Holiday Films: Shiny Gift or Lump of Coal?
'Tis The season for Holiday movies, and our David Edelstein has taken a sneak peek inside Hollywood's gift bag:
The bad news is most of this year's holiday movies are no more fun than swine flu, but there's excellent acting and one near-masterpiece.
But first, the worst . . .
Given that "The Lovely Bones" opens with the murder of a 14-year-old girl, maybe it's a blessing Peter Jackson's film is too ham-handed to get under your skin.
It's narrated by the dead girl, played by iridescent-eyed Saoirse Ronan, whose scenes in limbo are awash in icky, New Age sentimentality.
Stanley Tucci might as well have "Child Molester" tattooed on his forehead. You can snicker at it - if laughing at murders of kids is your idea of a good time.
To hell with that, and on to "Up in the Air," with George Clooney as a loner who jets from city to city telling workers they've been canned.
We can see where the movie's headed from 3000 frequent-flyer miles away: He has to learn connections aren't just things you make in airports.
The film is fast and funny, with a sheen. But it's also full of up-to-the-minute recession pathos and bogus uplift.
The Nelson Mandela drama "Invictus" centers on a political act that went a long way toward uniting an explosive South Africa. Instead of abolishing Afrikaner cultural institutions along with their vile apartheid, Mandela embraced the largely white rugby team and helped Afrikaners save face.
Director Clint Eastwood isn't particularly imaginative, but he does a fine job honoring a leader whose renunciation of vengeance set an example that will outlive us all.
In "A Single Man," Colin Firth plays an aging gay professor whose lover of 16 years has died, and since this is 1962 and there's little tolerance for homosexuality, he can't openly grieve.
Firth's face is tight - yet suggests momentous turmoil under the surface. Directed by photographer Tom Ford, the film is a little fancy. But Firth, with a minimum of motion, gives the performance of the year.
Nancy Meyer's comedies, with their mindlessly affluent characters, make me feel like someone put itching powder down my shirt. But "It's Complicated" has its charms, and Meyers uses good, lived-in stars like the effervescent Meryl Streep instead of the usual juvenile hardbodies.
It pretends to be about messy divorce and nebulous lingering feelings, but it's really an older woman's emasculating revenge fantasy against the man who left her.
In advance of James Cameron's "Avatar" came word of its brontosaurean budget and previews showing kinda-ugly computer-generated blue thingies.
But, you know, it's big! I mean, big robots, big spaceships, big beasties, even those blue thingies are . . . BIG.
And it's 3-D, so you're immersed in the Bigness!
The story is an anti-corporate imperialist parable that evokes Native Americans and Vietnam . . . Big Themes. BIG!
"Brothers" centers on very different siblings - Toby McGuire's ramrod soldier and Jake Gyllenhaal's dissolute ex-con - and shows how they switch roles when one comes back damaged from Afghanistan.
Irish director Jim Sheridan skips among three protagonists, including Natalie Portman as McGuire's wife (left), but never loses the emotional pulse. For this great director, empathy comes as naturally as breathing.
Yes, the movie is depressing, but the undying love of family is the most uplifting message imaginable in this season of miracles.
For more info:
The Projectionist (David Edelstein's Movie Blog)