Quick Reviews

I'm trying to catch up, so here are some capsule reviews of the latest films...

"9"- A post-apocalyptic tale chronicling the adventures of a group of small, burlap sock puppet robots. This film is very original yet familiar, evoking H.G. Wells, tin-pot Isaac Asimov, and Max Fleischer's 1940s Superman cartoons. Like its main characters, 9 is stitched out of old scraps yet emerges as something unlike anything you've seen before.

"Inglourious Basterds"- It might not be his masterpiece, but this is definitely Quentin Tarantino's tensest film. He proves himself as a master of suspense with the first chapter alone, "Once Upon a Time in Nazi-Occupied Frace." The ominous high-pitched strings on the soundtrack, the quiet tension between the characters, the overwhelming sense of dread. It is a scene of Hitchcockian power. Few of the following scenes are quite as effective, but the film is engrossing nonetheless. Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Melanie Laurent, and especially Christoph Waltz deliver very charismatic, complex performances in this exuberant World War II epic.

"Taking Woodstock"- This is not a sweeping historical drama about the revolutionary 1969 concert that united the nation. That does not mean the film is bad, though. Far from it. Its meandering, minimalist style is refreshingly subversive. It also charms with a quiet, subtle performance from Demetri Martin as the unlikely helm of the legendary concert, Eliot Tiber.
The film succeeds as a quiet journey through a loud and turbulent era.

"Shrink"- A refreshingly sympathetic satire of Hollywood and the eccentric souls that keep it alive. Kevin Spacey stars as a Tinseltown psychiatrist struggling to help himself and his patients. Screenwriter Thomas Moffett and director Jonas Pate never simply mock these characters. This is evident in an indelible scene wherein two actors (played by Jack Huston and Robin Williams) ramble inappropriately during a press junket. Underneath the humor of this moment, we see their exhaustion, their struggle to remain enthusiastic about a career that never allows them to be their true selves. Thankfully, the rest of the film is just like this scene: intimately poignant.