Movie Reviews

Raunchy 'Greek' remembers 'Sarah Marshall'

Jonah Hill, left, and Russell Brand go "Greek."  (Universal Pictures)

Get Him to the Greek

---

---

Running time: 109 minutes

MPAA rating: R (strong sexual content and drug use throughout,  pervasive language, nudity)

---

On the Web

"Get Him to the Greek"

"Get Him to the Greek" is a spin-off of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," director Nicholas Stoller's 2008 romantic breakup comedy.

Don't call it a sequel, though.  "Get Him to the Greek" features two actors, Jonah Hill and Russell Brand, from the earlier hit.  But only one character made the squad cut.  Think of it as "The Scorpion King" branching out from "The Mummy" franchise, or "Wolverine" going back to his steel-finger roots  sans the other "X-Men" freaks.

Aldous Snow (Brand), the British rock star who showed up with vacationing title character Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), is front and decidedly off-center in the new comic misadventure.  Hill returns as well, but not as Matthew, the groupie, songwriting Hawaiian resort waiter he played a couple years back.

This time Hill takes on Aaron Green, a Los Angeles record company underling.  Green has three days to jet to London, pick up trashed, boozing, drugging rock star Snow and get him first to New York for an appearance on "The Today Show" and then to L.A. for a make-or-break reunion concert at the Greek Theater.

"Get Him to the Greek" spills onto the screen from the Judd Apatow stable of "Knocked Up," "Superbad" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," among others.  It feels more like "The Hangover," in that it spews alcohol, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll debauchery to new cinematic lows.

Stoller, who also penned the script, was correct in assuming there was more comic money in the bank when it came to Brand's over-the-mountaintop rock star persona.  And he was correct that Brand and Hill created some comic sparks in "Sarah Marshall."  His problem here is assuming that Hill (who strangely draws top billing) and Brand can sustain that level of amusement for the entire length of a feature film.

Snow doesn't board the plane quietly or on schedule, of course.  There is much partying to do.  Many girls to kiss, a few car hoods to stomp and liquor to drink, spill and spew.  The rock music god who once flew high on hits, is now riding high on debauchery.

His girlfriend, former supermodel Jackie Q. (Rose Byrne of "Damages" and "Knowing" on TV) launched the binge by saying during a TV interview that Snow is no fun since he chucked the booze seven years earlier.  So Aaron, a semi-family guy having trouble with his live-in girlfriend Daphne (Elisabeth Moss of "Did You Hear About the Morgans?") back home, enters a perfect storm of booze and remorse.

Who knows if this is the last we'll see of Brand as rocker Aldous Snow, which is beginning to come across as his "Borat" to Sacha Baron Cohen.  Know this, though, Brand is a movie star poised to break out in a huge way.

Hill, a decent enough actor, can be funny in brief support spurts; with Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen in last year's "Funny People," for instance.  The third time he threw up in this wild comic ride, though, I began to focus on anything other than his face.  (You can't trust a spewer after three projectile incidents.)  

"Get Him to the Greek" isn't as consistently funny as you might expect or as I would like.  Like "Sarah Marshall," however, it occasionally detours into bittersweet heartfelt drama that provides the lower regions of the emotional roller coaster.

'Runaways' rocks hard, demands attention

California teen Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) gets ready to rock.  (Apparition)

The Runaways

---

---

Running time: 102 minutes

MPAA rating: R (harsh profanity, drugs and sexual content -- some involving teens)

---

On the Web

"The Runaways"

Dakota Fanning has been acting since she was 5.

 

Ten years later, while performing the stuttering, raw lyrics of the sexually suggestive Runaways song "Cherry Bomb," Fanning becomes an actress to be reckoned with.

"The Runaways," while not a great film, it's one that constantly demands attention.  Personally, I would like to have seen an experienced feature filmmaker in the director's chair.  Even inexperienced in sustaining narrative, however, video and photography artist Floria Sigismondi delivers something vibrant, dark and spellbinding.

With up-and-coming star Kristen Stewart ("Twilight") in black leather as budding rocker Joan Jett and Fanning (already an established child star) as blond bombshell Cherie Currie, Sigismondi unleashes intense, sultry rock 'n' roll and dramatic heat.

"The Runaways" is a coming-of-age film of two teen Southern California girls of the 1970s who hook up to become rock's pioneer girl band.  The Go-Go's and The Bangles would follow.  The Runaways forged the path.

Like all good music biopics, this one digs deeper than chronicling merely what happens on stage when five girls decide to rock it like the bad boys.  Sigismondi, who also wrote the script, did her research grunt work.  Part of that was Cherie Currie's autobiographical book "Neon Angel."

Sitting in the audience, I got the feeling that I was a fly on the wall in the shabby trailer home as The Runaways' angry, sexually charged rock sound was being born.  Cherie (Fanning), fresh off a bad David Bowie lip-sync performance at her school's talent show, arrives without an audition song.  

Eccentric, bombastic manager Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon) likes her hot look, though.  It's a combination of sweetness and Bridget Bardot.  So Fowley, barking profanities all the way, and Jett write "Ch-ch-ch-cherry Bomb" on the spot.  It will become the fast-rising band's titillating anthem.  

That's the tone of "The Runaways," the movie, as well.  Sigismondi delivers cinematic intensity not in building moments, as many filmmakers do, but in dramatic flash fires. The flame erupts the first time when Joan and Cherie team up to forge a niche in rock history and again when life on the road, booze and boredom lead to personal co-encounters.

Unfortunately, this is a movie that doesn't end well.  It just stops.  Not with a thud, really, but with a nudge.  A more experienced filmmaker would discover a way around the dead end instead of letting everything just screech to a halt.  When it's hitting on all cylinders, however, "The Runaways" dares to blaze a trail through rock history, as well as personal triumph and turmoil.

Both lead actresses, who convince as singers and musicians as well as actors, are superb.  Stewart and Fanning (yes, once little Dakota Fanning of "I Am Sam" and "The Cat in the Hat") don't just play these characters; they slither under the skin to become them.

Also, keep your eyes on Michael Shannon, who drew an Oscar nomination in 2008 as Kathy Bates' mentally unstable son in "Revolutionary Road."  Shannon commands every scene he's in as Fowley.

Without Fowley's driving force, "The Runaways" would be like two sticks of dynamite without fuses.

See Bridges, but rent 'Tender Mercies'

Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) crooning a country tune.  (20th Century Fox)

Crazy Heart 

---

---

Running time: 111 minutes

MPAA rating: R (harsh profanity, adult situations)

---

On the Web

"Crazy Heart"

Jeff Bridges channels the late Waylon Jennings and the still-great Merle Haggard in the country-rock-twanged "Crazy Heart."

The movie itself channels "Tender Mercies" (1983), a far superior woeful tale of a down-and-out country music road warrior who's seen a little success in his past and too many bottles of whiskey in his present.

Bridges ("Men Who Stare at Goats," "Iron Man'), a fine actor already named best actor at the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards and a slew of others, looks like a shoo-in for his fifth Academy Award nomination on Tuesday.  

With the exception of some of the tunes by T Bone Burnett ("Walk the Line," "O Brother, Where Art Thou?") and the late Stephen Bruton (Texans both), though, Bridges is the only real reason to see "Crazy Heart."  

Officially based on Thomas Cobb's novel of the same title, "Crazy Heart" stars Bridges as road weary country-rock crooner Bad Blake.  Maggie Gyllenhaal ("The Dark Knight") plays second fiddle as Jean, a local New Mexico journalist who falls for the Bad guy and tries to "fix him."  

Gyllenhaal isn't awful as a single mom who can't resist the charm of an older fallen star.  Nor is she exceptional.

Even though I generally really like anything Colin Farrell does on screen, I never believed  the Irish actor as Bad Blake protégé-made-good Tommy Sweet for a second.

First-time director Scott Cooper, an actor who adapted the novel himself, might have made things a little easier on himself if, when Bad shows up at Jean's door to plead for a second chance, he didn't include a line like this:

Jean (after hearing that the troubled singer is finally clean and sober):  "That's good, Bad."

No, that's just bad.  

Like Don Quixote, who charged windmills in "Man of La Mancha" because they might be giants in disguise, I dream the impossible dream that once a classic movie is made, there should be no tampering, remaking or, in this case, re-imagining, whether it be in novel form, on screen or both.

The late Horton Foote won an Academy Award for his "Tender Mercies" screenplay.  Foote might not turn over in his grave if he knew that Robert Duvall, who took Best Actor Oscar honors as the rascal-on-the-mend in "Tender Mercies," doesn't just appear in "Crazy Heart," but gets a producer credit as well.

But I can't help thinking that Foote would cringe a little.

See this one for Bridges' good, if not outstanding performance if you must.  Just remember to stop off and rent a copy of "Tender Mercies" on the way home.  You'll see how the masters worked an all-too similar story.

Your 'Frog' prince has come; hop to it

Can she do it?  The frog insists one little kiss will work wonders.  (Disney Enterprises Inc.)

The Princess and the Frog

---

---

Running time: 95 minutes

MPAA rating: G (action violence, scary images)

---

On the Web

"The Princess and the Frog"

With all due respect to recent giant leaps in computer animation technology, "The Princess and the Frog" churns up a singing, dancing, eye-popping musical fairy tale gumbo the old fashioned way and with great success.

Welcome back, traditional hand-drawn animation.  I never thought I'd be glad to see an animated comic-romance where everything stops so the ingenue or the handsome leading man or, in this case, a trumpet-blowing alligator or a 197-year-old magic queen of the bayou could wail a tune.

It happens quite often in Disney's retooling of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "The Frog Prince."  Co-directed by Ron Clements and John Musker, who called the shots on "The Little Mermaid," "Aladdin" and more, this laugh-filled tale hops to with rousing jazz, blues and gospel music from Oscar-winning composer Randy Newman ("Toy Story," "Cars").

You probably don't need to be told that at some point a princess will kiss a frog in hopes of the frog turning into a handsome, and quite human, prince.  This story, written by the directors and Rob Edwards, varies the theme to include a wild trip through the swamps around Roaring '20s New Orleans.

Although the 95 minute running time might challenge the attention span of little tykes (I might cut out one or two tunes), there's no lack of forward story movement, pulsating music and shadowy voodoo, which they do and might be a little much for very young kids.

Tony Award winner Anika Noni Rose "Caroline, or Change") pumps determined life into Tiana, a rich (in family love) poor girl with a big dream.  She wants to open a restaurant that her Daddy (Terrence Howard) also dreamed of but never accomplished.

It's not as simple as kissing a frog to make it happen in this well-constructed romantic-comedy, however.  There are more obstacles than Tiana can shake a gumbo spoon at.  For one thing, the slimy frog claiming to be Prince Naveen of far-off Maldonia might just be a frog.

All the voices are right on the money.  John Goodman bellows as Big Daddy.  Keith David, whose animated form looks a lot like they had Samuel L. Jackson in mind, fills the screen with frightening voodoo menace as Dr. Facilier and  Broadway vet Jenifer Lewis ("Eubie," "Hairspray") stops the show as a backwater bayou voodoo-doo queen encouraging two frogs and an oversized alligator to "Dig a Little Deeper" if they want to be human.

Gather up the kids, in fact the entire family and head to the theater knowing that "The Princess and the Frog" is a tremendous success at recreating the nearly lost art of hand-drawn enchantment.

Rock 'n' roll was there to stay

 
"Take me to the microphone," DJ royalty  Gavin (Rhys Ifans) says as he boards the Radio Rock tanker.  (Focus Features)

Pirate Radio

---

---

Running time: 129 minutes

MPAA rating: R (harsh profanity, adult situations, nudity)

---

On the Web

"Pirate Radio"

For those who don't know or can't remember, there once was a wonderful thing called personality rock radio.  

And it rocked back in 1960s.  In North Texas, the late Mike Selden and Jimmy Rabbit rocked the nighttime airwaves at KLIF.  They, and othrs like them, thrilled teen-age listeners and caused conservative parents to raise eyebrows and red flags.  

Full disclosure:  I was a closet teen rocker back then.  Theater of the mind, that exciting collision of ballsy rock music, a talented DJ's audience manipulation and anticipation of a wild, free unknown, blew my mind night after night.  I didn't just want to listen to the audacious magic, either.  I wanted to be a part of it.  And I was, sort of.

I began my broadcasting career as a disc jockey in Fort Worth, TX.  Sadly, I never got to really rock on commercial radio.  Fate shuttled me off into something new in the late '60s called country music.  And something old:  news.    

So I would be lying if I said I didn't approach "Pirate Radio," an audacious, music-blaring comedy from  Richard Curtis, with much hope.

I was not disappointed.

Although "Pirate Radio" pumps up the entertainment value with comic nonsense and sexcapades, Curtis has a blast recreating that era in Great Britain when DJs had to set sail to reach their eager listeners.

The BBC banned rock 'n' roll just as the Beatles, The Who, the Kinks and the Stones (to name a few) were beginning to roll.

Not to be denied, clever businessmen set up rock 'n' roll shop on pirate radio ships (in this case, an old tanker) in the North Sea; just offshore enough to be out of staid British jurisdiction.

Curtis, the gifted writer-director from New Zealand, has directed only one feature film before this raucous comic-rocker.  That was the very funny romantic-comedy "Love Actually" of 2003. 

Think of "Pirate Radio" as pumping out the hits somewhere between Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H" and "Animal House."  Unflappable station owner and ship's captain Quentin (unflappable Bill Nighy) welcomes his naive teen-age godson Carl (Tom Sturridge) aboard.  Look at it as practical education in the fine art of never growing up.

Carl, who's shy at first, slowly becomes the ship's mascot as famous DJs like The Count (Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman), womanizer Dave (Nick Frost of "Hot Fuzz" and "Shaun of the Dead") and jock legend Gavin (Rhys Ifans) try to stay one step ahead of a stuffy British government official.  Minister Dormandy (Kenneth Branagh) ruthlessly plots to "shut that filth down."

"Pirate Radio" is a must-see for music lovers as well as movie fans.  Curtis and his crew manage to cram around 50 tunes from the period into the fast-paced comic rocker.  

Noticeably absent from the soundtrack are The Beatles.  The most famous British rockers of the era are mentioned, though, and a Beatles album cover pops up on screen briefly.

My guess is that getting rights to the Beatles library proved too much of a "Hard Day's Night" financial obstacle to overcome.

Other than that, however, "Pirate Radio" rocks wildly steady -- near brilliantly, in fact -- as it worships and celebrates the lost art of rock radio magic.

'(Untitled)' lets its avant-garde down

Adam Goldberg as misunderstood musician Adrian.  (Samuel Goldwyn Films)

(Untitled)

---

---

Running time: 96 minutes

MPAA rating: R (profanity, adult situations, nudity)

---

On the Web

"(Untitled)"

When the movie title is "(Untitled)," there are only two possibilities.

Either the filmmakers are trying way too hard to be clever, or they just can't decide what to call the darn thing.

Both, I think, come into play in this quirky-to-a-fault offbeat comedy.  Adam Goldberg, frowning as an intellectual sourpuss all the way, plays a brooding music composer whose avant-garde concerts involve blasts of music without harmony and kicking a bucket.

Sometimes the bucket is filled with water.  And sometimes, but not quite often enough, "(Untitled")" serves up below-the-mainstream-radar fun.

Set in New York City's artsy Chelsea neighborhood, this deceivingly sweet (below the gloom anyway) comedy is essentially about finding one's true artistic soul.  It is this scribe's duty to also mention that two artistic brothers, Adrian (Goldberg) and painter Josh (Eion Bailey, "Band of Brothers"), are constantly at odds.
  
Some of it has to do with the fact that Josh has little talent as a painter, but sells his abstract dot work like crazy to corporate clients eager to fill walls of hotels and office buildings.  Adrian, on the other hand, is the long suffering talent no one understands.  His own parents walk out of one of his sparsely attended concerts, for instance.

Josh makes the mistake of bringing lovely art gallery owner Madeleine (Marley Shelton of "A Perfect Getaway," "Grindhouse") to one of his brother's bucket-kicking concerts.  To enhance the offbeat mood, director/co-writer Jonathan Parker's idea is for Madeleine to become intrigued -- business wise and otherwise -- by the other brother.

Adrian is smitten right away as well.  He can't wait to get his hands on Madeleine's crackly leather skirt.  Not so much for romantic reasons, but to record the crackling as his next hot quirky musical sound.  Oh, what the heck, he's not about to skirt the the romantic angle either.

The drawback to "(Untitled)" is that most of the characters and especially Goldberg remain locked into over-played artsy gloom best described as the attitude of desperately depressed art gallery visitors in an old Woody Allen film:

"What are you doing on Wednesday," Woody asks a sad-faced young woman standing in front of a painting.  "I'm killing myself on Wednesday," she replies.  Woody's response:  "How about Tuesday?"

Goldberg, who whined his way through "2 Days in Paris" a couple years back, is a gifted character actor who can explore gloom as well as any of his peers.  He doesn't exactly fit the mold of a typical leading man, however.  Not that a low budget endeavor such as this requires a marquee idol.

Eventually a movie of quirks also requires some sparks of chemistry to sustain the drollness, however.  This one fails to deliver that element.  

"(Untitled)" mires down in its own sameness; never quite managing that next step into rewarding entertainment.

Michael Jackson's posthumous curtain call

Michael Jackson in his last spotlight.  (Columbia Pictures)

Michael Jackson's This Is It

---

---

Running time: 111 minutes

MPAA rating: PG (suggestive choreography, scary images)

---

On the Web

"Michael Jackson's This Is It"

An odd, macabre posthumous curtain call-in-song, "Michael Jackson's This Is It" celebrates M.J. the meticulous, totally in-charge fallen musical genius.

"On Michael's signal, we begin," a voice (presumably that of director/producer Kenny Ortega) says reverently from the mostly dark Staples Center, a massive rehearsal hall for a concert series that would never be.

Except in this surprisingly powerful, dare I say enticing, raw cinematic form.

Some will say the appeal here is akin to slowing down to a traffic-halting crawl on the freeway to get a good look at a motorist whose life ended suddenly and without warning in a very public forum.  The King of Pop died in a similarly bizarre, only slightly more private manner on June 25.

This is not a review of a fallen pop star with issues (to put it mildly).  This is a review of what is basically a concert movie in rehearsal form.  "This Is It" is a documentary only because cameras were rolling during the long rehearsal process that began in April and ended tragically in June.  

Don't expect any revelations about  Jackson's final hours.  There's no crusading reporter firing probing questions at anyone involved. There's no hospital or funeral footage. "This Is It" amounts to a rare, final valentine to one of the world's most heralded pop sensations.

Frankly, no one should expect  anything else in a movie hitting theaters so soon after his death, especially a film "produced with the full support of the Estate of Michael Jackson."

Jackson and his gifted farewell concert collaborators (dancers, musicians, crew) were only eight days away from leaving for London, the site of Jackson's planned concerts, when a long summer afternoon slowly confirmed the shocking news of Jackson's death.

Ortega ("High School Musical 3:  Senior Year"), a filmmaker who understands music and live theater, worked with Jackson for 20 years.  It couldn't have been easy to shift gears from creatively directing Jackson's on-stage swan song to picking up the pieces -- technically and emotionally -- of shattered plans and reshaping them into a posthumous big-screen tribute.

It doesn't matter if you're a Michael Jackson fan (music or otherwise) or not.  "This Is It" is a surprising must-see for anyone who appreciates the tremendous power the marriage of music, film and a dynamic performer out front can stir deep within.

Rousing at times when the first notes of Jackson staples like "Beat It" or "Thriller" rock the house, this is also a movie experience ripe in nuance.   Every breath, every sound, every head bob and, yes, even every crotch grab in the upbeat tunes and soulful ballads like "Human Nature" have the distinctive Michael Jackson spin.

Look closely, though, and you'll see a severely thin, gaunt 50-year-old behind the dark sunglasses trying, in vain more than once, to find his breath alongside his younger principal dancers.

More importantly from this aisle seat, this is a rare first look at Jackson's meticulous creative process.  Frankly, the man's dedication and quiet insistence on doing things his way, or "The way I wrote it," Jackson says, makes for an enlightening, toe-tapping nearly two hours of odd cinema that is constantly revealing and, for the most part, quite brilliant.

So bravo, Mr. Ortega.  You have pulled off the ultimate definition of making lemonade out of lemons.

And your lemonade rocks!  Judging from the raw ingredients, Jackson's first concert in a decade would have been a hell of a show.

A six-string icon meet and greet

 

Jimmy Page, left,and The Edge discuss their affection for guitars. 

(Sony Pictures Classics)

It Might Get Loud

---

---

Running time: 97 minutes

MPAA rating: PG (brief profanity, mild thematic elements, smoking)

---

On the Web

"It Might Get Loud"

It does get loud.  Make no mistake about that.

What "It Might Get Loud" does best, however, is get proud -- proud of guitar fascination -- and get access.

Somehow, producer/director Davis Guggenheim convinces three of the world's most proficient and talented guitar players to converge in one room to talk about how the guitar changed their lives, to play in front of each other and to share with the film world what drives them as musicians.

If Guggenheim's constantly fascinating documentary focused on just one of the trio composed of The Edge (U2), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) or Jack White (The White Stripes), it would probably be enough to hold our attention,

With all three, however, we're privy to electricity in the air when they meet for the first time on a Hollywood sound stage.  Guggenheim wanted to keep everything fresh, so he had each legendary guitar man led to the meeting point from different entrances.

What transpires there is magic.  White predicts a fist fight beforehand.  What happens instead is three guitar virtuosos feeling each other out a bit, then opening up about particular songs and their careers.

Guggenheim, director and executive-producer of the Oscar-winning global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2007, hits more sweet cinematic notes by filming each of the three principals separately in their homes.

I don't quite understand White's need to bring along a boy playing a child version of himself (nor does Guggenheim, according to what he told me).  The Edge reveals much of his technique, though.

I'm not wildly crazy about guitars or those who make ugly faces playing them as some people are.  But when the music Page is  playing on the stereo moves the Led Zeppelin guitarist to play air guitar in his London home, this documentary gets more than loud.

It gets memorable.

 

The other rumble in the jungle

The late James Brown sings it loud and proud in 1974.  (Sony Pictures Classics)

Soul Power 

---

---

Running time: 93 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13 (profanity, some thematic elements)

---

On the Web

"Soul Power"

The late James Brown, the self-proclaimed and pretty much undisputed Godfather of Soul, opens and closes "Soul Power."

That's the way it should be.  Who else gets an introduction that includes the phrase, "This man will make your liver quiver!"

In 1974, two major events came to Zaire, Africa.  One, the epic heavyweight title fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, was delayed and eventually turned into the Academy Award winning documentary "When We Were Kings" (1996).

Cinematically speaking, the other, a three-night-long music festival mingling top R&B artists from the U.S. and musical groups from Africa, was doomed to a film vault for decades.

Filmmaker Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, who edited "When We Were Kings," felt remorse when most of the energized concert footage was left out of the fight documentary.  Now, all these years later, Levy-Hinte has turned the outtakes, if you will, into a substantial documentary.

"Soul Power" doesn't just include tremendous musical performances from Brown, B.B. King, The Spinners, "Mama Africa" Miriam Makeba and many others.  It turns the tables on "When We Were Kings" by using footage of fight/concert promoter Don King and Ali as sidebars to the music; the other rumble in the jungle.

I think the filmmaker goes just a little overboard by including too much footage of locals hosting world-class fighters and the musicians' long flight to Africa.  Whenever the camera focuses on Ali, however, his magnetism leaps from the screen.  And that's the case even when he's swatting flies:

"Flies are faster here then they are in America," Ali says.  "They get too much to eat over there."

The main thrust, of course, is the music, which is a soul-throbbing blend of U.S. rhythm and blues and music and dance from Africa; the homeland.

"The beat returns to the roots," is how someone puts it.

"Soul Power" abounds with rousing musical moments.  So I urge you to heed one piece of movie-going advice.

For some reason that baffles me, movie house projectionists never seem to crank up the volume high enough on films driven by music.

If that happens to you when the lights go down on "Soul Power," I urge you to track down someone in management and remind them that the Godfather of Soul himself has a message:

"Say it loud!"

Oscar winner 'Departures' a must-see

Daigo (Masahiro Motoki), left, looks on as his mentor Sasaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki) works. (Regent Releasing)

Departures

---

---

Running time: 131 minutes

MPAA rating: PG-13 (thematic material, adult situations)

---

On the Web

"Departures"

Like the mournful wail of the finely tuned cello that forms the emotional center, Yojiro Takita's "Departures" doesn't hit one sour note as the Japanese filmmaker navigates sensitive subject matter.

This year's Academy Award-winning foreign language film, "Departures" is the antithesis of most movies that deal with funerals and the recently departed.  Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown" (2005) and "Death at a Funeral" (2007) from Frank Oz  both emphasized the comic foibles of the living.

In Japanese with subtitles, "Departures" weaves its intensely emotional story by utilizing the recently deceased as key players.

Young cellist Daigo Kobayashi (rising Japanese star Masahiro Motoki) is living his dream when "Departures" opens.  He's playing his expensive new cello in a Tokyo orchestra. 

Daigo dreamed of traveling the world as a professional musician ever since he was a boy in a small village in northeastern Japan.  When his orchestra folds suddenly, Daigo and his wife Mika (Ryoko Hirosue) return to his hometown.

Daigo's low on self-esteem and cash.  He neglected to mention to Mika that he paid 18 million yen for his beloved cello.  Daigo answers a vague ad in the newspaper classified section that offers big money.

The ad said something about departures, so Daigo assumes it must be some kind of travel agency. Naturally, the naive young husband is a little mystified to see caskets lined up against the office wall.

Tight-lipped company owner Sasaki (veteran actor Tsutomu Yamazaki) hires Daigo on the spot, despite the fact that the young man chosen on instinct alone has never even been in the same room with a dead body. 

Even though he hides it from his wife as long as he can, Daigo hires on to be an encoffineer. 

 

"Departures" respectfully, and with humor at times, reveals encoffination to Western audiences.  It's the ceremonial ritual of washing, dressing and placing the deceased into a coffin as bereaved family members and friends look on.

There's more to the story, of course.  Daigo is estranged from his father, for instance, and is haunted by the separation.  Also, Daigo's bold new career choice drives a wedge into what has been a happy marriage up until that point.

Half the battle for any emotional drama with comic relief is setting the proper tone.  Director Takita ("When the Last Sword Is Drawn," "The Battery") and first-time screenwriter Kundo Koyama immerse the audience slowly, expertly into the potentially difficult subject matter.  It's similar, in a sense, to the soothing feeling Daigo gets as he submerges himself into the heated waters of his village's bathhouse.

Good movies take the audience somewhere they haven't been before.  Great movies do it with a style befitting the unfamiliar.

Thanks to very solid acting from Motoki, who debuted as the unlikely sumo wrestler in "Sumo Do, Sumo Don't," and Yamazaki (the addict in Akira Kurosawa's "Heaven and Hell") as his aging mentor, "Departures" is true testament to the value of quality foreign film imports.

Beautifully staged and purring with the exquisite soundtrack from composer Joe Hisaishi ("Spirited Away," "Howl's Moving Castle"), "Departures" is a majestic, wonderfully orchestrated tale of woe and behold.
By venturing to Takita's far-off land of ceremony and emotional evolution, we might just rekindle strong feelings lurking deep within ourselves.

Perhaps not so oddly, they're likely to hit very close to home.