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REVIEW: Merchant of Venice
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Al Pacino and Shakespeare have at least one thing in common: they've both been devalued by hacks. Shakespeare has been tarnished by bad productions and deliberate misinterpretation. Pacino's genius has been obscured by... well, Al Pacino. But both redeem themselves in Michael Radford's The Merchant of Venice.
Most Shakespeare movies fail. They either collapse under the weight of egomaniacal director/stars like Mel Gibson and Kenneth Branagh, are too stagy like Midsummer Night's Dream with Kevin Kline, or get poorly "modernized" like 2001's O. Fascinated with the idea of doing Shakespeare and intimidated by his language, directors forget that these are great stories best served by being told well. It seems obvious, but apparently it isn't.
Baz Luhrmann succeeded with Romeo + Juliet because his film was as energetic and passionate as the young lovers themselves. Radford's Merchant of Venice is the first period Shakespeare film to work since Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet. Like Zeffirelli, Radford meticulously recreates the world of the play, in this case sixteenth-century Venice, and he keeps the focus on the human story.
Merchant, while ostensibly a comedy, is also a ruthless examination of cultural conflict and how social forces shape character. Radford has created his mise-en-scene so convincingly that in the climactic moment when Shylock insists on receiving payment of his pound of flesh beyond all reason, we understand the forces that have driven him to this end.
It is Pacino who, after a succession of forgettable recycled performances, gets back to the business of acting and brings Shylock to life. Pacino is often shackled by his iconic status and his seeming willingness to rest on his laurels — it is hard to see the character behind the actor. But here he actually portrays a character, not relying solely on flashy pyrotechnics and stock expressions.
The human impact of cultural intolerance is a contemporary theme. A lesser director might have tried to make this theme more obvious by dressing the movie in contemporary clothes or recontextualizing it in a politically expedient location. But Radford gives Shakespeare his due and sticks to the story, succeeding where others have failed. — Andy Horwitz
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REVIEW: Phantom of the Opera
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 Batman director Joel Schumacher's filmed version of The Phantom of the Opera is a singular achievement: It is the only film to ever cause me physical pain. I have been to rock concerts by hair-metal bands that were subtler. Here, Andrew Lloyd Weber's score, with its thudding '80s drums and its Emerson, Lake and Palmer keyboards, drove me into submission. By the end of the overture, I had a headache. By the middle of the film, I feared death.
While Phantom's Harlequin-romance plot and overwrought score may work on stage, they don't translate to film. Nor does the musical-theater emoting of Patrick Wilson. While Shumacher has tried to recreate Moulin Rouge-style magic with his sumptuous sets and imaginative costumes, the film ends up looking more like a commercial for the inevitable Phantom ride at Universal Studios Theme Park.
Barely-legal ingénue Emmy Rossum is fetching as she flees from the Phantom wearing little more than a white lace peignoir and garter set from Frederick's of Hollywood. But her dewy-eyed looks and lustrous voice can do little to flesh out a barely two-dimensional character. The actor playing her hunky boyfriend Raoul (she pronounces it "rowl") wouldn't look out of place in porn. As the diva Carlotta, Minnie Driver delivers the only true performance. She is vivacious and brilliantly funny, providing a much-needed dose of levity and animation to this ponderous and painful endeavor. — Andy Horwitz
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REVIEW: A Love Song for Bobby Long
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 The latest testament to Scarlett Johansson's nubility begins with a rather sinister premise: a sexy high-school dropout inherits one-third of her dead mother's house, which she decides to share with her estranged mother's old boyfriend and another (quite hot) male roommate.
The two men, Bobby Long (John Travolta) and Lawson Pines (Gabriel Macht), live in filth and squalor amid empty liquor bottles and crusty yellow paperbacks. Long is a lecherous old coot, a disgraced former professor who doesn't take much of a liking to young Purslane Hominy Will (Scarlett Johansson, everywhere this month). Lawson, who greets the teenager at the door in an unbuttoned shirt, likes her very much.
Set outside New Orleans, the film is langorous and moody, filled with sullen silences, twangy guitar music, curling blue cigarette smoke and amber shafts of light filtered through dirty windows. But the movie turns out to be much sweeter than its initial foreboding, and pretty soon aged Travolta's baby blues are twinkling with fatherly affection for Pursy, who quickly discovers a love of reading and home improvement. Johansson's deadpan serves her well here. Reveling yet again in the irresistable-younger-woman role, she exhibits the toughness and vulnerability of a girl who barely knew her mother, and she and Macht have great chemistry as they circle each other like prey. — Sara Eckel
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REVIEW: In Good Company
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 When a potentially dark, involving story is done in a brisk, lightweight style, is it reason to rush out to the cinema? In Good Company is a well done but mild new film whose pleasures are compromised by the film's timidity about themes Office Space and Clockwatchers nailed years ago: power dynamics in work and personal relationships.
Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) is a twenty-six-year-old corporate salesman, installed as the VP of ad sales at a sports magazine, demoting Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid), fifty-one. Hotshot Carter knows he's on thin ice, and is humbled on the home front by his wife ending their short marriage (Selma Blair in a funny bit). Carter embarks on the road to raising ad sales, laying off several of Dan's crew. Dan would love to tell Carter to go to hell, but he's got multiple family expenses to consider. The broken-home-spawned Carter secretly looks up to Dan, and longs for his approval, and access to his warm hearth. And then there's Alex (Scarlett Johansson), Dan's sexy college-age daughter, who flirts with Carter and then retreats.
It's a good idea — plausible, modern and juicy. But Paul Weitz (About a Boy, American Pie) seems averse to his characters' dark sides here, and the film suffers from an excess of likability. Carter is so decent he only reluctantly gets into bed with Alex. Interestingly, the younger woman is the aggressor, the one with the ready music, lighting, and dorm-room moves. But even after that awkward beginning, there's little heat between Johansson and Grace.
The conflicts come in typical Hollywood embarrassments instead of personal explorations: Carter has a fender-bender in his brand-new Porsche, Dan pulls his back out on the basketball court. The story would have been much more involving had Carter bragged to just one person about his tasty young piece; or if Dan had enjoyed watching Carter flail in a team meeting; or if Alex had snacked on the perks of dating a connected, young rich guy.
In the old days a movie would at least have had fun with the notion of two guys jockeying for power and a young girl's affections. Now it's full of bits about family devotion and doing right by the underlings on the staff. Grace is affable in the Tobey Maguire mold, if a bit more alert. Quaid and Johansson are a pleasure to watch, but the movie settles for less than their best. — Daniel S. Housman
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REVIEW: The Assassination of Richard Nixon
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 By virtue of craft and camera attention, dynamic actors can take a small character study and make it cinematic. Sean Penn is clearly one of these elite. But, other than his master-class technique, there's not much for the viewer to latch onto in this slight, sad study of a man sliding down the banisters of sanity. The titular targeted killing, of course, never came close to happening, though it's chilling to consider the story of Samuel Bicke, the lonely man who plotted to crash an airplane into the White House in 1974. Penn's ability to inhabit the alienated main character is gripping — as Bicke becomes disillusioned with his life as a low-level salesman, he focuses his rage on President Richard Nixon, the embodiment of mendacity and the unfair status quo — but the movie wastes the top-notch talents of Naomi Watts and Don Cheadle, as Bicke's ex-wife and only friend.
Haunted by past failures, Bicke quits his job and waits for a loan he has jeopardized by his behavior. He dictates long taped messages to Leonard Bernstein, a figure of integrity he has fixated on for his beautiful music and apparent freedom.
In one clever scene, Bicke's blustery boss tries to teach him a lesson in salesmanship, using the ubiquitous President as an example of the highest form of wheeler-dealership. Another sadly funny interchange involves Bicke's visit to the Black Panther party headquarters, a failed attempt to reach out to an activist by suggesting the party reconsider their symbol. The zebra, suggests Bicke, in all earnestness, will signal a more inclusive approach and double their membership. Watching Bicke try and fail to connect is affecting, but the movie hits the same note repeatedly. Like Bicke's plot, it never gets off the ground. — Daniel S. Housman
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Date DVD #13: Garden State
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 I have good friends who say the oddball romance Garden State makes their skin crawl. Too cute. He's trying too hard. But I wonder if they'd say this if the debut writer-filmmaker-star were some unknown film-school grad, and not Zach Braff, who plays that goofball on the hospital sit-com Scrubs. Because I was sold about ten minutes in.
Braff, playing a suburban Jersey boy turned Hollywood actor, returns home to visit his family after the suicide of his mother — and ends up falling for Natalie Portman. But in the beginning, our man is slowly coming off the antidepressants that have bogged him down his whole life, standing in this futuristic bathroom at the airport, all clean blue light and crisp surfaces — like something Kubrick or the W Hotel might have dreamed up.
Braff, wearing sloppy stubble on his slack-jaw, just stares in the mirror, blank as his surroundings. He washes up at the last sink in a long line of identical sinks, and as he walks out, the high-tech faucets' motion-detectors sense his movement. One little spurt of water after another erupts as he makes his way out of the white light.
To me, this scene was as thrilling as the classic waterspout in The Producers: The moment after Gene Wilder says "I want my life to be like the movies" and a massive geyser erupts out of a little fountain in midtown Manhattan. I adore the way Braff obsesses on details like water faucets and goes for the big visual gimmick in such a low-budget wonder. I love the way his ugly shirt matches the ugly wallpaper of his home, the way Peter Sarsgaard, cast perfectly, actually seems to ham it up a little for maybe the first time in his career.
The romance between Braff and Natalie Portman is fine, but Braff's romanticism consumes every corner of this obsessive little film (and it's amazing how many slapdash first films aren't obsessive in this way). Yes, the film is overambitious and precious at moments, but I have a feeling it's also a great litmus test for a first-date. I bet people who don't buy into its unabashed romanticism are generally callous and black-hearted (like my cynical friends). And that people who do who buy into Braff's strange love story at least stand a slightly better chance of buying into yours. — Logan Hill
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