Resurrecting the Champ started out good. Not perfect, but good. Then, 30 minutes into the film, it became excellent, only to fail in the last 45 minutes.

No other way to describe it.

In a way, it’s a story about lies and liars, and I liked it that way. Oh, and about mediocrity and being unable to overcome it. What I didn’t like is the way they resolved everything, Hollywood style. It just… Ugh. It just didn’t suit the story.

The way I see it, it’s not a story about Champ, or pretending to be somebody else (but it can work it that way, that is, until they decided to end the film on a positive note). It’s a story about mediocrity, both Champ’s and jurnalist’s.

I quite liked the way Josh Hartnett’s character was created: he was, if not a loser, then a painfully mediocre guy. His father was better than him, his (estranged) wife is better than him. There’s no much that he can offer. He does have some talent, but as we learn through Teri Hatcher’s character, it’s mostly about his good looks. This situation is strangely similar to Josh Hartnett’s real life situation: just replace “journalism” with “acting” and there you have it. That’s why his character seems so believable.

Still, it all fell apart in the last 45 minutes or so, after we learn Champ’s real identity. The moment they continue to bond and go on with their friendship (which didn’t seem like friendship before that point), is where movie starts to fail. At the end, it simply sucks, which is bad, because I think they had something. Too bad they opted for cliché and happy ending where realism would be a much wiser choice.

Campy retelling of Breakfast club has aged surprisingly well. The premise is so ridiculous that it just had to work.

The good thing is that the movie never takes itself too seriously, which only makes it better. All the standard elements are there, but they manage to play with clichés and the end result is surprisingly entertaining. Robert Rodriguez seems to know a fine difference between camp and complete trash, and uses it well.

In a way, this is a film for teens (teachers as evil aliens- no hard to believe; social outcasts and misfits save the world; impossible coupling, etc), but it’s so full of self-referencing and retelling of popular tropes that it can be taken as a fun exercise of the genre.

It’s fast, silly and entertaining, and very campy; which makes a part of its charm. There are some quite popular “senior” actors in it who somehow manage to play their evil teachers roles straight, and the main sextet is excellent.

The Faculty is an obvious homage to the Breakfast club (with SF/horror elements), but it seems that the message- if there is one- goes quite along the lines of the original. The film is hardly an acting challenge, but everybody seem to be comfortable in their roles, no matter how ridiculous they are. (The whole thing doesn’t take itself too seriously, remember?)

Of course, the while thing is basically a trashy mess, but that’s the beauty of it. Talking about the justification of the main premise is pointless. There are also too many plot holes to count (for example: why didn’t the alien queen infect Zeke while they were making out in the supply room? Obviously, Josh Hartnett is so hot even the alien chicks can’t resist him). But the mistakes are irrelevant: it’s not like the plot was going for the coherence anyway. 

All in all, a campy, trashy, but exciting ride. I remember watching this one when I was 18… Can’t believe it was made more than a decade ago! (I feel so old now).

Needless to say, Josh Hartnett was good in this. Not that much of an acting performance was required from anybody here, but it’s another of those earliest roles that promoted him as a promising young actor… And then crap like Pearl Harbor and 40 Days and 40 Nights happens.  

Calling I Come With the Rain “controversial” is a bit of an overstatement, because, frankly, nobody saw this film. But it sure made many of those who saw it confused- and disgusted. Don’t be fooled, ICWTR is not an easy watch, and yes, there’s a lot of violence, but I found it to be surprisingly “normal”, considering what reviews have promised.

No doubt, this is the strangest of all Hartnett’s films to date, and certainly not the one that Pearl Harbor fans would expect him to make. But he’s here, and he’s good (another character that doesn’t show much emotion apart from apathy- this sort of roles suit him). But in a way, performances are not crucial in this film; atmosphere and symbolism seem to be more important. (That being said, I am completely unfamiliar with the Asian actors, but they were ok, too; there were some strong criticism for their English, but not being a native speaker, I didn’t mind it).

The story is surprisingly simple. Here’s how IMDB describes it: Ex-Los Angeles cop turned private eye travels to Hong Kong in search of the missing son of a billionaire. Turns out the son is a… Well, a Christ figure. Most of the screen time is dedicated to Hartnett’s passive search for the young man, and the young man healing people. Very important are the flashbacks, in which we learn the reason Kline (Josh Hartnett’s character) has quit the force: a serial killer that made sculptures out of his victim’s bodies. Kline became so obsessed with him to the point of identification, and is still haunted by the memories (and the reality) of it.

And there’s violence (lots of it), bizarre and disturbing scenes and many shirtless men on the screen (the last one is not as good as it sounds).

So… That is the plot, but what the movie is actually about is heavily open to interpretation. Which is fine, but the film seems unfinished at times, and editing is quite confusing. So the end result is uneven, partly confusing and somewhat messy. We understand it’s not a simple thriller, and we know that symbolism is quite important, even if we fail to see how.

It feels like the director himself wasn’t really sure what he wants to do with this story. There are many religious symbols, but there’s also more. Inspection of evil, and all the disgusting, horrible things people do to each other. And also, human body and what it means (we see quite different approaches to this question). All these things are quite interesting, but I failed to see the way they connect within the story.

At the end, the most interesting prove to be the things we didn’t really see. Kline’s downward spiral, the chase for the murderer, and the moment he becomes one… We do get glimpses of it, but it quite hidden. I’m not saying that focusing on that story would make a better film; after all, we get to see Kline’s state of mind afterwards, his apathy, his inability to function as a sane human being, which is quite interesting in its own right.

Still, ambitious as it sounds- and better than critics claim, ICWTR still feels random and unfinished. The way Kline’s personal story is connected to the religious symbolism is not quite clear- or at least I didn’t get it.

But I wouldn’t call it a bad film either, and certainly not “the worst movie ever made”, like some people call it. I guess the reviews have prepared me, so I wasn’t disgusted or confused as I thought I would be. This is one of those films in which you feel there are elements of a masterpiece somewhere in it, but the end result is not consistent enough to really make it into a great film. Too bad. Still, an interesting try and sure an interesting choice for Hartnett.

PS- For the fans of Hartnett’s physical appearance… Yes, he does spend a significant amount of his screen time shirtless. Or in his underwear. No, it’s not sexy. So if you want to watch this one for the fanservice, you might want to reconsider.

I’ve written a longer review of both Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel and the movie back at my website but I thought it would be good to include some of it here (slightly revised), so I could have The Virgin Suicides as part of “Josh Hartnett movie challenge” series.

Full review: The Virgin Suicides: A Masterpiece?

Sofia Coppola takes a great effort in keeping most of the little details that make The Virgin Suicides book so striking: the bracelets, poking smoke rings, Lux’s underwear with “Trip” written on it, brown-and white saddle shoes, and so many others. That is something contemporary filmmakers rarely do and I respect her for that.

Still, she somehow managed to make a movie that has all the details, but completely misses the mood, feel and (dare to say) point of the novel. She gave us a visually beautiful film, but for some reason it never really felt like a good adaptation of the book.

I guess it ’s because she chose to focus on the girls more than the boys. It’s not that I don’t understand this decision; I guess it’s difficult to tell the story from the boys’ POV. Still, focusing on the Lisbon sisters, and showing so many of their lives inside the house, killed much of the mystery about the sisters. We got to see them as nothing more but a regular teenagers with strict parents, and we are unable to understand boys’ obsession with them. I think it wasn’t the best move.

The casting was fairly good, despite the fact I – not sure how to put this gracefully – can’t stand Kirsten Dunst. I didn’t find her to be a truly convincing Lux (I think she would make a good Bonnie, though), but she wasn’t bad. I sure didn’t imagine Mr and Mrs Lisbon as James Woods and Kathleen Turner, but they were good.

The only casting choice I am not so sure about is Josh Hartnett as Trip Fontaine. The problem with Trip is that he’s never described, so you can picture him anyway you want, and I sure didn’t picture him as Josh Hartnett. Now, I am not sure how much of it was Hartnett’s fault; the thing is, Trip Fontaine has his own mystery, but in Coppola’s interpretation, this mystery is gone, just like with the sisters.

But I could say Josh Hartnett makes a good Trip Fontaine; you could imagine girls (and mothers?) falling for someone like him. And his performance was decent, so I wouldn’t say it was a bad casting choice. It was one of his earliest roles, and he was good: another proof that this man should stay away from the spotlight if he wants to give good acting performances.

All in all, the movie was visually beautiful, but it didn’t impress me. I just don’t find it to be a good adaptation of the novel: it fails to capture its essence, while at the same time it’s way too dependent on the novel to stand on its own.

PS-Seeing it from the perspective of Josh Hartnett’s films, though, The Virgin Suicides is one of the best movies in his filmography.

A retelling of Shakespeare’s Othello set in an American high school. Well, people do a lot of strange things with Shakespeare, so I thought, why not?

As a story of passion, jealousy, racism/othering and evil, Othello doesn’t work as good in high school context, but it’s not meaningless. The film is not a masterpiece, and, arguably, it’s a quite mediocre retelling of Shakespeare’s famous play. Actors, even if they try their best, as simply way too young for the source material, though the fact filmmakers opted not to use Shakespeare’s original language helps. Still, there’s something highly disturbing about watching such young people doing horrible things.

The film has its moments, but the main problem is that it tries to be two quite different things at the same time: Shakespearean tale and a story about modern teenager’s violence. Now, I love when two seemingly incompatible things are combined, and, if done right, it can result in a masterpiece (a good example is Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, which combines Hamlet and Waiting for Godot to create one of the best plays ever written).

In O, different elements don’t go together that beautifully, so the end result is a strange story about modern teenagers behaving strangely anachronistic at times. Still, it was worth a try. I wouldn’t say the film was a total waste of time; there were some good things about it.

One of said good things was the atmosphere. Also, I am glad the violence was not downplayed, which is one of the reasons why it took it so long for this film to be released: nobody wouldn’t touch it after Columbine.

And last, but not the least, one of the best things about the film was, surprisingly, Josh Hartnett as Hugo, who proves to be an excellent villain. In so many ways, he’s different than the Iago in the play, but it works for the setting and the movie’s narrative.

Some people say that such a young Iago doesn’t work, because all evil and malice can be attributed to teenage angst. Perhaps. But in a way, it makes the story quite realistic, and quite scary. Also, there are people who see Hugo as almost a sympathetic character, which I don’t understand.

There was nothing sympathetic about him; Hartnett played him quite reserved, cold and distant, and while I believe this performance was more instinctive than intentional, it works great. The fact it wasn’t over the top is what makes it so terrifying. This was one of Josh Hartnett’s earliest roles, and he did a terrific job, and it’s probably one of the best performances in his career. Even critics agreed, proving that, at the beginning of his career, he was seen as a promising young actor, not as a teen sex symbol without a talent. So I honestly don’t know what happened later. As if fame made him less talented.

In any case, his Hugo is the highest point of this film. His co-stars do a pretty good job themselves, but that’s not enough to make this film truly great. It ends up being a strange combination of Shakespeare and modern world, but I appreciate it as an interesting take on Othello.

PS- I think I get it now. Josh Hartnett should stay away from romantic or action roles and stick to characters who are cold, reserved and can’t show much of emotion. It worked several times, and all of his best performances were like that: Hugo is cruel, Donald can’t express his emotions due to Asperger’s, and Slevin is… well, let’s say he has ataraxia and leave it at that. It’s definitely what suits Hartnett.

This film is messy, occasionally predictable and appears derivative. But it’s also quite good. It’s fun and beautifully acted (and created)- and if you interpret it in a different way, it becomes truly great.

On the surface, it’s just yet another of those movies that want to be Usual Suspects, or something directed by Tarantino. If you see it like that, Lucky Number Slevin is enjoyable, but doesn’t offer anything new.

But there’s something about this film that made me understand it differently, though I am not quite sure it’s what filmmakers intended. In a way, it can be taken as a deconstruction, or, at least, a close analysis of the genre (and filmmaking as a whole), and not simply an example of said genre.

Interpreted this way, Lucky Number Slevin is brilliant. It offers everything for inspection of filmmaking, and it’s quite enjoyable at that. The acting is pretty good (but it’s not surprising for Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley).

What is more surprising is how fantastic Josh Hartnett was in this film. And I’m not saying that because he spends good amount of his screen time in nothing but a towel (displaying surprisingly limp pectoral muscles, if I may to say, which is, I admit, pretty cute for some reason). He plays Slevin as both an innocent guy in the wrong place at the wrong time and, well, something else. Right from the start. And he’s great. He owns the role. God knows he’s far from being a greatest actor in “teh” world, but he completely and utterly made character his own. Definitely one of his best performances.

One of the main tropes in the film is Kansas City Shuffle -a con game in which a person knows that someone is trying to con him; the problem is, the actual game is different than what person is lead to believe. Of course, Kansas City Shuffle game makes heart of the plot, but in a way, the movie as a whole is Kansas City Shuffle. We are led to believe we’re watching one thing, but it’s actually something else.

Of course, this can refer to the twist withing the plot; but given the fact great chunks of it are predictable (and we suspect it pretty early in the film), it makes me wonder if that was part of the game for the audience: we’re made to believe we’re watching a standard Tarantino-inspired thriller, but it’s actually a statement on filmmaking).

Ooooh, how I love postmodernism! (Just for the record- I am not convinced the film was that smart, or that it was meant to be a deconstruction; but I simply prefer to see it that way, because it makes Lucky Number Slevin ten times better).

I really enjoyed this one, that’s for sure.

Rapist and the victim (who was totally asking for it!) :

This film doesn’t really deserve a review… Yes, it’s THAT bad. The premise makes zero sense (40 days without sex. Impossible! If you’re a guy… If you’re a girl, it’s totally ok. Riiight). But one thing about this film has to be mentioned, and it’s not pretty.

I know I am not the first person to point this out, but it needs to be said over and over again: rape is not funny, mmkay? Under any circumstances. It’s just. Not. Funny. Ever.

I guess everybody agrees on this, right? Ok, so how do you explain this film’s last 15 minutes? A person was raped. The rapist never had to face consequences. And there’s more: the victim had to actually apologize for the rape.

Sounds horrible? Yes, it is. The only explanation: the victim was male, and rapist was female. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem that bad, or at least that’s what filmmakers thought.

Seriously, people. Having sex with someone who’s unconscious/sleeping, and/or someone who says “no” is rape, plain and simple. But I guess double standards can hurt men, too. Who knew.

This was not funny. At all.

So, in addition to uninspiring story, silly premise and stupid dialogues, what this film has to offer is Josh Hartnett’s character being raped. Definitely not my thing.

Ok, I said I wouldn’t do this, but I got sick, so I had time for this. It’s interesting to observe the movie was better than I remembered it, but it also sucked even more in some aspects I didn’t notice when I saw it for the first time.

We all know how cheesy - and disrespectful - this one was towards tragedy. It’s full of “facepalm” romantic moments and it has a pretty uninteresting love triangle. The story is predictable (and not because we’re familiar with WWII history), and you can just feel the actors were embarrassed for the lines they had to deliver. You can sense they didn’t want to be there.

But what I found the most irritating about this film was forced political correctness, which, ironically, made everything seem more offensive and disrespectful (the portrayal of Cuba Gooding Jr’s character, for example).

The funny thing is, by focusing on love triangle and main characters constant romantic whining, they just made Americans seem occupied with trivialities while the world is at war (not to mention it made them look like sissies).

Once the attack begins, it gets better; but sadly, the whole thing lasts only about 45 minutes, which is nothing considering the movie is over three hours long. Still, the most striking image from the film is our two heroes donating blood, which is collected in the Coca Cola bottles.

Ok, and that’s the popular opinion. But now, let’s talk about unpopular opinion: why this film wasn’t as horrible as people claim it to be.

Don’t get me wrong, it IS quite bad. But people often call it a “blatant Titanic ripoff”, in a way that it seems it was much worse than Titanic itself. But let’s face it, people, Titanic was a very crappy film. So the fact this one didn’t win (m)any Oscars, or didn’t earn much money or didn’t bring fame to its actors doesn’t mean it was in any way inferior to Titanic. To Schindler’s List, yes. Maybe even to Lord of the Rings. But not to Titanic.

Let’s face it: both used a real life tragedy to tell a love story. Both were disrespectful to the tragedy. Both had cheesy dialogues, uninspiring love story and overly sentimental music (nothing can beat Celine Dion here). They both have flat characters and forced, just-for-the-sake-of-teenage-tears deaths. (Seriously. I hate when characters die when the main danger and action are gone. It seems unnecessary and just for the sake of sentimentality. Not to mention it doesn’t seem heroic at all  - and it’s clear they wanted to make it heroic).

The only truly better thing about Titanic was the fact it focused on one event: the sinking of Titanic, while Pearl Harbor was all over the place (and it wasn’t about the attack on Pearl Harbor at all). If they didn’t feel obligated to end the story with a victory note for Americans (and include completely unnecessary and out of place Doolittle Raid), it would have been much better.

Other than that: same shit, different package. So no, I don’t think Pearl Harbor deserves to be ridiculed and Titanic praised. They’re basically the same, so it only depends on who you find “hawter”: Leonardo DiCaprio or Ben Affleck (Josh Hartnett).

Wicker Park is an American remake of French film L’Appartement. The original had Monica Bellucci and Vincent Casell, the remake has Josh Hartnett and Diane Kruger. Oh, and a Hollywood ending. This fact alone speaks for itself in a not-so-favourable way for Wicker Park.

So, it’s virtually impossible to forget about the original, especially if you liked it (like I did), and I tried my best not to think about it, but to no avail. It’s not that Wicker Park sucks a big time… It just never makes you to forget about the original.

One of the main problems in Wicker Park is the fact you can buy that a man can go crazy obsessed with Monica Bellucci… But you simply don’t see it with Diane Kruger. Which makes Matt (Josh Hartnett’s character) obsessed in a not so sane way, much like another character, Alex, who is obsessed with him. And I don’t think filmmakers wanted both of them to be crazy and obsessed in an unhealthy way.

Still, the way it is, it somewhat works. Josh Hartnett seems really desperate half the time, confused like a teenage boy and he somehow manages to make us believe he’s this average, everyday guy crazy in love with a woman of his dreams (and his past). Diane Kruger appears to be just a shell without any personality, so it makes everything a bit weird, but you still end up hoping he’ll find her, because obviously he can’t live without her.

This way, Hollywood ending doesn’t come as stupid as I thought it would. The whole atmosphere of L’Appartament, Vincent Casell’s character and everything about the story had a completely different feel, and they’ve tried to bring a new atmosphere (and the point, I guess) to Wicker Park. So Wicker Park’s ending does make sense (even if it’s cliche, and even if it comes more as a relief than a triumph of love).  I guess I should at least give credit where credit is due and say they did try to change the point of the story and its atmosphere, making Hollywood ending more plausible than it would have been if they kept everything the same, but with a different ending.

PS- On a shallow level, this is the first film (chronologically) in which Josh Hartnett looks handsome, imo (and not like a pretty boy anymore). So maybe you could count this as another good thing about Wicker Park? But on the other hand, Vincent Casell IS Vincent Casell, so… Not sure.

I am not a huge horror movie fan, but this one looked promising.

At the end, I can say it was surprisingly scary, all because of how they decided to treat vampires. Many reviewers claim they were quite animalistic and nothing like humans. I disagree. What made this whole thing truly scary was something about them that made them look like humans more than supernatural beings. The main vampire looked like a batshit crazy Russian tycoon, which was pretty scary.

In a way, vampires made this film look to me more like an allegory on capitalism than a typical horror movie, which I’m sure wasn’t the intend. But I think Victor Pelevin’s “Empire V” has made impossible for me to view modern vampires in any different context. (Speaking of which, that book is an excellent read; probably the best vampire novel I’ve ever read).

Back to 30 Days of Night. The movie is quite good, I guess, especially first 2/3. Josh Hartnett looks tired, exhausted and ill right from the start, which is never explained, so I am not sure it it was intentional. But it works (I guess being a sheriff in a small Alaskan town is not the most satisfying thing in the world), and he also looks rather incapable of dealing with any serious situation. So when shit starts, he just needs to learn how to cope. Which is good, because it made him look more realistic.

But the movie completely fell apart at the end. (Spoler) It’s not that I don’t appreciate the heroic sacrifice, but the way they’ve handled it was… Lame, to say the least. I understand they chose to follow the graphic novel, but still. Reminded me too much of pointless sacrifice in Titanic (and that one sucked a big time). They simply didn’t make me believe it was a necessary thing to do in such a way, that’s all. (/Spoiler)

All in all, I didn’t like the ending, and when I dislike the ending, I dislike the whole thing, that’s the problem. A movie or a book can be 90% excellent, but if the ending sucks, it’s a fail in my book. Or a wasted opportunity. That’s how I feel about “30 Days of Night”.

PS- Oh, one more thing. The main character wasn’t supposed to be white. He was Inuit.