On DVD: A Big, Hot Mess

It's been a while since I've posted and DVD reviews. That doesn't mean we haven't been watching. It's just, as I posted earlier today, that I've been busy. So here are capsule reviews of some of the DVDs we've watched in the last couple months;

• Michael Clayton: A solid, well-acted thriller. Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton were superb, and Swinton deserved her Best Actress Academy Award. Not Best Picture material, in my opinion, but it was probably propelled there on the solid work of Clooney and the filmmakers, and an enormously satisfying ending.
• Shoot 'Em Up: You probably missed this one in theaters as it seemed to last about a week. The always watchable Clive Owen stars as a gun-wielding superman who, for the not most logical of reasons, gets caught up in a convoluted scheme to keep a political figure alive. He's hunted by Paul Giammatti, not so convincing as a bad guy. It's the high-concept action that keeps the film going: there's not a single scene without a gun, and shooting bad guys while jumping through windows with a baby in your arms has never looked sillier, or more fun.
• The Darjeeling Limited: Although arch and too self-circumscribed, I do like Wes Anderson's work. His latest is the tale of three brothers who travel across India, on their way to find their long-lost mother. Although fitful and not as fanciful as Anderson would like to think the film is, it shows a maturity of insight into familial relationships that his earlier work has lacked. Owen Wilson is surprisingly good as the oldest, and most broken, of the three brothers.
• The Namesake: As my friend Natalie described it, "a lovely movie in which not much happens, but it's really beautiful." A first generation American of Indian parents first rejects, then embraces his Indian hertiage, and the name given to him by his father. A bit padded at times, it's a lovely movie about coming to terms with your history and your self.
• No Country for Old Men: A very solid, well put-together film that's ultimately about the uselessness of age. There is literally no country for old men in the film as they keep getting killed off. Javier Bardem is superb, and scary, and perfect. Not nearly as good as There Will Be Blood or a number of other films from last year, but I can see why the Academy picked it as Best Picture. A lot of people hated the ending, or the non-ending. For me, it's as if the Coen brothers were afraid that you didn't get the thematic point of the film, so tacked on another 20 minutes where they could drive their point home. That or they just had to bring in Cormac McCarthy's amazing writing and that amazing tale of the father riding past his son in to the darkness.
• Becoming Jane: "Sense and Sensibilty" lite. Ann Hathaway is fine and the recreation of Edwardian England is fine and isn't it just terrible how these strong, independent-minded women didn't get to live out their lives like they wanted to? And so on and so on and so on.
• I Am Legend: So Will Smith is trying to do something interesting with his action star status: he's trying to become a thinking person's action star and make movies that aren't just action rides but have a pretense to gravitas. I Am Legend is quite interesting, actually, as it tracks his descent in to near-madness as the last man in New York and alone for years on end. It's far less interesting when it becomes a zombie swarm movie. Still worth watching, if only until the last twenty minutes.
• Beowulf: Seamus Heaney, you have nothing to worry about. I just don't get Zemeckis' endless fascination with motion capture. Sure, the avatars of the actors look more photorealistic (though Angelina Jolie needs no digital enhancement) and occasionally not dead-behind-the-eyes, but there's a lot about the animation in this movie that's just lacking (usually the physics). And he turned a movie about pure heroism into a tale of absolute power corrupting absolutely. Not exactly what Beowulf is about. Still, his Grendel was quite good: disturbed and disturbing. How the film got a PG-13 rating isn't clear, with all the gore. Then again, it's animated gore, so that's OK.
• Atonement: Oh, look at all the beautiful people suffering beautifully! Marvel at their proper world and how quickly it gets turned upside down! Gasp at the lack of chemistry between anyone in the film. Read the book. It's vastly superior. It's devastating. Thank god for Vanessa Redgrave showing up for five minutes at the end to give the film a hint of the book's emotional devastation. Yeah, it's a tough book to adapt, but that still doesn't make it a good movie.