Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Trailer is Up!

I am bound to find some disagreements here, but of all seven of J.K. Rowling's books, this is the one most ripe for the screen.

The Prince is revealed November 21, 2008.

Michael Bay: the explanatory graph

In case you were wondering how Bay's films break down (from GraphJam.com):

more graph humor and song chart memes

The Dark Knight (2008)

I take too long to write these things. The immediacy of a blog certainly does not appeal to my more meticulous nature. Not that writing a review is an effort in parsing the layers of Shakespeare, but some films lend themselves to criticism better than others. Then there are those that won’t leave you once you leave the theater; the reviews that refuse to write themselves because the film won’t stick to the usual paradigms. Comic book movies tend to fall into the easier side of things. But not this time. THE DARK KNIGHT may have drawn its inspirations from the pages of a comic book, but what ended up on film is an exercise in excellence.

I’m a little more than a week late getting this in. What more can I say that hasn’t already been addressed in the great pantheon of writing and thought this film has produced? I’ll see what I can do, but the easiest thing to do is echo Jeffrey Overstreet’s sentiments--this film is everything you’ve heard it is, and probably more.

Christopher Nolan (dir. MEMENTO, THE PRESTIGE) somehow has an ability to turn a screen story into a layered morality tale. Even his early work on MEMENTO, apart from its creative use of exposition and narrative, explores its themes with a subtle hand, slowly twisting you deeper into the bleak realm of the protagonist. When Nolan delivered BATMAN BEGINS, he brought the same aplomb to a world perhaps ripest for this kind of development. The Batman has always held one characteristic that sets him apart from all of his peers. Underneath all that spandex, he’s just a man. Bruce Wayne’s hero is entirely self-made, driven by the horror of witnessing his parents’ murder, determined to return his fear to the criminals who rule the underworld of Gotham.

As THE DARK KNIGHT opens, Batman (Christian Bale) has the mob on the run and has inspired the city to stand up for justice. Some folks have even taken to the streets dressed as the caped vigilante. But the work of this dark hero has lit the fire under the good people of Gotham and moved them to elect a District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), to prosecute the criminals Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and his major crimes unit apprehend. Bruce Wayne can see the day coming when he can hang up his cowl for good. Enter The Joker, a criminal bent on nothing more than pure, nihilist chaos, determined to remake the world in his image.

Heath Ledger is the Clown Prince of Crime. He disappears, even in the one moment (blink and you miss it) he appears without the white face. All that you see is the Joker. And his smile stabs a fright as deep as John Doe’s placid grin from SE7EN. Ledger has turned in a performance as iconic as Kevin Spacey’s Doe, Anthony Hopkins’s Lecter, and Javier Bardem’s Chigurh.

My favorite performance, however, has to be Gary Oldman’s turn as James Gordon. He is the anchor of this story, a righteous man with almost no resources summoning the courage to do the thing right. Oldman reaches back to the subtler power of heroes like Atticus Finch, the everyman determined to see justice out. He runs almost counterpoint to Batman/Bruce Wayne, the truest acolyte of the caped crusader’s call to justice.

As the plot unfolds, it asks serious questions. How far must one go to defeat evil? What measures must one employ to end tyranny? The Batman walks a ragged edge, facing a villain with no modus operandi, just straight up villainy. His evil recalls, as others have stated (and with far greater eloquence) the senseless tyranny of terrorism. He does it all with a smile. He is, as he says in the film, like a dog chasing cars. “I wouldn’t know what to do if I ever caught one!” His only goal is to see the righteous succumb to his madness, and everyone enters his sights eventually, including the city’s white knight, Harvey Dent. So each knight is tested, and each endures the scorching flame of the Joker’s madness.

This is a dark movie, one that reaches into the heart of darkness with every bit of probing awareness as NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Yet THE DARK KNIGHT lets its curtain descend on a note of nobility and hope. The Batman might walk a razor’s edge, but he keeps his perch so that others would not have to. He may not be the hero Gotham wants, but he’s the hero Gotham needs.

Every movie has a few rough patches. There were rumors a few months back that the filmmakers were trying desperately to whittle down the running time from three hours to something a little more manageable. What they turned in runs 145 minutes, and some moments leave behind a sense of something missing. But those moments run few, and the pace screams so fast that the minutes tick by almost unnoticed. The IMAX presentation of select scenes will rekindle your love for the 4:3 aspect ratio. The audience in my screening cheered four times, folks. This is a film for the age; a perfect manifestation of contemporary myth. See this movie. And then see it again.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008)

Scully's a surgeon specializing in rare brain conditions, with a particularly tough case on her hands. Mulder's no longer in the FBI, either; he's hiding at Scully's house, still technically preferred on charges by his longtime employer, yet still unable to let go of what he almost brought to light during The X-Files' 10-year run. And none of that is necessary to know to dive into the plot of The X-Files: I Want to Believe, Chris Carter's hush-hush revival of one of the 1990s most successful and invigorating TV dramas.

What drags the star-crossed ex-agents back into the realm of the bizarre is a current case officer (Amanda Peet) who is leading a team looking for another agent believed to have been abducted. Complicating matters -- and the reason for getting Mulder involved again, especially -- is the presence of a defrocked priest (Billy Connolly) who swears he has visions related to the kidnapping. His success rate for predictions is maddeningly (but not surprisingly) inconsistent, and the FBI wants help deciphering whether the guy's a put-on and if not, how best to make use of his second sight. Oh, the former cleric happens to be a convicted pedophile, which adds a whole other layer of complication to matters.

What drives the agent's disappearance (among other vanishings) has a striking parallel to Scully's personal and professional situation, adding a plot bridge whose dimensions only become clearer with time. And while Carter and his team have never been shy about taking their time in telling a story, there are some definite drags in I Want to Believe that cause the story's momentum to stumble in the snow at more than one point.

Nevertheless, it's to the credit of Carter and co-writer/longtime collaborator Frank Spotnitz that they've managed to fashion an intelligent story that tackles a particularly tough end-of-life issue and doesn't require any grounding in the show's mythos to get into. That said, fans will find this both a fun stretch of the meta-story arc where the Mulder-Scully relationship is concerned, although they might be a tad disappointed that no effort was made to move the meta-story arc further down the pike. Perhaps that's too much to ask of a movie whose sole cinematic predecessor dates back to the late 1990s and was grounded in the show's great paranoid narrative.

So, does it work on the big screen the second time around? Or is The X-Files franchise fated to be a small-screen classic that just never finds its way after making the jump? Based on I Want to Believe, the second X-Files film (10 years after the first), I'm leaning toward a successful film franchise -- assuming that's the direction Chris Carter and the rest of the X-Files creative team decide to take it. And while I Want to Believe is a worthy heir to the name, it would be good to see the next film (pretty please!) offer a sop or two to the fans -- and a bit more AD Skinner, too, thanks.

Fun with Shatner: the MTV Se7en parody

Shatner plays all three roles in a spot-on parody of the last scene from David Fincher's Se7en:

"What's in the #@%^ box?"

Wall-E (2008)

How is it that Pixar can animate the inanimate and have their animated characters display more character and personality than some live actors in other major Hollywood fare? I don't care to know the nuts and bolts of how they do it, simply because the utter magic of a Pixar movie is just that -- and Wall-E is no exception.

The title robot is programmed for cleaning up a trash-ridden Earth of the future, here a throwaway culture has gotten the better of, well, everything. Wall-E has a lonely existence, but he's filled his life with the detritus of life on this planet -- everything from old Christmas lights to a Rubik's cube -- and made it all his own in his quaint home. He shares his home with a little cockroach (and who but Pixar could make a roach cute?), and it's all rather humdrum for them both until one day when a spaceship shows up, leaving behind a sleek, powerful robot with an obviously singular mission. Wall-E and Eva, as he learnes her name is, aren't sure what to make of each other at first, but it doesn't take long until, well, the usual Pixar magic happens.

Eva's mission, it turns out, is to find plant life -- any plant life -- on Earth. Why this mission is so important becomes clear later in the film, and in the meantime, she returns (with Wall-E desperately in tow -- he's in love, after all!) to the mother ship with some very precious cargo in stow. The mothership, it turns out, is home to Earthlings now that Earth is mostly no longer inhabited, or inhabitable. That's where that telltale plant comes in, and it's how Wall-E and Eva find each other, lose each other, find each other again, and save the day when the bad guys emerge in the story.

If you're detecting a prime opportunity for an environmental message, you're right -- but to their enormous credit, writers Andrew Stanton (who directed), Jim Reardon (of Simpsons fame), and Pete Docter avoid getting preachy, instead allowing the message to emerge from the story and characters, and doing so in a very positive, upbeat way. It's a welcome bromide to the pedantic tendencies of films with environmental messages aimed at children, which are often more green-religious than scientific in tone.

Wall-E is yet another wonderful family movie from the Pixar geniuses. For us older kids, it's great to have the cockles of the heart warmed anew, and to bask in the glory of love with a great onscreen couple: Wall-E and Eva.

Tracking THE DARK KNIGHT...

After 6 days, THE DARK KNIGHT sits at #64 of the all-time highest grossing films (without adjusting for inflation) with a total gross of approx $222 million.

For some perspective, here's the top five...

1. Titanic - $601 Million
2. Star Wars - $461 Million
3. Shrek 2 - $441 Million
4. E.T. - $435 Million
5. Star Wars Episode 1- $431 Million

Consider that both STAR WARS and E.T. were released multiple times to earn those amounts. TITANIC is an anomaly, earning its total in one release, its biggest weekend earnings coming a full ten weeks after its release (Valentines Day weekend). It spent six months on the top ten weekly earnings charts before dropping to number 11 in late June.

Neither of these movies saw the kind of numbers DARK KNIGHT is pulling in at anytime in their release. In its best week, TITANIC never grossed more than $33 million, but it stayed in theaters for the better part of a year.

The only other film to have a comparative initial gross is SPIDER-MAN 3, which pulled in $151 million its first weekend before suffering a 61% drop in ticket sales by its second.

As TITANIC shows, momentum says more about a film’s success than the opening grosses. Yet, after only five days, DARK KNIGHT is already a third of the way there.

Something else to consider here is the current cost of a ticket. Ticket prices were lower in 1997, and TITANIC never had the benefit of earning sales from IMAX showings, which carry a higher price tag than a general admission stub.

TITANIC’s endurance at the box office is usually attributed to young girls between 14-25 paying for multiple showings, and THE DARK KNIGHT will never cull that kind of following. However, higher ticket prices combined with even an average box office run for a summer hit easily makes the Batman a contender for the top ten. Sinking Cameron’s ship is still gonna be a challenge.

Look for a review soon!

(all figures courtesy BoxOfficeMojo)

It took five days for THE DARK KNIGHT to break $200 million

FIVE DAYS!

Check back soon, I want try and break some of this down in comparison to some of the highest grossing films, and I want to try and turn in a review of the film as well.

Fight Scene Friday: GYMKATA!

Gymkata (1985) is the film that finally fused movie martial arts and Olympic gymnastics, in the person of Kurt Thomas. Go, Kurt, go!

Betcha didn't know that chalk is commonly added to random objects to aid the gymnastically empowered!

The Shyamalan twist-ending generator!

Courtesy of the wonders of The Soup:

The Dark Knight: a Libertarian/Austrian economics perspective

I must say that the reviews for The Dark Knight have been overwhelmingly ecstatic, leading me to crave it. One of the most interesting I've read comes from Jeffrey Tucker, president of Auburn University's Mises Institute, a small-"l" libertarian economic thinktank. Tucker opens with:

The problem of evil is a big theme for a movie, and certainly for a movie based on a comic book, but Batman: The Dark Knight deals with it expertly, and with a message that offers profound support to the idea of human liberty.

It does so in two ways: it supports the view that human beings are capable of cooperating toward the social good, and it shows the unpredictable level of evil that state intervention unleashes.

Tucker explains his position in detail, particularly in looking at the manifestation of evil the Joker (Heath Ledger, who apparently delivers a knockout performance in what is tragically his last film) represents:

Additionally, the Joker has a trait that we tend to see in evil people. He carries around with him a peculiar assumption, never really questioned. He assumes that everyone else is secretly as bad as he is. Anything that appears otherwise, he believes to be a façade. It is a mask that must be ripped off. In seeking confirmation for this assumption, he entertains himself by putting people in impossible situations that will reveal their core corruption. He revels in pushing people who think they are good into embracing their inner evil. Hence his obsession with ripping off Batman's mask. He must show the world that Batman is as bad as he is.

His review concludes with:

The Joker, however, is not manageable. He is the killer virus unwittingly unleashed by the cure. People like him will always be with us, but they can usually be contained – unless the state is involved to make such people more powerful than they would otherwise be. The implied lesson becomes clear. The Joker is the product of mistaken public policy, the end result of the prohibition of peaceful trade.

The contrast between the peaceful cooperation that people are capable of when they are on their own, even under extreme circumstances, and the evil unleashed by misguided state management of society could not be more palpable.

This is the real message of Batman: The Dark Knight, which, I must say, is one of the most spectacular and profound cinematic explorations of the problem of evil I've ever seen. It is not suitable for young children, but I recommend it very highly, not only for its libertarian theoretical structure but also for its moral power.

Not that I needed any further inducement to see Christopher Nolan's latest entry in the Batman franchise, but I just got it nonetheless.

Thrice the McConaughey! Once the, er, baby!

C'mon, admit it: You were wondering what Three Men and a Baby would be like if all three men were Matthew McConaughey.

See more Taran Killam videos at Funny or Die

Kid in a Cineplex Candy Store

That's what I felt like Saturday night at my favorite local 'plex, seeing Mongol. I made a mental list of everything else playing there that is on my must-see list: The Dark Knight, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Warrior, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, Hellboy 2, Journey to the Center of the Earth ... It was a little overwhelming. Maybe that's why I bought (and ate) way too much popcorn as the screen's Genghis Khan leapt to life before my eyes. Yeah, that must be it.

Mongol (2007)

Everything about Sergei Bodrov's Mongol, his 2007 biopic of Genghis Khan and his initial rise to power, screams epic in no uncertain terms. The enormous score (punctuated beautifully with throat-singing), the filtered color palette, the vast sweeps of steppe-scapes ... and the long-ish run time, too.

It's a bold vision, and Bodrov is more than up to the task of conveying the enormity of Khan's life -- one desperate setback after another, one hard-fought battle after another.

To be sure, the story of Temudzin, the son of a Khan who became one of the greatest conquerors the world has known, is ripe for the epic treatment. This first installment of his story, in Bodrov's hands, focuses on his youthful years and early adulthood, before he became the legend we all know, at least in passing. Thus, his father's murder plays a key role in the story, setting Temudzin up for what seems will be a short life of mostly misery as he loses his wife, is nearly killed repeatedly, and has to fight for everything he gets. There are defeats and major setbacks along the way, and Temudzin begins to accept that his fate is well out of his own hands -- a belief that is strengthened when he goes to the altar of Tengri, the sky god of the Mongolians.

Battle scenes? You betcha, and they are well handled by Bodrov's wide-ranging camera. While violent, the scenes of death and destruction aren't dwelt upon, leaving more a picture in the mind of the sweep of battle -- the big picture -- rather than the individual, mano a mano struggles (even though there are plunging swords and slicings aplenty). What elevates the scenes of tumult even beyond the usual is the absolutely rousing score by Finn Tuomas Kantilinen, which stirs the blood, to put it mildly.

It's all well done, to be sure, but it also rings a tad bit hollow where you want a well-rounded character you can deeply care about. We never get to know Temudzin all that well, which is a stunning realization given how absolutely central he is to the movie. (Granted, there are no authoritative contemporary biographies to draw from, but this is a movie -- it's up to Bodrov to bring that out of his title character.) More problematic, we don't know much about the Mongols themselves after more than two and a half hours in our seats, either. I would've loved more telling snapshots of Mongol life, rather than just hearing about how Mongols live in bland pronouncements from Temudzin and his contemporaries.

But those are minor complaints. I'm anxious to see part 2 in this epic retelling of the life of Genghis Khan. I will be among those practicing my throat singing in order to get ready.

To Be or Not to Be (1942)

There has been plenty of ink spilled over "the Lubitsch touch," and with good reason. The man was not merely a brilliant director, but he created a body of work that forever set the bar for film comedy higher than even most talented directors can't touch.

It would be too easy for me to get lost in fawning over Lubitsch at this point. I'm a huge fan. I can't help it: Ernst Lubitsch makes me laugh. Hard. Out loud. Embarrassing myself. And I am eternally grateful for that.

To Be Or Not to Be is Lubitsch's 1942 love letter to the stage, to Poland as it bowed under Nazi occupation, and to two of the absolute masters of screen comedy: the great Carole Lombard and the master of the deadpan, Jack Benny. The film opens with a loving tour down Warsaw streets just prior to the Nazi invasion in 1939, and lands us in the midst of ... well, Adolf Hitler walking down a Warsaw street. Back up a little to how this unlikely series of events occurred, and we meet the theater troupe headed up by Joseph and Maria Tura (Benny and Lombard), she a blithe-spirited diva, he a ham with a fragile ego (and if a role ever screamed "Benny," it's this one).

Lubitsch doesn't just ace the comedy; the plotting is so skillfully handled that To Be Or Not to Be works as suspense where needed, too. A very young Robert Stack is well-employed in his role as a Polish RAF pilot on a secret mission to prevent a double agent from exposing the Polish underground to the Nazis, especially his beloved Maria (a love that goes unrequited, of course, but is a source of great fun throughout). Meanwhile, Benny and the troupe get sucked into one of the zaniest plots to save the underground, protect Maria's identity, and put a stick into the Nazi eyes of Col. Earnhardt and Capt. Schulz (Sig Ruman and Henry Victor, in marvelous supporting roles -- and if you're a Hogan's Heroes fan, you'll recognize the types immediately!).

Along the way, Lubitsch can't resist (and neither can we resist enjoying) mocking the stupidity of Nazi "ideals" and getting a wonderful dig in via one of the minor players, Greenberg, who finally gets his chance to recite that famous passage from Othello: "Prick'd, do we not bleed? ..." It's a powerful dramatic moment, and it fits seamlessly in with the ribald comedy and pointed satire.

It would be criminal not to mention the dialogue. Oh, the dialogue. Lubitsch gets his actors to revel in such dialogue as:

Joseph: "But he walked out on me!"
Maria: "Maybe he didn't feel well. Maybe he had to leave. Maybe he had a sudden heart attack!"
Joseph: "I hope so."
Maria: "If he stayed, he might have died!"
Joseph: "Maybe he's dead already! Oh, darling, you're so comforting!"

I could go on, and on, and on ... but why? Go rent this film. Share it with your family. It's everything comedy should be, and it's all that and more.

Fight Scene Friday: the small screen!

Cheating a little this time ... It's from Star Trek, the original show:

I was always surprised that this scene didn't end with Kirk's patented double-karate chop (although the double ear bop did buy him a few seconds' escape!).

Le Fils (The Son, 2002)

It's a rare film that confronts the complexities of human relationships without indulging in a single cinematic cliche. The Son is one of that select few, and it's one of the most riveting dramas I've ever seen.

The story is, at first glance, straightforward: Olivier, a carpentry teacher (Olivier Gourmet, who is nothing short of amazing here) at a community center, decides to take on a troubled young lad (after initially declining). Why does he change his mind? There is a reason, but it's every bit as elusive as it is (eventually) plain. As we learn why, we also learn more about Olivier's past, and why he is drawn to this standoffish boy.

The Dardennes pulled off an amazing feat here, giving the movie the almost-documentary feel of unobtrusively following Olivier and his young charge through their day aseach learns more about what makes the other tick.

It all leads to a climax that is so brilliantly handled that it manages to be explosive and yet utterly believable at the same time. There is no musical crescendo, no telegraphed "emotion" to cue us in to the characters' internal states. In the ongoing process of teaching carpentry, Olivier is confronting more about himself than he dared imagine before, or so I gathered. It's an emotional powderkeg, but writer-directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne resist all urges to toss a match anywhere near it.

The Son is one of the few films I can remember watching twice in a row -- all the way through, without fast-forwarding -- just to imbibe in the pleasure of good cinema. I recommend that anyone who can handle subtitles and cares about quality filmmaking see it at least once.

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Now playing: WCPE
via FoxyTunes

Gozu (2004)

What is horror? For most filmmakers, it's some combination of sudden shocks with baddies full of evil intentions (and some combination of power tools or supernatural abilities to produce the aforementioned shocks, along with gushes of blood). In Takashi Miike's world, horror is something utterly different -- and all the more powerful for it.

The prolific director's 2004 masterpiece, Gozu, is a case in point. Ostensibly a yakuza (Japanese gangster) movie -- of which Miike has made many -- Gozu wastes no time in subverting every convention of the genre on its head before chucking conventions altogether in this journey through nightmare country. Indeed, it's the nonliteral, subconscious language of dreams that Miike's cast is working through, and the images he creates en route are nothing short of exhilarating and horrifying, sometimes at the same time.

The story, such as it is, is fairly straightforward: Minami, a junior yakuza member, is tasked with driving a senior member, called Brother, to a meeting. Brother has been acting erratically, to put it mildly, making strange statements about seemingly innocuous, everyday items to his fellow gangsters (which makes for some great comedy, indeed). As Minami tries to stop Brother from killing a passenger in a "yakuza-killing car," he accidentally kills him. Obviously distressed, he loads Brother into their car and heads for the nearest town. It's there that Brother's body disappears, and Minami is led on an utterly bizarre quest for the body and some sense of sanity in all that takes place.

Gozu was apparently Miike's tribute to the films of David Lynch, and it's not hard to see the influence. But Miike is very much his own man, and while the similarities are plain, the vision here is uniquely Miike's, as always. The horror in Gozu is not violent (unlike, say, Miike's Ichi the Killer, where the violence is front and center, and then some); here, it's the juxtaposition of the very ordinary with situations where they plainly are out of context, such as live birth and breastfeeding between adults. Miike gets comic mileage out of some scenes where you expect none, including a bizarre, idiotic phone conversation that continues picking up through the story, and a character who literally reads her dialogue off a wall. (That's barely scratching the surface.)

The DVD is loaded with helpful features that should be viewed to fully appreciate the film. It turns out that much of the imagery Miike uses comes from Buddhist legend, which offers a unique view into Minami's feverish imagination.

Gozu, as with all of Miike's films, is not or the faint of heart or those who tend to shy away from distressing scenes. But for the cinematically adventurous, it's an amazing journey.

Panic Room (2002)

If GM could roll out a Chevy put together by the hands of the people who put together the high-end Lexus models, you’d have a pretty nice ride. But it would still be a Chevy. Panic Room feels a little like that--a by-the-numbers thriller put together by a master craftsman.

Meg Altman (Jodie Foster) visits an upscale brownstone townhouse in Manhattan, looking to purchase a place to live with her daughter Sarah (Kristen Stewart), due to a recent divorce. Of particular interest is a hidden room tucked behind the wall of the master bedroom on the second floor--a private phone, survival kit, video monitors keeping an eye on every corner of the house, reinforced on all sides by concrete walls, and locked behind a thick steel door. Everything you need to survive the home invasion cooked up by the filmmakers to your endless peril.

Meet the trio of invaders--the young and ignorant architect of the plan, Junior (Jared Leto); the professional, Burnham (Forrest Whitaker); and the muscle, Raoul (a very wily Dwight Yoakam).

Once Meg and Sarah enter the protective womb of the panic room, the conflict revolves around the crooks’ need to get inside. A safe in the floor, says Junior, hold three million dollars. Soon, it’s a battle for each side to outsmart the other, and a promising start slowly begins to stumble, kept alive by judicious choices in the writing, and David Fincher’s inspired direction.

Much of the film feels like a riff on some of Hitchcock’s more claustrophobic tales. The story keeps within the walls of the brownstone for the duration, keeping the cats and the mice enclosed in deftly constructed maze.

Screenwriter David Koepp has built a career crafting fast, punchy plots, and he certainly keeps things moving well here, delivering a perfect example of a bankable script: a handful of characters, one set, and a lean running time. Koepp’s penchant for one-liner wit, a cause for distraction in many of his scripts, finds its way into just about every character’s dialog, and even finds some appropriate use. Any chance the dialog has to devolve into a competition for the best zinger, Fincher swoops in for the rescue.

Fincher’s approach runs similar to Robert Zemeckis’s work on What Lies Beneath (2000), supposing Hitch was to make a film with all the contemporary digital tools of today at his disposal. We slide between walls, even fly right through the handle on a coffee pot, all to shape a fluid tension to help along the suspense. Fincher knows when to keep it simple, however, and stick to the fundamentals. The most suspenseful moment in the film doesn’t use a single visual effect--just plain and simple slow motion. And it winds a tight knot.

The cast turns in a fair performance, most keeping to tried and true technique we’ve seen a hundred times before, but Whitaker and Yoakam bring their game. Yoakam in particular looks nothing like the smooth persona of his music videos. Whitaker sticks to an understated criminal-in-over-his-head rhythm, and could have used a little more development.

The tight web of tension everyone manages to weave starts to weaken as the film enters the second and third acts. Certain moments that establish set ups early on never receive a pay-off. Little gaps in the overall logic appear here and there, particularly near the end where the film starts to borrow perhaps a little too much from the innovative thrillers of yore that inspired its creation. Jodie Foster even steals a bit from Audrey Hepburn’s courageous actions in the closing moments of Wait Until Dark (1967), but to much less impressive ends.

In the hands of lesser talent, this film could easily have become a forgettable addition to the discount bin at Best Buy. Its flaws nearly send it there, keeping a brilliant concept from ever reaching the fully realized potential Fincher usually brings to his work. As a follow-up to the impressive work he put into Fight Club (1999), Panic Room flies a little wide of the bull’s eye. It’s still a Chevy. But a Chevy ain’t all bad.

Fight scene Friday: the struggle continues!

Yes, this is from a real movie: The Crippled Masters (1979), long beloved by fans of Asian trash cinema (myself included).

Ridiculous? Sure. But it's also a dazzling display of fight choreography involving two physically gifted, yet handicapped men. The masters, Jackie Conn and Frankie Shum, went on to make two more movies together. Takes guts to do what they did, and I honor them for it.