Haywire (USA) Director Steven Soderbergh Writer Lem Dobbs Starring Gina Carano; Channing Tatum; Ewan McGregor; Michael Fassbender; Michael Douglas; Antonio Banderas; Mattieu Kassovitz; Michael Angarano; Bill Paxton

With The Girlfriend Experience, director/cinematogrpaher/editor Steven Soderbergh took a non-actor (porn star Sacha Grey) and used her as the lead in a story about a high end call-girl - here, he casts real life MMA fighter Gina Carano as Mallory Kane, a fighting/killing machine/action hero. Thankfully, Soderbergh has more success in regards to the performance of the attractive Carano than he did with the barely conscious Grey, though neither will likely be winning any acting awards in the near (or distant) future. Carano, however, displays enough life to plausibly embody the role, using her looks and physicality to play her version of Luc Besson’s/Anne Parillaud’s Nikita.

Soderbergh’s visuals are, as always, top-notch (he uses a 4k red camera), capturing scenes bathed in glowing primary colors; and his prowling shooting style utilizes long lensed shots, black and white photography, and some stylistic flourishes to mirror the surveillance involved in the spy/intelligence/special ops/contractor game. He covers the action with a fluid camera that follows Carano as she battles and flees and chases, probing as if trying to discover what will happen next. The electronic David Holmes (Out of Sight; Ocean Series) score is also recognizably Soderbergh-ian and is notable as much for the times when Soderbergh chooses not to employ it as it is for its pulsating nature.

Soderbergh is enamored with genre experimentation, and here he takes a simple idea - creating an action thriller with a global feel (ala The Bourne series; The International; The American; Munich; Ronin et al) and a woman as its lead, which of course another well-known franchise (The Dragon Tattoo trilogy) is already doing. The director, who a short time back, threatened to retire from film-making, is also riffing on his own oeuvre. Utilizing a basic formula demonstrated in Girlfriend; touching upon world politics or, at least, international intrigue, as in Contagion; Traffic; Michael Clayton; and Syriana (the latter two he produced); using fractured narrative as he has done with The Limey; Out Of Sight; The Ocean Films; and The Informant, he continues delving into new genre vistas while visually and structurally remaining in an identifiable stylistic realm. Ultimately, because Soderbergh doesn’t write his own scripts his body of work is all over the place in terms of voice - the most consistent aspect of his films past being an evolving, singular visual style and a reliance on the previously referenced editing technique.

The trouble here is not the concept itself, nor the tone - Soderbergh does well using cinematic subtly to hold back information and allow a thinking man’s thriller to unfold. He just doesn’t go far enough. While the script by Lem Dobbs is mostly free of the ghastly expository dialogue too often found in like minded films, the narrative structure (or at the very least one particular device) is purely kids stuff and flies directly in the face of the aforementioned restraint. To whit, the film begins with Kane appearing at a diner where she proceeds to meet Aaron (Channing Taum), a fellow special ops contractor and representative of her boss and former boyfriend Kenny (Ewan McGregor). The two argue about her going with him, they fight, and Kane winds up traveling with an unsuspecting diner patron, Scott (Michael Angarano), who helped her during the altercation.

All of this would be fine if the injured Kane didn’t then proceed to take the wheel and, during the ensuing drive, run down her recent jobs in Barcelona and Dublin (with accompanying flashbacks) with the illogical idea that this stranger/civilian is going to go to the authorities with her story. What makes matters worse than this more than obvious screenwriting device is the fact that Scott will eventually disappear and not be heard from again. Soderbergh is in love with this idea of shaking up the pieces and telling the story in a non-linear way, but here it seems completely unnecessary. If the aim was to subvert the genre and take all (or most) of the air out the tires than mission accomplished. Even for an action thriller though, the facts seem a bit too sketchy, and the story seems a bit too… inconsequential maybe (?) - perhaps in part because we never get to invest in Mallory Kane as a person. In any event, the reliance on the skewed time-line here feels like a cover for a lack of genuine suspense, and that’s a problem..

Make no mistake - Carano as former marine Kane is a female bad-ass, and her past real life fight experience definitely assists in making her hero character close to being believable. The problem is we see her battling a series of grown men, who are mostly also trained Martial artists and professionals like herself, who also deal in violence on a regular basis, and we are somehow to believe that this character, even at a hard-bodied hundred and forty pounds or so, could withstand repeated full contact blows from males outweighing her by 30, 40, 50 pounds or more? There is a reason why women do not fight men professionally, or even compete with them in contact sports, and those reasons apply here.

Still, the fights themselves aren’t bad and Soderbergh uses sound to great effect, though it should be said that several of these confrontations are over-choreographed and, in certain moments, just plain silly. One understands that it’s all a bit of a gag, but Soderbergh does so many things well here, creating a mostly understated action flick that is actually largely watchable that it’s a real shame to see him let go of the realism that dominates many other aspects of the film. It would have been more pleasurable to see Kane demonstrate her fighting abilities, but also a recognition that she couldn’t beat most trained men hand to hand and see her using other skills and methods to escape and/or defeat them. No such luck.

Bill Paxton plays Kane’s oddly passive father, and Michael Fassbender; Michael Douglas; and Antonio Banderas are mostly wasted in underwritten roles that seem to beg for more screen time. Haywire is not an uninteresting foray into a genre dominated by CGI laden, big budget Hollywood entries, and there is certainly no small degree of technical panache on display, but the uber talented Soderbergh perhaps should have taken more chances and diverted even further from convention. The messy time sequencing too is, at this point, tiresome.

Jeff Who Lives at Home Directed by Mark Duplass; Jay Duplass  Written by Mark Duplass; Jay Duplass  Starring Ed Helms; Jason Segal; Susan Sarandon; Judy Greer; Rae Dawn Chong; Steve Zissis; Evan Ross

As The Duplass brothers work with bigger budgets and higher profile actors they are beginning to explore genre constructs by melding them into an overall personal aesthetic honed making DYI films. Cyrus, and now their latest, Jeff Who Lives at Home, are both examples of films made by filmmakers who are progressing, gaining control over their chosen medium with a previously unseen fluidity.

To date the Duplass Brothers’ films are essentially about relationships - between friends; siblings; husbands and wives; girlfriends and boyfriends - and always there is social awkwardness in the mix. With Jeff, there are perhaps less cringe inducing moments (or at least they are delivered with less emphasized tension), and in their place is a kind of whimsical overriding theme having to do with fate that PT Anderson (and any number of sci-fi and romantic comedies) might be proud of.

Taking place in the course of one day, Jeff is a nicely self-contained piece that admirably recognizes its own limitations and does not attempt to exceed them. Despite the natural gentle philosophizing that goes along with the titular Jeff’s (Jason Segel) quest to follow his destined path, The Brothers restrain themselves from allowing the characters to wax overly poetic about the mysteries of life and the universe.

Jeff is a floundering thirty year old man-child stoner who lives in the basement of his Mom Sharon’s (Susan Sarandon) house. Sans a life plan, a relationship, or (seemingly) a job, a series of events, beginning with a random phone call, starts him on a path to what he begins to suspect is a course he is beholden to follow. Along the way he comes in contact with his not so nice older brother Pat (Ed Helms), whose marriage to Linda (Judy Greer) is already in serious trouble when he informs her of a just purchased Porsche they cannot afford.

Several times during the film Jeff communicates with Mom Sharon as she attempts to go about her work day, though her attentions are turned when she begins receiving instant messages from a secret admirer. The sixty-five year old Sarandon classes up the proceedings as an older woman living the same kind of mundane, average existence as her two sons, who she confesses at one point to not liking very much lately.

While the visuals are slowly getting better, The Brothers are still relying a little too heavily on signature shaky hand-helds, replete with that twitchy re-framing device. There is nothing wrong with a verite methodology on the surface, though by the now their specific shooting technique has become commonplace, and it’s debatable how necessary the tics are in order convey their intended vibe.

There is a farcical element to Jeff’s quest, and especially the conclusion, that leaves the film resting in an odd place between realism and fantasy, but perhaps that’s the point. Jeff is funny and dramatic in places and the slacker lead’s overall thought process and approach to his quest certainly contains a wealth of applicable Zen-like philosophy. More than anything Jeff further demonstrates that The Duplass Brothers are unafraid of something that scares some of the best filmmakers working today - sincerity.

21 Jump Street (USA) Directed by Phil Lord; Chris Miller  Written by Jonah Hill; Michael Bacall  Starring Channing Tatum; Jonah Hill;  Brie Larson; Dave Franco; Rob Riggle; Ice Cube; Ellie Kemper; Nick Offerman; Chris Parnell;

When it comes to assessing comedies it’s sometimes hard to know if one should be grading on a curve. It is obvious that making even solid comedies that actually hang together as full stories isn’t easy. After all, if it was there would be more of them, wouldn’t there?

21 Jump Street, yet another film made from an old television series (and no the joke in the film saying as much doesn’t alter this fact or mitigate it any way) is written by co-star Jonah Hill and Scott Pilgrim scribe Michael Bacall. Chock full of gags and a few too many meta nods (that wind off coming off as apologies) it’s funny in places, though the absurdity and inconsistencies begin to add up, eventually rendering the whole undertaking tiresome.

Hill as the nerdy Schmidt and Channing Tatum as ex-jock Jenko are two rookie officers who were from different castes in the same high school, but became friends at the police academy through helping one another out with their individual weaknesses. The pair are a good match and have some nice moments together playing off their physical differences. Hill does his usual shtick, but the surprise is Tatum, who commits fully to the comedy - always the best move for someone who has made their bones in drama.

It is possible for a film to have plenty of funny moments and still not hold up. Step Brothers (and perhaps most Will Ferrell films over the past decade?) is a perfect example of a film with laugh out loud scenes that falls apart in the third act. The best moments in 21 Jump Street are not nearly as funny as those in Step Brothers, though the film is at its best with the narcs interacting with the high school kids they befriend, with comedy being derived from the perspective the boys have gained; the changes in trends that have occurred; as well as the unresolved angst still haunting them.

Unfortunately, the screenwriters and directors evidently failed to recognize that the film lives in the scenes at the high school, a forum that is ripe for these two characters to rediscover themselves, and re-examine their friendship, by getting a second chance to do it again. What could have become a memorable comedy about generation gaps, popularity, and high school life in general, ala Fast Times, Sixteen Candles, Mean Girls, or Ten Things I Hate About You flounders with bad action sequences and cartoon villians. Like Pineapple Express, those in charge seemingly didn’t know what they had (in that case a potentially great stoner comedy about two new buddies) and allowed a bunch of over-the-top “stuff” to get in the way of the development of a story bearing any resemblance whatsoever to real life.

21 Jump Street is no different than the majority of comedies coming out of Hollywood, but that’s the point. Instead of working to go deeper, to make the story add up to something, the lowest common denominator is settled for at every pass. There was a wealth of material to be gleaned from a chubby, baby faced grown man dressing up in a Peter Pan costume to impress a high school girl and enjoy experiences he never got to have when he was younger, but all of it goes out the window in the name of another excruciatingly long and completely unnecessary chase scene.

Some of the supporting players (Ellie Kemper as a sex starved teacher who lusts after Jenko; Dave Franco as the eco-friendly drug dealer; and Brie Larson as Hill’s love interest) are solid, but we want to see more of them and the ways they are affected by the intrusion of these outsiders. Instead of implausibly dropping the narcs into the school with thirty days left in the year, why not have them there throughout, allowing these relationships to grow in a real way? Is it too much to want some laughs and a story that makes just a little bit of sense?

It is probably wrong to critique a film for what it isn’t, but with poorly structured stuff like this that wastes two good leads and a potentially very funny premise it’s almost impossible not to.

Directed by Pedro Almodovar; Augustin Almodovar  Written by Pedro Almodovar; Augustin Almodovar  Starring Antonio Banderas; Elena Anaya; Marisa Paredes; Jan Cornet; Roberto Alamo; Barbara Lennie

Though no doubt influenced by the classic melodrama of Sirk; soap operas/tele-novelas; the surrealism of Bunuel and Fellini; the style and themes of Hitchcock; the avante-garde/underground/gay cinema of Jack Smith, Andy Warhol, John Waters and the like; and a host of other sources, watching a Pedro Almodovar film is an experience as unique as seeing something from Woody Allen; The Coen Brothers; Wes Anderson; David Lynch; Aki Kaurasmaki; Lars Von Trier; The Dardennes, or any number of iconic auteurs. Almodovar has created a world entirely his own and the stories arise within this construct - the characters, plots, and stories changing, genre influencing individual pieces, but always there is Almodovar.

There can, of course, be a downside to watching the full breadth of any auteur’s work play out over time. The repetitive themes and touchstones can begin to tire; a feeling can arise (for instance, in the case of the afore-mentioned Allen) where one wonders if the artist has simply said all they had to say. Conversely, in the same way that we enjoy great living novelists, we are repeatedly allowed an updated installment of the life’s work of the individual artist that is no different from a gallery showing; and in this way we are allowed to come along with the artist as they age, understanding all the while the basic world we are entering into each time out and accepting both the new found wonders that arise, as well as the limitations and excesses of the obsessive authorial imagination.

Thankfully, Almodovar seems to have plenty of gas left in the tank, and this strange, complex film, with details reminiscent of the work of David Cronenberg, adds to the list of recent quality offerings from the master. Based on a French novel by Thierry Jonquet, with a screenplay co-written by Almodovar and brother Augustin, The Skin I Live in is almost impossible to categorize - at once lyrical and as aseptic as anything Kubrick could have imagined, it’s a kind of monster hybrid, a Medical/Sci-Fi/Erotic/Psychological/Horror/ Thriller recalling shades of films as diverse as Coma; The Collector; Sliver; and Hitchcock’s Rebecca and Vertigo. Clouded in mystery, the film slowly, teasingly reveals itself through a series of flashbacks experienced by Dr. Robert Ledgard (Almodovar’s frequent 80s collaborator Antonio Banderas), a plastic surgeon, and his charge, the body suited Vera (the lovely Elena Ayala).

Despite the emotion involved in some of the more dramatic moments, Almodovar keeps a cool, voyeuristic distance from his characters, allowing the events in the past and present to play out with the clinical dissection of one of Ledgard’s procedures. Shot by Jose Luis Acaine, every aspect of the design is impeccably rendered, an area where Almodovar emulates the great Hitchcock. Much like the oneirism in Vertigo, The Skin I live In plays out as a kind of fever dream, purposely leaving an audience on unsure footing throughout. Toying with an array of questions about identity and sexual politics, Almodovar keeps us off balance, blurring the line between reality, waking and sleeping dreams, and memory; sanity and insanity; and the past and present.

Almodovar has never been one to allow himself to be kept in a box, and while the themes here feel very much lived in, this particularly wild genre meld is something new. Though subjects like strong mothers, the objectification of women, rape, image obsession, family, and various aspects of gender identity dominate his oeuvre - much in the same way he enjoys repeatedly employing some of the same performers - Almodovar continues to challenge audiences with his innovative, singular work.

Rampart (USA) Directed by Oren Moverman  Written by Oren Moverman; James Ellroy  Starring Woody Harrelson; Brie Larson; Ice Cube; Robin Wright Penn; Ben Foster; Cynthia Nixon; Anne Heche; Stella Schnabel; Sigourney Weaver; Steve Buscemi

Set in 1999, a charged period in Los Angeles besotted with unrest over police brutality and corruption, Oren Moverman’s Rampart arises out of a long tradition of dirty cop films that includes Serpico (1973); To Live and Die in LA (1985); Internal Affairs (1990); Q & A (1990);; LA Confidential (1997); Cop Land (1997); Training Day (2001); The Bad Lieutenant (1992) and it’s follow-up Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call (2009). Rampart probably most closely resembles Abel Ferrara’s cult original, which famously starred Harvey Keitel. For his part, Woody Harrelson’s Vietnam vet/Rampart Unit cop Dave “Date Rape” Brown gives the gambling addicted, crack smoking, public masturbating, nude dancing NYC lieutenant a run for his money in the fucked-up department.

Rolling off his excellent, critically acclaimed debut The Messenger (2009), the director brings back his two leads Harrelson and (in a small role as a wheelchair bound street person) Ben Foster (one of the producers on the film). Though the script (co-written by Moverman and LA noir/crime novelist James Ellroy) sometimes meanders, and ultimately this sophomore effort comes up a bit short of the heights achieved with Moverman’s first time out of the box, Rampart is pleasingly restrained and relatively free of the cliches normally associated with material of the kind. A bonus too is the forum it gives for Harrelson to let it all hang out, and his performance mines previously undiscovered depths while never ballooning into caricature. There is something fascinating about watching a real life anti-authoritarian play one of them and Moverman has now employed Harrelson twice in this capacity.

Though not an obvious choice for the role, Harrelson settles nicely into the shoes of a morally compromised/ emotionally stilted character who is clearly at the end of his tether. Already potentially facing serious charges stemming from several criminal misconduct investigations against him, the egotistical Brown is unable to prevent himself from digging a deeper ditch. So accustomed is he to his own self-indulgence, instant gratification, and the multitude of empty rationalizations he offers up to explain his actions, he cannot recognize and/or acknowledge the fact that the ex wife sisters Barbara (Cynthia Nixon) and Catherine (Anne Heche) he still lives in the same house with are as tired of his act as his eldest, lesbian daughter Helen (Brie Larson). In the same way, he cannot help compounding his massive, widely publicized professional problems that threaten to cost him his job/freedom/and/or his life.

Moverman deals with Brown’s anger, alcoholism, sex addiction, and general misanthropy in a relatively matter-of-fact way, though Brown spends most of the film defending himself to the many people accusing him of the various wrongs he’s committed, including every member of his oddly composed family, attorney Linda Fentress (Robin Wright Penn); Police Administrator Joan Confrey (Sigourney Weaver); longtime friend/ex-cop Hartshorn (New Beatty), and a host of others.

At one point the second generation cop addresses his racism directly (kind of) by informing Ice Cube’s internal affairs investigator that (to paraphrase) he is not a racist because he hates everyone equally. There are deeper social issues at work here as the LAPD has a long history of racial controversy involving African Americans and Latinos (this is eight years after Rodney King), a history which underlies the entire proceedings. Thankfully Moverman avoids the soapbox, allowing his main character to spin out of control to his fatefully pathetic end with a few cat and mouse games thrown in for good measure, but without the encumbrances of long speeches dedicated to the issues touched upon.

While Rampart amps up the action as the film forges ahead it never reaches the extreme escalation and eventual cartoon absurdity that other initially quality attempts like Drive and Training Day eventually devolve into. Moverman stays committed to the style and tone he establishes, avoiding the clunkiness of over-plotting, and handling the ensuing violence in the same flat manner as the preceding minutes, holding the story in the realm of the believable. We also see similarities here with another recent film about a male protagonist attempting to quell his demons with excessive behavior, Shame, with one particular section a near replication (minus the homosexuality) of that film’s back room bar scene.

Brown is an interesting character because Moverman, Ellroy, Harrelson et al. refuse to allow him to exist as an uneducated, fascist blue-collar redneck. Instead, Brown is a law school grad who never passed the bar, which only makes him more frustrated, more needy to demonstrate to all concerned how smart he is. He may be violent, sexist, racist, reactionary, and likely a sociopath, but he is not without intellect or courage, and when accused by the authority figures he already resents so much, he strategizes how to beat them, using the guts, bravado, instincts, and cunning that have kept him on the job for twenty four years.

Ultimately, Rampart poses a lot of subtly stated but relevant questions about the individuals we ask to do our enforcement bidding, and the type of person drawn to these kinds of jobs in the first place. Further, it begs questions about the effects the job has on these same individuals, and also how much leeway we as a society can afford to give these institutions and the people employed by them. With Dave Brown as an example, perhaps not very much.

Take Shelter (USA) Directed by Jeff NIchols Written by Jeff Nichols Starring Michael Shannon; Jessica Chastain; Shea Wigham; Tova Stewart; Katy Mixon; Ron Kennard; Lisa Gay Hamilton; Kathy Baker; Ray McKinnon

Thirty Four Year old writer/director Jeff Nichols follows up his debut Shotgun Stories with another successful collaboration with actor Michael Shannon (a third pairing, Mud, is due out in 2013) with this five million dollar, aply titled offering. Shannon plays thirty five year old Curtis LaForce, a blue collar oil driller from Ohio who begins having intensely violent waking and sleeping dreams (nightmares? delusions? visions?) involving an impending torrent of weather, combined with attacks of various kinds on himself and his family.

Though the film might fall into a loose genre of apocalyptic vision/psychological thriller related films, Nichols expertly subverts expectations at every turn by showing restraint with the supernatural elements (perhaps also influenced by the limited budget) and grounding the performances in realism. Though it is true that Shannon has quickly become marked as an actor who does this type of anxiety/angst/psychosis well, and his character is not allowed a plethora of wiggle room, these facts do not not make his structured performance any less effective.

Nichols also gets outstanding work from an interesting cast consisting of new it girl Jessica Chastain (who is nothing short of superb) as spouse Samantha; Shea Wigham (Boardwalk Empire) as friend/co-worker Dewart; and Katy Mixon (Eastbound and Down) as his wife Nat. He even elicits a fine turn from little Tova Stewart as daughter Hannah, and gets experienced actors like Lisa Gay Hamilton; Kathy Baker; and Ray McKinnon to play small roles that result in their scenes emerging as something more than they likely would have as written.

Take Shelter works on multiple levels, touching upon an array of serious sociological issues, though it is never obvious in its delivery or messaging. The very nature of Curtis’ job speaks to our enormous ecological challenges and search for sustainable/green energy. The obsession with weather certainly leads into further thought about our worldwide climate questions. Throughout the story, Curtis and Samantha struggle to make ends meet in a difficult economy, all the while endeavoring to care for their deaf daughter, and navigate the vagrancies of the insurance system. In a number of small moments the importance of money in the day to day existence of a working class family is highlighted in the kind of tactile way often ignored in film. One of the most impressive aspects of the script is that Nichols takes a series of wide-reaching social issues any neo-realist would be proud of and fits them neatly into a film nominally about apocalyptic visions.

Like Lars Von Trier’s Melanacholia, Take Shelter involves a possibly afflicted protagonist who comes to believe in an impending catastrophic event happening from out of the sky and develops an accompanying obsession to protect the people closest to them. In Melancholia there is a well-known possibility of this occurring, while Curtis must attempt to come to grips with his personal visions without the benefit of an actual recognized meteor, knowing all the while that there is a history of mental illness in his family and it all just might really be in his head. Like Meloncholia, the film does a nice job of demonstrating the difficulties faced by the mentally ill with deciphering what is real and what is imagined, and how one can be in various stages of consciousness regarding his or her own problems.

Though Curtis may be motivated by a genuine, overriding desire to protect himself and his family, his actions with the storm shelter located on his property very much mirror a certain mentality that involves extreme paranoia, mis-trust, and survivalism. The fact that this behavior is arising within a rural, mostly white setting is not coincidental, though again, Nichols refuses to lay out the landscape on a silver platter and forces the audience to connect the dots. Curtis is, of course, burdened by the actual dreams he is having, but is this an outgrowth of a burgeoning mental illness and/or the extreme real world pressures imposed upon him by the life he finds himself ensconced in, or is there some truth to the event they seem to portend?

Curtis’ unraveling real life, and an increase in the accumulated impact of his visions/dreams are part of an expected escalation in the drama that recalls the usual path taken by psychological thrillers, but Take Shelter is never about the set up and punch that most often dominates like-minded films. Our revulsion over the imagined possible disasters that might befall the LaForce family is neither placated nor exploited, and despite the extreme circumstances the characters behave in life-like ways, which may to an extent dull anticipation and anxiousness in places, but ultimately serves to allow the end result to sit a lot better.

Demonstrating a startling command of tone, Jeff Nichols is one of the brightest young voices in American cinema. Take Shelter is also one of the best films of the year.

The Ides of March (USA) Directed by George Clooney Written by George Clooney; Grant Heslov; Beau Willmon Starring George Clooney; Ryan Gosling; Evan Rachel Wood; Phillip Seymour Hoffman; Paul Giamatti; Marisa Tomei; Jeffrey Wright; Max Minghella; Jennifer Ehle

Directed by George Clooney, the script is based on the play Farragut North by Beau Willmon (who shares screenwriting credit with Clooney and his partner Grant Heslov). Focusing on presidential candidate/ Pennsylvania Governor Mike Morris (Clooney), Ides is reminiscent of similarly solid political dramas like Primary Colors (1998); The Candidate (1972); The Contender (2000); Manchurian Candidate (1962); The Best Man (1964); and State of Play (2003/2009).

Clooney is clearly at home with the material, and the story naturally reminds us of the many real life presidential candidates who have dealt with public scrutiny under the intense national media spotlight. Ideas about special interest groups/PACs and the accepted quid pro quo nature of the beast are woven in nicely to a fairly standard morality play. With visuals from Alexander Payne regular Phedon Papamichael, the mis-en-scene is nothing less than rock solid - the look just right, the dialogue crackling with insider talk and topical references.

Clooney’s Hollywood cache can be felt in the knock-out cast he manages to assemble, one that includes Ryan Gosling as media expert/2nd in command, Stephen Meyers; Evan Rachel Wood as intern Molly Stearns; Marisa Tomei as reporter Ida Horowicz; Paul Giamatti as opposition campaigner Tom Duffy; Jeffrey Wright as Senator Thompson; and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as campaign manager Paul Zara, and as one might expect given the pedigree of the cast and the director’s background as an actor, the performances are all top-notch.

While it’s easy to enjoy the snappy dialogue and the swift pace of the plot; and, while the talents of the cast create an anticipation regarding the promise of potential greatness in each individual scene; Ides is a rare example of a film that might have benefited from more run time. Its through-line is so streamlined it’s as if we miss out on some prime opportunities to savor the actors and the spot-on world being portrayed, and one can’t help but wish there was a bit more digressive meandering, and perhaps less reliance on the rigid structure of conventional genre.

The end result of the admittedly slick end product is that there is a feeling of never having gotten to the heart of characters played by Jeffrey Wright, Marisa Tomei, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, for instance - who all seem equally as potentially interesting as our leads. This is not to say that Clooney and Gosling are not well suited for, or compelling in, their archetypal roles. Clooney, again, looks right at home as Morris - a well-spoken politician with a quick mind and easy smile, a man accustomed to working people and cultivating his image at all costs. Gosling’s Steven, despite his relative experience, is still an innocent, maintaining the belief one can mix idealism with the very cynical, dirty game of campaign strategy, still under the impression that he can carefully manipulate the degrees to which he compromises his personal integrity.

Restraint and minimalism are not often qualities associated with the Hollywood product, and so both should probably always be applauded when employed. Clooney the man has a number of strengths that help make him the effective mini-mogul he is, not the least of which being good taste. The films he has thus far elected to direct are reflective of this quality, each a thoughtful handling of subject matter with some meat on the bones.

Perhaps it is unfair to criticize or penalize a film for not showing off all the members of its phenomenal cast to the fullest, or for having strong, lead actors in minor roles in the first place, and perhaps asking a film that is financed by Hollywood, and essentially affixed to genre, to become something more is also unfair. There is, after all, the old axiom about leaving them wanting more. Still, it might be the very quality of the elements contained in this cinematic stew that raise the stakes and automatically promise something more, and in the end this very good film leaves one feeling feeling somewhat unsatisfied, as if this were part one of a two part mini-series that leaves one anticipating a next installment that will never come.

Directed by Jean Luc Godard  Written by Jean Luc Godard

Eighty one year old Jean Luc Godard continues his ongoing dialectic about the collapse of traditional cinema (and, for that matter, Western civilization) in his latest video essay - the form which has dominated his career for some twenty five years.

It is difficult to pinpoint the parameters of documentary or narrative film, or define what specific forms are better suited for museum installation or film festival circuits as opposed to delivery in mainstream theaters/ V.O.D and the like. Is it the structure of a piece (or lack thereof) that should determine the method of delivery, or is the very narrowness of our expectations responsible for marginalizing avant-garde/non-traditional cinema in all its auspices in the first place?

One thing is for sure - it is only Godard’s reputation (related to the marketplace he despises) that allows a film like this a wider (though, obviously, still limited) audience, but at this point it is not as if the master has suckered anyone in. Complaining about the obtuse particulars when it comes to Godard is akin to bemoaning the methodology in the latest from Lars Von Trier or David Lynch. One can debate the merits of the individual pieces, but the embrace of surrealism and disavowal of some of the accoutrements of traditional cinema have been clearly established.

Regardless of the exact definition of what makes a film a film (and whether or not this question is at all relevant), Godard long since took to blasting cinema for its failures. Well over half of his career has now been dedicated to attempting to de/re-construct the form. His varied subject matter over the course of this pursuit has included repeated attacks on capitalism/consumerism and intellectual explorations of art in its many forms - music, painting, literature. Underlying all of the highly politicized work is, or course, a search for illusive truth, although inaccessibility (at least to many) is often a result of the deliberate opaque quality of the finished products arising from this path.

Broken into three distinct sections, Film Socialisme begins with a cruise ship floating on Mediterranean seas. Immediately, we are hit with Godard’s first use of HD, the footage resembling his vibrant, saturated color in something like Made in The USA. As if to provide a direct contrast to some of this stunning photography, however, the director also employs visuals that seem shot with a cell phone camera. Godard further infuses the section with a host of noise, distortions, and unconventional cuts, and throughout the film he also gives us oddly incomplete English sub-titles (for the French, Arabic, German, and Russian) he has termed Navajo English, consisting of a series of nearly incomprehensible phrases/key words that keep an audience guessing as to what is being said.

In Part One we float around the ship in a kind of dream state, listening to snatches of indecipherable philosophizing from some of the white passengers, the dark skin workers, and a narrator (with several strange asides about Jews; a references to YouTube; and a bizarre appearance by Patti Smith thrown in for good measure). The feeling evoked is that of randomness, and the flatness of the grotesques populating the boat calls to mind the Rive Gauche death walkers of Last Year in Marienbad and the like.

Part Two more rootedly focuses on a family of radicals consisting of two children and their parents based in a gas station in rural Southern France. The disaffected elder daughter and her more animated younger brother put their parents through a kind of test, asking them a series of serious questions about life and the world. As we see various shots of a llama and a donkey, seemingly family pets, two women arrive at the station and proceed to film and record sound. The overall effect is reminiscent of Godard circa the late 60s with characters (again emotionally flattened) speaking in political tract with odd surrealistic flourishes added to the mix. Part Three diverges from any attempt at narrative, and instead employs free flowing montage to show us a history of various political events across a handful of European countries in conflict. This format is recognizable in Godard’s better known essays of the recent past, most notably his series: Histoire du Cinema.

If one doesn’t speak French you must be satisfied with the dribbled bits of information being conveyed by the silly “Navajo English” (basically a series of words). While clearly intentionally alienating, it seems an angry, provincial, and arrogant tactic on the part of the artist. Otherwise, why have the subjects/actors speaking in a recognizable language at all, or why not manipulate the actual sound dialogue as opposed to merely the subtitles? In his defense, Godard the socialist does not preach inclusiveness when it comes to film. As always, his intended audience is exclusively the intellectual elite. It is worth noting, however, that in this case Godard is intent on excluding only those who do not speak his native language.

The work is at times visually beautiful, dreamy, and even vaguely intriguing in its challenging way, while simultaneously being overly precious, unnecessarily shrouded by device, and ultimately, barely cohesive. Of course, Godard could care less what anyone thinks, which is perhaps partly the point, though to what ends?

Hugo (USA) Directed by Martin Scorcese Written by John Logan Starring Asa Butterfield; Ben Kingsley; Chloe Moretz; Sasha Baron Cohen; Emily Mortimer; Ray Winstone; Christopher Lee; Michael Stuhlbarg; Richard Griffiths

For the past twenty-plus years, Director Martin Scorcese’s career could be described as an unending search to make big, Hollywood films of any and all sorts. With Hugo he manages to touch yet another base, rendering a 3D kids offering that seems to borrow liberally from the spirit of Spielberg and the literal past work of Jean Pierre Jeunet, a director who might have actually made the film this one aspires to be.

Screenwriter John Logan (The Aviator; Gladiator; Coriolanus) adapted Brian Selznick’s popular 2007 children’s novel The Invention of Hugo Cabaret, but the end result is neither as whimsical, quirky, nor funny as it endeavors to be. Starring Asa Butterfield as the Dickens-like Hugo Cabret, an orphan living in a Paris train station clock-tower in the 1930s, the story involves the boy’s connection with a retired film director/toy store owner Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley), and his bookish charge Isabelle (Chloe Moretz), who is also an orphan.

While we know why the film is set is France and yet has characters speaking English, big budget/American box office considerations get no quarter here, and do not mitigate discussion involving the films’ overall merit. The fact is films of this kind, set in a non-English speaking country, but having characters inexplicably speaking the language (often, as here, with a British accent) always have issues with a lack of authenticity.

At 128 minutes, Hugo also has pacing issues aplenty, and is probably twenty minutes too long. Stretching to create mystery where there is little, extended run time is devoted to multiple long scenes where young Hugo mourns his dead father (Jude Law) with passages of expository dialogue. Though Scorcese effectively opens with one of his classic tracking shots, the majority of the many chase scenes seem overextended. There are even issues with some of the 3D effects - i.e. a train wreck where we never see the train jump the tracks; shots going from extreme 3D close-ups to wide shots that seem off kilter.

While the supporting cast is made of up wonderful actors, they are, by and large, underused, particularly in the case of Emily Mortimer, who is barely allowed to speak. While long interludes are devoted to Sasha Baron Cohen’s mugging, other potential story-lines (unlike, for instance, Jeunet’s Amelie) are left entirely unmined, missing out on multiple chances for genuine whimsy and romance. Where shorter, concise passages of the world within the train station might have created a richer, more verdant playing field, Scorcese seems intent on finding ways to use the 3D at his disposal, and unfortunately his employment of such often seems stretched, and winds up coming at the expense of story and further character development.

There is no doubt that there is an essence of classic children’s films being referenced (and only referenced) here, and Scorcese’s vast film knowledge (as well as long time collaborator Dante Ferretti’s skill) contributes to a well designed physical setting, and there is pleasure to be had in journeying around the station and onto the Paris streets. Skilled cinematographer, Robert Richardson, moves the camera with expected ease, and while the technology gives the viewer a fuller, more detailed look at the nooks and crannies of Hugo’s odd world, in only a few places (some interesting close-ups; the cinematic world of Melies) does it pay significant dividends.

Clearly there is a personal statement being made with Scorcese as real life classic film champion and preservationist, and this element of the story seems particularly overwrought, self-serious, and on the nose, with the message pounded home in a misguided, logy third act. Though the fantasy sequences with Melies and his glass studio are exceptionally evoked, this preachy theme eventually takes over the film, further distancing the supporting characters (until a final cribbed from Wes Anderson), and most tragically, minimizing Hugo (the one person we truly care about), his budding relationship with Isabelle, and his search for connection with his father. While in theory the automaton is a nice device linking the old director with Hugo and his Dad it too reads as something flown in from A.I., and never lives up to its magical promise.

While Moretz at times seems vaguely uncomfortable in her role, Asa Butterfield is excellent as the titular Hugo, and his presence helps makes Hugo more watch-able than it might otherwise have been. Ultimately, while the film has its charms, some elusive key ingredient seems buried in a relative morass of form; strain to employ this hot, new technology; and didactic personal statement from the professorial director. While the film contains all the prerequisite trappings and clearly wants us to be moved, wowed, and enchanted, it somehow fails to actually elicit those reactions.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (BRIT) Directed by Tomas Alfredson  Written by Bridget O’Connor; Peter Straughan Starring Gary Oldman; Colin Firth; John Hurt; Ciaran Hinds; Toby Jones; Tom Hardy; Stephen Graham; David Dencik; Benedict Cumberbatch; Simon McBurney; Kathy Burke

Based on the well known 1974 spy novel by John Le Carre (who serves as one of the executive producers), Tinker Tailor is directed by 46 year old Swede Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In). With a bountiful cast consisting of some of Great Britain’s finest male actors, the film boasts a brilliantly rendered portrait of the early seventies, the monochromatic palette awash with greys, browns, and steely blues reminiscent of a gloomy London day that never ends.

Originally done in 1979 as a seven part BBC mini-series (famously starring Alec Guiness), this spy thriller has all the twists and turns one would expect - so many, in fact, that in lesser hands the plot may well have become a muddled mess. Alfredson is up to the challenge though, and much of the success is owed to an expert editing job that crisply and smoothly journeys between countries, story-lines, and time with alacrity and style, a monumentally challenging task given the sheer number of characters and intricacy of the plotting.

Gary Oldman (in what may be the finest performance of his career) handles the character of the taciturn, bespectacled George Smiley (who appears in no less than eight of Le Carre’s books) with pleasing understatement. Oldman has been known to love an actorly flourish or two, but here we never see him stray from the captivating stillness he establishes as the rather dour British intelligence (referred to as MI6 or The Circus) career man accustomed to serving as a mere a cog in a vast bureaucratic machine.

The plot if full of cold war intrigue involving double agents on either side, but what is most compelling is the keenly observed world laid out before us, and a cast that embodies characters immersed in and socialized to a life that is both mundane and exceptional - average men who go about their duties in the way an accountant or a postman might, except that in their profession kidnapping, blackmail, and assassinations are the norm. The global implications of their work, however, does not make them any less cynical or disappointed - in fact, perhaps moreso.

From images of Smiley swimming in a lake with his glasses still on; to the yellowed institutional corridors of The Circus headquarters; to the over-sized period recording devices placed in claustrophobic residences, Alfredson takes great pains to establish an environment that permeates throughout. One might compare the effectiveness of the look to a recent film like Fincher’s equally well designed Zodiac, or the British Red Riding trilogy, in terms of their evocation of the seventies; washed out worlds of opaque drudgery.

Populated with hunched shouldered, trench coated individuals who seemingly duck into dark doorways to escape the elements as much as their proverbial tails, one can feel Alfredson’s Scandanavian roots and notice the correlations between this and the superb mis-en-scene of his previous Let the Right One In, another bleak story delivered with the biting snap of a bone-jarring draft. Even as we observe the smoky office Christmas party interspersed throughout -  the holiday sweaters, libations, and festive music do little to thaw the icy tundra of moral compromise or hide the sinister roiling of duplicity bubbling underneath.

Bouncing from Moscow to London to Budapest, and fluidly weaving multiple languages into the mix, the film is truly an international thriller made for thinking adults, simultaneously plodding and compelling. Here, the machinations involved with the investigation of operation Witchcraft are not telegraphed and/or fully explained, which keeps one endeavoring to put together the puzzle. This approach works in the film’s favor and makes the few pure action sequences that much more meaningful and impactful.

John Hurt as section leader Control; Colin Firth as Bill; Toby Jones as Percy; David Dancik as Toby; and Ciaran Hinds as Roy round out the senior group who are all potentially involved in trading secrets to the Russians. Kathy Burke, Tom Hardy; Benedict Cumberbatch; and Stephen Graham are also a part of this exceptional cast. The script was written by Peter Straughan (The Debt; Men who stare at Goats) and his late wife Bridget O’Connor, who died of Cancer in September of 2010. The film is fittingly dedicated to her.