Juno

It’s always easier to pick on lousy movies rather than try to crop up a worthy review for a truly great movie. I’ve tried to write something about Juno, but it always came out as corny and less than what the movie’s worth. But I can’t stay quiet about Juno; all this silent gushing is pressing out of my mouth in jumbled vocabulary, so this time I thought better of borrowing Roger Ebert’s review and going from there.

Jason Reitman’s “Juno” is just about the best movie of the year.

It’s not the best movie of the year, it’s the best in years. I’ve never loved a movie so much since, I don’t know, Crash? But Crash had more like that overwhelming effect on me. I didn’t exactly love it, though.

It is very smart, very funny and very touching; it begins with the pacing of a screwball comedy and ends as a portrait of characters we have come to love.

I think of smart as in Juno doesn’t follow the common teenage-girl-got-knocked-up plot, doesn’t try to preach a moral message, and it is solidly built from the first minute to the very end. I’d say Ellen Page is freaking funny, but everyone in Juno seems to be contributing to that smiling effect as a whole. And also as a whole, from the parents to teenage friendship and love, to heartfelt expectant mother, the movie oozes a touching portrait of relationships.

Strange, how during Juno’s hip dialogue and cocky bravado, we begin to understand the young woman inside, and we want to hug her.

I initially imagined Juno as someone who would either be a best friend or an enemy for someone like me. But as the movie progresses, I realize that she’s the kind of cool girl, one who doesn’t give a shit what you think of her if you don’t like her, but she can totally hangs with people who clicks with her. She won’t spare a moment for pretense; what you see is what you get. That’s why I’d really love to hang out with someone like her.

Has there been a better performance this year than Ellen Page’s creation of Juno?

Er, Cate Blanchett’s Queen Elizabeth?

I don’t think so. If most actors agree that comedy is harder than drama, then harder still is comedy depending on a quick mind, utter self-confidence, and an ability to stop just short of going too far. Page’s presence and timing are extraordinary. I have seen her in only two films, she is only 20, and I think she will be one of the great actors of her time.

Ah, okay, I buy that comedy harder than drama theory because Ebert knows his thing. Still, the last statement is kinda too much, if you know what I mean. First off, I’ve only seen her in X-Men before. In Juno case, I don’t think much of Ellen Page as an actress, I just think of her as Juno the character. And whenever I think of the latter, I imagine how natural the character must have come out of the person who played it. And Ellen Page is truly Juno for me. Ellen Page = Juno. If someone tries to put, say, Lindsay Lohan in that role, though she was able to pull the act very convincingly, even worthy of recognition, then I’d think twice of Juno as an acted role. Page herself said that acting was being able to lose herself completely to someone else. If she’s really that good outside this Juno character, then I’ll agree with Ebert.

The film’s surprises, in any event, involve not merely the plot but insights into the characters, including feelings that coil along just beneath the surface so that they seem inevitable when they’re revealed.

You know, there are lot of intelligent movies out there that involve insights into the characters, but Juno does it in its own way. I’ve said it: Juno is very naturally acted. I as a viewer see her as believable as I see the next random pregnant girl walking by the street outside. But the character is something else. Honest and unpretentious and “cool”, Juno mostly speaks out her mind in words. An example of this is when Juno and Mark dance awkwardly to a song, she starts to lean in to his shoulder, when he suddenly says he’s leaving Vanessa. There, she pulls back immediately and begins to measure the damage that’s going to happen from Mark’s statement. She’s flustered, upset, denying him, demanding they must stay together for the baby, and storms out. The feelings are so natural, and so are the repercussions.

The film has no wrong scenes and no extra scenes, and flows like running water.

Yeah, and after two viewings I can totally watch it again.

There are two repeating motifs: the enchanting songs, so simple and true, by Kimya Dawson.

I’ll admit I didn’t like the songs before I watched the movie. Now the acoustic lo-fi music just sounds so sweet, especially the number Juno and Bleeker sing together at the end, Nobody Else But You.

And the seasonal appearances of Paulie’s high school cross-country team, running past us with dogged consistency, Paulie often bringing up the rear, until his last run ends with Paulie, sweaty in running shorts, racing to Juno’s room after her delivery.

The running team placement is quite funny. I don’t know exactly what purpose they serve, but their presence, as all other scenes in the movie are, blends well with everything.

My favorite scene in the movie is the one when Juno sits in the chair she and Bleeker made out in, outside his house, with a smoke pipe slipped between her lips, and she casually delivers the pregnant news to him. I’m not sure why, but that scene is really, really great.

5.5/5 or 104%/100%.

The Painted Veil

The Painted Veil is a complex, overwhelming story about love set in the background of a cholera epidemic, political upheaval, and the exotic 1920’s China. I felt so much for the characters that leaves me wanting, begging for a different closure.

Naomi Watts delivered a superb acting, convincing in every detail as remarkably as she is. Her character, Kitty, is married to a bacteriologist named Walter Fane—who’s played equally brilliant by Edward Norton—by a mistake she later acts on. By Walter’s job demand, he brings her to Shanghai where she has an affair with a married man. When Walter finds out, he whisks her off to Mai-tan-fu, a small town deep inside China infected severely by cholera. The couple lives together but engages in a distant relationship while he helps the town folks rid of the deadly disease, and she joining an orphanage run by Catholic nuns. At the same time, Nationalists were up protesting against the British influence in the country, and the presence of new foreigners was a good excuse to cause enough turmoil.

Because Chinese production was involved in the making of this movie, the political angle was suppressed to a mere thematic degree. This was completely fine, because within 125 minutes of it, the story would be focused more on the husband/wife relationship and their gradual shift from mistrust and aloofness to love and devotion. You’d expect it, and you’d call for it. Still, it’s enchanting and captivating to see love rediscovered and flourish.

Everything about this movie is terrific and if you ask me, worthy of Oscar. The breathtaking setting, the first-rate acting supported by native Chinese, the poignant portrayal of superstitious society to gruesome scenes of the dead by cholera. The music was beyond outstanding, thanks to Alexandre Desplat and his Golden Globe winning score. Already I’m planning on reading the book by W. Somerset Maugham.

4.5/5.

Dreamgirls

I read a review sometime ago stating that when Jennifer Hudson sang “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going”, she inscribed her name on an Oscar. I got curious, so I listened to the song. Other than a woman singing a heartbreaking tune zealously, it didn’t make a lasting impression. Until I saw Dreamgirls today, then I got it.

Let’s just say that hairs on my nape uncontrollably stood up during her moving act.

4/5.

The Illusionist

Watching magic tricks’ secrets revealed is a grating experience. Watching a neatly plotted mystery based on inexplicable magic tricks revealed merely as well-crafted human doings is even more grating; to me it ruins the merit of magic itself. See, this is why I dislike The Illusionist: I may ignore its talky dialogues, but I can not accept the ending presented so efficiently and abruptly as if the past 100 minutes of wonders didn’t mean anything at all. Sure, it’s an investigative mystery, and usually a case like this requires logical thinking. But Eisenheim the Illusionist has been purely magical from the beginning, which left me no chance to wonder if his acts were really tricks or something supernatural; it had always been the latter, until the last scene robbed me of the assumption. How irritating.

Eisenheim the Illusionist (Edward Norton) is a masterful magic performer in 19th century Vienna. In his youth, he fell in love with Sophie (Jessica Biel), a girl of higher social ranking. The relationship was prevented by the Duchess’ family. Before long, the boy travels the world to learn magic and returns to Vienna to perform in front of Sophie and the Crown Prince (Rufus Sewell) who seems to take every magic trick as a challenge he can prove. Naturally, the prince doesn’t like Eisenheim, especially when he knows Eisenheim’s popularity is gaining audience and his would-be princess is running away with him. So he orders a half-corrupt Chief Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) to do whatever it needs to shut Eisenheim down. Story goes continues from there, I wish it was more interesting.

To compare Neil Burger’s The Illusionist with Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, unquestionably my choice falls on The Prestige. The difference between the two is that while Nolan kept me at the edge of my seat wondering to no end how the tricks were made up, Burger kept me from nodding off by offering a murder case that must be solved. This is why I didn’t stop to think how the magic were done—there hasn’t been anything like it to relate it to magic anyway. Besides, Illusionist is less thrilling but more intense in its drama orientation because the underlying story is love.

2/5.

The Holiday

The Holiday is your typical chick flick: heartbroken women looking for a holiday escape, find love in a foreign place, the end. The formula is so simple that there is almost no story at all. A movie like this should have a brilliant cast to showcase its characters because they are the main attractions. The first time I heard of this movie, I thought of the unlikely idea of pairing Jude Law and Cameron Diaz together, and even more ridiculous, Jack Black and Kate Winslet. Did it work? Well, almost.

Amanda (Diaz) and Iris (Winslet), two women in two different continents, decide to swap houses via an internet site following disappointment with their love life. Amanda arrives at a humble, yet cozy little cottage in a small town of Surrey, while Iris stumbles into the luxury of Amanda’s Hollywood abode. Soon Amanda gets tangled up in a quandary of being loved by Iris’ big brother, Graham (Jude Law), who fathers two cute girls alone. While in L.A., romance doesn’t bloom as rosily as in U.K. at the beginning as Iris develops a relationship with Amanda’s neighbor, a 90-year-old screenwriter (Eli Wallach). Later in the movie, Iris meets her counterpart, Miles (Jack Black), a composer, who’s not so full of himself when concerning love.

The story progresses steadily if not interestingly, though the characters are not ones you can really relate to. I mean, what are the chance of bumping into someone as endearing as a good-looking, charming, responsible father like Graham nowadays, if you’re not really, really lucky? Amanda looks to me like one careless woman who admits she wants a man, but when she finds him, she doesn’t know what to do next. As with Iris, she’s like a mild version of Bridget Jones—weak in love, huge in heart. The only one whose performance sparks, I think, is Jack Black. Perhaps because I’m so used to seeing him as a crazy lunatic (never saw Shallow Hal) everywhere on screen, that his being a soft, funny in a natural way, and a fallible guy in this movie surprised me. I loved the scene where he took Iris to a movie rental and started a game of guessing movie scores.

Actually, the score to the movie itself was the main reason that compelled me to watch it in the first place. I listened to Hans Zimmer’s excellent score yesterday, and have been listening to it all day long since. I never heard such exquisite music for a romance/comedy genre from him since As Good As It Gets.

3/5.