Horton Hears a Who

a little review by Sam Osborn

Each Winter, as Christmas draws near, my family blows the dust from our VCR and settles in to Chuck Jones’ 1966 TV special “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” The glow of Christmas’ past roll out with this twenty-six minute animation, but it’s sincerity that opens the floodgates of nostalgia. Sincerity–genuine, heartfelt sincerity–is no longer paramount to animation. Projects like Shrek and Cars, Surfs Up and Robots, they rely on suggestive jokes or complicated pop culture references to entertain their adult audiences. They defect from their own storylines, scared of boring an over-stimulated young adult generation, copping out with easy one-liners. Pixar can still spin the occasional gem of sincerity, harking back to the Disney 2D pictures from that wondrous era. But Cinderella can no longer pine for the Prince and twirl in her glass slippers. The slippers have turned to stilettos, her dress to Prada, and now she’s worried about her virginity, conveyed through the overt imagery of cherries.

But Dr. Seuss is the very definition of sincerity. Zany and insane, his works play towards the expansion of the reader’s imagination, rocketing so far from reality that pop culture references are as gassy and lame as the swizzled clouds above. Horton Hears a Who understands this principle well enough—which is lucky, since this might have been the third strike for Dr. Seuss adaptations. The Elephants and Whos of Whoville are lovingly rendered, tracing all the whimsical lines and colors laid out in the book. Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul, the screenwriters, have stretched the story reasonably, keeping to appropriate Seussical whimsy. And the cast pulls through admirably, Steve Carell and Seuss veteran, Jim Carrey, flexing their comic muscles for their vocal performances as the Mayor of Whoville and Horton the elephant. But it’s all not quite Seuss. Horton breaks it down to a rap beat, one of the Mayor’s daughters wants a cell phone. The story is stretched by an anime sequence to elbow out 88 minutes of running length. It’s fine and often hilarious, charming in its zany colors, but we still don’t buy it as a Seuss creation. It’s not as genuine, not as original. Not as insane.

                                                                                                                                                                Sam Osborn

Chop Shop reviewed by Jason Blevins

It’s a shame for a deserving film to go unrecognized or overlooked by cinemagoers. Instead, films with predictable plots, overpaid actors, and uninspired premises, like Music and Lyrics and Vantage Point, make millions at the box office. The argument is that general audiences do not go to the cinema to think, but be entertained. But why must the two be mutually exclusive? And further, it is a misconception that the real world is not exciting therefore films must manipulate reality to make it more engaging. But those who believe this have not seen Ramin Bahrani’s recent feature film, Chop Shop (2008). (more…)

City of Men

reviewed by Anu Valia

Note to viewer: Do not be confused. Although City of Men is shot in the same style, within the same favelas, have the same theme, and even the same first two words as its predecessor, it is NOT City of God. Nor is it a sequel to the critically acclaimed 2002 hit. It actually has nothing to do with City of God. So try to ignore the nagging urge to lean over to your friend in the first five minutes and whisper, “This isn’t as good”. I lasted twenty.

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Paranoid Park

reviewed by Sam Osborn

The tangle of story that’s unraveled in Paranoid Park is as wandering, lush, and explicit as any teenaged diary entry. Which is just as well, since the film is a recollection of a sixteen year-old’s painful memory of murder as transcribed in his confessional letter to a friend.

As Alex–the film’s narrator and lead character–warns us at the beginning, what we are about to see is not in order. He didn’t do so well in Creative Writing class. But sitting at his bedroom desk or at the isolated bench near a Portland lake, Alex will recount his story to us in its entirety. Scenes will be repeated, dialogue crossed and criss-crossed, stories changed, and revelations put on hold. This is the way Paranoid Park unfolds. It is evasive and uncompromising, expansive and tangential. It is teenaged. But only in this way is it truthful.

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Close-Up

a throwback review by Jovani Remior

And now for something completely different. Once upon a time, a down on his luck, unemployed Iranian named Hossain Sabzian decided that he needed a break from his go-nowhere life. As he rides the bus one day, the lady next to him notices that he is reading the script to 1987’s The Cyclist by Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. As a fan of the film, she inquires as to where he purchased the script, and without a moment’s hesistation, Sabzian tells her it’s his – he wrote it. He even offers to autograph it and give it to her. The lady is very grateful and they exchange information. Soon after, Sabzian, or should I say Makhmalbaf, is spending time with the lady and her family, the Ahankhahs. Imagine the family’s delight; they soon ask him to stay a night or two. The impostor never once gives up the game, speaking intelligently about his cinema when asked questions. This faux Makhmalbaf even offers to cast their son as the lead in his next film, and they soon jump into rehearsals. However, after a few days Father Ahankhah begins to suspect something is afoul, and the cops soon arrive to arrest the impostor.
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The Other Boleyn Girl

reviewed by Sam Osborn

More passion was put into the costuming than in the making of The Other Boleyn Girl, a period slog as interesting as a ninth grade history class. Academic comparisons aren’t too apt, however, since this adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s bestselling novel is bouncily light on history. Consisting instead of two sisters’ malicious beddings of King Henry VIII during his marriage to Queen Catherine of Spain, the film plays out like a drab, costumed episode of “The Real World.” As soon as one hottie gets the alpha male, the other hottie sleuths in for a slice of her own Type A male dominance. If nothing else, The Other Boleyn Girl proves that squeezing your actress into a bodice does not make your movie respectable.

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