'Elysium' footage sneak peek: 5 things to know about the follow-up from 'District 9' director Neill Blomkamp

Yesterday, Sony previewed several minutes of footage from Elysium, the Matt Damon-led sci-fi movie that's coming out on August 9. The imaginative project looks like it's on track to be a huge hit like Inception. In a market saturated by derivative content, Elysium is a rare beast: a big-budget
movie derived from a completely original concept. Previously, all that was known about the movie was that Matt Damon and countless other poor people live on a ravaged Earth, while the rich live in a space station free of violence, poverty, and disease. The preview gave some more savory details about the feature, which comes courtesy of District 9 director Neill Blomkamp.

1. On Elysium, they can cure cancer. The clip showed a woman sunbathing, then going into what looks a cross between a tanning bed and the robot surgery machine in Prometheus. "Detecting trace amounts of cancer," the machine chirps. "Cancer cells--cleared!" This comes in handy later, because Damon's character gets exposed to radiation in a workplace accident and has just five days to live unless he can get into one of those cure-all machines.

2. Elysium is about a dystopia, with strong parallels to current social issues. Back to that "workplace accident." Damon is told by his boss that he will lose his job unless he goes into some dangeous machinery to fix a jammed door. He's on parole, making him already barely employable, and received a warning from his boss after his arm was broken by a robot roughing him up. He goes in to fix the problem, but it ends up nearly killing him. Surely, nothing like that ever happens in America...

3. Data can be downloaded from the brain. Hacking into someone's brain appears to be a very of-the-moment sci-fi concept. The first time I recall it happening was in The Matrix, and Inception explored the same concept in a more ethereal way. In Elysium, the plot hinges on Damon's crew downloading brain data from an important official from the space station. The information gives them details about how to break down their system and gain access to the fortress-like utopia.

4. Damon turns into a cyborg to get to Elysium. If you want to fight robots, you have to be part robot, right? Since he only has days to live anyway, Damon consents to having his body robot-ized so he can take on the robots that protect Elysium's residents and keep the Earthlings in place. POV shots show that it turns his vision into a video game, locking him into targets and flashing "reload" in the corner of his vision.

5. Paradise looks like a terrarium. Earth looks like--Detroit? The shots of the space station Elysium show a lush, verdant area with amazing views. Some opening shots of Earth show skyscrapers with crapshoot appendages sticking out the sides (I wouldn't want to live in one of those) that recall skyscraper cities in any number of sci-fi films, including Blade Runner. What's more interesting are flat, rundown warehouse-y areas that are similar to the slums in Blomkamp's District 9. The preview didn't connect the urban and suburban places together, but that will likely be clarified in the film itself.

Despite the sneak peeks, the preview left some of the biggest questions unanswered. How exactly does Damon gain access to the space station? How do the people in Elysium and Earth react to the insurrection? And how did things get so unequal to begin with?

March will get some shine with the earnest 'Sapphires'

Early 2013 has had just a few bright, fresh releases. After a few months with the best specialty films the year has to offer, there's nothing to appeal to audiences who like quality, thought-provoking features. Auteur-bait Stoker came out a couple of weeks ago, and now there's another film worthy of arthouse applause and crossover success: The Sapphires. The story of four Aboriginal young
women in Australia who style themselves as an R&B quartet and play for American troops in Vietnam is sweet story that will have you rooting for their success--but it also packs a punch, with insights about race and identity that will feel both familiar and foreign to American audiences. In Australia, the movie has been a huge success, as anyone who read a recent "Day and Date Down Under" column can attest.

The movie bills itself as a true story based on the experiences of the mother of playwright Tony Briggs, who also co-adapted the screenplay. He took a lot of liberties with the material, but the heart of what went actually happened is there. What's most shocking is how overtly racist Australia was in 1968. A trio of girls try to enter a contest at a local watering hole, where they receive a completely indifferent reaction despite their stunning harmonies. Still, their performance catches the attention of a down-and-out
promoter/manager (Chris O'Dowd), who tries to get them a contract to sing in Vietnam. In the city, the girls track down a long-lost cousin who was taken away from them as a girl, because of her light-colored skin, and raised as white--a common practice at the time. She joins the group, but the bossy leader of the quartet has trouble keeping in her anger at the light-skinned girl for abandoning her Aboriginal identity, despite the fact that as a young girl she had little choice in the matter.

Once they're in Vietnam, the girls flirt with the troops, wow them with their R&B hits, and narrowly avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Here the movie can lag a bit, but overall The Sapphires is an entertaining underdog story that offers education about another country's history of racial oppression. The Help set to music, with a less pat outcome. The girls refer to themselves as the "blacks" of Australia, sometimes as way of explanation to the American troops. In American terms, the Aboriginals suffered from the kind of government policies and cultural beliefs that oppressed both Native Americans and Blacks. They were alternately assimilated and separated out into poor, rural areas, and openly discriminated against. While thousands of miles away, the United States is something of a touchstone for the singers. They're aware of the Civil Rights movement that is afoot in the U.S, which they see expressed in the country's soul music. That makes their performances of the music that much more powerful. As they learn to sing in that style, you can feel them changing, and rebelling against the structures that have constrained them. The Sapphires is launching in four theatres this Friday, and it's my vote for those who need a reprieve from the action films and thrillers that have been dominating the release slate.

'The Hunger Games' promises big, but it also delivers

Over 2,000 screenings of The Hunger Games have sold out on Fandango. Estimates that the movie could earn $80 million have now been upped to $130-140 million, according to THR. This week, fans lined up at a NYC Barnes & Noble fourteen hours in advance in order to meet the cast. The Regal Union Square had five or six screenings scheduled on Saturday when I checked a few weeks ago. Now it has twenty-five.

I'm happy to report that enthusiastic fans will not be disappointed with that adaptation of Suzanne Collins' franchise. Less excited family and friends who are dragged along to the show may also be pleasantly surprised. At the all-media screening at AMC's Lincoln Square Cinema in New York City this Monday, the crowd was incredibly responsive to the movie--plenty of collective "awwws" and chuckles. The movie itself exceeded my expectations. I had been a bit worried about the CG elements based on the trailer, but they looked much better on the big screen. The games themselves weren't shown in any of the advance material, so the second hour was pure, no-idea-what-it's-going-to-be-like enjoyment. Here are some of the things about the adaptation that I liked best--or least.

The movie trusts its audience. In the book, the heroine is a mother figure to her younger sister, Prim, while her mom suffers from severe depression. In an early scene, Prim looks to her mother for approval but it's Katniss who responds. In a gesture, the actors convey what's going on. No dialogue necessary.

CG that overwhelmed and underwhelmed. Katniss' neighbor and fellow competitor Peeta has a talent for camouflage, and the movie uses CG to great effect to make him look like he's covered in bark, a rock, etc. On the flip side, the tracker-jackers look like regular bees, and the muttations' faces resemble killer animals, not the dead Tributes (participants in the games). However, even I was wondering how they would pull off the muttations. Instead, Katniss and Peeta hear the voices of the fallen. The auditory cues are just as unsettling, and certainly a lot easier (and cheaper) to pull off.

It's more to the spirit of the book than the letter. There are a number of small changes from the page to the screen. The mockingjay pin has a different origin. Katniss' dress during the interviews doesn't burn into a mockingjay pattern (but how would they do that, anyway?). None of the changes bothered me. I would rather the filmmakers move things along rather than contort the screenplay in order to maintain some artifact that just can't be explained properly in a movie. This was a lesson learned from the early Harry Potters, in my opinion.

The action sequences are great. What I loved about the novels is that the action isn't one of brute force, but cunning. Instead of people chasing after each other and having a fight, it's more of a cat-and-mouse game. It's very reminiscent of Drive's opening car chase scene, which involved parking the car as a means of evasion--a scene beloved by myself and many other women I've talked to. The emphasis on strategy partially explains why women in particular are drawn to the series. Strategic bombing of supplies. Letting loose a nest of insects. Hiding and waiting. These are the kind of weapons and tactics I find most engaging.

This weekend, theatres will be flooded with happy fans. I'm already thinking about the next adaptations in the trilogy. Catching Fire, the next film in the series, should easily be a success. Thinking oh-so-far ahead, the series might run into trouble during Mockingjay, as Slate writer Erik Sofje points out. Perhaps Lionsgate's plans to turn the book into two movies may end up helping, not hurting, the action-filled finale. But that will be years away, and this weekend is all about welcoming one of the most satisfying literary adaptations I've seen in a long time.

 

Are you ready for the new 'Spider-Man'?

Watching the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man, I already feel old. It feels like just yesterday that I was watching Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man giving Kirsten Dunst that iconic upside-down kiss. Man, that background music makes that moment feel so cheesy. On second thought, maybe it is time for a new Spider-Man.

However, the fact that they're re-booting the franchise just five years after the third film starring the original cast of characters signals so much that's wrong with Hollywood. Spider-Man "4" was originally going to star Maguire and Dunst and be directed by Sam Raimi. It was only after those oft-cited "creative differences" emerged that Columbia went ahead with an all-new cast and director. The trailer shows us we'll be getting a lot more of the same-old. Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have the same feel as original stars Maguire and Dunst (even though Stone plays Gwen Stacy, not the Dunst role of Mary Jane Watson). IMDB says Rhys Ifans plays "Dr. Connor/The Lizard," so that solves who the mysterious green, monstrous enemy in the trailer is right off the bat--though comic book fans undoubtedly knew that already.

One thing I'm excited about is that an entire set piece appears to take place on the Williamsburg Bridge. I live near the bridge, and last year I saw the production filming a number of times. One night, they trained high-powered lights on the bridge that lit it up from end to end. I thought that was the kind of thing that was normally done in CGI, so the time, money, and effort that went into that impressed me. I was completely charmed by director Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer, but I wonder how much of that sensibility will translate to this big-budget, action-centered production.

Of all the superhero franchises, Spider-Man definitely skews young. There certainly isn't the kind of darkness in the Batman series that changed with each director's iteration and made the superhero have appeal beyond the youth set. If they're only going for kids, perhaps it makes sense that a reboot will occur just ten years after the original and five years after the third film in the franchise. 

I can't help feeling a little bored with it all. The Amazing Spider-Man will have to live up to something that's only ten years old in our cultural memory. When Hollywood is already remaking something that premiered in this millennium, how can they expect adults to show up? And how can original screenplays ever have a shot?

Trailer for 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' goes for mainstream audiences

By Sarah Sluis

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has "prestige Oscar picture" written all over it. Most of the creative team has multiple Oscar nominations under their belt, with a couple wins. That includes director Stephen Daldry (The Reader, three nominations), producer Scott Rudin (four nominations with one win), and screenwriter Eric Roth (four nominations with one win for Forrest Gump). The source material, a novel by literary wunderkind Jonathan Safran Foer, has received numerous accolades. Anyone who's into indie, arty films has probably also heard of the book.

Yet the trailer for the movie, which is set for release on Christmas, goes for mainstream audiences, not art-seeking ones. Given the touching subject matter, it's not too much of a surprise. This is a story about a boy mourning his father, who he lost on 9/11. He finds a key in his father's closet and goes on a search for the lock. The book was known for its innovative writing style, use of graphics, photographs, and textual play, but all that subtlety doesn't appear in the trailer. Instead, it goes for tears set to a U2 soundtrack. I wouldn't be surprised if people are heard sniffling after the trailer.

There could be an explanation for the mainstream feel of the trailer. The movie is targeting a wide release come January and certainly Paramount wants as many people as possible to see it. Perhaps they decided to go for the heartfelt bits that would most appeal to audiences unfamiliar with the text, and trust that fans of Foer's book would turn out anyway. Or the movie has been diluted from the book. As someone who isn't the biggest fan of Foer's writing style, I'd rather see the movie. If Daldry ends up with the same comedy-drama tone of his 2000 film Billy Elliot, I will be thrilled--and I won't call it schmaltzy.

Solving the mystery of a dull �Sherlock Holmes' trailer

By Sarah Sluis

Allow me to play the part of the cranky critic for a moment, but the trailer for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is so lifeless, I need to kick it to its grave. It's hard to believe that a trailer so packed with action can be so boring, but it is. I was no fan of the first film. Its tenuous hold on reality translated to weak tension and suspense. The matte work was awful, too. I kept staring at the bad special effects instead of what was going on the screen. They were that distracting. Robert Downey Jr. tried to do what Johnny Depp did in the first Pirates of the Caribbean and failed. Depp was so great in the original Pirates because he jumped into this movie that was supposed to be about Orlando Bloom saving Keira Knightly, rolled his eyes, and stole the show. It's hard for Downey to do that if he's playing the actual lead. He has to play the straight man, the one who buys the movie's premise. Which is why Sherlock Holmes is one of my least favorite movies to spawn a sequel.

Top Five Reasons Game of Shadows will be a yawn to get through

1. The trailer has three scenes of Robert Downey Jr. dressed as a woman or wearing makeup. This disguise was old five minutes before it even got put in the trailer. It made me reminisce about Some Like it Hot.

2. Showing us a really cool "crime room" with lots of webs and newspaper clippings that wouldn't be out of place in Zodiac of Seven (:59), then suggesting we're getting a war film instead with rifle fights in forests and machine guns. I like mystery films. Sherlock Holmes is a detective. Can't the movie just stick to that?

3. A set piece on a train. No more trains! At least there were no scenes of them walking on top of a train...in the trailer, at least.

4. Ending with not-clever innuendo. This exchange actually works better on the page than the screen. Holmes: "Get that out of my face." Watson: "It's not in your face, it's in my hand." Holmes: "Get what's in your hand out of my face." Can you imagine how painful it will be to sit through an entire film of this?

5. Slow-motion explosions, gun loading, kicking. I'd like to point out that when this whole slo-mo thing was pioneered in The Matrix, the style supported the narrative. When people were inside the Matrix, time could be slowed down since the world was not real. Even in the movie, the slo-mo thing wasn't used in the "real world." Every movie that's used this technique since is just showing that it cares more about cool fighting than the story. #5 makes it pretty clear that Book of Shadows will be cool action sequences cobbled together by an excuse for a mystery.

'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' trailer: Can you want to see a movie based on the music alone?

By Sarah Sluis

This week appears to be trailer week on Screener, since a number of high-profile films have released first-look teaser trailers. Today's trailer is for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which Focus is releasing stateside November 18th.

I fell in love with the trailer instantly because of its commanding, moody score. IMDB lists the composer as Johan Sderqvist, who also wrote the music for director Tomas Alfredson's 2008 Swedish film Let the Right One In. Alfredson is the other reason to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. His previous film was haunting and resonant, with a masterful command of tone and suspense which made it a hit with non-horror fans. I imagine Alfredson will do a similar thing with the spy film. Based on a John Le Carr novel, the trailer looks decidedly NOT like an adaptation of a mass-market book. The feel is more The Lives of Others and less The French Connection (a.k.a. lots of chase scenes). And it's definitely not a Bourne movie.

If this movie hits, I'm sure it will pick up a lot of Oscar nods. Gary Oldman stars as a British spy who's called back from retirement to help root out a Russian mole. Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Ciarn Hinds, and Tom Hardy round out the impressive cast. Even though the movie's releasing late in the year to help position it as awards material, it looks like a perfect summer thrill ride. What I would give to see this released in July, freeing viewers from the oppression of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

'Off the Rez': 'Hoop Dreams' for Native Americans

By Sarah Sluis

Fictional sports movies have it tough. The narrative that repeats over and over again is that of the underdog team that comes from behind and wins the championships. Audiences are bored of this predictable plotline, but it's also the most satisfying story arc. Sports documentaries have a wonderful out: Everything they're covering actually happened. If they win the championships, great. If not, it doesn't matter, because the experience feels real and visceral. Every moment the players are behind or ahead feels that more intense because it was an actual game.

Off the Rez is the latest sports documentary from Jonathan Hock (Through the Fire), whose sports-centered non-fiction films have been a Tribeca Film Festival fixture. At a "Tribeca Talks" screening last night, viewers saw the movie for the first time. A panel followed that included the director, executive producers Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos, and the stars of the documentary. Their candid, revealing responses provided insight into the filmmaking process that drove home the film's heartbreaking struggles and inspirational story.

The movie centers on Shoni Schimmel, a promising Native American basketball player who lives on the Umatilla Reservation in Oregon with her family. During her junior and senior years of high school, her family moves to Portland, Oregon, in order to give her a better shot at making it big and getting recruited by a top college. It's also a family story--her mother is her basketball coach, and her younger sister Jodi is her teammate. Her mother Ceci has an astonishing eight children, which helped the film get picked up by TLC. At the "Tribeca Talks" panel afterwards, TLC group president Eileen O'Neill wryly noted, "We do big families pretty well," referring to the channel's numerous shows featuring supersize broods.

Racism, too, factors heavily into the film. Shoni is the daughter of a Native American mother and a white father, a marriage that the community did not take kindly to at the time. Ceci, Shoni's mom, described the attitude around the Oregon reservation as "cowboys & indians," and that kind of prejudice persists in the community. The pressure for Shoni to perform well is amplified by the expectations of both her family and the community. It turns out that many Native Americans have excelled at sports, only to wither at their moment of promise, quitting college to return home to family or not understanding the "ticket" that such a scholarship can provide. Shoni's own mother was up for a scholarship but her coach encouraged recruiters to focus on her white teammate. As the moments tick down to make a choice for a college team, Shoni hesitates, then hesitates again, sending viewers like me into a fretting frenzy. Will she bow out? Does she have the courage to leave her community? Will she succumb to their pressure?

Off the Rez also includes a timely subplot: the subprime mortgage crisis. The family buys a house in Portland because it's cheaper to buy then rent, but their payments soon escalate. After hard times hit the family, the house moves into foreclosure. If Shoni was paralyzed by the decision-making process before, this added stress further delays her college choice.

Director Hock has ample experience with sports scenes, and it shows. Shoni is a miraculous player, with plenty of style and an ability to swoosh shots despite being heavily defended. The players are also incredibly expressive. As the moderator, Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger noted, "Girls are more fun than boys to watch because they cry constantly." He meant it as a half joke, but it's true. In the locker room after a loss, tears stream down the cheeks of athletes with aggressive on-court game faces. And why wouldn't you cry because you just broke a foot, had a knee jammed in your face, or can't breathe because you have undiagnosed mono?

Off the Rez is an edge-of-your-seat sports movie with heart. It also offers eye-opening accounts of racism and reservation life, along with a side of the mortgage crisis--you can't get any more topical than that! Catch it at the Tribeca Film Festival or when it airs on TLC as a two-hour special on May 14th at 9pm.

83rd Academy Awards recap: The Oscars court the next generation

By Sarah Sluis

The best way to watch any awards show is with a DVR. But it's worth noting that for this year's Oscar broadcast, I mainly used my fast forward button for the commercials, not the show. I was most impressed with Anne Hathaway as a host--she has amazing confidence, sparkles, and possesses that chipper attitude that helps move things along. I suspect James Franco was supposed to be her laid-back, wryly humorous counterpart, but it didn't seem to work out that way. He wasn't a straight man, he was a dead fish. She hosted the show herself, and I enjoyed it. Mark me as one of those "next-generation people" the Oscars successfully won over, I'm guilty as charged.

The broadcast itself held few surprises. Most of the categories were a lock. The King's Speech was supposed to win Best Picture (along with Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor for Colin Firth), and it did. In fact, Tom Hooper even won Best Director over The Social Network's David Fincher, who has a greater body of work to support his talent. I now suspect Fincher will join the ranks of the groundbreaking directors whose work is rewarded on much, much later films: Alfred Hitchcock, who only won an honorary award, or Martin Scorsese, who was nominated six times before he won on his seventh nomination.

When The King's Speech finally won Best Picture, it seemed anticlimactic. As the producers thanked Harvey Weinstein, they cut to a shot of him with the biggest, grimacing sourpuss expression I've ever seen from someone whose movie just won something. Not even a chuckle, a smile? This year, the battle between The King's Speech and The Social Network served as a symbol of the Academy's conservative voting methods. Oscar prognosticators suspected that the Anglophile, feel-good story of a king would beat a movie about the motormouth underdog who founded Facebook, and they were right. Maybe if they make a movie in 2070 about the founding of Facebook, it will win.

Though most winners managed to throw in something clever, there were few tears or breakdowns this year. The award for best speech (watch it here) goes to Luke Matheny, a recent NYU grad who won for Best Live Action Short Film. In his acceptance speech, his filmmaking experience sounded like the reminiscences of an old, successful director. His mom did craft services! He forgot to get a haircut! His girlfriend composed the music! Turns out Matheny's film was rejected by Sundance and Slamdance, but now he's got the last laugh--and an Oscar.

The losing actresses didn't give convincing "happy" performances. Even though Natalie Portman was considered the strongest contender for Best Actress, Annette Bening looked disappointed when she lost. She deserves an Oscar! In the supporting actress category, Amy Adams looked sad when fellow actress Melissa Leo claimed the statuette, and her eyes betrayed a hint of moisture when she presented the short film awards later in the evening. Don't worry, Amy! You'll get your chance. As for Bening--quick, line up another awards film. Maybe the fifth nomination will be the charm?

Social shout-outs. I did in fact "two-screen" the Oscars, but only to IMDB Lena Horne and read her obituary (after Halle Berry mentioned the trailblazing actress). And play spider solitaire during slow moments. Turns out James Franco was tweeting the whole time (maybe that's why he was so stone-faced--distraction?). Besides extra content offered online at ABC, a million other websites liveblogged the Oscars.

The broadcast itself drew heavily from YouTube. The Auto-tune the News people turned Harry Potter and Twilight dialogue into ballads, and the P.S. 22 choir, a product of YouTube viral fame, sang "Over the Rainbow." A note for next year: continue to replace montages with zeitgeisty moments like these.

For those that are now in withdrawal, rest assured. Some sites are already predicting the Oscar nominees for the broadcast in 2012.

Looking ahead to 2011: 'Water for Elephants,' 'Cedar Rapids'

By Sarah Sluis

The wave of end-of-the-year movies brings with it the release of a host of new trailers. I weigh in on the prospects of a couple of movies that actually look good (at least in their trailers).

Water for Elephants (April 22):

Starring Reese Witherspoon, Robert Pattinson, and Christoph Waltz (in a love triangle!), this movie is based on a best-selling book (that I never managed to read past page twenty). But the trailer is another story, showing off a lush, period circus environment shot with shadowy and vibrant cinematography. Witherspoon wears her sparkly leotard with panache, and her graceful movements as a circus performer at the :51 mark made me a believer. Cons: The trailer music is a bit treacly--could this be a harbinger of the movie's tone as a whole?

Cedar Rapids (Feb. 11):

Could this be the rare comedy that's actually funny? The trailer's humor is part "The Office," part Office Space, and also could be called a more upbeat, blue collar version of Up in the Air (Though George Clooney's character would have sniffed disparagingly at Ed Helms' clueless navigation of business travel). I liked director's Miguel Arteta's overlooked teen comedy Youth in Revolt, and if Cedar Rapids avoids that brand of painfully over-the-top humor that makes the audience cringe (I'm looking at you, Due Date), I think it will be good for a quiet chuckle.

These two films are just a sampling of the many movies in the early part of 2011 that I'm excited about -- Hanna, Jane Eyre, and a smaterring of maybe-good comedies (Hall Pass, Paul, Just Go For It), and dramas (The Adjustment Bureau) should make the early part of 2011 an active one.

A friendly discussion of 'The Social Network'

By Sarah Sluis

In case you haven't heard, "that Facebook movie" is coming out in two days. It seems like every critic is raving about the movie, currently rated 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and every magazine has a Mark Zuckerberg story on its cover, but my advice is this: If you want to enjoy a good movie (not a great movie, mind you, a good movie), don't believe the hype.

While The Social Network is a perfectly competent and enjoyable film, it didn't awe me as much as I expected. When I watch a movie, I expect to be taken on an emotional roller coaster, but this one had the highs and lows and emotional arc of a television show. I was entertained, but not stunned. When I start hearing "Best Picture at the Oscars," my expectations get raised. When I see an awesome trailer, I expect the film to deliver. While living up to those kinds of predictions can be hard, there are definitely films (like Avatar) that live up the buzz.

The Social Network goes by very fast, but doesn't really ever rest on anything. Citizen Kane (which people are unfortunately comparing this movie to) also covered a lot, but it didn't feel rushed the way this does. One technique I didn't think added much was cross-cutting between Zuckerberg's Facebook-related lawsuits and the rise of Facebook. There wasn't a significant difference between Zuckerberg the rising star and Zuckerberg the defendant. If they were going for that stark contrast that you get with a "before/after he was behind bars" kind of movie, they failed.

The writer (Aaron Sorkin), director (David Fincher), and producer (Scott Rudin) of this film are immensely talented, and all have works on my "best" list. I saw bits and pieces of their trademark strengths, but everything didn't add up. Fincher was at his best at showing off Harvard's in-groups, creepiness, excess and conspiracy, hearkening back to his work on Fight Club, Se7en and Zodiac. I loved Sorkin's use of technical dialogue (hello, he is an offspring of Howard Hawks, although I prefer him when he's channeling the geekiness of Ball of Fire, not that His Girl Friday opening sequence).

I'll gladly see the movie again to find out if the Emperor really is wearing clothes, but in the meantime I'll keep my lonely position and set my sights on another film for Best Picture--True Grit.

Catching the Tribeca spirit with 'Soul Kitchen'

By Sarah Sluis

Yesterday I caught my first Tribeca Film Festival screening...ever. Despite my fears of hectic, standing-room-only crowds, I found the Village East Cinema frantic in a good way. Yes, there were people waiting

outside in the rain hiding beneath their umbrellas to get rush tickets before the show. But just as many people were crowded within the halls of the theatres, waiting for their shows, talking, writing, and making the place look like a temporary home.

Seeing a film with a festival audience is an experience well worth the crowds. It's always fun to hear people laugh unexpectedly, or the person next to me whispering in recognition when someone on screen spoke a line of Chinese (I think the Chinese words might have revealed that one of the characters was cheating on the other). A passionate, engaged audience can make a good film great.

I've been on a Hollywood-heavy diet lately, so it was refreshing to take in an independent, foreign-language film. FJI's executive editor Kevin Lally recommended Soul Kitchen (and wrote about it here), a German movie with an independent spirit. You could count all the ways it's not a typical Hollywood movie, which brings me to just that: all the ways it's different than say, restaurant rom-com No Reservations.

Parts of the movie seem like they're going to be predictable, but end up being played out in a much different way than you expect. When the manager of a Hamburg restaurant with terrible food teams up with a rock star chef, you assume they're going to turn the restaurant into a hot spot with rave reviews. Instead, the regulars hate the food, and it's only when a band starts practicing there and one of the fans requests something from the chalkboard menu that hasn't been taken down yet that the restaurant bit starts taking off. The whole movie just isn't that goal-oriented. The changes the restaurant undergoes are only part of the story, and the manager doesn't even want to turn his place into a super-trendy or four-star restaurant. That's surprising to audience members like me, who are so used to scripts revolving around accomplishments and failures.

Thanks to the inclusion of that great Hollywood trope, the eye lock between people who later fall in love, most of the romantic permutations can be guessed, but how they actually unfold is different than a typical romance. It's also fantastic to see a film cast with people that have a non-Hollywood look to them. Yes, some of the stars are beautiful, but all in unconventional ways. You get the feeling that if these people were actors in Hollywood, they would have much different haircuts/noses/figures/teeth.

Soul Kitchen, which has received a great deal of kudos over the festival, is perfectly suited to its environment, and will be at home when it opens this August through independent-minded IFC Films.

'Cop Out' looking to steal the box office, with 'The Crazies' not too far behind

By Sarah Sluis

Coming into the weekend, the policing team of Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan in Cop Out (3,150 theatres) has the best chance of finishing highest. Seemingly made with the idea that 'Sure! everybody loves a buddy cop comedy!,' this is a "completely disposable picture" according to our critic Ethan Alter, who felt that everyone from the actors to the studio was phoning it in. As for those who see the movie, "it's a two-hour time-waster that barely lingers in the memory." Ouch. For director Kevin Smith, making his first commercial picture that he did not also write, the poor reviews must sting--with only a high opening weekend as an antidote.

By comparison, The Crazies (2,476 theatres) has garnered mainly positive reviews, currently tracking 71% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes to Cop Out's 17%. FJI critic Maitland McDonagh was thrilled to see this remake of the 1973 George Romero film soar above the so-so remakes of horror movies Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror. She credits excellent acting as a major source of suspense: "...escalating tension hinges on the fact that the line between abnormal behavior triggered by extreme stress and the warning signs of infection is blurred and constantly shifting." The subject matter doesn't hurt either. Small-town Iowans start going crazy after a government plane crash dumps a bioweapon into the town's water, an anxiety shared by our phthalate-fearing, toxins-causing-autism society.

Among holdovers, Shutter Island could make $20 million in its second weekend, which could be a tough number for Cop Out to match. The Ghost Writer, which debuted strong last weekend, will expand from four to 43 theatres in twelve cities. Sony Picture Classics' Oscar-nominated The Last Station will go from 116 to 359 theatres. Its Best Foreign Language film nominee A Prophet (Un Prophete) will also make its premiere. Our critic Alter makes the interesting observation that the drama depicting racially charged French prisons "probably won't seem as novel over here as it was in its homeland," where it won several high-profile awards. Americans are just too inured to the prison genre, spending an "inordinate amount of time following the exploits of people doing time."

On Monday, results will be in for Cop Out, we'll see if The Crazies was able to pick up audiences from strong word-of-mouth, and if Shutter Island was able to hold on to a second week at number one.

Weighing in on 'The Lovely Bones'

By Sarah Sluis

Many of the people turning out to see The Lovely Bones on Friday will have read Alice Sebold's haunting book. Told from the perspective of a dead girl, Susie Salmon, after she is raped and murdered, the book brought insight into the aftereffects of such a misunderstood and shrouded crime. Profoundly nuanced, its shaded morality gave its characters emotionally complex reactions to the tragedy.

After reading Alice Sebold's memoir of her own brutal rape, Lucky, I felt I understood The Lovely Bones even more: being a victim of such a terrible crime leads you to experience events as though they are outside yourself. You can easily lose a sense of agency. Instead, you often feel as though you are watching things happen from above. Susie narrating the events going on in her family from heaven is not much different than how she might have experienced life had she been raped but not murdered.

Sadly, much of this is lost in Peter Jackson's interpretation of The Lovely Bones, which completely misses the tone of the book. Most grating is his vision of heaven. He seems more interested in giving his special-effects company a lot of work than motivating the move to fantasy. The surroundings, rich and lush and detailed, stick out from the rest of the movie.

Many people have praised the performances in the movie (and I agree with the assessment that Stanley Tucci has a standout role), but some lines sounded really, really bad and misdelivered to my ears. I saw the actor instead of the character. I suspected part of this was related to the tone. When you're trying to make something wispy and ephemeral, and fail, it can lead to dialogue that feels quite odd.

Finally, there's the rape and murder scene. Given that a child is involved, and the movie's PG-13 rating, it's not surprising that this vicious act is omitted. But instead, Jackson moves quickly from the terror of anticipation to a confusing scene where at first she's actually fleeing, and then she's fleeing in her mind, before finally pausing for a brief moment when she realizes what's happened to her. It missed the mark for me, to the point where I was sitting in the movie theatre in disbelief about how the movie was skipping over one of the most painful, but necessary, moments of the story. What I really wanted was a still moment where the audience was forced to dwell on what was happening. Though I already thought the tone was messed up by then, this really sealed it for me.

This omission will be a comfort to some, and for others it may be all they need to conjure up enough horror. Hollywood Elsewhere, for example was happy with the decision, explaining "I really, really didn't want to go there, even glancingly," and liked Jackson's "decision to show her escaping from her own death, running away from something that has happened but is so horrible that she instantly imagines or wills herself into a fantasy-escape mode." For me, it was not enough to carry through the rest of the movie. In the book, the rape and murder is always on your mind, and it's always on the characters' minds. I didn't feel that way watching the movie.

Given the subject matter, this is the kind of movie that people will see only if motivated by must-see reviews touting its artistic merit. Not many people want to be subjected to a Schindler's List if critics are coming out calling it "so-so." By comparison, Precious has garnered glowing reviews. It, too, shows the rape of a child (much more graphically) and her escaping to a fantasy world. Compared to the elaborate world created by Jackson, her escapist moments are downright spare, but the movie works by keeping us grounded in Precious' dismal reality. Translating Alice Sebold's prose to film, which requires depicting these events on-screen instead of in one's head, is a tall order, so it's not a huge surprise that Jackson didn't succeed. Those that have read the book should skip it or go in with managed expectations.

Will 'Where the Wild Things Are' enchant or repel audiences?

By Sarah Sluis

Last night, in a theatre dotted with kids wearing cardboard crowns just like the boy lead, Max, I saw Where the Wild Things Are . Like many of my generation, the book by Maurice Sendak was one of my favorites, in part because it defied easy explanation. Max breaks rules and is mean to his Mom, then goes on this weird, parallel adventure that's never really explained. All in a few hundred words. Max's wolf suit, in particular, captured my imagination. In the movie it's just as compelling, and comes with the addition of Converse sneakers to place the movie in a modern, but still retro, context.

I loved the soundtrack by Karen O (a singer in the Yeah Yeah Yeahs). It would burst in with just the right note of ebullience during the rumpus or dirt clod fight. But it's also eclectic. Not everyone likes the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and those that aren't a big fan of children choruses (apparently one of the most hated things about music, according to an NPR "This American Life" I once listened to) will probably dislike the film's music even more. But director Spike Jonze's choice in the soundtrack reflects his sensibility for everything else about the movie. He's not trying to please everyone. Maybe he doesn't even care that the movie has some slow spots in the middle. He's certainly not trying to make a Disney movie.

In the press notes, Jonze explains that "kids are

given so much material that's not honest, so when they find a story

like this it really gets their attention." It's true that Americans in particular are known for sheltering their children, which leads me to wonder how this movie will play across the world. In an interview with Newsweek, Sendak rails against Disney for defanging the Mickey Mouse of his youth (he apparently used to have teeth) and spoke of how his immigrant parents believed in giving children the full, messy, evil truth. Will Max's disobedience of his mother read the same across cultures? Or the presence of monsters who want to eat you one minute and are your friends the next?

More immediately, how will the movie do this weekend? Thompson on Hollywood puts tracking at $25 million, a plausible figure. Toy Story / Toy Story 2 has been playing this week, and the studio announced that it extended its engagement through a link on Twitter to this video. Meanwhile, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs will be entering its fifth week, and will probably dip below $10 million. Among family and kid-oriented fare, the field is wide open. Let the wild rumpus start!

'Precious' this year's 'Slumdog,' minus the 'Millionaire'

By Sarah Sluis

After seeing Precious some weeks ago, I had pushed it to the back of my mind, but today I saw this letter posted on Tyler Perry's website (via Movieline), and the movie was just as fresh as it was a month ago. In the letter, Perry details his rough childhood and the abuses he suffered, all of which made him want to support Precious. Oprah Winfrey, who has also signed on as an executive producer, has revealed before on her show that she was sexually abused as a child. For Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, this movie recalls real experiences. Even the movie's website URL, weareallprecious.com, emphasizes identification with Precious. But is having a terrible childhood a prerequisite for seeing this movie and having an emotionally wrought experience? I say no.

Precious, which stars Gabourey Sidibe, follows a young, poor, black teenager living in Harlem in the 1980s. She has been sexually abused by her father. She is pregnant with his second child. Her first child has Down syndrome and lives with her grandma. Her mother emotionally and physically abuses her. She can't read. She's obese. What does she even have to live for? Under Lee Daniels' direction, the experience is pathos overdrive, which I think explains the movie's success to date.

Viewers have overwhelmingly approved of the film, giving it audience awards at Toronto and Sundance, much as Slumdog Millionaire won the Toronto award as well as four other audience festival awards. Both movies leave you with such an wealth of emotion that you want to do something--like choose it for the audience award. They also have some distance from their subject that makes it easier to bear. In Slumdog, it's geographical, in Precious, it's because the movie is set in the past.

I took particular note of how the film's style encourages identification with Precious. We see her dream sequences, one of which is segued into as her eyes are fixated on the ceiling as her father rapes her. In another scene, as Precious cooks for her mother and is forced to eat even though she isn't hungry, the food she cooks is surreally disgusting and unappetizing. I liked that Precious' point-of-view was conveyed with fantasy sequences and with subtle alterations of her real life.

The oddest, and riskiest part of the movie is a monologue near the end where the movie's villain makes a plea for us to understand her. It's like hearing a defense from a skilled serial killer--she's convincing and you get to understand where she's coming from, but at the same time you're fighting not to believe her. For me this was the biggest payoff of the film. It can seem "easy" to side with Precious the whole way through, but being challenged to understand the victim's enemy and refusing to side with her is like fighting for Precious yourself.

Lionsgate will platform the release of Precious, opening it in some cities November 6th and expanding over the next two weekends. When reception of the film goes beyond its critics and film festivals, I'm curious to see if reactions will start to expand and diversify. Wisely, the studio has already brought in Perry and Winfrey, two public figures whose personal experiences remind them of Precious, to lead the discussion. Will American audiences find the movie to be as Precious as the early viewers did?

'Whip It' breathes life into the coming-of-age genre

By Sarah Sluis

Yesterday's advance screening of Whip It! included some unusual invitees: members of New York's roller derby team, who came clad in outfits of sweatbands and striped stockings. The audience was

raucous and frequently laughed out loud, which always makes a movie that much more fun.

What's surprising is that Whip It! uses a stock plot and situation to make a fast-paced, original-feeling movie. Here's the coming-of-age tale 101:

1. A girl in a small town dutifully, but grudgingly, follows her parents' idea of her life.
2. Until she's pulled into a new activity in which she discovers herself.
3. She must hide this new life from her parents, who would disapprove.
4. This leads to a crisis point where she can't lead both lives at once (and/or gets found out)
5. At which point she must reconcile her two worlds.

In Whip It!, this activity is roller derby (cue training montages). The movie does a great job initiating newbies into the ins and outs of the game, and by the end you'll be just as appreciative of the double-leg whip as I was. But how can a movie that follows so closely to a set genre seem so original and fresh? I've come up with a few answers.

The acting: Ellen Page does a superb job as Bliss Cavendar .a.k.a. Babe Ruthless. You're with her the whole time.
The soundtrack: Like all Fox Searchlight movies, the movie has a killer soundtrack, featuring catchy songs from indie bands. You'd want to listen to it at the gym or before going out with friends.
The feminism: The roller derby girls are sexy but tough. In one scene, they're showing off the bruises on their bottoms to each other, to the delight of some nearby boys. It's funny and revealing: the girls

admiring their bodies for their power and toughness, and the boys because it's a female body. Takeaway: girls don't need to be dainty to be admired. Ellen Page also dumps a boy without a second thought because it appeared he was cheating on her, without a second chance.
The dialogue: The movie may use a stock plot, but the dialogue feels genuine.
The details: Good comedies get jokes from authentic, not gaggy, costuming and props. There's the pink furry phone in Legally Blonde and Jason Segel wearing Ugg boots in I Love You, Man. In Whip It!, it's the pig aprons the girls wear at the diner they work at. You really believe that they have to wear them, Ellen Page meets the boy she has a crush on while wearing this ridiculous, stuffed pig apron. They are laughably hideous, and just the kind of thing you'd be forced to wear in Bodeen, Texas.

Whip It! opens this Friday, and hopefully its originality will be rewarded at the box office.

See the fate of Flipper in 'The Cove'

By Sarah Sluis

Dolphins deserve their stuffed animal status. They're cute, friendly, intelligent, and have been known to protect humans from sharks and other perils. Their very appeal to humans, however, is what endangers them. The documentary The Cove focuses on the small fishing community of Taiji, Japan, where dolphins are sold to "swim-with-the-dolphins" businesses and performing aquariums around the world, and the dolphins not selected are shepherded into a hidden cove where they are killed with harpoons.

The leader of the anti-captivity movement, Richard O'Berry, is a dolphin-lover who has been on both sides of the debate. He trained the dolphins used for "Flipper" for ten years before having a change of heart, and has spent three times as long, as he puts it, undoing what the show unleashed. He's been particularly vocal against what goes on in Taiji, the center of the captivity trade, to the point where he is followed by police investigators wherever he goes. With a team of dolphin (a.k.a. cetacean) activists on his side, they devise a way to film the slaughter, Ocean's 11 style.

Interwoven with their filming mission is background about the intelligence of dolphins, the International Whaling Commission's inability to regulate smaller cetaceans like dolphins, and evidence that many people are unwittingly eating dolphins. Often marketed as whale meat, dolphin meat has a dangerous amount of mercury that makes it unfit for regular consumption.

The best--and worst--parts of The Cove are the incredibly powerful scenes of animal cruelty. Copious amounts of blood are spilled, to the point where the blood gushing out of the elevator in The Shining seems like a trickle. It's incredibly convincing, and enough to make some people rethink their positions about the mammals.

For someone like me, a middle-of-the-roader who enjoys eating meat and fish and has a rather pragmatic view about where animals are in the grand scheme of things, I think awareness is everything. I consider it my responsibility to know about the consequences of my choices, and where my food came from. After seeing this documentary, I would hesitate before participating in a swim-with-the-dolphins program. I certainly can't abide by slaughtering dolphins for food, especially when the food itself can cause health problems. It's ironic, though, that the very captivity programs the activists are trying to stop are what endear children to the animals in the first place, and make them want to protect them later on. The winner of the Sundance 2009 documentary award, The Cove is a great example of a confrontational animal-rights documentary that can inspire activism--you can visit the activist part of their website here--while alienating few.

Choose heavenly 'Up,' or 'Drag Me to Hell'

By Sarah Sluis

The must-see movie of this weekend is Pixar's Up (3,700 screens). The opening night selection at Cannes, the PG-rated film will appeal to all ages, and rack up box-office dollars from audiences of every demographic. Pixar usually keeps its plots mysterious--our Executive Editor Kevin Lally points out that "the subject matter...might seem a dubious bet until you see what's been rendered on-screen," so I'll be sparing with the exposition. Ellie and Carl meet each other play-acting adventurers in an old house, reminiscent of the one in It's A Wonderful Life. They fall in love, marry, fix up the house, and, in a touching montage, share life's joys and disappointments, namely their inability to have children or visit Paradise Falls, where they planned on following the footsteps of famous adventurer Charles F. Muntz. Ellie dies (a fact whispered in clarification to a younger sister during the screening I attended), and as you wipe your eyes from under your 3D glasses you realize that the beautiful house they've fixed up is now surrounded by high rises, in an image first drawn in The Little House (a Caldecott winner by famous children's book author Virginia Lee Burton).

While it's taken me a paragraph to explain the moments leading up to Carl's balloon-aided escape from urbanism, Up astounds with its economy: it trusts its (young) audience, and isn't afraid to give them quiet moments. The moments it returns to and repeats, like peeks in the scrapbook Ellie kept of her life, are raps, not hammering reminders. Its creatures (especially the talking dogs) are humorous, and the eight-year-old Wilderness Explorer stowaway, a non-acting child that director Pete Docter said they would tickle or ask to do jumping jacks before reciting his lines, to coax out the best reading, is a charming complement to Carl's stodgy shtick. Up will almost certainly win opening weekend, and make strong showings at the box office weeks after its release.

Sam Raimi, who launched his career with the Evil Dead series and revived it by helming three Spider-Man films, has returned to horror with Drag Me To Hell (2,400 screens), which has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, who tend to recoil from the genre. The "diabolically entertaining" film, according to critic Michael Rechtshaffen, contains an allusion to the mortgage crisis. Alison Lohman plays a bank officer who denies a loan extension to a woman, who in turn places a curse on her. As she tries to avoid being dragged off to hell, she enlists the help of her boyfriend, Justin Long. With "old-school puppetry and prosthetic makeup combined with some judiciously used CGI," Raimi appears to have created a horror film with broad appeal, that will provide counterprogramming to those who'd rather not go Up.

On the specialty side, the film to check out is Departures, the Japanese-language picture that won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Our critic Maggie Lee called it a "popular gem�thematically respectable, technically hard to fault, and artfully scripted to entertain and touch audiences." The movie follows an unemployed cellist who signs up to be a "journey assistant," preparing dead bodies for their funerals. Delving into the world of death reminds him of his opposite: "The scene of him wolfing down fried chicken suggests his appetite for life is eventually whetted by confronting mortality daily�a reconnection with nature's cycle."

On Monday, I'll check up on just how high-flying Up was at the box office, and how much money Drag Me to Hell could scare up, so circle back as summer movie season moves into full swing.

Advance buzz: '(500) Days of Summer'

By Sarah Sluis

Yesterday I saw (500) Days of Summer, the Sundance sensation that's already captivated bloggers and prompted people to count their calendars down to its July 17th release. The sweet, self-aware film--the screenwriters call it "postmodern"--can come off as smug or earnest, though I lean towards the latter interpretation. Fox Searchlight picked up the film, a sure sign that it will follow in the footsteps of the studio's other indie successes, Garden State, Juno, and Little Miss Sunshine.

The movie opens by telling us it's not a love story, even though, well, it kind of is. Tonally, the best comparison is Annie Hall: it's telling you a love story that won't have a happy ending, but somehow makes you leave the theatre thinking about the lobster pot-like moments in the movie, not the break-up.

(500) Days of Summer is incredibly playful stylistically. The morning after Tom's first night with Summer, for example, he checks himself out in the car window and sees Harrison Ford in Star Wars. Everyone moves to his beat, and the scene eventually turns into a dance sequence, and a straight-from-Disney animated bluebird flies through the foreground. So how is this not obnoxious? The sequence seems to come from Tom's subjective point-of-view. He's sentimental, he works for a greeting card company, so it makes sense that he would have these fantasies. Music-video director Mark Webb does a great job keeping the style in check. He avoids hard shifts to fantasy sequences, the kind where the character looks around to see an empty park where a legion of dancers were a moment before, but keeps them slighly loose and open: fun "what ifs" that allow you to share Tom's excitement. Another particularly effective device was a split-screen sequence of Tom attending a party hosted by Summer. The left-hand side shows "Expectations," the right-hand side "Reality," and for a couple minutes we see the scene evolve in different directions. It's a playful style that comes straight from music-videos, but used sparingly, effectively conveys Tom's disappointment. Tom even interacts with the soundtrack. He explains, as "She's Like the Wind" swells in the soundtrack, that he just can't help feeling the music. To me, the style and reflexivity work because Webb is careful to tie each use to Tom's emotions, instead of going willy-nilly just because something would look cool.

With an original, challenging screenplay by Michael Weber and Scott Neustadter, and expert direction by first-timer Webb, (500) Days of Summer is going to be the kind of film people love to love, to the point where I wouldn't be surprised to see one of those Garden State-like backlashes where some get annoyed with the film's self-aware cleverness. It's definitely a film that people will want to talk about afterward, and if the reaction is like the standing ovation the film received at Sundance, it looks like it's going to be a particularly happy summer for Fox Searchlight, which is already on a winning streak with Slumdog Millionaire.