I planned for this series to be called “Saturdays are for Sleepers,” but I’m running into a problem: I like to do stuff on Saturdays. After five days of reading, writing, coding, and doing circuits homework, I don’t want to sit and write a review. So, I’m thinking the series may continue to be called “Saturdays are for Sleepers,” but the “Saturdays” part will be flexible. I may write on Sunday or Monday or any day I want to. You can watch the Sleepers on Saturdays if you want. I suppose that was my original intention; I just lost track of it somewhere along the way.

Some may argue that What’s Eating Gilbert Grape is no sleeper. The only collaboration between Depp and Dicaprio (that I know of) saw a limited release in December, 1993, so its not a new film. It comes on channels like ACM and TCM regularly, so its also something of a modern classic and many people have seen it. But until last Thursday, I had not seen it, so I have to believe there are others like me that are unaware of this odd, endearing little film about life in Small Town, USA.

The fictional town actually has a name, Endora, Iowa, but it might as well be anywhere. The film was shot in small communities around Austin, Texas, and the nondescript setting could ring true for any American town. Young Johnny Depp plays a long-haired Gilbert Grape, a contemplative young man who is clearly meant for something other than his eternal hum-drum existence but is tied to the town because of his family. When his father died some years before, his mother plunged into depression and transformed from the “prettiest woman in town” into a “beached whale” as Gilbert calls her. Gilbert and his two younger sisters are clearly ashamed of their mother’s enormity and frequently have to shoo away local kids who try to sneak peaks of the poor wha–err–woman. Then there’s Arnie, the youngest Grape, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who is mentally handicapped but incredibly sweet-natured. He is fast approaching his eighteenth birthday, a miracle considering doctors said he wouldn’t live past ten. Much of the tension of the film comes from the challenge of keeping Arnie alive until his 18th birthday. Arnie is helplessly bound for self-destruction as evidenced by his repeated climbs up the local water tower.

Three aspects of Gilbert Grape impressed me as exceptional. First, the atmosphere of the small town and the personalities that populate it are spot on. I’ve lived in small towns most of my life, and I found myself recognizing characters in Gilbert Grape that I must have encountered in real life at some time or another.

Second is Depp’s sweet yet pitiful performance as the stifled, overworked breadwinner for a hurting family. Depp has always gravitated toward unique characters, and Gilbert is no exception. His understated way of speaking and his strange affair with a much older woman establish him as an unusual character, but what is refreshing is that Depp strives for authenticity in the character of Gilbert Grape. All of Gilbert’s sacrifices, frustrations, delights, and idiosyncrasies seem to spring from a place of truth. Lately, I feel, Depp is comfortable with letting characters become him, so its nice to see his vulnerable side in a film from early in his career.

Lastly, DiCaprio’s performance, the only Oscar nomination from Gilbert Grape, is simply one of the best portrayals of a mentally handicapped person in the history of cinema. Watching Arnie laugh helplessly at his older brother’s slightest word nearly brought me to happy tears on several occasions. What pure, unadulterated joy!  To think DiCaprio was only eighteen when he acted in Gilbert Grape gives some idea of the abundance of talent he’s been blessed with. DiCaprio’s never won an Oscar though he’s been nominated three times. If the Academy really does honor bodies of work over individual performances (a la Sandra Bullock’s win for The Blind Side), then I’d say DiCaprio’s time is coming.

In Charlie St. Cloud, Zac Efron is angelic in more ways than one.

First off, do not make the mistake of dismissing Charlie St. Cloud because of Zac Efron. If this movie proves anything, its that Zac Efron is a talented actor. The movie has it’s flaws, but Efron’s passionate performance is one of it’s strengths.

Set against the backdrop of sailing culture in the beautifully photographed Pacific northwest, Charlie St. Cloud focuses on the unique bond between two brothers. Charlie and Sam make a mean sailing team despite the significant age gap between them. Charlie is graduating high-school and Sam is not yet in junior high. Having two younger brothers, I was struck by the accuracy of the film’s portrayal of the rhythms and buried emotions of brotherhood, the way a jab to the shoulder can signify love and deep loyalty. Brotherhood, as a theme, is handled well.

The other principal theme is not handled so well. If you’ve seen the trailer, it is no spoiler that Sam is killed in a car wreck. Charlie is too, sort of. After flatlining for several minutes, he is jolted back to life by a pious paramedic played by Ray Liotta. The brush with death transforms Charlie into a brooding young hermit with the off-and-on ability to communicate with the dead.

A subject that is presented as eerie and disturbing in The Sixth Sense, the interaction of the living and the dead, is here presented uncritically as sweet and almost normal. In fact, the main flaws of Charlie St. Cloud are the inconsistent rules that govern these interactions (like why can Charlie only see some dead people?), and the way the film glosses over the patent weirdness of it all. At certain moments the audience will ask “did Charlie just… ? With a dead girl… ? Oh, that’s weird. That’s real weird.” But, the film won’t hesitate for your misgivings. It stays on course, vindicating Charlie’s “faithfulness” to his dead brother and romanticizing his other necrological relationships.

Zac Efron and Director Burr Steers do their best to steer this film North of sappy, but at times it slams against melodramatic outcroppings. Efron has proved he is likable and a strong enough performer to carry a film, but if he ever wants to rise to the likes of Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt (I believe he’s capable), he’ll have to choose his projects a little more carefully.

Carell and one of his “mousterpieces.”

Dinner for Schmucks. Rated PG-13 for language including some sexual references, an intense accident scene and some sensuality.

Dinner for Schmucks is essentially a morality play with one simple moral: be tolerant of idiots. Ironically, the film itself is an exercise in that kind of tolerance. How much idiocy can you take before its not funny any more?  

From a distance, Schmucks seems to have all the right players to make a comedy juggernaut. Steve Carell, Zach Galifianakis, and Jermaine Clement (of Flight of the Conchords fame) throw their comedic chops into the mix, and Paul Rudd plays Tim, the straight man protagonist with a dry wit and newscaster delivery. Tim’s goals are familiar: get a promotion, marry his girlfriend. To accomplish his goals, he will do almost anything including committing to a dinner where every attendee must bring a guest with “extraordinary talents,” in other words, an idiot. The attendee with the most entertaining idiot wins the esteem of his fellows, and in Tim’s case, a sure promotion to an office on the hallowed seventh floor.

Enter Barry (Steve Carell), Tim’s idiot, a hopelessly naïve IRS agent whose passion is crafting dioramas around dead mice. As strange as it sounds, Barry’s hobby is really quite impressive—he recreates the Mona Lisa and many other famous works and dubs them his “mouse-sterpieces.” Unfortunately, his sympathetic traits end here. Carell’s character is pushy, unintentionally destructive, and more nagging than any two-year-old. He and several other supporting characters (including Tim’s dominatrix stalker) are shamelessly manipulated by the writers to create hoops and hurdles and impossibly awkward situations for Tim. They behave like killer robots programmed to destroy Tim’s life, not like human beings.

Much of what could have been funny in Dinner for Schmucks becomes obnoxious and silly, and the storyline eventually degenerates into an idiotic, slapstick climax and a rushed, sappy ending. This movie is all about packaging. It has all the right funny men on the cover, but trust me, what’s waiting inside is a big disappointment.

I watched one film worth mentioning on Netflix Instant over the week, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints starring Shia LaBeouf and Robert Downey Jr. It was a very personal film, written and directed by Dito Montiel and based on Montiel’s own book of memoirs about growing up in a violent neighborhood in New York City. LaBeouf plays young Dito and Downey plays grown-up Dito  in parallel storylines that converge on the wrecked relationship between Dito and his father. The performances were real and immediate, but that the actors needed to be reined in at times. Some of the improvised dialogue consisted of characters blurting “f***” like a Tourette’s sufferer on speed.

In other news, my reviews of Inception and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice were published in The Winston County Journal yesterday, hopefully signalling the start of an era of newspaper syndication for me. I’m excited about that possibility.

I’ve been researching for my post on Film Criticism, but what I’ve discovered is that there is no clear-cut recorded history of film critics. One just doesn’t exist. So, this project has turned into more work than I expected. But, I continue to work on it and will post it as soon as possible.

Hope you’re enjoying Film is Young. If you want to stay more connected to the blog, sign up for the Newsletter e-mail on the sidebar.

Take care,

Johnson

Preview some of the best tracks while you read with this little gizmo.

20. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Mark Mothersbaugh. You wouldn’t expect an animated kids movie to have a great score, but then again, Up won the Oscar for Best Original Score in 2010. I’ll be honest, I loved Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I thought it was hilarious and heartwarming, and I love how the score transitions in an instant from overly-serious, sweeping strings to cartoonish electro-beats.

19. Coco Before Chanel, Alexandre Desplat. Desplat was a busy man in 2009, scoring seven different films, several of which appear on this list. He has an enchanting piano-centric style that he uses to great effect on Coco Before Chanel.

18. Public Enemies, Elliot Goldenthal. My favorite track is the bluesy ”Ten Million Slaves” by Otis Taylor that made that first theatrical trailer look so cool. Most of the soundtrack, however, is more suited to the film’s 1930′s Chicago setting–slinky jazz tunes by Billie Holiday and a somber classical score by Eliot Goldenthal.

17. Moon, Clint Mansell. Moon has to be one of the most underrated films of 2009, and Clint Mansell’s eerie score is one of the best things about it. Simple piano, unearthly synths, and pounding drums set a mysterious, lonely tone on the dark side of the moon.

16. Angels & Demons, Hanz Zimmer. Angels & Demons may not be Zimmer’s most original work ever, but it has one standout track. “503″ builds from mystery to grand revelation in a lovely mix of organ, big strings, and a soaring solo violin.

15. Julie & Julia, Alexandre Desplat. Desplat is back with his trademark piano tinkering, accompanied by a whimsical solo violin, and occasional Parisian accordion. The score is carefree and happy and makes the perfect soundtrack for adventures in the kitchen.

14. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Steve Jablonsky. Seriously, the score is the only saving grace of this movie. Steve Jablonsky is a graduate of the Hanz Zimmer school of scoring modern blockbusters. Thundering drums and simple sweeping melodies are the staples of his work. On this outing, he worked with Linkin Park to get a techy guitar sound that appears in samples throughout the score.

13. Whip It, Robert Miller. Girl punk has never been so much fun. The opening track from Tilly and the Wall is a let’s-go rocker and the rest of the album carries that energy through with a grungy, lo-fi, dirty bar sound. Highlights include “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” by the Ramones and “Your Arms Around Me” by Jens Lekman.

12. The Princess and the Frog, Randy Newman. Randy Newman is back with more endearing songs for an animated Disney film. Here he channels New Orleans jazz and even some bayou Zydeco sounds to form big musical numbers about the importance of hard work.

11. The Young Victoria, Ilan Eshkeri. My main complaint with this film is that nothing really bad ever happens; the story remains in safe, positive territory for the entire arc. However, I won’t make that complaint about the score because I can’t get enough of the elegant, uplifting sounds of Ilan Eshkeri’s very Victorian score.

10. Sherlock Holmes, Hans Zimmer. I love how different the Sherlock Holmes score is from Zimmer’s usual stuff. It’s zany and brusque like the atmosphere in an Irish pub. Zimmer mixes banjo with whiney violins to create a sound that’s as mysterious, smart, and crazy as Holmes himself.

9. (500) Days of Summer, Mychael Danna and Rob Simonsen. Right here in the middle of my lineup fall two indie rock compilations. Solid tunes from Doves, The Temper Trap, and the indie princess herself, Zooey Deschanel singing for She and Him, highlight this stellar mix tape.

8. Twilight: New Moon, Alexandre Desplat. The only thing edging the Twilight soundtrack over (500) Days of Summer is Alexandre Desplat’s angsty piano piece “The Meadow” that is included in the mix. It is a gem. Tracks by rock powerhouses Muse, The Killers, Death Cab for Cutie, Thom Yorke, and Editors among others also make this album great. DISCLAIMER: My fondness for this soundtrack does not equate to a fondness for New Moon the movie.

7. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Alexandre Desplat. This score shows Alexandre Desplat’s ability to tailor his style to his material. Banjos toy with the high keys on a piano to make a quaint, playful, rural sound. “Une Petite Ile” by French film composer Georges Delerue is also an excellent addition to the soundtrack.

6. Crazy Heart, Ryan Bingham. Crazy Heart won the Oscar for Best Original Song with “The Weary Kind,” but it didn’t win for the whole score. Ryan Bingham wrote and performed the songs on the Crazy Heart soundtrack, and Jeff Bridges’ voice also appears on several tracks. The old country tunes tell a powerful story, but unless you really love old country, I doubt you’ll get many plays out of this album.

5. Up, Michael Giacchino. Michael Giacchino, who is also J.J. Abrams right-hand man (scoring Lost and Star Trek), won the Academy Award earlier this year for best original score with Up. His pleasant blend of piano and horns really did deserve the honor, but the soundtrack loses some of my interest in the action segments. The best tracks are those at the beginning and end, ”Up with Titles” and “Up with End Credits.”

4. The Soloist, Dario Marianelli. A movie about a phenomenal homeless cellist  better have a good score right? The Soloist does. Marianelli takes inspiration from the sounds of Los Angeles freeways to create grand Beethovenesque symphonies which inevitably feature a lot of solo cello. “Cello Lesson” is the improvisational piece featured in the trailer and is one of the highlights of the soundtrack.

3. Adventureland, Yo La Tengo. Apparently I like carefully crafted compilations as much as I like beautiful classical scores. The soundtrack to Adventureland is a mix of choice 80′s material that fits this funny, heartaching 80′s story like a glove.

2. Inglourious Basterds, Mary Ramos. I credit Mary Ramos here because she is listed as the Music Supervisor, however, Quentin Tarantino, being the movie nerd he is, generally handpicks his soundtracks from old movie themes. Here he uses several Ennio Morricone pieces to great effect. The opening track, “The Green Leaves of Summer,” was originally written by Dimitri Tiomkin for the John Wayne version of The Alamo.

1. Avatar, James Horner. James Horner faced quite a challenge matching the visuals of Avatar with music. His score is epic, tribal, otherworldly, and at the same time powerful in a human way. It illuminates Avatar, makes the lush planet more colorful and alive. It clearly matches the wonder of the visuals if it doesn’t surpass it.

• Brad Pitt to star in new zombie epic World War Z.
• Brad Pitt also starring in Moneyball, the story of the Oakland A’s 2002 season.
• First interview with Bill Murray in… a while.
• Artwork from Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch.
• Doug Liman directs Naomi Watts and Sean Penn in Fair Game.
• Role of Spider-Man has been cast for the series reboot.
• Michelle Rodriguez gets hostile about being typecast.
• Guillermo Del Toro developing a new, scary Haunted Mansion.
• Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Jo to play in sci-fi thriller Gravity.
• Batman Begins scene cut with Danny Elfman’s Batman score.

“I think really, there should be no film critics – okay, let’s change the age – there should be no film critics younger than 30. Because before that you don’t know enough about art, you don’t know enough about life. And I repeat to you, I started out as a young person interested in writing about film, but really really really, I know more now than I knew then.”

One of my all time favorite movie posters. Love the throwback style.

The American, yet another movie about an American assassin in Europe, opens September 1st. A lean George Clooney stars in his first role as an action hero since Batman & Robin… Ouch. I just felt the air go out of the room. But wait,  I think its time we give him another chance. Clooney is one of the few in Hollywood that seems to be aging well naturally, and I don’t just mean his looks. Sure, he seems to have grown more handsome with time (he’s now 49), but he also seems to have grown less conceited, more personable. Of course I don’t know the guy personally, but his performances in movies like Up in the Air have highlighted cracks in the famous playboy’s armor. He has seemed vulnerable, even lonely, and definitely empathetic. So I’m interested in the emotional complexity he can bring to a typical spy movie.

However, I’m not so sure The American will be typical. The story is adapted from the novel, A Very Private Gentleman, by Martin Booth. I haven’t read it but the title evokes a slow-burning, quiet thriller rather than a slam-bang, explosion party like we’re used to. Anton Corbijn, the Dutch photographer famous for his iconic shots of U2 and Depeche Mode among others, directed the film, only his second feature. His first, Control, the story of the short life of Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, released to much criticial acclaim in 2007. However, I fear Corbijn because of what he did with Linear, a long-form music video that was meant to be a companion to U2′s latest album No Line on the Horizon. Linear is unwatchable, in fact, it would be far better if it was just a black screen and U2′s music. Several segments are just long (as in several minutes) point-of-view shots of the road zipping by in front of a motorcycle rider. I love U2 but I could not sit through Corbijn’s mind-numbing film. Also, he did an alternate music video for Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” that just looks amateurish. I trust his bleak, subtle syle as a photographer, but I don’t trust him as a director. We shall see.

The first trailer for The American is intriguing. The second is loud and chaotic like a trailer for a Bond movie, and it seems like an attempt to woo American male audiences. Here is the first.

I offer two sets of guidelines for deciding if you should see The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Firstly, if you are a fan of both National Treasure and the Harry Potter series, then you obviously like watching kids do cool, special-effects magic tricks and you have developed a tolerance for Nicolas Cage, and you will probably enjoy The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Or secondly, if you still enjoy getting happy meals at McDonald’s (get them while you still can!), then you will probably enjoy The Sorcerer’s Apprentice because it is the equivalent of a cinematic happy meal.

The story, very loosely based on the Sorcerer’s Apprentice scene from Fantasia, is yet another tale of the unlikeliest of candidates becoming the chosen one. In this case, Dave, the socially-underdeveloped physics nerd from New York City, becomes the “Prime Merlinian” thanks to the magical blood he inherited from his great-great-grandwizard Merlin. Nicolas Cage, as Balthazar, becomes his mentor and Alfred Molina, as Horvath, his nemesis. The wizards battle all over NYC. There are lots of explosions and fireworks… Its all about as memorable as the bag of sour patch kids you are likely to consume while watching it and about as nutritious (maybe I’m stretching this metaphor too far).

Like a happy meal, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is mass-produced, lacking any real value, and dissatisfying, but it comes with a shiny toy, lots of special effects. I guess it is happy too, in a cheap kind of way.

Ben Affleck directs and stars in The Town. Powerful trailer.

David Fincher directs The Social Network, the story of how Facebook came about. Music by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails.