I was surprised to find myself enjoying the movie, laughing out loud. It's silly in a "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" way, but quite a lot of it sticks. There are sly, understated jokes (when Stu arrives in Downtown, a snake offers him a cigar; later he runs into the camel from the Camel cigarette packs) and wildly overdone ones. Fraser is getting way too good at playing a live-action cartoon character -- he apes (so to speak) simian movements wonderfully. Chris Kattan is hilarious as a dead gymnast whose body Stu appropriates (in the midst of organ removal) -- you've got to have a sick sense of humor to laugh at a guy with a broken neck running away from doctors chasing him to get his organs, but fortunately I do.
I know this is going to shock some of you, but I recommend Monkeybone -- if you're sick, twisted, and goofy. Which describes a lot of you, so go rent it.
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Immortality had the far more intriguing title The Wisdom of Crocodiles for the ten minutes it played in theaters. The prior title was more appropriately opaque, too, for this murky, moody relationship-drama-posing-as-a-vampire-movie starring Jude Law. It's more interested in style than substance, and for the first part of the film, that's okay -- good enough to keep me interested -- but toward the end it falls apart and becomes silly (in a bad way). Law is, as always, magnetically engaging, and he's helped by good supporting performances from Elina Löwensohn as his love interest and Timothy Spall as the detective who's trying to prove he's a murderer. It's not a bad movie, but it's not anything special, either, and with so many other movies out there, there's not much reason to waste your time with this unless you're really into vampires or Jude Law.
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The Interview is a tense little Australian film, set almost entirely in an interrogation room, about the mind games between a detective and a suspect. I think it would work much better as a play -- it's a bit too static for cinema, seeing as most of it involves Hugo Weaving (as the man suspected first of car theft and then of murder) and Tony Martin (as the detective) staring across the table at each other. It's an intriguing game of cat and mouse at first, as you have no idea why Weaving is a suspect or whether he's innocent or guilty, but it drags on a bit too long. The ending is convoluted and unsatisfying as well. Overall, it seems a bit more like an acting exercise than a real movie, but it's not bad.
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The Yards is a slow-moving but engrossing drama with excellent performances by Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, and James Caan. Wahlberg is a small-time car thief who's just gotten out of prison and finds himself in trouble again when he goes to work for his uncle (Caan), who runs a contracting business that's on the shady side, alongside his best friend (Phoenix). After a tragic mistake, Wahlberg has to decide how far he's willing to go to save his friend's and family's hides. In a way, it's the anti-Godfather; it goes bravely against the crime-movie convention of the code of silence and stands up instead for law and order (more or less). The acting is what makes this film worthwhile. Wahlberg is terrific as the fundamentally decent guy trying to do the right thing, but torn among his many, often conflicting loyalties. He's got that wonderful vulnerable, tortured look that gets me every time. Recommended for the acting.
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