Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)

Gloriously offensive and delightfully hilarious, Sacha Baron Cohen's ad-lib performance is sure to make you howl with laughter and piss you off in equal measure. It's daring stuff, as Cohen and crew create credible characters and simply film them interacting with real people who have no idea there's even a joke to be in on. Borat was originally a skit on Cohen's Da Ali G Show, and here he takes a trip to America under the guise of researching to improve his own country, but in the process of making his documentary he portrays the United States as racist, paranoid, xenophobic, uneducated, and bigoted, among other things. The film is frankly very tough to watch but the thin line that Cohen dances keeping his character earnest and amusing while being violently insulting is possibly one of the most incredible comedic performances this moviegoer has ever seen. Even better are his unwitting costars trying to maintain being polite to this faux foreigner while filling him with their own views of America. The end result is a brutal train wreck, hilarious from start to finish, ridiculous and honest in the worst possible ways, and one incredibly funny ride.

10 out of 10.

Bug (2007)

guest review by Phineas Gopher

Don't be fooled by the marketing campaign for Bug. It may be "from the director of The Exorcist," but it is not the same kind of horror movie. It's scary, but the thrills are more brooding, and far more psychological. Ashley Judd puts in a riveting performance as a broken southern barmaid with an abusive husband. But her co-star Michael Shannon steals every scene he's in as her new friend who turns out to be a little paranoid. To say the least. The build-up of tension to a shattering climax may not scare the devil out of you, but it's strangely satisfying in its own way.

8 out of 10.

Rendition (2007)

Lately any time the genre of a movie has the world “Political” in it, one can automatically assume it has a thing or two to say about the so-called War On Terror. So it is with Rendition, a film about a loving husband and father spirited away by The Man because he may or may not have possibly had something to do with a suspected terrorist. I have to say that the movie was a good bit more interesting than I thought it would be. It approaches its subject matter with the understanding that sometimes horrible things must be done to keep even more horrible things from happening to other people. That said, even with its moral compass clearly pointing toward grey, it lacks the teeth to really dig into policy. Rather it's a personal story, a what-if, and for the most part it's quite effective, though far from gripping. It's got a solid cast doing their usual solid acting (Jake Gyllenhaal especially), while the tale tosses in a few unexpected curve balls amid a mostly predictable pile of plot points. It never manages to reach any soaring highs, but for what this film tries to do it succeeds.

7 out of 10.

We Own the Night (2007)

Chiefly underwhelming is the descriptor that I would donate to this film's ad campaign. Here we've got a generic but inoffensive cop drama that plays by the numbers while trying its damnedest to ride the coattails movies like The Departed. You've got your generic drug deals, your generic mob connection, your generic undercover subplot, and your generic “it sucks to be a cop” melodrama. It's all here, and none of it is particularly good. That isn't to say it's a bad film. For instance the car “chase” scene is disproportionately good, and the overall production values and cinematography are excellent, but the movie as a whole just fails to impress.

5 out of 10.

This Girl's Life (2003)

Porno! Now that I have your attention, let me tell you a bit about this neat little indie flick about an adult film star (played by Juliette Marquis), her disabled father, and her struggle to define herself beyond her body of work (bad pun). It pretty much manages to tick off every box that the promise of independent filmmaking provides. Unique moral perspective? The lead enjoys her line of work and has an interesting philosophical take on it. Unconventional topic? Well it is about porno! Content befitting its rating? We've got drug use, plenty of sex, and nudity (male and female). And how about piles of character actors? James Woods, Rosario Dawson, Michael Rapaport, Ioan Gruffodd, Isiah Washington, and Cheyenne Silver round out the cast. Meanwhile, the directing works, and the acting is likable all around, though really nothing special. The script is interesting and clever, but has trouble wrapping it's various threads toward the end. All in all it's a well made movie that has enough T&A for the guys, enough character for the ladies, and is sufficiently unique to keep the movie snobs off their collective soapbox.

7 out of 10.

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

Unfortunately the biggest problem with movies espousing environmental change is that if you're not already of the mindset prone to that line of thinking then there's precious little chance of you ever seeing the film, let alone being persuaded by it. It really is too bad, since Al Gore's much politicized polemic on potential catastrophe is at the very least slickly presented and compelling throughout. The most remarkable thing to me about the way the argument is pushed is that it manages not to lay blame at anyone's feet. I admit to agreeing with the conceits listed in the film, but I am also just as guilty of helping along disaster as most anyone reading this. Never once did I feel as though I were being yelled at or made to feel bad for my behavior. Rather it seemed more like a laundry list of issues, and a much shorter list of possible fixes. I felt encouraged by its end, not guilty. So I say to those who read this who may think that Global Warming is a myth to give this doc a shot. The worst it could do is bore you for ninety minutes while giving you a pile of bullet points to disprove to us greenies.

8 out of 10.



Note: In the interest of a fuller discussion, it's worth pointing out that this film has recently caused further controversey in Britan.

Michael Clayton (2007)

Danny Ocean apparently moonlights as a high-powered attorney advisor person. Basically here we've got Erin Brockovich without the down-home country charm. The acting is excellent from top to bottom (especially Tom Wilkinson as a chief litigator/amateur stripper), the tale itself is compelling and involving from start to finish, and the directing is altogether solid. So what went wrong? Basically the audience knows the entire story by the start of the second act, while the characters have to play catch-up for the next ninety minutes. It turns what could have been an excellent legal thriller with a winding, complicated plot into over-simplified Oscar bait. It still manages to be interesting throughout but with most of the element of discovery removed so early, the film just isn't as good as it could have been.

7 out of 10.

300 (2007)

So that. Was. Sparta. Call me cynical, but I always pictured something a little less... digital. Make no mistake, whatever else the film may be, it sure looks good! The acting, meanwhile, is generally passable but more from the Michael Bay school of performance than, say, Shakespeare. Queen Gorgo probably comes out best, whilst the one-note King Leonidas injects some testosterone, dials his voice up to 11 and has at it. At the same time the script he shouts doesn't bother giving these fellows much reason to fight other than being generally indignant, so basically the whole film is an exercise in angry bloodbaths with a criminally dull side of toga politics. I guess it comes down to what you want out of your movies. If your idea of a good time is watching a few thousand things die in gruesome detail, while a king paradoxically screams about freedom and reason in front and inside of sublime visual canvases then this movie is everything you could possibly hope for and then some. But if you care why these people fight, or what these people fight for, or just want to see a toga debate given the same loving detail as a battle scene then your mileage may vary.

7 out of 10.