Fair Game ***

Director: Doug Liman

Cast: Naomi Watts

Sean Penn

Sam Shepard, Ty Burrell, Noah Emmerich

Bruce McGill, Brooke Smith

Perhaps casting Sean Penn as former US diplomat Joseph Wilson isn't the most subtle way of expressing your film's liberal agenda. Not only is the actor one of the most politically outspoken celebrities in the world, he also has become a universal symbol for portraying tragic heroes who more often than not are screwed by the system they're trying to change.

What continues being remarkable about Penn though is the way in which he makes each of these characters completely his own.

As Wilson, he's the epitome of suburban discontent. When we see him take on each of his dinner parties as if he was taking part in a huge political debate we understand this is a man who has fully assumed the idea that democracy begins with each of us.

It's even a more pleasant surprise when we see him become "human" when he's with his wife Valerie Plamer (Watts). She's a CIA agent who spends half her time traveling around the world organizing top secret missions for the government.

When the Iraq war breaks and Wilson makes it known that after investigating abroad, no evidence of actual weapons of mass destruction were found (which instantly might remind you of Penn's 2004 Oscar acceptance speech), his wife is outed by government officials and their life becomes a harsh "he said they said" game as they face the fact that they have been betrayed by the very system they were trying to protect.

This turns Fair Game into a strange hybrid movie that's one part thriller, two parts domestic drama and a lot of political outrage. In a time when films choose to be so blatantly subtle or encode everything through alien, monster or fantastic metaphors, it's actually refreshing to see a movie that expresses its deep dissatisfaction with the state of the world.

Watts gives yet another electrifying performance, making Valerie a woman who has to choose where her loyalties stand under the eye of the press, the government and family.

Few performers would be able to expose themselves so much without recurring to cheap trickery and mannerisms. Watching the actress as Valerie is watching a testament for the way in which films have always been the most powerful medium of ideas.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.


Anne Hathaway is getting all sorts of awards buzz for a performance people haven't even seen but with each passing day Love and Other Drugs looks more promising.
If not just take a look at this delightful poster that puts any recent rom-com sheet to shame. The color palette is delicious and even it makes no secret of the fact people are dying to see this because Jake Gyllenhaal and Annie are rumored to be naked all the freaking time.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with sex and it's refreshing to see a studio sell a movie based on purely carnal desires.
Some might complain we aren't seeing too much and the poster could've been somewhat bolder but anything featuring Annie's million dollar smile makes me a happy camper and did you see the size of Gyllenhaal's foot?


Apparently our previous complaints were heard and someone went and fixed the Fair Game poster. The results are not entirely better but at least this time Sean Penn seems to know what movie he's in.

Sheet-y Saturday.

Where we take a look at posters for upcoming features.


Today we have two examples of how to do the poster for an adult thriller. One of them's bad, the other's simply outstanding.
First up is the lazy, lazy Fair Game design. I'm really interested in this movie but the marketing team seems to want to make me look elsewhere. First up was that by-the-numbers trailer that made the plot seem like a Lifetime drama and not the actual, too amazing to be real, spy story it is. Now there's this lackluster poster that seems to have been made by the kind of person who had trouble staying inside the line when coloring as a child (those titles couldn't be less symmetrical if they tried! It's impossible to read what this poster has to say with words everywhere!).
Then there's the fact that the actors seem to be in completely different movies. Naomi Watts seems to be auditioning to play Matt Damon in a Bourne poster (not coincidentally Doug Liman directed this and the first Bourne installment) and Sean Penn seems to be still playing Harvey Milk.


Next we have this incredible design for, wait for it, the new Paul Haggis movie.
That was enough of a surprise for me before digging into the richness of the poster and how it plays with the "movie star floating head" in an unexpected way. Reminds me of that poster form Premonition with Sandra Bullock's face made out of branches.
Excellent all over.

Seen anything interesting in your theater lobby?

Jumper *

Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Hayden Christensen, Jamie Bell
Samuel L. Jackson, Rachel Bilson, Diane Lane

David Rice (Christensen) is a jumper: he can teletransport himself to anywhere in the world by just thinking about it. He can sunbathe atop the Sphynx, surf in Maui after a one night stand in London and he can travel two inches closer to the remote control on his couch.
Since he was a teenager David has lived by robbing banks and then using the money to buy himself expensive things and lead a carefree life.
When he watches people waiting to be rescued on TV and the words "out of reach" should sound like a cue for him to come help, he chuckles and turns it off.
In other words, David has the power of irresponsibility.
One day he discovers there is a group called the Paladins, led by Roland Cox (Jackson) whose sole mission is to kill jumpers.
He runs away, after going back to his hometown to get his childhood love Millie (Bilson) and while having a Roman holiday meets Griffin (Bell) a fellow jumper with whom he teams up to get rid of the Paladins.
It's of course out of the question to believe in a film that has people teletransporting themselves all over, but even for something like this, there should be a string of veracity that makes the characters and situations believable within the context.
"Jumper" has none of it.
What we get is a lot of explosions, even more "whoosh" sounds and fast editing, along with awful perfomances.
The film never feels the need to elaborate on why the featured jumpers have dedicated their powers to hedonism or haven't at least looked for easy jobs to keep their secret safe.
If you wanna try to look deeper into what the film might be all about we have on on side the jumpers, whose irresponsibility and the way in which they travel causing mischief is reminiscent of what a child would do.
Then we have the Paladins who want to stop them (even if the reason Cox gives is that "only God should be able to be everywhere") but in a way they are adulthood trying to catch up with these kids.
If the methods are a bit drastic, one might argue that maturity usually involves hard knocks when it arrives, but of course all this would be looking too far into a movie whose existence results impossible to defend.
Christensen's casting as the lead is puzzling, unless they wanted David to be played in a robotic manner (and can we really believe that someone who won't commit to an apartment will go back because he has never stopped loving his childhood sweetheart?)
Jackson is so over the top that he isn't even as selfconsciously campy as he usually is.
Bell is good, if only because his caddish ways never let his character take any of the crap he does seriously. The British actor must've known he was in the movie for the money and makes no effort trying to prove otherwise.
But what results plain disappointing is how aimless Liman's direction is. Like his jumpers he has lost all clue of the commitment filmmaking should be.
And while he gets to throw double decker buses in the middle of the desert and stage instant crosscountry battles, he doesn't seem to be extracting any fun out of it.
During the film's most ironic sequence David tells Griffin they should unite like "Marvel heroes".
What the characters, and the director, misunderstood is that superpowers don't instantly make you a super hero.
They should have taken cue from a true hero, and a much much better film that reminded us that with great power, comes great responsibility.