.A., Pamela Anderson, gave the movie a clear direction and kept the audience hooked. While Borat may not necessarily be the classic of our generation that critics like Rolling Stone's Peter Travers make it out to be, there is a distinct degree of dedication and ingenuity that appears all too easy at first. The best metaphor I can give is that Borat incorporates the sense of offensive, self-destructive and relentless audacity of Jackass with the critical sociopolitical wit and ingenuity of the Colbert Report. His capacity to stay in charcter in face of the most shocking experiences, and to expose the sexist, racist, jew-hating, destructive and absurd core of America is devastatingly funny... and painfully revealing. In oppose to Kat, what I found most central about the movie were not its senseless fart jokes but the shoking realities revealed. To respond to the claim of Borat's insensitivity, sexism, discrimination, and every other profoundly politically incorrect thing he does, I can say the following: throughout the entire movie, Borat flirts with very limits of political incorrectedness, leaving the audience with an almost constant reaction of OMG and WTF. However, the most shocking comments do not come from Borat but from those around him. The list is mindblowingly absurd coments is endless and should not be ruined for you. At the end, what Borat exposes is not the irreconciliable gap between Americans and this alleged Kazak. Regretably, it is a somewhat distorted, yet nonetheless excruitiatingly enlightening reflection of an America all to often ignored. An America taken for granted on a daily basis until it is painted in a parody of another country, one perceived as an obscure, suspicious and probably terrorist backward-country lost on the map somewhere between oil and terrorism. P.S. I don't want to imagine how offensive this movie may seen to many patriotic (and righteously so) Kazaks. For them, I'm trully sorry. I'm sorry your country had to be used and abused for the sake of a critical comedy on the US and A. (Note: for those who may be interested, this former member of the USSR is one of the largest countries in the world {the size of the entire Western Europe} and is located just south of Russia. It has a relatively stable political environment and with its many natural resources its economy is growing at a rate of almost 10%. It may help to know a little more about the country befor watching the movie to better see the parody of the whole thing.)
- Tyler Paris

BORAT

Kat: l.5

This relatively inexpensive movie is about a reporter from Kazhigstan who goes around the US interviewing people on his quest to L.A. to marry Pamela Anderson. I have to admit that although I did find this movie amusing at times (hence the .5, instead of just a 1) I also found it to be insulting. I was very disturbed by many of the images and offended by most of his insensitive remarks towards women, Jews, etc. His jokes were not intellectually stimulating or even clever. I found it amusing not because of its sheer wit, but more along the lines of WTF!! This is a movie comparable to Jackass....if you like that sort of thing then this movie is for you. If not then I suggest saving yourself the $10 and watching something else.
-Kat Amsterdam

The Prestige:

Kat and Tyler: llll

The story of The Prestige may be innitially reminiscent of The Illusionist given its similar subject matter, the obscure underworld of magic at the turn of the century. Nevertheless, they are drastically different. The Prestige explores the conflictive relationship of two entertainers who will sacrifice anything to create the perfect illusion and perfect their craft. While it is clear they must be willing to "get their hands to dirty" in the process, their boundaries are increasingly tested as the stakes rise. Since the movie was directed by Christopher Nolan, the same director of the classic thriller Memento, it is not surprising to find some remarkable similarities. Just as the two entertainers, the Professor (Christian Bale) and the Great Danton (Hugh Jackman), use all the tools at hand to deceive and awe their audiences, the movie feels like a grand illussion. Their mentor, Cutter (Michael Caine), explains an act of magic as composed of the pledge, the turn, and finally, the prestige. Similarly, the movie makes use of this structure and keeps the audiences in a world of shadows and deceit, in which little can be predicted. Turns abound, making the movie almost constantly captivating and nerve racking. But most critical is the prestige, or conclusion, when a reality far darker than expected is exposed. This reality is both disturbing and fascinating, and as a magic performance, leaves the audience dazzled and without time to react. It is only hours after that all the pieces begin to fit together unveiling an ingenious and masterfully woven movie. Most of the performances are rivetting, in particular the two primary actors, Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, who convincingly portray how far men can go for an ambition and its complex consequences. Despite his supporting role, Michael Cane was exceptional as usual, and was critical to defining the interrelations between the chracters and the tone of the movie as a whole. Similarly impressive was the performance of Rebeca Hall as the professor's wife, who is trapped between her husband's troubled duality. The movie was rated PG-13 due to its relative lack of explicit violence, sex and language. However, its script, tone, and unapologizing lack of sensitivity merits a solid R rating. There are many things more traumatic in life than the word f***, explossions or naked breasts. The Prestige falls into that cathegory, and is definitely not a family movie.

It has come to my attenion that someone reading this blog might be confused. Do not fret, it is understandable. This Blog is actually manned by two people...Tyler Paris and Kat Amsterdam. We began this endevour because of our rabid facination with movies and our similar tastes in films. We are both extremely critical and rate movies from a scale of 1 to 5 stars all the time. One day we thought, hey...why not write down and collect our critiques...and here they are...