By Christopher Stipp

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I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

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Before I turn you loose into Review City I was asked once again to be a part of the podcast over at Screen Geeks. I was there talking about some recent films and what was really the best to come out of last year. If you have some time, please check it out, download it, stream it. I am always flattered to be asked to be on that program and I am sure some day they will figure out how much of a fraud I am. Until that comes, please enjoy my nasally stylings.

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CHOCOLATE – Review

A lot of this film is very meta.

What I have come to enjoy out of Tony Jaa films is his rubbery technique when it comes to inventive ways of kicking someone’s head in or how he is able to make his films watchable no matter how preposterous the plot. And, really, these films are not based on their depth so we’ve all bought into the idea that these films are more about the art of action than they are the art of dialog. This is important to realize as you watch CHOCOLATE, the latest from director Prachya Pinkaew and newcomer JeeJa Yanin.

Apart from the amazing tale, if it is to be believed, that JeeJa gave up five years of her life preparing for this role this film is going to be the one movie that heralds a new standard in action films for 2009. Note well that I am not calling this film an action masterpiece but what I can say is that it is head and shoulders above any soft or weak action movie that has been put out there this year. JeeJa, playing the part of an autistic girl, Zen, who is weaned on action movies (Tony Jaa, natch) and chocolate (don’t over think the why) is arresting as a woman who paints the world in her own shades of colors. She lives in her own mental world and it is absolutely lays the logical foundation as to why she does what she does. An aside: her mother needs help with some medical treatment and the girl plays the part of bill collector as she collects on money owed the family. It’s so convenient but who cares, really?

The meta of this film is that this is directed by Tony Jaa’s ONG BAK director, Pinkaew, and Zen’s own style of combat comes out of her consumption of Jaa’s films. This whole movie almost feels like a sequel to a Jaa film that everyone might say they’ve seen but this is completely original in the way it executes its action.

The action moves are wonderfully captured on the screen while the physical odds and ends and detritus that all needed to be in place for these fight sequences to go off, not to mention exact placement of human beings in order to make all of these things happen, is impressive when you consider all the time it takes to get it right.

I almost feel bad reviewing this film in a conventional sense in that this is not a film that can be “reviewed” in the usual sense as this movie is completely deserving of kudos and accolades on its technical prowess. Much in the same way that RUMBLE IN THE BRONX showed us exactly what we were going to get out of Jackie Chan, someone needs to apologize for all the RUSH HOURs, this is a demo reel of King Kong-ian proportions for what we can expect from JeeJa. As she was careening off the bodies of potential bringers of pain, inflicting physical abuse that even made me wince at times, comes to a head to a climatic scene with a cast of dozens that has to be seen to be believed. I am completely self-aware of this comment but I have to make it: Action never tasted so sweet as it does at the hands of JeeJa Yanin.

I cannot recommend this movie enough as a winter season treat so I hope that you catch this either theatrtically or when it comes out on VOD or Blu-Ray on February 10th.

HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU – Review

I am a fan of romantic comedies.

Much like some young men who fancy films with superheroes, explosions and bright lights, as I still do, I also have an affinity for well-crafted films that try and contain the very thing that drives almost every person whether they want to be cognizant of it or not: love.

It’s a rough thing to try and be faithful to the feeling we get when we meet someone, are pursuing someone and what’s it’s like to finally be with that someone but there are those who are able to get it right. Look at Cameron Crowe’s SINGLES, a movie that melded humor with the suffering tribulations of a pack of people who just want love and to be loved. It’s still a benchmark I judge a lot of other films by when a movie wants to go down that road of mainstream treatise on the commonality of love. SAY ANYTHING, as well, shows how adept he was in taking a lot of that comedy out and laying bare the quietness of people looking to find something special.

The problem with Ken Kwapis’ HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU, then, isn’t that there is a lack of understanding of why this genre exists it is the not so great material, the execution of said material and its shallowness/one-sidedness of most the cast that ensures this will not be allowed into the pantheon of good romantic comedies. And, as an aside, this film shares more with tragedy than it does hilarity so if you’re wondering whether there will be yuks and chuckles peppered throughout this film you will be sadly and horrifically surprised at the infidelity, cheating, lying, mean spiritedness and overall dour sheen of the film.

For those unfamiliar with the plot here is the official synopsis: An all-star cast is featured in the stories of a group of interconnected, Baltimore-based twenty- and thirtysomethings as they navigate their various relationships from the shallow end of the dating pool through the deep, murky waters of married life. Trying to read the signs of the opposite sex, each hopes to be the exception to the “no exceptions” rule.

One of the first problems with the film, from its printed promotion to its trailer, is that it’s trying to sell you on the idea that this is going to be an amusing romp into some soft territory. What I take issue with is that this movie is confused. It doesn’t know what it wants to be. Apart from Ken’s serviceable directing is his ineffectualness in getting anything compelling out of this material or its players. To put it in terms many would be able and understand this movie reads like a Robert Altman feature without the depth of its characters and feels like a bad Thirtysomething episode, its players looking fresh off the runways of Milan and completely unbelievable as forlorn romantics. What’s more is that the movie tries to shoehorn short scenes with actors who have nothing to do with the film’s content to try and talk amusingly about the pitfalls of love gone bad. These mini “interviews” feel disingenuous when you try and marry them to the movie’s overall story.

And the stories! This movie spins yarns on top of sticks like plates, trying to keep them all going, and here is a run down of what each has to do with the other:

Jennifer Connelly: Your everywoman. She seems nice enough in her role as a wife who is in the middle of renovating her home (metaphor alert!) but is having issues with her lying husband.

Bradley Cooper: Connelly’s lying, cheating husband. He wants to get it on like Donkey Kong with Scarlett Johansson, an aspiring singer (thankfully, we’re not abused with her vocal talents) who pursues Bradley even after she realizes he’s married and is shocked and dejected when he doesn’t leave his wife for her.

Scarlett Johansson: She plays a shallow tramp of a woman. She’s leading Kevin Connelly on as a sorta, kinda girlfriend.

Kevin Connelly: Perhaps one of the best things about the film. He’s a guy just looking to make his way through life, trying to balance his professional and personal life. Goes on a date with Ginnifer Goodwin and doesn’t call her.

Ginnifer Goodwin: The emotional tractor beam of low self-esteem in this movie. She depends on other people for her happiness for 90% of this movie and only, by the end, does she realize only she can make her own happiness. What a shock.

Justin Long: Friend of both Kevin and personal mentor to Ginnifer of all the ways men like to treat women badly. If you’ve ever seen a film like this you’ll know how this will end and it does it miserably.

Jennifer Aniston: Common law girlfriend to Ben Affleck of 7 years and conveniently decides in a timely fashion that, no, even though the two of them agreed not to get married ever, she does want to get married. She dumps him.

Ben Affleck: A man who starts out being confident and emotionally stable ends up neutered by the end. That’s all you need to know.

Drew Barrymore: A vortex of pathetic. From using MySpace to get a date (you can tell by this how old the film has been sitting on the shelf by how much this site gets mentioned. I’m surprised no one name drops Pets.com) to being a genuinely bad at gaging how regular people are supposed to fall in love.

As you read the above I can tell you that this represents the major problem I had with this film: these characters are not believable, single-sided and they’re wickedly miserable. If I wanted misery I would just look at the relationships of people around me; I don’t go to the films to be reminded of the misery that real life doles out in ladles on a daily basis. The movie plods along, weighed down by its own moroseness, and once it thinks it wants to end things it can’t do it without seeming incredibly disingenuous.

I can’t give away how all of this plays out but this is honestly a sad film. I can’t lay too much blame at Ken’s feet for a middling movie but the screenwriters managed to miss or intentionally ignore the reason why there could have been a great opportunity to make a movie where there was genuine comedy and genuine heartache. As it stands, this film wants to tell a couple of handfuls’ worth of stories and can’t keep them all going.

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