Two from the art house circuit

THE COEN BROTHERS CHINESE STYLE -- SORT OF

There’s plenty of visual talent on display in Zhang Yimou’s A Woman, A Gun and A Noodle Shop, but that doesn’t mean the movie’s any good. Zhang has taken on the oddball task of remaking the Coen brothers’ debut movie, Blood Simple. Zhang already has done his version of film noir with the gorgeous Ju Dou (1990). Maybe that’s why so much of this strange hybrid seems to be straining to be different. Zhang treats his characters as pawns in an antic comedy that’s reliant on slapstick, overly broad acting, devious plot twists and cartoonish directorial ploys. Some of the terrain surrounding the noodle shop is astonishingly sparse, but this story about a woman trying to free herself from a beastly husband -- the owner of a noodle shop in the middle of nowhere -- lacks the sexy allure of noir, the undertow of eroticism and even the sustained fun of good comedy. Zhang is too talented to make a movie that’s totally without interest, but this one’s a miss.

DON'T SELL HER SHORT: SHE FOUGHT THE MOB

A far more successful effort can be found in The Sicilian Girl, the story of Rita Mancuso, a real-life woman who battled the Mafia by trying to put one of its chiefs in jail. Ably played by Veronica D’Agostino, Rita gets crosswise with the Sicilian mob and finds herself buried in the witness protection program in Rome. She’s estranged from familiar surroundings and from her family. But Rita's a determined young woman who insists on channeling her fierce energy into the pursuit of revenge against the man who ordered her father’s murder. The fact that Dad also was a Mafia chieftain doesn’t deter Rita from seeking vengeance, but events ultimately force a shift in her consciousness. Her thirst for revenge gives way to a yearning for justice. Director Marco Amenta’s camera tends to crowd in on the movie’s many characters and the narrative isn’t developed in the most fluid of ways, but the raw determination of D’Agostino’s performance keeps Sicilian Girl firmly on track.

'Easy A' showcases Emma Stone

Easy A is bound to make at least one entertainment headline; the movie likely will establish Emma Stone as the next big thing, a quick-witted young actress who can carry a movie. Stone plays Olive, a high schooler who lies about having lost her virginity. As a result, Olive becomes a teen version of Hester Prynne, complete with a scarlet letter that she wears with satirical pride. Written in the self-consciously smart style of a Juno, Easy A tries to illustrate the perils created by rumor and deception. Easy A can be fun, but don’t let me catch you comparing to smarter teen movies, namely Election or Clueless. Of course, a bit of cautionary moralizing creeps into the comedy: As Olive’s story spreads and magnifies, her best friend (Alyson Michalka) deserts her. She also becomes a target for her school’s Jesus freaks, a group led by the sanctimonious Marianne (Amanda Bynes). Of course, Olive’s parents (Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci) are impossibly hip and ultra-relaxed about their daughter’s behavior. The twist here: Olive tries to capitalize on her newfound status as the school slut by asking a variety of hapless guys to pay for the right to say they’ve had sexual experiences with her. Are there laughs here? Some. But Easy A provides us with another example of kids who couldn’t possibly exist without a clever writer. I admired Stone's spunk, but found Olive to be alternately annoying and amusing, which is pretty much how I felt about the rest of the movie.

Ben Affleck goes to 'Town'

Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner as partners in crime.

Boston has been very, very good to Ben Affleck. The actor and sometime director jump-started his career with Good Will Hunting (1997), a Boston-based movie he co-wrote with Matt Damon. In 2007, Affleck directed Gone Baby Gone, a crime yarn set in the Boston area. With the volatile new thriller, The Town, Affleck returns to the Boston scene for more tough-talking crime.

Adapted from a novel by Chuck Hogan, The Town bristles with pungent dialog, hard-boiled acting and vivid characters from Boston's criminal class. The movie takes place mostly in the Boston neighborhood known as Charlestown. There - or so we're told at the movie's outset - bank robbery practically constitutes a family business.

Affleck portrays Doug McCray, a bank robber mired in a standard problem: McCray's had his fill of the criminal life, and wants to go straight. Too bad the neighborhood - embodied in a dangerous, loose cannon of a criminal played by Jeremy Renner - keeps pulling him back for one job after another.

Like many before him, McCray pins his hopes for redemption on a woman (Rebecca Hall). Hall's Claire Keesey works as an assistant manager at a bank McCray and his boys rob in the movie's gripping opening scene. They also kidnap Claire briefly. The robbers wear skeleton masks that make them look especially menacing, and that keep Claire from identifying her tormentors.

Worried that Claire may have picked up a clue or two, McCray establishes a relationship with her. He wants to make sure that she can't incriminate him or any of his felonious cohorts. Not surprisingly, McCray begins to fall for Claire, allowing himself -- maybe for the first time -- to imagine life away from the mean streets of Charlestown.

But escape from the past never proves easy, and the script - credited to Peter Craig, Affleck and Aaron Stockard - places plenty of obstacles in McCray's path: neighborhood loyalties; a reflexive hatred of cops and a bit of old-fashioned intimidation to mention only a few.

The Town boasts the kind of gritty authenticity that we've come to expect from good crime movies, all of it bolstered by fine work from Affleck's supporting cast.

Last seen defusing bombs in The Hurt Locker, Renner can scare the daylights out of you even when he's smiling. Jon Hamm (of TV's Mad Men) stretches a bit as an FBI agent, and Pete Postlethwaite has a nice turn as a florist who runs a small crime empire. Don't overlook Chris Cooper, who shows how much an actor can accomplish in very little time. He appears in one scene as McCray's imprisoned father.

No Boston-bred movie can (or should) escape Fenway Park - home to the city's beloved Red Sox -- and The Town is no exception. I won't say more except to note that the use of heavy artillery during the movie's finale tends to blow away what's best about The Town: the way it captures the tone and texture of life among the criminally inclined. There's enough firepower in the movie's final scenes to make you wonder whether you're in Boston or Baghdad.

By that time, though, you will have gotten what there is to get from The Town. The movie's real pleasure derives from thrust-and-parry dialog and from characters accustomed to living on a dangerous edges.

Affleck's performance also helps. He makes McCray intense, serious and street-wise. At its best, his movie follows suit.

The story behind Pat Tillman's death

Like most red-blooded American men, I enjoy professional football – the games at least. But I could do without the kind of hype that tries to beef up the sport's propagandistic playbook with references to God, patriotism and military service.

A page from that particular book received a mighty turn in 2004 when Pat Tillman, a star strong safety for the Arizona Cardinals, was killed in action in Afghanistan. Tillman, who gave up professional football to volunteer for the Army after 9/11, already had served in Iraq, and the initial reaction of the Army was to turn its fallen hero into a poster boy for patriotic myth-making.

But the truth about Tillman’s death tended to undermine its legend-building potential. Not long after Tillman died, it was revealed that he was killed by friendly fire. And the more details Tillman's family turned up, the less it seemed as if Tillman’s demise resulted from some unavoidable fog-of-war chaos.

An uglier and far less comprehensible picture began to emerge: Tillman’s death may have been the tragic consequence of actions taken by overzealous Rangers who ignored Tillman’s repeated attempts to identify himself as a U.S. soldier. Tillman’s mom pushed – and then pushed harder – to obtain the real story behind her son's death..

All of this emerges in the documentary The Tillman Story, and you can draw your own conclusions about whether the case for extreme negligence has been made. Inescapable, though, is the reality of Tillman’s life: He didn’t believe in God and had come to think of the Iraq war as a waste. He also was a man of honor, who insisted on fulfilling his military commitment.

By the end of director Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary, Tillman stands out as a unique individual, an athlete who could level opposing players, but who hardly fit the dumb-jock mold.

Bar-Lev’s documentary isn’t without weaknesses, nor does it paint everyone in the Tillman camp in a flattering light. (Tillman’s youngest brother’s outburst at a memorial service may have been honest, but seemed lacking in both good timing and taste).

Whatever you conclude about Tillman's death, you'll find a documentary that shows how a man who responded to the call of duty became a victim of the very machine he honored with his service. Bar-Lev’s documentary helps ensure that Pat Tillman will be remembered as a complicated man – not as anyone’s symbol of anything, and that alone makes it a real success. Anyone who bothered to take an honest look should have know that Tillman never could have been pigeonholed.

Gangster life with a French accent

Jacques Mesrine (Vincent Cassel) was one tough customer.
Mesrine: Killer Instinct is part one of a pair of gangster movies that opens in Denver Friday (Sept. 17) and continues with a second installment – Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 – on the following Friday. In the hands of director Jean-Francois Richet, the narrative can be alarmingly choppy, but a spectacular performance by Vincent Cassel (as the notorious Jacques Mesrine) turns the two movies into must-see gangster viewing. Richet traces Mesrine’s origins from his service in the French army in Algeria to his death in 1979. Richet hints at the gangster's motivations, but never skimps on showing Mesrine's brutality. That’s important: Mesrine proves a charismatic and nervy figure, but his behavior -- particularly when it involves violence -- is nothing less than appalling. Part one includes a fine performance from a heftier than ever Gerard Depardieu; Part 2 makes room for Mathieu Amalric, as a thief who’s appalled by the way Mesrine courts the media. Mesrine evidently had a knack for escaping from prison, as well as for self-promotion. It’s a bit of a cheat to do a quick-hit review on four hours worth of movies, but if you love gangster fare, Richet's richly realized look at a real-life French master criminal should become part of your movie-going vocabulary. (French with English subtitles.)

The man who danced toward freedom

It's possible to see Mao's Last Dancer as a fascinating story told with a simplicity that borders on naivete, and for about a quarter of the way through the movie that's just what I did. I immersed myself in a story based on ballet dancer Li Cunxin's tumultuous life. Taken from his parents as a boy in rural China, Li overcame initial weaknesses to become a strong dancer. He was selected to travel to the U.S. to study at the Houston ballet. He wound up staying in America, much to the embarrassment of the Chinese government. Alas, the movie's simplicity sometimes looks like a lack of sophistication with director Bruce Beresford (Tender Mercies and Driving Miss Daisy) alternating between Li's early years in China and his adaptation to a less constrained life in Houston. Played with great earnestness by Chi Cao, Li becomes the central figure in a drama that seldom veers much from a predictable course. Working in broad strokes, Bereseford sketches the torments of the Cultural Revolution, Li's culture shock upon arriving in America and his growing understanding that artistic expression requires a measure of personal freedom. Amanda Schull portrays Li's first love interest; Joan Chen appears as his peasant mother; and Kyle MacLachlan portrays the lawyer who comes to Li's aid when the Chinese try to force the dancer's return to Beijing. Bruce Greenwood portrays Ben Stevenson, artistic director of the Houston ballet and the man most responsible for bringing Li to the U.S. All of these characters could have benefited from more development. Ballet enthusiasts will be heartened to know that Beresford doesn't skimp on the dancing, but Mao's Last Dancer can feel more like a bold outline than an intensely imagined recreation of real events.

Joaquin's still here -- sort of

One picture's worth a ... well ... you know.

If the late and proudly reprobate Charles Bukowski had written about movie stars instead of down-and-out drunks, he might have created Joaquin Phoenix. Drugged, dissolute and looking as awful as any one can look on the sunny side of the dirt, Phoenix is the subject of I'm Still Here, Casey Affleck's "documentary" about a year in the life of a movie star who suddenly announced that he had abandoned acting to take up rapping.

The events following Phoenix's departure from Hollywood are chronicled in Affleck's movie, which some regard as a hoax on a par, say, with faking a decision to walk away from a lucrative and apparently rewarding acting career. It's possible - some even say likely - that I'm Still Here is an elaborate goof, a sneering reminder that we shouldn't presume to know anything about actors based on what we see of them on film.

Know this, though: It's hardly unusual for parts of documentaries to be staged. Even the most devoted of filmmakers can't be everywhere at once. The recreation of an important moment doesn't necessarily invalidate the truth of a documentary. Affleck, who appeared with the film at the Venice Film Festival, has denied that the movie is a hoax, an obligatory stance on his part whether the movie is truthful or not.

If I'm Still Here is all illusion, it's a well-created one. Affleck adopts a convincingly sloppy hand-held style that emphasizes fly-on-the-wall eavesdropping. He includes embarrassing footage of Phoenix that found its way onto You Tube, and, of course, he makes room for Phoenix's now legendary 2008 appearance on the Late Show With David Letterman. Phoenix showed up to promote Two Lovers - his supposed last movie - and wound up looking like an escapee from a mental institution: bearded, bedraggled and, dare we say, tormented by unseen demons.

"I'm sorry you couldn't be here tonight," concluded Letterman. A distraught Phoenix looked as if he'd just been waterboarded.

A plot line of sorts runs through I'm Still Here. Once he declares his rapping intentions, Phoenix tries to obtain an audience with Sean "Diddy" Combs. He ultimately meets Combs. Nothing seems to come of it. Combs doesn't blow him off, but he's not interested in paving Phoenix's way to hip-hop stardom, either.

So what about Phoenix's rapping abilities?

Let's say he's hardly on a par with any hip-hop heavyweights. This lack of ability either supports the idea that I'm Still Here is an elaborate joke or informs us that Phoenix is even more deluded than we think. He says he's sick of interpreting material others have written. Mostly, he's sick of playing the character called Joaquin Phoenix, a state of discontent that isn't likely to earn him much sympathy.

Say again? You're tired of being rich, famous and of having the opportunity to do highly creative work that has earned you two Oscar nominations and a ton of audience and critical acclaim in movies such as Gladiator and Walk the Line? How unfortunate.

Whatever else I'm Still Here might be, it's definitely not an exercise in image building.

During the course of the movie, Phoenix behaves like a man anxious to drive nails into his own coffin. He snorts coke, hires call girls and belittles his associates. He often rants incoherently. For all the world, he looks as if he's coming apart at the seams as he pursues a career that marks as ridiculous a leap as any he might have taken in assuming the identity of a fictional character. I'm Still Here is a vanity project thrown into reverse, its gears grinding loudly.

So what evidence supports the idea that the film is a fake? The fact that Affleck is Phoenix's brother-in-law makes it difficult to believe he'd allow Joaquin to appear this way. An end credit announcing that Phoenix and Affleck co-wrote the film raises additional questions. Affleck's directorial style -- lighting so dim you sometimes find yourself straining to see through the mush - makes you wonder if he's not pushing the gritty authenticity a little too hard.

An even better question: Should you spend money on a film that may or may not be real? Tough call. I'd say that I'm Still Here has roughly the same appeal as the proverbial car wreck you can't turn away from, and it ultimately raises questions about our ability to distinguish between reality and image - whether that image is of a talented, complex and ultra-intense Oscar nominee or an artist who looks as if he's on the verge of losing his mind.

Affleck makes us share in Phoenix's apparent descent. And, yes, I lean toward thinking that there's some core of ugly truth here, as well as a disturbing question: Joke or not, who in his right mind would want to present himself to the world this way?

Butt-kicking galore in 'Machete'

OK, Machete, we won't ask you to text.
Three years ago, director Robert Rodriguez included a trailer for a movie called Machete in his portion of Grindhouse, the Rodriguez/Tarantino B-movie revel. The trailer was a spoof. The movie didn’t exist.

The spoof has become reality with the release of Machete, a full-blown, helping of butt-kicking, B-movie action. Rodriguez, who shares directing credit with Ethan Maniquis, serves up a hunk of grindhouse fare that has been amped-up and given booming production values that make you wonder whether it's possible to mix movies and steroids.

Can we think of this as a surprise? Hardly. Rodriguez's love for exploitation-style movies was apparent from the start. He kicked off his career in 1992 with El Mariachi, a super-cheapo riff on exploitation movies.

Like its predecessors, Machete mixes over-the-top violence, humor, severed body parts, beautiful women and growling machismo. But this particular concoction is designed to boot the guilty pleasure of the grindhouse into mainstream multiplexes. For me, the mainstreaming of cultish fare always diminishes its power, and Machete is no exception. These movies might have been funnier when the people who made them weren't looking for laughs.

The story revolves around an ex-Federale named Machete (Danny Trejo), a super-strong Mexican who knows how to wield his weapon. Trejo's Machete is thrown way off his game when his wife and daughter are murdered by a Mexican drug lord named Torrez (Steven Seagal with a Spanish accent). Machete crosses the border into the U.S., keeping a low profile until he’s drawn into a plot to assassinate a State Senator (Robert De Niro with a southern accent) who wants to build a border fence.

Linking the movie to immigration issues ultimately turns Machete into a Latino revenge saga aimed at all the folks who rail against illegal immigrants. Trejo, who has the kind of look that could frighten small children, makes an unexpected hero who must fight off drug lords, corrupt vigilantes and a mysterious political operative (Jeff Fahey).

As you can tell from De Niro’s presence, the movie is cast for fun. Don Johnson shows up as a ruthless vigilante who likes to shoot people who cross the border; Cheech Marin signs on as Machete’s brother, a priest who never will serve as a model for non-violent behavior.

Say this: Rodriguez understands his audience. There’s plenty of pulchritude, notably from Michelle Rodriguez, as a woman who runs a network that offers support to illegals, and Jessica Alba, as a customs agent who prefers justice to law and who enjoys jumping Machete’s bones. If that’s not enough to make macho pulses race, Rodriguez includes nude scenes from Lindsay Lohan, who plays Fahey’s character’s wayward daughter.

Note: Given her recent troubles, Lohan has turned into an instant sight gag, not really where any actress wants to be.

Most of the action has been engineered to draw whoops from the multitudes, including a signature line for Trejo’s character: “Machete don’t text.”

Of course, with this kind of movie, the violent envelope must be pushed: An escape scene involving a ropey strand of intestine provides what either can be regarded as a high or low point, depending on how much tolerance you have for gore.

Rodriguez seems to have achieved his goals here, but I’m more than a little tired of the adolescent humor and super-charged energy of movies that exult in their pulpy origins. Rodriguez is good at what he does in Machete, but I half wonder whether it's worth doing at all.

A brilliant Australian rumble in the jungle

Grandma knows best ... or does she?
If there’s a false note in director David Michod’s riveting Animal Kingdom, I didn’t detect it. This Australian debut movie enters a crime world unlike most others we’ve seen. Working with a terrific cast, Michod penetrates the closed world of one Melbourne family, building a climate of excitement and dread.

Now, we’re not talking a crime family a la the Sopranos. We’re talking about a clan of blood relatives who treat the world – and sometimes one another – as a jungle full of prey. Take the movie's title seriously.

I don’t know if the filmmakers thought about it, but Animal Kingdom might just be the perfect movie for our moment of economic gloom and frantic competition. When the going gets tough, people aren’t always inclined to extend a helping hand, unless it’s to put it into your pocket. I may be reading too much into this narrowly focused, grimly targeted movie, but I see it as a mean movie for a mean time.

The story centers on Josh (James Frecheville), a 17-year-old who moves in with his grandmother after his mother dies of a heroin overdose, expiring while the two are watching a game show on TV. As played by Australian stage actress Jacki Weaver, grandma enters a pantheon of crime mamas that includes Cody Jarrett’s Mom (Margaret Wycherly) in James Cagney’s White Heat. High praise, I know, but Weaver’s Janine Cody is an instant classic.

Sweetly and inappropriately seductive with her three sons – evidently each with a different father – Weaver’s Janine has a smile that masks a deadly disposition. As played by Weaver, nothing about this grandma is clichéd or easy. She’s not out to charm the audience with faux toughness; she’s portraying a character whose affections can turn on a dime without evincing the slightest change in demeanor.

Frecheville plays Josh – known as “J” – without a great deal of expression. That’s the right choice. Josh is navigating his way through a world he knows is dangerous, and he’s never entirely sure how he fits into it or even if he wants to adapt. Like everyone else in the film, he’s also scared to death of his uncle Pope, played with incomparable menace by Ben Mendelsohn.

To his credit, Michod – who also wrote the screenplay – never drifts into caricature or cliché. Pope occasionally makes sincere efforts to reach out to his nephew, but he’s ill equipped to make good on offers to become a sounding board. Besides, no one trusts Pope enough to turn him into a confidant.

Although the plot revolves around revenge, the movie has less to do with gangster exploits than with the struggle for power inside the movie’s well-drawn "animal" kingdom, a domain that includes the Melbourne cops. Guy Pearce plays a detective who offers Josh protection, understanding that the kid has only two choices: He can rely on his uncles or on Pearce’s Detective Leckie. Both choices have advantages and disadvantages, and it’s up to Josh to figure out how best to survive his foray into this jungle of murderous rage, personal weakness and craven self-interest.

Luke Ford and Sullivan Stapleton sign on as Josh’s other two uncles, and Laura Wheelwright portrays Josh’s girlfriend, a young woman ensnared by the cruelties of a world that she’s ill equipped to understand. When Josh visits Laura’s house, we see how far outside the norm his life has moved.

Michod does nothing to glamorize these criminals. He also understands that their world is fraught with fear – of one another and of the society at large. He uses music effectively, and, just as importantly, knows when not to use it. (Notice the scene in which the brothers ambush a squad car as payment for the death of one of their partners in crime. No music spoils the point-blank drama of the moment.)

Animal Kingdom is a dark, unhappy movie that bravely denies us the voyeuristic pleasure that most crime movies offer. We can feel as trapped as Josh by this unseemly band of brothers, and we fear for his fate at their hands.

There are so many good scenes and so much fine acting in Animal Kingdom that you needn’t fret over the occasional line of lost dialogue, the disappearance of words inside the thick Melbourne accents. You can’t miss the gist or the skill with which Michod brings this grim tale to life.