Anything they can do...

I don't know...

...if love is proof that God exists, or love is God himself.

Burn After Reading ***

Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cast: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich
Tilda Swinton, Richard Jenkins, J.K. Simmons, Brad Pitt

Gym employees Chad Feldheimer (Pitt) and Linda Litzke (McDormand) find a disc containing information they assume to be highly classified CIA information.
They link the disc to former CIA analyst Osbourne Cox (Malkovich), who has just been fired from his job and has decided to write his memoirs, to the disapproval of his wife Katie (Swinton) who is having an affair with Treasury agent, womanizer, Harry Pfarrer (Clooney) and has decided to divorce Osbourne.
Dim witted Chad sees the opportunity to get a reward for the safe return of the information, while Linda would finally get the cosmetic surgeries she desires in order to enter the next stage of her life as she sees it, but when they get rejected by Osbourne they approach the Russian Embassy unleashing screwball comedy that gets as dark as the Coen brothers can deliver.
"So we don't really know what anyone is after" goes CIA superior (J.K. Simmons who is in the film for two scenes but might be the ones you remember the most) when one of his employees briefs him on the actions of the other characters. Truth is we really don't know where anything is going, which doesn't diminish the joyful rush of the ride.
"Report back to me when it makes sense" he asks later on with no better results.
Aimlessly, but not purposely, throwing their characters into the plot like mice inside a labyrinth, the Coens seem to be having the time of their lives (and with reason considering their previous film) also providing the ensemble with some of the most entertaining roles they've played.
Clooney, who now seems part of their filmography is at his underrated best, playing a man who has found in sex the thrills he's lacking in his married life. What's wonderful about his character particularly is that the Coend don't turn him into a dislikable sex fiend, just as someone who is looking for what he needs in all the wrong places but has a real soul.
If the Coens planned to create characters exemplary for their idiocy, their plan backfires as they can't help but inject a certain amount of sincere emotional ache in all of them.
When we find Harry is building a gift for his wife we can't help but go aww, when we see what the gift is (where Clooney's eyes sparkle with puppy like fervor) we cringe while we go aww and when he leaves his lover's house offended, sex pillow under his arm, we know this could very well represent his heart.
Malkovich, at his neurotic best, is the poster boy for upper middle class failure. An alcoholic in denial, he moves into his yacht where he drinks and does aerobics as he plans his comeback to the world that shunned him. You laugh at him more than with him, but Malkovich doesn't really care, he's like a human version of Tom the cat.
Swinton is magnificent combining her ice queen qualities with an irresistible sex appeal. With Malkovich she reminds us that familiarity breeds contempt as she is disgusted by everything he does. Swinton doesn't even need to roll her eyes to let us know her apathy.
Pitt's Chad is a genius comedic creation, as the actor vanishes into this bleached blonde muscle machine who smiles when he has no other way of defense.
He never stops chewing gum or moving to what one can only assume is some sort of 90's Eurotrash piece on his iPod, he is ditzy and, scarily reminiscent of some political juggernauts (one whose picture is featured in the film), harmlessly likable.
McDormand's Linda is also some sort of small miracle, the actress absolutely devoid of any vanity becomes this insecure woman whose lack of self esteem comes off as a bizarre, almost admirable determination. "I've gotten about as far as this body can take me" she says and can you really blame her for seeking options instead of just moping?
The Washington D.C. in this film is some sort of bubble where bureaucracy and patriot paranoia gets in the way of common sense.
Everyone seems to think they're part of a bigger picture and with this the Coens (with a wicked eye for comedic detail) poke fun at the mindless fear that pervaded post 9/11 America, Carter Burwell's selfonsciously selfimportant score does a brilliant job highlighting this.
But they also deliver an acute observation of how people face aging; you might very well argue that "Burn After Reading" is a midlife fantasia, both for the Coens who have become filmmakers of whom one expects only great cinema amidst their undeniable flops and of all the characters to whom their actions, as idiotic as they result, might be their last chance of making a difference for self and country.

Old Age and Salmon, Youth and Sardines.

Tropic Thunder **

Director: Ben Stiller
Cast: Ben Stiller,
Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr.
Nick Nolte, Steve Coogan
Jay Baruchel, Tom Cruise
Brandon T. Jackson
Matthew McCounaghey

There's only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, or so goes the adage which perfectly helps describe this film.
What begins as a satire of the most cynical, rarely seen, kind, slowly descends into a film you no longer laugh with, but at (or sometimes just cringe), as it proves that Hollywood has mastered the art of blockbusters, creating stars and draining a clever idea until its just left stale.
The plot centers around the shooting of a Vietnam war film called "Tropic Thunder" that has brought together three of the brightest male stars available.
Action superstar Tugg Speedman (Stiller), scatological comedian Jeff Portnoy (Black) and five time Academy Award winning, method actor, the Australian Kirk Lazarus (Downey Jr.) who is playing an African American by going blackface.
Their very different screen personas are established in the absolutely brilliant prologue (to which the rest of the movie sadly never lives up) in which things as seemingly inocuous as trailers deliver some hilarious, cleverly conceived critiques on the roles of actors, audience perception and studios in the ultimate concept of cinema.
Later we see director Damien Cockburn (Coogan) as he struggles to capture the action while the actors' egos are the only ones in full battle.
When he is threatened by a studio executive (Cruise in "look at me being funny and showy in a fatsuit" mode) he decides to follow the advice of the mysterious John Tayback (Nolte), who wrote the book the film is based upon, who suggests that the only way his cast will get the work done is if they go to real war.
They take the cast to the middle of a jungle infested with members of a drug gang who assume the actors are DEA agents, while the actors think of them as really good stuntmen.
When things start getting out of control Speedman decides this will be the role of his career and goes forward with the guerrilla shoot, while Lazarus tries to convince the others that they are no longer in a movie.
Stiller (who wrote the script with Etan Cohen and the amazing Justin Theroux) makes an intriguing first impression with his "war as a game" take on how the media has made us perceive violence.
When one of the actors spills his fake guts after being shot, the scene makes for an uncomfortable moment where some audience members will laugh out loud at the silliness of it all, while others will wonder when did it become normal to laugh at guts being spilled.
Perhaps Stiller was trying to point out how people react to different genre stimuli and go "this is a Ben Stiller film, so this is supposed to be funny", leading us to examine carefully the way in which we process information regarding the channel and medium.
But the problem is that most of the film suffers because of this, you wonder if it's trying to be bitter, morbid, smart or just going with the flow.
It offers some funny observations on various industry types (and the film is probably enjoyed more by those who know about the trade) but it never lets us forget the fact that these very people greenlit this and allowed it to be made.
The Academy Awards are a major source of gags in the film and while the writers honestly think they are one step ahead of the organization by revealing how it chooses to award people, truth is you can almost touch the fact that in this blasé take, they are also demanding the Academy takes notice of them and it is so with almost every other thing in it.
Except Downey Jr. who aptly owns the film with a performance that is always a step ahead of the others. Playing "a dude playing another dude who's playing a dude" he brings a certain dignity to something that could've resulted highly offensive and obscene.
Lazarus' love for the craft (he never leaves character even as the others endure personal hell) highlights what is both great and wrong about film, giving Downey the distinction of being the rare kind of figure who can be box office draw while preserving artistry.
That we never think of his "blackface" as his character or as Downey Jr. as Lazarus is a testimony to an actor at his very best.
"Tropic Thunder" is sometimes too clever for its own good, like the popular kid at school who hides his geekiness to preserve his coolness, it knows it can do better, but chooses to settle. It encompasses itself perfectly with Kevin Sandusky (a scene stealing Baruchel), a young actor who ends up becoming the leader in the background because he knows how to balance different parts of his personality. During a key scene he confesses to Lazarus that he became an actor because of him, while acknowledging to Speedman that he also watched his action movies repeated times. Sandusky, like the film, is both its attack and its salvation, its most fervent admirer and fiercest enemy and as war itself the results are rarely a laughing matter.

Ain't It the Truth?

''I just wish sometimes that we'd have more stuff like 'Doubt' in the summer, but that's against the laws of Hollywood.''
- Meryl Streep

The glorious Meryl Streep, who has had one of the greatest years of her career thanks to her "who would've guessed?" blockbuster star turn in "Mamma Mia" as well as her yet-to-be-seen, but sure-to-be-great role in "Doubt" might very well achieve the rarely seen double whammy of box office heroine and Oscar winner (number 3 for her) in one year.
Robert Downey Jr. was supposed to get it with "The Soloist" and "Iron Man" but well one of those went wrong.
Streep and Downey Jr. are both featured in "Entertainment Weekly"'s list of "Entertainers of the Year" along with other film, music, literature and television figures who remind us that 2008 has actually been an outstanding year for entertainment and arts.
And we're not even deep into Oscar season yet!

There is Such Thing as Revenge.

There is simply no conceivable way for someone like Steven Spielberg to remake this.