Kellan Lutz in New Moon.. Photo courtesy of Summit Entertainment.

It’s got tweens and Northwestern kids alike squealing and lining up outside movie theaters. It’s the Twilight series, with the latest hitting theaters on Friday. New Moon star Kellan Lutz sat down with North by Northwestern to talk about his most recent experiences as Emmet Cullen in the blockbuster franchise The Twilight Saga.

Had you read the books before you tried out for the part?

I did not. Once I had the role Ashley [Greene] came by and asked if I read the books and I joked it off, and she ran back and got the books. So then I quickly read those and then I realized after meeting fans that came to set why they’re so amazed, why they’re so marveled by this franchise. The books are amazing, they really are.

Do you think that your portrayal of Emmet the same way it was in the books? What was your approach to creating your character?

It’s definitely important to stick with the cheat sheets you’re given with the books, and having Stephanie [Meyer, the author of The Twilight Saga] there to ask her questions. It’s nice to have a little help, but I also got the role for what I brought to Emmet and what I did in the auditions, I think we all try and make the character that we portray onscreen different and unique and I think that’s what separates us. It’s a cool spin to throw yourself into him.

What can fans expect from Eclipse that’s different from Twilight in general?

It’s more an action movie. I don’t think I would have seen Twilight if I wasn’t a part of it. Seeing the trailer I would have thought it was a chick flick. New Moon, right off the bat it looks like a guy-friendly movie, and that’s what it is. It’s is such a cool trailer, it just looks action-packed.

To what extent were you allowed to do your own stunts?

Obviously we all have stunt doubles, it’s kind of mandatory for insurance reasons and stuff. It’s fun doing a fight scene and seeing your stunt guy not do something too crisp, and being like “OK, just let me do it once. Just wanna fight, if I get hurt, I’ll sign off.” And I’ll do it once and they’ll be like “Thank God you did that, because that one’s the best one.”

Has there been anything you haven’t liked about the productions?

With New Moon, I didn’t like how little time I was able to be onset. I wish I was there to hang out with the cast. Kraft service always ran out of meat for me to eat. Not enough gummy bears, but no, no complaints.

How was the atmosphere on set in general?

Ashley and I are probably the closest on set, just ‘cuz of the years we’ve had as friends. We always just joke around. And then with the rest of the cast, no one’s changed, which is amazing to see. Everyone’s so down to earth…no one’s changed their numbers, or blocked the cast out. We all hang out in rooms and play board games or the guys would play the guitars. It’s a really good group of actors, very talented.

There has been some shake-ups as far as casting, and then there have been changes with directors. How is that adjusting to new cast members as well as a new director for New Moon and then Eclipse?

I don’t think one director could capture every book and turn it into a movie because they’re so different. With Catherine’s energy and art background Twilight was more an independent movie. And for the second movie, we had more funding and more a love triangle [and] more action-packed. With the CGI background that Chris has, he was a no-brainer to be picked as that director. And with the third one it’s dark, edgy. David Slade has such a mastermind way of looking at that script.

You’re talking about Rachel and Bryce Dallas Howard. They both brought an amazing energy to the screen. It was really cool to see Bryce step into those shoes. They’re hard shoes to fill when you have a fan base who fell in love with one actor who’s doing it. But she kicks butt in Eclipse.

Given the popularity of the Twilight Saga, have you been approached offset by fans or mobbed by fans?

Yeah. I’ll be walking down the street with my dog and I’ll hear a car screech and these girls jump out and they’re like “EMMET!” or “KELLAN!” And you start running…but no, the fans are adorable. There is really so much love, it’s really cool to have fans like that.

Since you’re so famous for playing a vampire, what’s your favorite vampire movie?

There’s some really cool vampires in there. Underworld with Kate Beckinsale, I just think she’s sexy, especially when she wears leather and depicts a vampire. And then The Lost Boys, you can’t go wrong. Kiefer Sutherland’s amazing in that and From Dusk Till Dawn…awesome movie.

Nic Cage, doing what he does best, arguably. Photo courtesy of First Look Studios.

Grade: C

Bottom Line: Brilliant auteur Werner Herzog tragically remakes a 1992 masterpiece as a messy genre picture.

Long before its theatrical premiere, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans clinched the dubious award of raising more eyebrows than any other production this year. No one ever expected a team of young producers to remake one of the masterpieces of the 1990s with legendary director Werner Herzog and infamous actor Nicholas Cage.

In 1992, Abel Ferrara wrote and directed Bad Lieutenant, starring Harvey Keitel. The film’s unnamed lieutenant was confronted by his sins while investigating the rape of a nun. This graphic depiction of a New York cop mixed up in hard drugs, sexuality and violence was the most profound expression of Catholic guilt since Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets.

Herzog removes religion, relocates to post-Katrina New Orleans and polishes the rough edges for his 2009 remake. Nicholas Cage stars as the law-bending, gambling-addicted, coke-snorting Terrence McDonagh. His lover is a prostitute (Eva Mendes), and he has no problem stealing from the property room of the police department for a good hit. In short, McDonagh initially investigates a mass murder but ends up partnering with the crime’s mastermind (Xzibit) to make money and score coke.

While Keitel focused on the inner struggle and redemption of the original lieutenant, Cage accentuates the absurdity of his character’s corruption. With a gun visibly tucked in the front of his pants, Cage’s hunched-over cop is often a joy to watch because the actor brings absolute madness to the character. Sleep-deprived and desperate, he cuts off the oxygen supply of an elderly woman and sticks a gun to the head of an intensive care worker to find a witness for his investigation. It is a wonderful Herzog moment in which the audience responds with a mixture of disgust and laughter, and Cage is the reason why it works so well.

Unfortunately Cage’s character never has the ambiguities or substance of the original lieutenant. The one-note joke of his madness never develops, instead tiring by the end of the film. His hysterical laughter under the influence of drugs is ultimately forced and unconvincing. The past few years have seen Nicholas Cage randomly punch women and preposterously see into the future, and this performance disappointingly can be categorized with those abominations.

The film’s post-Katrina context feels forced and contrived. Director Werner Herzog has always been so great at turning the setting of a film into a character, sometimes the main focus. Kuwait will never be as hellish as depicted in Lessons of Darkness, and Wisconsin will never again be as oppressively dull as in Stroszek. With Bad Lieutenant, the decision to relocate to New Orleans does not make sense. The city merely feels like a superficial backdrop for the film’s action.

Herzog and Cage could have made a sleazily ironic masterpiece with this remake, but they fumbled largely because of the inconsistencies of William M. Finkelstein’s screenplay. Finkelstein has previously penned episodes of NYPD Blue and Law & Order, and a potentially wicked vision of a remake is instead tame and predictable. The movie shies away from the drugs and the sex which the original so intently focused on, even if that meant an NC-17 rating. The elements essential to the character are present but taken far too lightly — completely unexpected from a director as edgy as Werner Herzog.

When asked about the remake at a Cannes press conference, original director Ferrara infamously responded, “I wish these people die in hell. I hope they’re all in the same streetcar, and it blows up.”

It is difficult to tell whether or not Ferrara was being serious, especially considering the movie had not been made at the time. However, Herzog’s version is such a butchering of Ferrara’s deeply personal film that it is hardly a remake, featuring a different story altogether. Filmmakers are entitled to take liberties when reinterpreting a work, yet there should be a sense of respect for the original work. Because of the intentional humor of the remake, those who remade the film seem little concerned about the seriousness of a film originally about the rape of a run. Even though Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is sometimes hysterical and hypnotic, the inconsistent final product lacks the depth which would have held this movie together.

Director Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans will be playing in select theaters in Chicago including the Landmark.

Woody Harrelson in The Messenger. Photo from the film’s Facebook page.

I had heard tidbits about the The Messenger before I saw it. A rookie director (Israeli-military-man-turned-director Oren Overman), a generally well-reviewed actor (X-Men, Liberty Heights and 3:10 to Yuma veteran Ben Foster), and a controversial, relevant subject: war casualties.

On the surface, The Messenger is a film about two enlisted men, Montgomery (Foster) and Stone (Woody Harrelson) notifying next of kin of their sons, husbands and fathers who have died in war. Sometimes they have a body, sometimes not. Sometimes all they have is a shoebox. More deeply, however, this story is a reversal on war movie archetypes: instead of focusing on those who must receive the news of death, it focuses on those who must deliver this most horrible news.

If this movie has a weak point, it is the execution of this wonderfully original plot. The film analyzes an oft-discussed topic in a novel way, but the plot itself often feels serialized. At points, it feels as if the main characters are simply traveling from episode to episode. Each character rather transparently represents the archetypal responses to loss and the archetypal responses to war. For example: the denial, the acceptance of how one must serve one’s country. Or: the anger, the hatred of war.

Occasionally lackluster acting mars the film as well. A few of the actors who played various notified parties take themselves a bit too seriously. Although actors taking themselves awfully seriously is certainly nothing new, the harsh emotional reality of this film is ruptured by this transgression, and it is always the director’s job to keep his or her actors artistically consistent with the larger film.

The story is unified by Montgomery’s romantic interest, Olivia (English-born actress and outspoken social activist Samantha Morton). The ethical dilemma that Montgomery faces is this story’s greatest saving grace: essentially, it keeps the human element of the story alive. It assures that the military element of the movie could be removed and a cohesive, human drama could remain in its wake.

Foster’s performance in his first leading role was brilliant. Deeply disturbed yet always relatable, Montgomery’s emotional confusion validates our cultural stereotype of shell-shocked war veterans while his tenderness simultaneously defies it.

And while I’m on the subject of validating and defying a preconception, this is the scene I saw when I walked into the interview room: Oren Overman sits peacefully in his chair, arms crossed. Ben Foster wields a pair of scissors, cutting strips idly from a copy of The Onion. Both rise to greet me. Overman grips my hand with ex-Mossad agent’s strength. Foster drops his scissors and shakes my hand gently. Tattoos run all the way up his arm. A fellow reporter from DePaul follows after me, and we take turns asking questions.

What inspired you to make a film about this subject matter?

Moverman: We started with the script, and me and my co-writer talked about the idea of casualty notification. At that time, it was illegal to show images with the consequences of war. It was about strategy, it was about other things. And we decided to write a script that concentrates on the consequences the war has on other people. The residual effects. And we’ve seen stories about people who have lost someone in war, but we’ve never seen the people who do that job. And we’re always anxious to show something new.

You shot these scenes where Montgomery broke the news in really interesting ways. The camera moved around a lot, the cameraman stepped forward. How did this contribute to the meaning of this scene?

Moverman: Well, there’s the meaning of the scene and the meaning of shooting the scene. The meaning of shooting a scene like that is that you’re intruding on very private moments. And you can be milking them or you can be aware of how raw they are and be careful about what you get out of them. And we’d be able to shoot the entire notification in one take, handheld, not really knowing where the scene is gonna go. And not really caring. If everyone played their role and captured it then we’ve done our job.

Your character had to deal with something more powerful than death: the effect that death has on the loved ones of the deceased. How did you get into that mindset when you broke the news?

Foster: That’s something Oren and I have been talking about for about a year and a half. If you take the military out of this movie, the movie still exists in a relatable way. At the end of the day, you’re gonna die. And your friends are gonna die. And if they haven’t, they will. And that goes for all of us. And our family members drop off. And we’ve all gotten that call at some point, and if you haven’t, you will. That’s just the hard truth about being a human being. And we don’t want to deal with that in our culture at all, but we’re going and we’re going fast. So how do we connect with one another? It’s remembering, “Ah, yes, it’s okay. We have each other, we have this moment, to be with each other. The gift of this time.” That’s something we constantly have to keep referring to. We can’t hold it in our minds everyday because we’d lose our fucking marbles. But it’s something we have to confront.

Bottom Line:This is Moverman’s first film, and it has its issues. But the creative force behind this film is palpable. You may not love this movie, but you won’t forget it.
Grade: B+

(left-right) Tom Sturridge,Rhys Darby, Will Adamsdale and Bill Nighy star in Richard Curtis’ rock and roll comedy Pirate Radio, a Focus Features release. Photo by Alex Bailey, courtesy of Focus Features.

Bottom line: This is a transitional piece by a veteran director, but this film fails to deliver as a satisfying work. (Insert your own sinking ship pun here).
Grade: B-

Pirate Radio (formerly The Boat that Rocked) is the newest film from writer/director Richard Curtis (of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually fame). The movie follows the eccentric crew of an off-shore vessel that roams the North Sea, broadcasting everything the Powers That Be deem too raunchy for the airwaves.

Young troublemaker Carl (Tom Sturridge) is sent among the zany counterculture-outcasts after being expelled from his posh boarding school. Curtis’s adorably quirky characters (and their charming English accents) have earned him a place in many moviegoers’ hearts, and the DJs huge egos and ridiculous costumes appear scientifically designed to please crowds. The selection of golden-age British rock which underscores the whole film doesn’t hurt, either. And, unsurprisingly, every frame is filled with pretty people.

The whole affair sounds very appealing. But one of the leaky holes in this ship is its unrepentant crowd pleasing. This is understandable in light of the filming process: Richard Curtis admitted — with no embarrassment, I’ll add — that his film’s original running time was five hours and thirty minutes. He seems to have boiled down his footage into its 113 most sensually stimulating minutes. Cuts are noticeably rushed, the film’s many narratives appear smashed together (unlike Love Actually’s delicately intertwined storylines), and the film literally fast-forwards through the dramatic pan that introduces us to the ship. This is all very disappointing from a director as well-refined as Curtis, and his wonderful characters and colorful dialog lose their value without a dramatic glue to hold the film together.

It is crucial to note, however, that Pirate Radio marks a major departure for Curtis both in subject matter and in filming style. Curtis, a writer by training, loosened control of his precious script with a more improvisational, free-form shooting process. The result was a five-hour and thirty-minute tailspin that had to be cut into something resembling a wide-release comedy. That considered, it’s surprising the result came out as well as it did.

Mostly, the film owes its successes to good music, pithy writing, and an ensemble of veteran comedians, like Bill Nighy, Rhys Darby and Nick Frost, along with the wonderful newcomer Tom Sturridge. This is a transitional piece for an experienced director, and I hope better things come from this experimentation in the future.

Grade: A-
Bottom Line: Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day lives up to its predecessor’s reputation, bringing you more action, more man-candy and more profanity. But it also steps out of Boondock’s shadow, throwing the audience a brand-new curveball plot coupled with more stunning visual effects.

I’ll admit –- I went into the movie thinking Boon-wha?

Never having seen The Boondock Saints, the sequel’s audacity in plot, characters and raw action simply caught me off guard. I’d like to describe it as Bourne Ultimatum meets The Departed, but that would be an insult to the originality of writer and director Troy Duffy’s cult classic.

For those of you like me –- let me catch you up. The Boondock saga chronicles the adventures of the MacManus brothers in their motivation to bring justice to Boston. The two vigilante killers have been living a quiet life in Ireland with their father, but return to Boston to avenge the murder of their beloved priest.

Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day gave me some motivational sense of purpose. I walked out of the screening room with my head held high, ready to go do…something. So I went home and streamed The Boondock Saints.

Having caught up on my Boondock knowledge, I can truly say the sequel gives the audience everything they loved about the first one, and more. It is far more than a simple action movie; the combination of action and plot is what makes the film so powerful. Comic relief is wittily interwoven with the movie’s deeper message, and the film was a unique amalgamation of all aspects of entertainment.

There was something for every audience. For the guys, Julie Benz (Dexter) plays a female FBI Special Agent, with a tongue as sharp as her heels, while Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus (Boondock Saints) provide girls with plenty of shirtless, tattooed action. For the shallow movie-goer, there’s guns. Which means lots of action. And for the movie critic, there’s a sharply crafted plot, threading both installments together seamlessly.

And just because I’m a tease, I’ll leave you with the opening line from the movie: “There are two kinds of people. Talkers and doers. Doers change the world, and they change us. Which are you?”

Go do something about it, and watch Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day.

North by Northwestern sat and talked with director Troy Duffy and actor Sean Patrick Flanery. Here are a few excerpts from the interview.

Why do you think there’s such a cultish appeal to this movie?

Troy: Every Boondock fan I ask has a different set of reasons for why they like it. One of the things that I think helps Boondock get to a slightly deeper level is the fact that I honestly believe anytime anyone sees something truly disgusting on the news, our first gut reaction, whether we’re male, female, liberal or conservative, is “that guy should die for raping a four-year-old girl to death.” They don’t say anything about it, they don’t do anything about it, but they have that gut reaction. I truly believe that. I think that’s one of the factors.

What was the most challenging aspect of filming the sequel?

Sean: That would require there to be challenging aspects. For me to fucking want it is the most. Let’s not forget, we’re making a fucking movie. It’s the easiest job there is, it doesn’t feel like work. [Boondock] is not like a typical Hollywood movie. The film was made in a way normal people would, without any Hollywood pretense, without anybody locking themselves in a trailer, saying “I’m not coming out cause my coffee’s cold,” or shit like that.

In your opinion, how does Boondock II differ from the original?

Troy: We have a very healthy distrust of sequels in the United States. Because they suck, let’s just be honest. We know the ones that are good, but those are few and far between. My approach was: “Why are those sequels good?” I discovered they give you everything you love about the first movie, plus a brand-new plot that you could’ve never seen coming. I tried to emulate the theory behind good sequels.

The end of the second movie set the stage for another installment. Do you see anything like along these lines happening in the future?

Sean: I would make 20 of these films, if they would let us. I would do this shit –- if we could use profanity and do it right -– I would do this as a TV series. Wholeheartedly. If it was all like this. If we could retain this and capture the same dynamic, abso-fucking-lutely I would.

Troy: For a third movie, there’s definitely a possibility. I’d like to get a few more films off my chest, but we’re set up for it. I’ve got some ideas, but writing that second script was almost like cracking a code. You’re not able to just sit down and put pen to paper. I had to completely respect the story before it, and pretty soon, I’d write myself into a corner. Writing Boondock II was like cracking a code to a bank vault. Boondock III is going to be like cracking the code to the bank of Fort fucking Knox. But I know I’m going to be walking down the street someday and that idea is going to just pop into my head –- the one salient, thorough line that I need to connect everything in three. So it’ll come, I’m just not exactly sure when. No need to force it, let’s ride this one into the shore and see what happens.

21 and a Wake-Up toys with the disparity between conceptions and realities; the war, the people and the country portrayed in director Chris McIntyre’s new film deviate from those we have been exposed to in the past. As the first American movie to be filmed in Vietnam since the War, it pioneers a new vision of Vietnam, one based on the director’s unflagging love and respect for the country and its people.

The film premiered Oct. 29 in Chicago with a diverse turnout of celebrities, United Service Organization volunteers and locals. The film features lead actresses Amy Acker (How I Met Your Mother, Private Practice) and Danica McKellar (The Wonder Years), as well newcomers like Mark Warner and JC Chasez (N*Sync).

Following strong-willed nurse Caitlin Murphy, who is stationed during the end of the war in Vietnam, the film is a two-part succession of her wartime experiences. Based on a combination of real stories from Vietnam War veterans, the first half of the film portrays Murphy’s struggles coping with her responsibilities at the hospital. The second half of the film focuses on her personal journey upriver into Cambodia to rescue her deceased friend’s illegitimate child. The authenticity of both story and location is a true testament to the movie’s accurate depiction of the reality of the Vietnam War.

Inspiration for this project stemmed from McIntyre’s personal experience serving in Vietnam from 1968 to 1971. His job, linked closely to The Phoenix Program, was to capture North Vietnamese, Chinese and Russian electronics that were shooting down American pilots. After his initial tour, he went back for two more, driven by his motivation to help and protect the Vietnamese people.

“I always wanted to make a film about Vietnam because I love Vietnam and the Vietnamese,” McIntyre says. “I felt, despite bureaucratic bungling, I had a chance to help the people. To me, the war was about loving the country, loving the people and believing that our heart was in the right place. I wanted to do a story about that.”

But finding a way in proved difficult. His requests to film in Saigon were repeatedly denied, as the material was branded “too touchy a subject.” After being approached in early 2006 by Dr. Marvin Wayne, a doctor in the last evacuation hospital in Vietnam, McIntyre found his “in.” Rather than taking a traditional anti-Viet Cong stance, McIntyre decided to tell his story from inside the hospital to avoid typical American biases, painting the enemy instead as the Camir Rouge.

“Part of this story was very strategic,” McIntyre says. “I needed permission from the North Vietnamese. And the story is about a hospital, so the Viet Cong are not the bad guys– they’re just out there.”

The Vietnamese Ministry of Culture told McIntyre that it had been approached hundred of times for filming rights, turning down Mel Gibson and Oliver Stone. One simple question, “Will you read my script?”, catapulted McIntyre one step closer to realizing his dream.

Two days later, McIntyre was sitting at a 200-foot long table in Vietnam, in the very room where Ho Chi Minh planned the war. In his meeting with six Vietnamese officials, including the Minister of Culture and a prominent Vietnamese director (the “Martin Scorsese of Vietnam”), McIntyre discovered that he had fought against two of the men in a battle at Da Nang.

“Forty years ago, we were 20 feet apart shooting at each other. It was very emotional. We all just started crying spontaneously,” McIntyre says. “I think they got a sense of how much I honored the Vietnamese and their sacrifices. They told me, ‘We’ll do what we can, but don’t get your hopes up.’”

McIntyre was granted permission to shoot the entire movie without subjection to conventional film censorship laws, giving him free reign to construct the village in the movie entirely from scratch. Authenticity also played a role in the decision of filming locations, which were chosen by retracing the steps of those who had actually lived the story.

“The people were incredibly gracious everywhere we went,” McIntyre says. “And I was only arrested once. I [inadvertently] visited a North Vietnamese base on a scouting mission, which led to my arrest. I went through a hot box interrogation and my hotel manager helped negotiate my confession.”

Lead actress Amy Acker had a similar eye-opening experience for the two and half weeks that she was there. “We got to shoot scenes in very poor areas, where they had never seen any Americans. It really makes you grateful for what you have, and makes you realize that you have much more than you need,” Acker said.

McIntyre considers this film the “crowning achievement” of his movie-making career. “If I never make another movie, I’ll be happy,” he said. “Whatever happens to this film, I’m proud to have made it and been involved in it.”

Robert Zemeckis presents a new take on the holiday classic, A Christmas Carol. Photo courtesy of ImageMovers Digital LLC.

Grade: B
Bottom Line: A Christmas Carol is full of 3D family fun and visual mastery, but falls short of offering any insights into the classic tale not already addressed by cinematic predecessors.

If you grew up in the 90s, your family probably already has a favorite version of A Christmas Carol on VHS (and it is probably in ribbons following one or two decade’s-worth of viewing during the holiday season). Of over 20 versions made for both the big screen and TV, some notables include:

• 1984’s made-for-TV version starring George C. Scott (Dr. Strangelove)
• 1992’s A Muppet Christmas Carol starring Michael Caine (The Dark Knight)
• 1997’s animated rendition with Tim Curry (Rocky Horror Picture Show), Whoopi Goldberg (Sister Act), and Ed Asner (Up)

This list means two things: First, Disney has to work really hard to develop a piece that can be deemed groundbreaking in light of so many predecessors. Two, if you already have a favorite movie version of the holiday classic, A Christmas Carol would have to be really great to unseat a family tradition.

But A Christmas Carol isn’t earth-shattering. In all actuality, it’s pretty safe. It briefly touches on issues that could feasibly expand Scrooge’s humanity — his abusive father, his spurned love-interest Belle — but glazes over these subplots just as soon as they are introduced. There is no opportunity to feel for Scrooge, no opportunity to cry for lost love, and, in turn, little reason to rejoice at his rebirth.

The concept behind Jim Carrey voicing all the ghosts as well as Scrooge is intriguing — the idea being that the ghosts, part of an elaborate nightmare, are extensions of Scrooge’s personality — and Carrey is indeed an impressive voice actor. But no one actor can provide the character range that a handful of actors can, and by the time The Ghost of Christmas Present rolls around, you’ll be ready for a change of pace.

All that being said, A Christmas Carol is visually stunning, with absurd attention paid to detail. For better or worse, 3D seems to drive the plot as much as it enhances it, acting as a stimulus for an exciting chase scene and making The (pretty damn frightening) Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come much more physical and forceful than has previously been seen.

A Christmas Carol is not a bad movie, but Disney has set the bar pretty high for itself with 3D epic Up and crowd favorite WALL-E. It’s own A Muppet Christmas Carol is a holiday classic in its own right. As an entire package this movie just doesn’t do anything fantastic like these others.

But expecting every movie to be a home run is unfair. This movie does justice to the story, and the 3D aspects are fun and engaging. If you don’t already have a favorite rendition of this timeless Christmas classic, there’s no reason this movie can’t fill the hole.

Q&A with director Robert Zemeckis

Robert Zemeckis (Beowulf, The Polar Express, Matchstick Men, Cast Away, Back to the Future) has been a writer, director and producer for nearly four decades of movies. Today his 3D adaptation of the classic A Christmas Carol opens in theaters. North by Northwestern joined in on a conference call with Zemeckis to discuss the movie.

A Christmas Carol is a timeless story. How do you balance the dual problem of adhering to a traditional story but at the same time, creating a piece that is fresh, new and exciting?

That was the challenge, and that was the reason that we did it. We just attacked that problem head-on and said “Okay, we are going to be extremely true to the underlying material, we’re not going to tinker with it too much,” although we do a little bit — we provide some action at the end to get Scrooge from place to place. The fact is that it is a timeless story is rooted in Scrooge’s character and his story of redemption. The other thing that I did which made everybody in the studio very nervous, but I don’t think it could have worked any other possible way, I have everyone speaking in the language of the time — the way Dickens wrote it — which I think is beautiful. And we basically kept the tone that Dickens wrote in the original piece.

Is there any element of this Dickens story that you feel has been overlooked by past filmmakers that is highlighted in your version of the story?

For some reason, past versions of the story have not delved into the idea that Dickens had great tension and great suspense in the story, the way he wrote it, and that seems to be watered down in all these other versions. That feeling of foreboding, that feeling of dread that you have in the first half of that story has been missing a lot. Scrooge basically has this wild nightmare — I really feel very strongly that you have to have the dark before you have the light. Another thing that’s amazing about Dickens that I hadn’t realized before, is how cinematic he wrote — he wrote very filmicly 100 years before the invention of movies — he writes in scenes.

How do you see the 3D aspect of the film as aiding in the telling of the story?

From an emotional standpoint, the 3D is a storytelling element just like the music is. You have the underlying intellectual material that is what Mr. Dickens wrote, and you embellish it with performance and you embellish it with music and you embellish it with color and now you embellish it with immersive 3D image. So what that does for the audience, it gives them another emotional handle on the story, it presents it in an emotional way. We immerse the audience in Dickensian London.

The Fourth Kind focuses on alien abductions and the allegedly true case and documentation of psychologist Abigail Tyler. The movie is spliced with audio and video recordings from “true” events, as well as interviews with the real Tyler (played by Milla Jovovich throughout most of the film).

Oh, and it’s all utterly ridiculous.

The movie is supposed to recreate events involving several of Tyler’s patients, who all have similar stories of being woken up in the middle of the night by an owl. Tyler tries to relate all of this to her husband’s death and her own experiences within her household. Creepy? Sure. Thought-provoking? Sometimes. Easy to mock? Always.

One of the main issues with The Fourth Kind is the acting. Will Patton, who plays the sheriff, should never again be given a serious role. He elicits a chuckle or two every time he appears on screen. In fact, some of his lines (such as “What is this craziness?”, “We know it’s not real!” and more explicit statements) are delivered so poorly that they will be mocked by viewers for weeks to come.

The rest of the dialogue is equally stilted and forced. Abel Campos, played by Elias Koteas, just looks perpetually confused. Jovovich’s portrayal of Tyler rarely ventures beyond a few blood-curdling –- and annoying -– screams. Even so, the acting doesn’t totally ruin the movie. Dim lighting, scary music and the occasional seizure all help the movie feel as eerie as it’s supposed to.

The “real” documentation within the movie is often perfectly lined up with what the actors say. It’s a pretty creative way to provide the apparent evidence for the events. That said, the content of the tapes is questionable, as is the analysis within the movie. The videotapes are shaky in places they should not be. The random voices are said to be speaking Sumerian but are not at all intelligible or at least could not be identified so quickly.

Minor inconsistencies aside, the fact that all involved parties of the “real” events declined to be named, or even to corroborate the story, speaks volumes. Even the man who supposedly helped Tyler translate Sumerian and contributed his knowledge to the movie asked to not be named in the film.

Interviews with the “real” Tyler –- who is probably the most alien-looking creature in entire film -– were conducted by writer/director Olatunde Osunsanmi. Records of Dr. Abigail Tyler from Nome, Alaska are difficult -– dare I say impossible? –- to find. For a story supposedly so grounded in reality, there are too many loopholes to just accept it at face value.

Despite the flaws in The Fourth Kind, the movie is immensely entertaining. It does provoke some thoughts on extraterrestrial existence. Some of the hypnosis scenes are borderline freaky and are definitely not for the faint of heart. The setup and concept is interesting and fresh for an alien movie. And the director does not try to summon up cheesy representations of aliens, using lighting and sound more to convey the presence of an unknown creature.

But then Jovovich says something like “It is not God, but it can pretend to be,” and it’s too easy to just laugh it off again.

Grade: D+
Bottom Line: No matter how hard “The Fourth Kind” tries to prove that aliens exist, it elicits little more than a couple of shocks, a handful of chuckles and 98 minutes of disbelief.

Lyn Cassidy (Clooney) stares at goats in an attempt to hone psychic abilities. Photo courtesy of Overture Films.

Grade: B
Bottom Line: The Men Who Stare at Goats lacks an identity. Comedy? Tragedy? Who’s to guess? Critical of New Age culture or military culture? There’s no way to know, but it’s kind of funny sometimes.

If you saw the trailer for The Men Who Stare at Goats, you are probably expecting a comedy filled with one-liners and slapstick courtesy of a blundering Jeff Bridges and a spacey George Clooney. But that is not what you’re going to get.

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is a down-and-out journalist for a regional newspaper with an urge to prove himself. In the middle of the war in Iraq, he ventures over to Kuwait to become the intrepid reporter he always wanted to be. Here he encounters Lyn Cassidy (Clooney), the best student in the US Military’s psychic-soldier program — The New World Army. Together they brave their way into Iraq to complete Lyn’s secret mission. What unfolds is a tale of conflicting ideologies in a world that continues to outgrow the paranormal.

Goat’s storyline, narrated by Bob, bounces between Middle East adventure and choppy retrospective, and it normally remains in the realm that exists between sad and flat. All those scenes that you expect from the trailer end up scattering throughout the flick like awkward throw-ins from a bad Barry Sonnenfeld movie — heavily situational and lacking originality.

This is not to say that Goats is without charm. The appearance of TV favorites Robert Patrick (X-Files), Glenn Morshower (24) and Rebecca Mader (Lost), in roles that highlight their typecast-ability, rewards the sort of paranormal/action/adventure addicts that are likely to attend Goats.

The decision to cast McGregor in a role in which he plays a Padawan learner to Clooney’s Jedi Master is also not without fantastic irony. For the unfamiliar, this relationship mirrors the bond between apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor) and Jedi Qui-Gon Jin (Liam Neeson) in Star Wars Episode I. In a movie that deals so heavily with Star Wars mythology, with some scenes loosely parodying others from The Phantom Menace, die-hard George Lucas fans can walk out of Goats with a new appreciation for the made-up religion they love.

But for others, Goats is going to disappoint. Plot-driven and focused on developing a Coen Brothers-esque absurdity that never truly comes to fruition, the movie produces characters that all can be described in single words — spacey, pathetic, flowery, angry — respectively. This is not the fault of a cast of talented stars (and McGregor), but rather the fault of a script that doesn’t give them ample opportunity to do what they do best.

Will you laugh at times? Yes. But for a movie that deals with serious contemporary issues — a bloated military and a miffed invasion — as this one does, it does little work providing commentary on the topics it is immersed in — which would have been fine if it had been more funny. But Goats winds up feeling contrived, ending (rather abruptly) with its protagonist achieving new heights the movie doesn’t quite prove he earns. Similarily, Goats doesn’t quite earn the hype it’s received.

Suggested viewing strategy: Wait to see this until Thanksgiving, take your whole family, and see which uncles are most similar to the characters portrayed in the film. In so doing, you may provide a depth of characterization to these poor actors who are starved by this movie’s scant plot.

OR: Drinking Game: Take a shot every time you feel sad about how old Jeff Bridges is. This drinking game can also be played when you are not watching Goats.

This year, many great movies have cause to celebrate. It has been 70 years since 1939 and 10 since 1999, marking milestone anniversaries for two years considered to be the greatest in movie history. Look no further than 1939 for the height of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Michael Giltz of The Huffington Post writes, “Films buffs have declared 1939 as the greatest year for movies so many times that it’s seen as historical fact.” A prime example of exploitation: Warner Home Video pulled all the stops for a The Wizard of Oz deluxe DVD set, selling it at a list price of $84.99.

Then there is 1999, a year that prepared us for a new millennium with a variety of cult favorites. MTV News has spent this past year honoring the films released in 1999 that have made an impact on the world of contemporary movies. There was everything from Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling Magnolia to the infinitely quotable Office Space, celebrated earlier this year with a special screening and cast reunion.

So which year was truly the best? Let’s break it down in a best-of-five series.

Stick It to the Man — Mr. Smith Goes to Washington vs. Office Space

Photo by jameseilers on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons.

Thanks to AP Government, you’ve probably seen James Stewart’s masterful performance as a United States Senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The young statesman goes to the nation’s capitol as an idealist but finds himself battling corruption in a classic filibuster. Mr. Smith is still powerful, but it is often over-the-top. Boy scouts being attacked by Washington cronies? This is the sort of self-congratulatory sentiment that has dated a lot of “classic” Hollywood movies.

The ultimate onscreen rebel is the mumbling, pathetic and oft-ignored Milton in Mike Judge’s workplace satire Office Space. The man only wants his red stapler, but the powers that be stick him in the basement and cut off his paycheck. How much can one man take before burning the workplace down? This movie is uncompromisingly hilarious, a tale of white-collar rebels swaggering to some serious gangsta shit. For anyone who has ever felt like work is truly hell, this is the ultimate anti-establishment movie. Sorry if you think I may have jumped to this conclusion.

Verdict: While Mr. Smith has lost much of its bite over the years, Office Space reveals itself to be richer and funnier with each subsequent viewing.

1939: 0

1999: 1

There’s a snake in my boot! — Stagecoach vs. Toy Story 2

Photo by jameseilers on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons.

The legendary silver screen cowboy John Wayne had his first great role as the Ringo Kid in John Ford’s Stagecoach. This Western follows a group of strangers riding across the West in a stagecoach, having to deal with (highly-stereotyped) American Indians and each other. Director Orson Welles supposedly watched this cornerstone of film-making 40 times during the making of his classic film, Citizen Kane. Honestly, the thought of watching this movie 40 times makes me cringe. Although Stagecoach is massively influential, it lacks the thematic sophistication of Ford’s other Westerns like The Searchers.

Yes, Toy Story 2 is 10 years old. This sequel to the original groundbreaking computer-animated film once again features cowboy toy Woody, this time faced with an existential crisis. What is his purpose as a toy? Will he risk becoming obsolete in the eyes of his owner Andy, or will he join the Roundup Gang to be preserved in a toy museum? Because of its beautiful images and surprising emotional depth, Toy Story 2 is one of the all-time great animated films. It is a delicate balance of humor and sentiment, one of the rare sequels that manages to equal, if not better, the original.

Verdict: This town isn’t big enough for two sheriffs, and I am giving the badge to Woody.

1939: 0

1999: 2

It’s All In Your Mind — The Wizard of Oz vs. Fight Club

Photo by drizinha ? on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons.

Some might be surprised upon learning The Wizard of Oz is 70 years old. This absolute delight of a movie never seems to age. In order to return home from the colorful world over the rainbow, Dorothy must travel to see the Wizard. Along the way, she meets a brainless scarecrow, a heartless Tin Man, a cowardly lion and the Wicked Witch of the West. Featuring songs all of us should know, this Technicolor musical is a moving fable about looking inside for what we want. It all turns out to be a dream in the end, but we never question the truth Dorothy finds in the vivid world brought to life by director Victor Fleming.

Like Office Space, David Fincher’s cult favorite Fight Club, adapted from Chuck Palahniuk’s novel of the same title, is an entertaining take on repressed rage. Infamous for its violence, it holds up because of its sarcastic indictment of corporate America and mind-binding look at the subconscious. Edward Norton is bored with life, but everything changes when he and Brad Pitt start an underground fight club to express their frustrations. Although the plot twist is effective upon each viewing, the subliminal shots of the penis made me feel the movie was sometimes too clever for its own good.

Verdict: When Norton is asked whom he would fight if he got the chance, he is lucky he did not say Dorothy — she would knocked him out in no time. As much as I love Fincher’s ultraviolent satire, it will never have the universal appeal and enduring magic of The Wizard of Oz.

1939: 1

1999: 2

Bizarre Love Triangles — The Rules of the Game vs. Being John Malkovich

Photo by p373 on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons.

Jean Renoir’s French-language The Rules of the Game has been voted by critics to be the third best movie of all time. When it comes to social satire, no movie tops the sophistication and grace of this biting look at the French bourgeoisie. Its use of deep-focus photography masterfully illuminates the different strains in the film’s network of affairs and social battles. Most of the characters act despicably, yet director Renoir handles them with a genuine sense of humanism, never hateful or condescending.

I hesitate to say puppeteer Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is caught in your typical love triangle. After all, his wife (Cameron Diaz) cheats on him when she is in the body of actor John Malkovich (John Malkovich). In Being John Malkovich, a portal allows the characters to be Malkovich for 15 minutes, after which they are dropped onto the New Jersey Turnpike. In spite of the film’s original take on identity and obsession, it does not have the emotional resonance of writer Charlie Kaufman’s later efforts. The conceit of the portal seems like an empty game rather than a mechanism for revealing some greater truth.

Verdict: It just seems a bit too ironic that we get more into the heads of the characters in Renoir’s seemingly effortless masterpiece.

1939: 2

1999: 2

And the Oscar for Best Picture Goes to… — Gone With the Wind vs. American Beauty

Photo by ZacharyTirrell on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons.

One of the few truly deserving Best Picture winners, Gone With the Wind is still breathtaking after 70 years. Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) is a Southern belle whose life changes after experiencing the devastation of the Civil War and meeting Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), the first man to put her in her place. The sheer scale of this historical epic has set a standard for American movies that has been rarely matched. What makes this production all the more impressive is that it was directed by Fleming, the man behind The Wizard of Oz. No one releases two masterpieces of such scale in the same year these days.

In Sam Mendes’ directorial debut, Kevin Spacey gives a movie-making performance as a middle-aged man whose life has turned sour. This plunges him into a hysterically liberating mid-life crisis with tragic consequences. Although this 1999 Best Picture winner does a good job of mixing comedy and tragedy, American Beauty’s satirical look at suburbia becomes redundant and didactic by the end of the film. It simplistically attempts to tells us to look closer for truth in life with a climax in which characters are not revealed to be complex, but merely the exact opposite of what we thought them to be.

Verdict: Gone With the Wind is twice as long as American Beauty, but I would rather watch the Civil War epic any day.

Final Score

1939: 3

1999: 2

When it comes down to it, there is something to be said for the cliché, “They don’t make them like they used to.” 1939 was a rare year that gave the world a great number of classics. I do not even have the space to acknowledge others like the Greta Garbo vehicle Nintochka or director Howard Hawks’ Only Angels Have Wings. Unnecessary DVD re-releases to commemorate milestones are troublesome, but 1939 is a year admittedly worth celebrating.