Movie Reviews

Sometimes a movie is so awful you need a shower to get clean.  Freedomland is just such a movie.  One of the worst films of 2006 and the most vile and disheartening films I’ve seen in quite some time.  I still can’t believe I saw what I saw or that parents with small children allowed them to view this violent, distasteful, and heartless film.  Whatever you do this weekend keep you and yours out of Freedomland.

Freedomland
Negative Stars

The trailer for Freedomland tells about a kidnapped child whose been taken by some evil men to the worst part of the city where they are doing all kinds of offensive and malicious things to him and only Samuel L. Jackson can save the day.  Well, turns out that’s not really what the film is about.  The film is about race relations between the inner (black) city and the surrounding (white) suburb that boils over when a mother says a black man has stolen her child.  The result is a chaotic mess.  And seriously folks after this can’t we take Julianne Moore’s movie mother license away from her; it seems like every movie she’s in a kid of hers is killed or is a pornstar or doesn’t exist or has been abducted by aliens or whatever.  Just make it stop.

Brenda Moore (Julianne Moore) shows up at the hospital hurt and bleeding.  She tells police detective Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson) that her car has been stolen by a young black man and her four year-old son was asleep in the backseat.  The issue quickly becomes highly pressurized and isn’t helped by the fact that Brenda’s brother (Ron Eldard) is a cop.  The black community is quardened off and you know soon or later things are going to over boil and spill out into a full riot.

Lorenzo is skeptical about Moore’s story and the holes she isn’t able or willing to fill in and believes she knows more than she is telling him.  There are also other stories involving Lorenzo’s incarcerated son, a black man who didn’t make his court date, a friend of Lorenzo’s who has an abusive boyfriend, city politics, and more.  None however are as interesting as watching paint dry.

For a movie to include an issue like the abduction and possible murder of a child it better make it important and emotionally accessible to the audience.  This film does neither.  From the very first time we see Brenda she is lying and hiding things from the police and so as the only character in the film with a connection to the child (Eldard’s character is only present to stir the pot) we never get a feel for the actual victim, Cody (Marlon Sherman).

Part of the problem is the movie is much more interested in the effects of the kidnapping on the city, in a superficial way, rather than the child himself.  Cody is basically only a plot device to get things rolling and that is more than just bad writing; it’s wrong.  Nor does the film earn the riot and the scenes of the white cops in full riot gear beating young black men, women and children within inches of their lives.  Nor after the story of Cody is concluded does the film take any kind of look at the action of those involved or the consequences of their actions.  That’s more than just wrong folks; it’s irresponsible.

The movie’s only interesting character is Karen Collucci (Edie Falco) a mother whose son was kidnapped ten years ago and now helps run a volunteer organization of parents who look for missing children.  Falco gives the film a slight thread of credibility but her character and story are gobbled up and wasted by the rest of the film.

The film never earns the race riot it so badly wants to put on screen and so orgasmically happy to show, nor does it ever make Cody real enough to make the audience have any emotional stake in the film.  For a film to take on such topics as kidnapping, murder of children, race riots, and police beating down African Americans in such a loose, insincere, disrespectful, and disingenuous way made me want to vomit.  The best thing about Freedomland was when the closing credits finally rolled.

Winter Passing is the type of film I strongly dislike.  It’s a film that’s dark, moody, edgy, and eccentric for the sake of being dark, moody, edgy and eccentric.  It never earns the style it so vehemently wants to impose on us, nor the necessary redemption of its leading character.  It’s just pretentious as hell.

Winter Passing
1 & 1/2 Stars

I like Zooey Deschanel.  I like Ed Harris.  I like Amelia Warner.  Yet I did not like this film.  Oddly cobbled together with a forced vibe of weird and edgy, dark and moody, the film is just an odd compilation of performances.  It’s almost as though these actor’s agents got together and had them make a reel to show to directors and producers showing off their talent for films they want to be considered for.  And note to the writer/director – having the main character drown a kitten makes it a little hard to accept her as a sympathetic character later in the film.

Reese Holden (Zooey Deschanel) is a mess.  Living in New York as a struggling actress in off-off-Broadway productions she spends most of her time drinking, smoking cigarettes, doing cocaine, humping any guy who is nice to her, and banging her hand in dresser drawer.  But she has a kind side; she’s taken in a stray kitten who she takes care of….oops, she found out it has leukemia.  Well she’s still a nice person she’s not going to….hey, why is she walking into the river with the cute cuddly mewing kitten and a small duffle bag??  Oh my god!  Cruella De Vil wasn’t this evil!

The kitten killer’s mother has just committed suicide and bequeathed her a collection of letters she and her father, both famous authors, wrote to each other in their youth.  A publisher (Amy Madigan) offers Reese $100,000 for the letters and so the kitten killer returns home to Michigan on the bus to find her father (Ed Harris) living in the garage and a former student Shelly (Amelia Warner) and an odd character Corbit (Will Ferrell) living in the house.  Seems Daddy’s gone ‘round the bend.

The rest of the film is the unremarkable story of how rigid and mean Reese begins to accept and understand these people who are living in the house and taking care of her father and finding her father has a side she didn’t know.  Awwwww.  The performances aside the entire film is a waste of time and money.  Reese isn’t an interesting or sympathetic character and her father and Corbit are too crazy to be cared about.  The only slightly interesting character is Shelly who has a real story of tragedy and loss that is quickly glossed over in favor of Reese’s self-indulgent pseudo-tragedy.

The story is also oddly interrupted by scenes that have nothing to do with anything connected to the characters or story.  An example, one night driving Reese stops as a deer has been hit by the side of the road and gets out of the car to drag the deer to the side of the road.  Next scene.  Huh?  The film has at least a dozen such moments that make the story structure of the film less and less cohesive.  And we won’t even get into the numerous continuity and logistical issues such as having Ed Harris play a guy with hair, but using an older picture of him on the back of his novel being bald.  Hmm…I think someone should have noticed that before me.

There are no reasons to see the film unless you just really love Zooey Deschanel and want to see her go through all the motions in a bad movie.  The movie makes her character so unsympathetic that we can never accept her as anything else (did I mention she zips up a kitten in a duffle bad and drowns it alive in the Hudson River?).  At least everyone got some good clips to use to land them their next role.

More of a concert film than a documentary Neil Young: Heart of Gold captures Neil Young giving a two night performance at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium just days before he goes in for surgery.  The music is of course great and the sound quality is excellent but I would have liked more of a behind the scenes look with interviews and reminiscing with Neil and his friends.  All that said fans of good music will want to check it out.

Neil Young: Heart of Gold
3 & 1/2 Stars

Neil Young: Heart of Gold takes a look at Neil Young’s two night performance with friends in Nashville.  Young manages to put on one hell of a show (I don’t think I’ve ever heard a better quality sound on a concert film) and I was smiling ear to ear when he broke into “Old Man.”  I would have preferred a litle more documentary mixed in to the music but what we do get is quite good.  (click the poster to see the trailer)

The film starts with Neil Young’s friends showing up in Nashville and being driven to the Ryman Auditorium.  We get glimpses and short stories from the performers including Ben Keith, Spooner Oldham, Rick Rosas, and Emmylou Harris telling the story of how the performance was put together on their rides to the auditorium.  Also joining in are Karl Himmel, Chad Cromwell, Wayne Jackson, Grant Boatwright, Larry Crag, and Neil’s wife Pegi Young.  Young had just months before learned of his brain aneurysm and at the time of the performance was just days away from going into surgery.  That gives the film added meaning and relevance knowing Young may have believed on some level that this would be his last performance. 

After the short documentary footage (all together probably only ten minutes worth) the movie launches into the concert.  Young performs many songs from his latest album “Prairie Wind” along with mixing in classics such as “Harvest Moon” and “Old Man.”  His performance of “Old Man” is particularly memorable because its one of the few songs he stops to tell a story about where the song came from.  Young also gives a short tale before his performance of “This Old Guitar” talking about the guitar he is using which once was owned by Hank Williams.  Such moments are hidden nuggets between the music and I just wish there were more of them.

Despite his age and the weight of his health problems Young gives a tremendous performance.  I give huge credit for Demme in capturing a legendary performer still at the top of his game on an incredibly emotional night.  Demme’s choices are all the right ones as he manages to capture the feel and emotion of the night as well as the sound.

I’m not a huge fan of concerts or concert films for that matter, but it’s a damn fine deal to get to hear Neil Young for the price of movie ticket in seats better than any you could get at an actual concert.  Still for most people I think it will make a better DVD than movie experience and you can enjoy the music in the background without being stuck in a theater seat for an hour and forty minutes.  If the film had gone for more of a documentary style as the early interviews I would have given it a higher rating as they some of the best parts of the movie.  Still for Neil fans you get what you want just nothing more.