‘The Informant!’
Rated R
One of the overlooked performances of last year was by Matt Damon in Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant!” Damon plays a real-life whistle-blower who was at the center of one of the biggest price-fixing investigations in U.S. history, involving Archer Daniels Midland. The giant corporation was at the heart of a multinational conspiracy to control the price of the food additive lysine. On the surface it might be fodder for a thriller, a la “The Insider,” but Mark Whitacre, Damon’s character, was bizarre, to say the least. Soderbergh turned it into a black comedy. Seen as one of the bright stars on ADM’s horizon, Whitacre tipped off the FBI about his involvement in the scheme in 1992 and secretly spied on the company over the next three years. However, the Feds weren’t aware that Whitacre suffered from bipolar disorder, which led to some wild behavior on his part. He believed the company would make him head of the corporation after the investigation. More mind-boggling was the fact that while Whitacre was taping his co-workers for the government, he was embezzling millions of dollars from the company. The facts are pretty well-known. So the brilliance of this film is how Soderbergh comically peels away the layers of Whitacre’s strange personality — to the surprise of his co-workers, family and the government — and how Damon manages to humanize him. For his role as the family man, Damon wore a wig, a fake nose and cheek plumpers to alter his appearance. And while all this could add up to what seems an elaborate joke, it’s not. It’s a very entertaining but odd story.
‘Everybody’s Fine’
Rated
Robert De Niro plays Frank, a retired factory worker who is suffering from failing health because of his former job. A widower, he invites his four grown children — who all live in different parts of the country — to visit, but they all make excuses. Having never been close to them, Frank doesn’t really know much about them, except what his late wife has told him and that has been positive. But his years are numbered; so he heads out on a road trip with the intent of getting to know them. Long before you see the signs for New York, Chicago, Denver and Las Vegas, you know that Frank will be in for disappointment. “Everybody’s Fine,” an adaptation of a 1990 Italian film directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, is not entirely a drama. There are a few comic elements scattered about, and De Niro pulls out all of his tricks as he gives Frank the same passive-aggressive personality we’ve seen in many of his roles. But it’s hard to believe that Frank is quite so deluded about his children or himself as a father. Kate Beckinsale, Drew Barrymore and Sam Rockwell have their moments as his children, and “Everybody’s Fine” is far from the worst dysfunctional family story you’ll see.
‘The September Issue’
Rated
“The September Issue” is a documentary about Vogue’s September 2007 issue, which set a record at well over 800 pages. The magazine is lorded over by the infamous Anna Wintour, whose opinion is said to be able to break or make those in the world of fashion. Filmmaker R.J. Cutler followed Wintour around for months during the preparation for the issue. This is “The Devil Wears Prada” for real. “Pope” is how an assistant describes Wintour, who strives for her idea of perfection as actress Sienna Miller — who was the September 2007 cover girl — doesn’t quite measure up. Thank God for Photoshop. But no matter what you think of the fashion world, watching Wintour rule is a gas. And how can she be wrong? The pope is, after all, infallible.
‘Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant’
Rated
“Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant” is based on the first in a series of young adult books about an average American teen, Darren (Chris Massoglia), who becomes a vampire and soon finds himself in the middle of a war between factions of the undead — those who feed off humans and those who don’t. As the title implies, Darren’s new circus world is populated by some weird characters — like a bearded lady (Salma Hayek), a snake boy (Patrick Fugit) and a cute girl (Jessica Carlson) with the tail of a monkey. The show is presided over by a chap named Larten Crepsley (John C. Reilly), who’s proud of the fact he found a way not to prey on humans. Directed by Paul Weitz, “Cirque Du Freak” looks like it is meant to be the first of a franchise. The problem is that it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
‘Nurse Jackie: Season 1’
Not rated
Being on Showtime, season one of “Nurse Jackie” pushes the black in black comedy. “Sopranos” alum Edie Falco plays the title role, a New York City nurse who turns to Vicodin (a painkiller) and Adderall (a stimulant) when the going gets tough, which is every day. While it’s nice to see Falco back on TV, whatever the show’s creators are pushing, it seems over the top. The show comes back on March 22. ABC is releasing the first half of season one of “FlashForward.” (The show returns to the air on March 18 for the remainder of the season.) Give the science-fiction series some credit so far. Despite its complicated premise about a mysterious event that causes nearly everyone on the planet to simultaneously black out for more than two minutes and see what appear to be visions of their lives approximately six months in the future, the series hasn’t “lost” me yet.
— By Rob Lowman, c. Los Angeles Daily News
‘The Damned United’
Rated R
There are good biopics that faithfully recreate their subjects, the impacts they left and the environments where those impacts were left.
Then there are great biopics, like “The Damned United,” which don’t merely recreate these faces and moments so much as they absolutely revel in them. To be fair, “United” has a little help: This is the story of outspoken soccer manager Brian Clough, and his unlikely ascension to manager of England’s most celebrated soccer club — and what happens after he takes over the club that previously had been his most bitter rival — is surpassed in energy by only Clouth himself, who was to soccer managers what Muhammad Ali was to boxers. “United” maintains a persistent momentum by bouncing back and forth in time to simultaneously dramatize Clouth’s not-terribly-humble beginnings and what happens upon his securing the Leeds United job, and true to the source material, the film’s lively energy plays second only to Michael Sheen’s spot-on embodiment of Clouth. Sheen pretty well nailed Tony Blair and David Frost previously, and he nets the hat trick here with perhaps his best show yet. A stellar supporting cast (Colm Meaney, Timothy Spall, Jim Broadbent, Stephen Graham and Peter McDonald) more than pulls its weight as well.
‘$9.99’
Rated R
Though it sort of centers a theme around a somewhat central character — Dave, a directionless, unemployed 28-year-old who orders a $10 book about the meaning of life and decides to share his epiphanic moment with anyone who will listen — “$9.99” never really settles on one thing that traditionally constitutes an A-to-B plot line. It meanders — a lot — and though its characters exist in Dave’s neighborhood, their worlds rarely and sometimes never intersect. These are big problems for a movie to have, and they’d probably sink “$9.99” if all the little things it does weren’t so ridiculously, near-perfectly wonderful. 78 minutes of stop-motion animated characters waxing randomly about different facets of existence could very easily have descended into a soulless, pretentious nightmare, but “$9.99” strikes and holds a shrewd balance between showing and telling. Poignance has its place, but so does irony and dark comedy, and the stories are full of minute surprises in spite of their familiar backdrops and setups. The quality of the design and animation, old technology or not, also is first-rate: It’s a superior fit for the film’s overall tone, and it captures certain moods and details in ways all that newfangled computer animation still can’t and probably never will. Samuel Johnson, Anthony LaPaglia and Geoffrey Rush, among others, lend their voices.
— By Billy O’Keefe, McClatchy Newspapers
‘Breakfast With Scot’
Rated PG-13
What if Charlie and Alan of “Two and a Half Men” weren’t brothers but were gay partners and young Jake wasn’t Alan’s son but was the couple’s adopted child? What would you have? “Breakfast With Scot” is what. Tom Cavanaugh plays ex-hockey star Eric and Ben Shenkman plays his partner, Sam, a lawyer. The incredible Noah Bernett plays Scot, the kid who comes into their family through his mother’s death and his father’s abandonment of him. But Scot is not the typical sports-loving boy the pair expected. He’s outrageously gay himself — gayer than either of the two men — and happy that way. Who do you think learns from whom in this situation?
— By Jim Carnes, McClatchy Newspapers