Movie Reviews

By: Jonas Schwartz

“Star Trek”: A BLAST From The Past

TV Dynamo Creator JJ Abrams shows Hollywood how to create a summer blockbuster without skimping on intelligent, layered characters and a compelling story. “Star Trek” is explosive with a youthful cast, that nonetheless captures the original program’s essence.

Rebellious recruit James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine) sneaks aboard the maiden launch of the SS Enterprise to the chagrin of the emotionless Commander Spock (Zachary Quinto). The two cross each other at every turn but despite their equal disdain; destiny has a deep friendship in store for the two enemies. For they have a common foe, a venomous villain (Eric Bana), who has murdered both their families.

Abrams, responsible for some of television’s most action packed and yet intellectually passionate shows like “Alias” and “Lost,” finds something for everyone.  The Trekkies I’ve interviewed adore the respect Abrams has paid to the original concept. Those like me, who are novices to the franchise, will be intrigued by the clever dialogue, the tightly drawn characterizations and the wily performances.  They will appreciate that even the villains have gripping reasons to have vengeance seeded into their hearts. The blockbuster fans will sit on the edge of their seats as the Enterprise goes to war. The science geeks, like my movie guest, will be fascinated by the true science embedded in the tale, such as alternate universes and drilling to the earth’s core.

Abrams keeps the action moving and doesn’t slow down when he feeds the audience delicately woven character traits and motivations.  The battle scenes are furious with explosions and gun fire.

Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman delve into the character’s pasts, not only portraying our heroes’ youths but also playing with reality and the frailty of the future when the past has been altered.

The cast rises to the vast challenge of playing beloved characters.  Pine, though hampered with matinee idol looks, has the acting chops to back up his beauty.  Quinto, already a cult favorite as the murderous Sylar on “Heroes,” brings irony and stalwartness to Spock. Karl Urban as the neurotic Dr Bones adds comic relief as does Simon Pegg as hyperactive Scotty.  The exquisite Zoe Saldana is electric as the intriguing Uhura.

If “Star Trek” is any indication, this will be an exciting summer. However, there is much probability that this will be a diamond in a trough.  Grade: A

“Drag Me To Hell, A Loud, Goo-Filled House Of Horrors”

“Drag Me To Hell,” is a rollickingly fun nightmare that will have terrified dates leaping into their beau’s laps. Director Sam Raimi, after years of big budget bonanzas like the “Spider-Man” series, returns to his shock cinema roots with a visceral morality play.

Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), a mousy young woman-child, feels insecure about her relationship and her job.  She slinks away when her boyfriend’s society mother attempts to introduce him to “marrying material” woman, and she cow-tows to her boss and co-worker at the bank where she works as a loan officer.  In a mismanaged moment of self-empowerment, Christine rejects an old lady’s plea for leniency on her eviction. Ignoring the woman for career advancement, she seals her fate, as the creepy gypsy woman curses Christine to damnation during a violent altercation. 

A hulking demon, seen only in shadows, stalks Christine, planting brutal images in her head and invisibly assaulting her in the middle of the night. A medium (Adriana Barraza) and a psychic (Dileep Rao) attempt to exorcise the beast before it can drag Christine to hell, but her only chance of survival may be to pass her fate onto another unsuspecting victim.  Does she have the moral bankruptcy to condemn another?

“Drag Me To Hell” harks back to the savage 70s cinema of Toby Hooper, Wes Craven and films like “The Legend Of Hill House.” Much of the violence is implied, with shadows and loud jolts to startle the audience. This is not to say the film doesn’t ooze with bodily functions, burrowing insects and other acts of terror.

Unlike the slasher films of the 80s, where sex and drugs led to topless victims’ demise, Christine DOES wrong this woman for purely self-aggrandizing motives. She knows that by speeding up the eviction, her chauvinistic boss (David Paymer) will slide the assistant manager role her way.  Though she doesn’t warrant a one-way ticket to brimstone and hellfire, she’s no innocent lamb.

Unlike Raimi’s early “Evil Dead” films, this parable is partially rooted in reality.  While the kids in his first film, “Evil Dead” discover a Book of the Dead and unleash a tree beast, Christine moral dilemma is common-place in our foul economy and toppling housing market.  Though the punishment is extreme, audience members who have had their credit shattered in this recession would relish imagining those who have shredded our credit cards and kicked us out of our homes getting their just deserts instead of large bonuses.

Typical in a Raimi film, gallows humor, including jokes at the expense of a slaughtered beloved pet, will have audiences shamelessly tittering.

Lohman, a talented actress who made a splash in “White Oleander” and “Matchstick Men” has a youthful innocence that works perfectly for the role.  Her girlish voice and meekness give way to desperation and animalistic self-preservation as her options vanish. Because of the ridiculous premise, a lesser actress would have sunk the character’s credence, particularly as Christine becomes more frantic. Lohman’s sense of both panic and morbid humor is never lost amongst the special effects.

As the primal woman shamed by one she sees as a little girl in a business suit, Lorna Raver is magnificently macabre and ferocious as a barely human beast, an almost mythical creature with one cataract eye and green-puss filled fingernails, who hacks brown phlegm and attacks her prey like a rabid dog.  The woman’s frail frame only makes her assaults most outrageous.

The haunting presence is enhanced by Christopher Young’s spine-tingling score that pays homage to “Amityville Horror” and “Rosemary’s Baby.”

A smorgasbord of both haunting and repulsive images, “Drag Me To Hell” is a ride to Hades that anyone hankering for a fright will gladly climb aboard. Grade: A-

“Change in ‘Management’”

Two darling co-stars actually disrupt the delicate tale of lonely strangers desperate for connection in the minor comedy “Management.” A homely girl and an awkward boyish actor should have been cast, not superstar Jennifer Aniston and blue eyed cutie Steve Zahn. 

Mike (Zahn) has suffered a dullard’s life working at his parents’ motel on the outskirts of Phoenix.  He cares for his dying mother (Margo Martindale), plus changes the laundry and refills the concession stand for his emotionally checked-out father (Fred Ward).  One morning, Sue, a sexy customer (Jennifer Aniston), sparks his interest.  Mike courts her with champagne and wine each night to her chagrin, but out of boredom, she eventually mounts him in the laundry room.

Impetuous, Mike flies out to Baltimore to woo Sue at her office and overwhelms her.  The girl never had time in the past for romance and had preferred submerging herself in work and philanthropy.  Though she allows him to take her out for the day and sleep on her floor, she forces him to return to Phoenix the next day. However, something about him compels her to return to the motel a few weeks later.

There’s a fine line between Prince Charming and Norman Bates, and there are moments where the audience wonders just how fragile our clerk’s mentality true is.  He stalks a girl he hardly knows across country, stares at her in her sleep, and refuses to take no for an answer.  Though he turns out to be not dangerous, some of his actions are a bit suspect.  The movie hedges its bets by casting loveable Zahn in the role, which is a bit of a cheat.  A braver director would have cast a geek like Jay Baruchel or Jonah Hill from “Knocked Up.” It would have distanced the audience from the character’s behavior and made the director work harder to make them warm to Mike.

Even with a bad dye-job, glamorous Aniston could never be as desperate in love as her Sue would be to walk into this Bates Motel so calmly and play around with this potential sycophant. Not since Michelle Pfeiffer played a washed out waitress in “Frankie and Johnny” has someone been so miscast for being TOO adorable.  Her performance conveys longing and a gentile sense of humor, making it a shame that only her movie star persona ruins the role.  She has the chops to pull off the characterization.

The script has a quirky sense of humor and features several clever sequences, including a serenade on a Chinese bicycle taxi, but meanders as the characters repeat the same mistakes.  How many times can someone show up unannounced at a doorstep before the police are alerted?

Aniston has varied her career with big showcases (“Along Came Polly”) and quirky independents (“The Good Girl”), but here as Executive Producer, she should have realized this film was too small for her stature. She would have been more apt to cast a newcomer and worked behind the scenes. Grade: B-

See additional reviews by Jonas Schwartz at: http://marylandnightlife.com/jonas_at_the_movies.cfm

Theatre Reviews

By: Jonas Schwartz

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

The most prescient line in Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger At The Baghdad Zoo, now premiering at the Center Theatre Group's Kirk Douglas Theater, is spoken by a ghost. And not just any ghost, but the spirit of Saddam Hussein's son. "Americans, always thinking that when things die, they go away." Those words seems to be the theme haunting this mind-bending and often exhilarating parable of war, death, and its consequences.

The story begins simply enough as two American soldiers guard a tiger in a war-torn zoo. After circumstances escalate, the tiger winds up dead in a pool of blood, and he (personified by actor Kevin Tighe, who is both ferocious and hilarious) becomes the first of many specters who disturb the living. As the play progresses, it blends gallows humor, provoking laughs by shocking the audience into nervous guffaws and realistic violence that would even make Quentin Tarantino squirm. Blood flows in the Grand Guignol tradition as the travesties of tyranny and war are shoved in our faces.

Death brings complexity to the characters as one moron becomes a scholar in languages as a ghost, and the dead animal waxes philosophically about such existential subjects as whether natural predators should be karmically punished for preying as instinct dictates. None of the living gets off scot-free from the author's microscope. Uneducated American soldiers pilfer from their enemies and act like gangsters when in the midst of wealth. Meanwhile, the Iraqi powers-that-be rape and murder for pure pleasure; and no one seems to comprehend why displaced creatures have been supplanted from their natural environments without guidance.

Director Moises Kaufman, best known for his work on I Am My Own Wife, The Laramie Project, and 33 Variations, has created an extraordinary production. He stages the piece almost like a film by having the stage compartmentalized for easy transitions. Equally smartly, he has the actors punctuate the despair with humor to keep the audience off guard, even by forcing them to laugh at many grotesque images and situations. And with the help of lighting designer David Lander, he floods the stage with white spots to invoke both stark ugliness and ethereal influences.

The cast is electric. As the mentally fragile, intellectually retarded soldier Kev, Brad Fleischer is heartbreaking, lost in his character's frustration, anger, anxiety and loneliness. As the opportunistic Tom, Glenn Davis evokes a street punk in soldier's clothing. Arian Moayed, as the Iraqi gardener turned Army interpreter never loses sight of the pain that his character has suffered already. Necar Zadegan lends tension to her scene as an Iraqi woman under fire and pathos in a later scene as a leper. Hrach Titizian's singsong approach to his dialogue as the younger Hussein heir is maniacal, and the melodic tempering of the words only enhances the contempt his character feels for anything human or decent.

Perhaps the most extraordinary work is done by Sheila Vand. In Act II, she plays a young but cynical Iraqi prostitute brought in to satisfy a soldier; yet, within a moment, she transitions seamlessly into another character, an innocent girl witnessing great beauty, without any of her clothes (or even hair) being altered.