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Centaurs, Cillian and 'the system'
Red Eye (PG-13)
There's a certain amount of masochism involved in watching a thriller. If the bad guy is appealing enough, we don't mind fantasizing about being put through hell by him. Red Eye revels in this concept.
Cillian Murphy, playing the aptly named Jack Ripner, scowls and smirks in the close quarters of a jet plane and terrorizes Lisa Reisert, played by Rachel McAdams. Jack threatens her personal and professional life as she is held captive in her window seat, all during early-morning turbulence.
The film begins with Lisa and Jack doing a bit of awkward fellow-passenger flirting in the ticket line and over airport bar drinks. Then we get to the good stuff. Once safely seat-belted on the plane, he tells her she has to choose between facilitating the assassination of a prominent hotel guest or letting her father die, and she has to use the AirPhone to make the calls to get one or the other done. Then, there's nothing she can do but wait.
In a lot of ways, those events could stop the film dead in its tracks, but the characters are so well-conceived and play so well against each other that they are totally believable (and entirely uncomfortable). The tense atmosphere of the jet, with a healthy smattering of plane stereotypes?-the stuffy yuppies, the chatty grandma, the little girl flying alone, the obnoxious high schoolers?-add to their believability. It all adds up and makes viewers (and Lisa) squirm.
By way of its enchanting villain; its smart, good-hearted heroine; the uncomfortable atmosphere of air travel and the very real dilemma at hand, Red Eye somehow endears itself. It falls a little flat on motives for killing the hotel guest, which could have fleshed out the plot, but when we get to spend so long looking at Murphy's steely blue eyes and impeccable bone structure in close-up, who needs motives anyway?
-reviewed by Emilia Garvey
Chronicles of Narnia (PG)
After being converted to Christianity by his good friend, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis wrote a delightful little allegory about four children who accidentally travel to a magical realm where cute, fuzzy animals fight nasty, fuzzy animals. This film, in the spirit of capitalizing on all those childhood memories, faithfully takes that story to the screen. As a result, The Chronicles of Narnia is a successful, albeit technically and artistically mediocre, adaptation of a classic childhood story.
Many have complained about the film's allegorical content, but the translation of biblical content is so transparent that it becomes quite harmless. Furthermore, its interpretation of Jesus' death and resurrection presented is quite watered-down. The chauvinist attitudes played out in the relationships between the four children bothered me more.
On a technical level, the film is much less defensible. In many ways, watching the film felt like watching a lower-budget and less innovative version of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, where Gollum has been replaced with talking beavers. The cinematography is uninspired, and when combined with very impatient editing, it fails to leave any lasting images. I was particularly disappointed with the failure to properly exploit the image of the solitary forest lamppost at which the children arrive in Narnia.
Fortunately, the magical quality of the original story, and the success of these writers in adapting it, shines through the film's technical flaws. The actors, while failing to give any memorable performances, did succeed in making the story believable. Even the little snot-nosed children, so often the bane of these films, performed adequately. As a result, the film is an enjoyable adaptation of the novel, though I wish it had more energy and imagination.
-reviewed by Morgan Wajda-Levie
The Edukators (R)
Director Hans Weingartner fills The Edukators with youthful exuberance and naivet?, and while it has its shortcomings, it is a beautiful film on par with anything independent cinema has had to offer recently.
The film focuses on young twenty-something, wanna-be radicals Jan and Peter, who break into the homes of the rich and privileged and rearrange their excessive amount of possessions into strange works of art, leaving only a note signed "the Edukators."
When Peter's girlfriend Jule is evicted from her apartment and moves in with the boys, the movie begins to pick up steam. A victim of "the system," Jule acquired massive debt by totaling a yuppie's Mercedes with her VW, and this makes her attractive to Jan, who is more of an ideologue than his partner.
When Peter leaves one weekend, Jan and Jule fall into each other's arms. Jan reveals to Jule that he and Peter are indeed the Edukators, and she persuades him to break into the house of the man to whom she owes money "just to take a look around."
Throwing his usual caution into the wind, Jan agrees, and the ensuing situation leads our heroes to ask many questions: Are their methodologies sound? Have they just become common criminals? Is there hope for the downtrodden against the machine of capitalist greed? And just who the hell is sleeping together?
The low-budget film is shot digitally, using all natural lighting. Compared to a Hollywood film, the picture can get a little rough around the edges. This adds to the look of the film and makes it feel more gritty and realistic. Some might be turned off by the lack of overall picture quality, especially on the big screen. Also, the Jeff Buckley song "Hallelujah" is entirely overused. (This song was also used in Shrek. Enough said.)
Overall, I found this film to be a stunning work of independent cinema, and much more enthralling than many movies with larger budgets. Weingartner has truly made a film with his heart, and it is easily the best German film since Run Lola Run.
-reviewed by Tony Dalpra
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