Le Chef

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Daniel Cohen/Starring: Jean Reno and Michael Youn

Not to be confused with Jon Favreau's Chef, Daniel Cohen's film is as light as the American counterpart but not as tasty. Le Chef falls into the French Farce genre, whose quality over the last decade has been very uneven. The French make such powerful dramas with complicated characters so it's puzzling when their comedies parrot the worst of Hollywood.

A film like Le Chef lives or dies with its cast, since the writing is rather tame and bland. An infant could plot a course through the storyline without error or much effort. It is fortunate that two actors with charm, Jean Reno and Michael Youn, help keep the film buoyant.

Michael Youn plays Jacky Bonnot, a chef whose lofty culinary standards often clash with various restaurant managers for whom he serves. The operative word is various, for Jacky can't seem to hold a job very long, which causes his pregnant wife much anxiety. Jean Reno plays Alexandre Lagarde; a chef of fame and high regard whose restaurant has enjoyed three-star status for fifteen years. Lagarde's ranking and job are threatened by the CEO of the group that owns the restaurant; who continually threatens to replace him with a chef who specializes in molecular gastronomy. In his private life, Lagarde's relationship with his beautiful daugher becomes brittle when he is unable to devote time or proper moral support for her during her oral literary thesis preparation.

Before long, the two chefs are thrown together by a chance meeting at the retirement home where Jacky paints window-frames. Lagarde offers Jacky an unpaid position as an assistant; a proposal he must keep from his wife. The Bonnot's forthcoming child and the couple's shaky financial predicament add some tension to the proceedings.

In awe of the famous chef, Jacky becomes Lagarde's assistant on a widely-watched T.V. cooking show and in his kitchen. Lagarde sees that Jacky can run his kitchen effectively; his leadership skills very much in evidence. The show is also given a boost when the two bicker about the finer points of food preparation, which goes over well with the viewers.

When the CEO learns that two prominent food critics who prefer molecular cooking plan to visit the restaurant, he threatens Lagarde with job-dismissal and the loss of his comfortable apartment if the restaurant loses a rating star. The CEO's threat is part of a ploy to bring in a younger chef who specializes in molecular cooking. It doesn't help that neither Lagarde nor Jacky show any enthusiasm or passion for the trendy cooking technique, which involves the use of chemicals in food preparation. The ubiquity of liquid nitrogen in cooking and eating--among other chemicals--is kind of a running gag in the film.

I didn't laugh once during the film, nor did anyone else who occupied the theater, which is too bad because the film is likeable, as are the two stars. It is miraculous that a lack of laughter didn't translate to an excruciating experience. Though Le Chef wants to be a light comedy, it never really tries hard enough for laughs, save for one scene in which the two chefs disguise themselves as Japanese royalty to infiltrate Lagarde's young rival's molecular-cuisine restaurant. While Jacky dons a geisha-girl get-up, Lagarde wears a samorai-like coif and robes. It isn't funny and stumbles ever-so-close to being offensive. It manages to be mildly-amusing but only mildly.

The film proceeds along as one would expect. No loose ends in this comedy, so no mysteries persist as to what becomes of both Jacky and Lagarde's familial troubles. The only surprise is the climax, but it's only a surprise if you've been asleep the previous hour and a half.

Michael Youn has a very likeable face, which enables him to accrue much sympathy while I wish someone would write a truly funny film for Jean Reno, whose comedic talents are very conspicuous. If I didn't laugh, I also wasn't bored the way one can be with so many inane Hollywood comedies. Le Chef, to risk using a cooking metaphor, is the promise of delicious cake that fails to rise when heated. One is left picking at the remains, hoping for something satisfying but regretting its unrealized potential.

Jersey Boys

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Clint Eastwood/Starring: John Lloyd Young, Vincent Piazza and Christopher Walken

I never saw the stage production on which Jersey Boys is based but one can discern its theater origins from its tone and its lack of fidelity to biographical imperatives. It gives us enough history for us to care about the characters but not the deeper probing of life and times one might find in say, Walk the Line.

On first seeing the trailer for the film, I thought maybe I was hallucinating when I read Clint Eastwood's directorial credit. He is far from an obvious choice to direct a film about Franki Valli and the Four Seasons. Eastwood has always been a jazz devotee; films like Bird and Straight, No Chaser (which he produced), reflect his personal musical passion so I was intrigued with his latest directorial choice.

Jersey Boys is more than the story of how Franki Valli (born Francesco Stephen Castelluccio) and the Four Seasons rose to the top of the pop charts. It also gives us a glimpse of the rough and tumble world of New Jersey in the 50s' and 60s', specifically Franki Valli (John Lloyd Young) and fellow band member Tommy DeVito's (Vincent Piazza) connection to local mob man Gyp DeCarlo (Christopher Walken). Sharply captured is the tightly-knit Italian-American culture, where loyalty is all but a sacrament, even when strained.

The story begins in the 50s' as a sixteen-year old Francesco (Franki) Castelluccio divides his time between working as a hairdresser during the day and singing in the evenings; his voice already a local sensation. His best friend Tommy is the frontman for a band that gigs in local clubs.

Tommy and some of the locals involve themselves in all sorts of crimes, often with Franki as the lookout. A funny scene where Tommy and some associates rob an establishment of a large safe while Franki watches for police is wildly amusing. The over-sized safe is placed in the trunk, which causes the front of the car to rise absurdly off the ground. As an alarm is set off, Franki is forced to drive the car with the upraised front obstructing his view, which causes him to crash through a store front window.

Both Franki and Tommy are loyal to Gyp, a sort of father-figure to Franki, who he looks out for while Tommy is treated mostly as an afterthought. Later in the film, Gyp's powerful influence, which Franki calls upon as an enormous favor, saves Tommy from a sizeable $500,000 debt. The debt is mostly shouldered by Franki, who refuses to abandon his friend to unimaginable punitive measures. Such a sacrifice, as we hear in one character's aside, is part of the Jersey code-of-honor.

The story is really, in essence, Franki and Tommy's relationship. The close, fraternal bond the two share sometimes is challenged by Tommy's brushes with the law which unfortunately often implicate Franki. Their relationship is grievously tested later in the film, as we see a strong bond under seige by resentments and Tommy's dangerous debt.

Before long, Franki joins Tommy's group though stardom continues to elude the band. A brilliant singer/songwriter Bob Gaudio (Erich Bergen) joins the group but rather than finding immediate success, the group is forced to sing back-up in studio sessions until Bob pens the group's first hit Sherry. The song places them on the pop charts, lands them a gig on American Bandstand and lays the groundwork for what will ultimately be a successful run in the 60s'.

I've never been a fan of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons though it's difficult to ignore their impact on the pop-music scene in the 60s'. But no matter, Jersey Boys is fun though hardly a significant addition to Eastwood's 21st century oeuvre. The performances, particularly Lloyd Young's and Vincent Piazza's, are solid and affecting. Piazza almost steals the show; his charm and menace make the perfect contrast to Franki's more unassuming, non-confrontational disposition.

Eastwood's camera-compositions, never fussy nor demanding attention, mostly fix on actors rather than settings, making the story more character-driven. The characters' occasional asides to the camera provide some commentary or illuminate motivations--an idiosyncrasy one can easily imagine being retained from the stage production. Inter-band strife--members threatening to quit or forming secret agreements--always seems inevitable. Ultimately, Bob and and Franki become a team; landing a hit with the now classic Can't Take My Eyes off of You

Though entertaining, there is something vaguely unsatisfying about the film. The story lacks historical context; we see the band score hit after hit but we don't get a sense of when and how. We also don't get a sense of the importance of the band's music in rock history, as if it all happened in a vacuum. We see the band arriving at Radio City Music Hall to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in a scene leaping forward to the early 90s' but so what? To whom did their music matter? In my high school days back in the early 80s', their music seemed Paleolithic though music from other bands and performers from the band's heyday were still heard on classic rock radio (and still are). Luckily the relationships between the bandmembers and the colorfully drawn Jersey personalities make us care about the people, if not the music.

I didn't leave the movie humming any of The Four Season's songs but I took note of the performances; enjoying the film in spite of its shortcomings. Jersey Boys might not dazzle, but it is a welcome change from the non-stop demolition seen on most Summer movie screens.

Violette

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Martin Provost/Starring: Emmanuelle Devos and Sandrine Kiberlain

Director Martin Provost's Violette, could almost be a follow-up to his 2008 film Seraphine, as both films deal with French women whose art not only won them acclaim, but allowed them to abrade the near-impenetrable, chauvinistic social barriers maintained by the male-dominated cultural establishment.

Emmanuelle Devos (always excellent) plays Violette LeDuc, the emotionally-hungry and needy writer whose passionate, erotic, auto-biographical novels came to the attention of Simone de Beauvoir (Sandrine Kiberlain) after World War II. We first see Violette living in a stiflingly bucolic French village where her homosexual significant other struggles to bring his own writing to the attention of the literary world. Though he respects Violette's opinion of his work, he is anxious to leave their rustic life without his wife. Trailing after her husband in his desperate flight from the country, she is abandoned. But Violette's own writing burgeons and after relocating to Paris, her novel L'Asphyxie (In the Prison of Her Skin) is brought to the attention of a publisher via de Beauvoir's efforts.

In meeting de Beauvoir, a kindred spirit whose own erotic prose and feminist candor matched Leduc's, Violette begins to demand love and attention. de Beauvoir bristles at Violette's repeated advances and her jealous inquiries about her lovers. In spite of the conflict, de Beauvoir tirelessly and unselfishly champions Violette's extraordinary, beautiful work; often negotiating with the publisher for Leduc's artistic freedom. In one scene, de Beauvoir cites the double-standard practiced in publishing by which Jean Genet enjoyed almost censor-free consideration while Leduc was repeatedly edited by publishers who were uncomfortable with a woman's confessional writing.

Devos and Kiberlain are terrifc as Leduc and de Beauvoir. Devos captures the psychological stresses Leduc endured: the stigma as a bastard child; her overprotective mother's attentions, episodes of frail mental health, the torments of unrequited love and the oppressive sexism of the time. Kiberlain is a bit too-willowy to be a physical match for de Beauvoir, but she inhabits the spirit of the famous writer; conveying not only her struggles, but also her strength.

Provost appropriately maintains the narrative focus on the two women; for their up-hill struggles--in a world where Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Jean Genet roamed freely, garnering awards and accolades--are no less than incredible.

Violette soon learns that the 25,000 francs she receives monthly from her publisher is actually from de Beauvoir. Again, this reflects not only de Beauvoir's generosity, but the resistance to Violette's sexually-liberated work in the publishing world at the time. But eventually, through persistence and the slowly evolving recognition of women's rights and equality in France, Violette becomes a celebrated author, embraced by the public and the publishing world. It is sad to think that her popularity isn't that of de Beauvoir (at least here in America) but her writing ultimately proved to be the equal of her more famous contemporaries.

It seems only natural that a film about two women of renown would be carried almost entirely by two women and that they do so effectively makes Violette something other than a just a movie about writers. Leduc and de Beauvoir had much to express and much to overcome. A film depicting their herculean efforts could do no less than make them compelling figures. And it does.

Obvious Child

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Gillian Robespierre/Starring: Jenny Slate, Gaby Hoffman, Jake Lacy and Richard Kind

Some former Saturday Night Live alumni bear the stigma of leaving the show without ever having the opportunity to shine but later they manage to blossom on the stage, T.V. or film. Jenny Slate, a one-time SNL alumnus, may join the likes of Chris Rock and Sarah Silverman--other alumni who succeeded nicely after undistinguished stints on the show--by establishing her own comedic credentials with the feature Obvious Child.

Slate plays Donna Stern, a woman in her twenties who does stand-up comedy in a local club while also holding down a job in a bookstore that is in its death throes. Her boyfriend has just dumped her for another woman and she medicates herself with excessive drinking. While not bemoaning her relationship status with her roommate and friend Nellie (Gaby Hoffman), she seeks moral support from her divorced parents; father Jacob Stern (Richard Kind) and mother Nancy (Polly Draper).

Early on I felt uneasy; thinking the film was going to be one more Lena Dunham-like, navel-ogling, mopy, comedy-drama with a character who can't seem to find Mr. Decent. The story mercifully veered from the well-worn into the unexpected.

Donna meets a handsome, twenty-something named Max (Jake Lacy), whose nice blandness seems to be a polar extreme to Donna's smart, hip, city-wit. But after a night of one-too-many, the two find themselves lying next to one another in bed the next morning. Donna, still smarting from her break-up and mildly stalking her ex, resists Max; avoiding him and ignoring his calls.

The story takes a significant turn when Donna learns she is pregnant with Max's child. I thought I could accurately plot the rest of the film from this point. But unlike Diablo Cody's Juno, with her character making a seemingly provocative but actually an audience-pleasing choice, Obvious Child blazes a more difficult, more controversial course by showing us a character who is resolute but emotionally unsure in her decision to have an abortion. It is all the more difficult when Max's determined pursuit of Donna leaves her feeling the guilt of removing him from the decision.

It's to first feature director Gillian Robespierre's credit that the film doesn't degenerate into predictable, ABC Family-like drama but maintains its sharp humor, sometimes subversively so. One example is some Donna/Nellie repartee that includes some jokes about abortion, which are funny without trivializing the issue.

I particularly liked the scene where Donna confides in her mother Nancy, with whom she has had a tempestuous relationship. Providing solace and some solidarity, Nancy relates her own experience with abortion in the 60s', which sheds light on a darker time when a woman had more rigid legal and societal obstacles (which haven't vanished altogether).

Jenny Slate is quite amusing and does much with her character while the supporting cast members like Gaby Hoffman, Gabe Liedman and David Cross offer their own funny witticisms and performances to keep the movie humming. Jake Lacy is the film's nice, white-toasty, almost impossibly nice and supportive love-interest but he seems plausibly so and manages to even exude a subtle magnetism.

Obvious Child is a film whose charms take a while to emerge and when they do, they satisfy. For Robespierre and Slate, it is a fine start to what I hope will be a series of fruitful collaborations.

The Rover

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: David Michot/Starring: Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson

David Michot follows up his terrific, gritty Animal Kingdom with an equally gritty and violent The Rover, which he co-wrote with actor/writer Joel Edgerton.

Following a global catastrophe, known to the audience as the Collapse, we find denizens of rural Australia surviving in a lawless, economically-ravaged environment where basic necessities are scarce and pricey and law-enforcement is almost a rumor. Michot's near-future Australia is an amoral, vicious, dirty, and unforgiving place. The story takes place 10 years after said disaster and the world we see looks much like the post-apocalyptic decay and rot seen previously in films like The Road Warrior and A Boy and His Dog but with a generous serving of Cormac McCarthy's The Road to darken the proceedings. We never see urban Australia, only deserty, dusty villages and citizens who are the socially and economically marginalized.

In this savage milieu is Eric (the always terrific Guy Pearce), a man who looks haggard and unwashed, with a Sisyphean boulder-size chip on his shoulder though we don't know how it got there. He stops at a decrepit bar for a drink, only to have his car stolen by three men with guns. Seeing his car receding in the dusty distance, he manages to extricate the truck the men left behind from tangled cables and junk. In pursuit of the men, he tries to bump them off the road but is unsuccessful. After the men stop, he demands his vehicle be returned then attacks one of the men, only to get knocked out in the process. He wakes to find the truck and himself abandoned in a field but after a scan of the immediate area, he finds the keys. His obsessive pursuit of the vehicle continues as he makes stops along the way, questioning people who look as ragged as he--and sometimes worse--as to the men's whereabouts.

Michot's pointed allegory on the current global, economic decline couldn't be more obtrusive. We even see the economic fallout from the Collapse; all transactions are conducted in American currency.

Among the characters Eric encounters, it is interesting to see not only Caucasians, but Asians, Aborigines, Africans and even Texans, whose peculiar prescence in the outback will be addressed shortly.

Eric stops at what is a sort of a brothel of young men. In questioning the odd madame about the the men who stole his vehicle, he receives little but enigmatic, useless information. Shortly thereafter, he tries to buy a gun from a diminutive man but when he balks at the little man's asking price, Eric shoots him in the head--a very shocking and disturbing development, to say the least. Eric's determination to achieve his goal, by whatever aggressive means necessary, becomes conspicuously clear.

It is also clear that the authorities' response to the violence is ineffectual or remote or both. Or so it seems. Hot on Eric's tail is what looks like military law enforcement in Humvees and camouflage.

Along the way, Eric happens upon the brother of one of the men who stole his car, named Rey (an excellent Robert Pattinson). Rey is bleeding in his side from a gunshot wound sustained in a shoot-out, after which he was left behind by his brother. When Eric discovers Rey's brother was involved in the car-theft, he takes him along as a kind of hostage, pressing him for his brother's whereabouts.

Eric has little time or inclination to be chatty in his pursuit of the three men while Rey, a slow-witted man with a Texan accent, is more prone to idle talk. Hearing Pattinson's accent is unusual but he executes it with some authenticity. When the taciturn, taut-jawed Eric asks Rey why he happens to be in Australia, the latter mumbles something about 'mining,' which speaks volumes about how the economic collapse has left many desperate and itinerant.

Eric's mysterious obsession with recovering his car isn't revealed until the end, which makes his single-minded pursuit all the more puzzling. What fuels his rage? Is it his disgust with everything the world has become? It might be tempting to dismiss Eric as a nihilist but that would be an oversimplification of his worldview. A clue emerges later but I'll refrain from revealing it here.

I was a big fan of Michot's Animal Kingdom, with its often gruesome and unsentimental look at the criminal underbelly of Australian society and I'm drawn to his world again. It isn't often we see a place depicted with such despair, where compassion is mostly a liability and violence always a means to an end. Michot doesn't give us the desolate beauty of Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout or the sinister, surreal loveliness of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock but deserty decay and waste that wants to devour home and human alike. To match Michot's stygian imagery, we have Antony Partos' dark, haunting score as the film's ideal companion; understated and edgy.

Pearce can always be counted on to assume a fascinating character and play the hell out of it, which he does here while Pattinson shows us he is distancing himself further from his teen-dream Twilight character. Rey's bodily tics and slow, halting speech are characteristics Pattinson wears rather than merely affects.

I find Michot's dark, violent worlds worthy of exploration. In The Rover he doesn't shy away from making a political statement about a place and time we might inhabit if we can't avert self-destructive tendencies. I hope the world has the wisdom and compassion to avoid a condition that looks and feels like Michot's nightmare.

Lullaby

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Andrew Levitas/Starring: Richard Jenkins, Garrett Hedlund, Amy Adams, Anne Archer, Jessica Brown Findlay, Jennifer Hudson, Terrence Howard and Jessica Barden

With a cast like that of Lullaby, one might think director Andrew Levitas would have little trouble dramatizing a dying man's last day but somehow an awe-inspiring assemblage of talent can't save what is essentially a dull, tedious, slog.

Richard Jenkins plays Robert Lowenstein, a one-time, cunning business executive who is now literally on his deathbed. He has lost his resolve to fight his illness and is eager to remove the machines and tubes to which he is connected, thus bringing his life to a tragic end. While his wife Rachel (Anne Archer) tends to him, she also defies his efforts to end his life. So far, so fine. Enter his son Jonathan (Garrett Hedlund); a broody, James Dean-like musician who has returned, albeit reluctantly, to see his father and mend the discord between them these past 12 years. Garrett Hedlund is a charismatic actor who has yet to find his breaththrough role. One might remember him from Inside Llewyn Davis as the mysterious, taciturn companion of John Goodman. Here he is the figure around whom other characters and actions seem to revolve, which is strange; given the fact that it is his father who is dying. Not long after Jonathan arrives, his lawyer-sister, petulantly played by Jessica Brown Findlay, shows up to announce she has initiated an injunction to stop her father from ending his life, which is to take place the next day. Jonathan is outraged and angry as the brother/sister animosity surfaces, thus providing the film another conflict.

It is here where the family dynamics are laid bare: Jonathan angry with his father for past offenses, Jonathan angry with sister for vague reasons (though being absent from his father's side for many years is a major component), daughter angrily rejecting her father's wish to die and the mother also fighting her husband's right to die and...anything else? Thankfully no, though Garrett does meet a 17 year-old girl named Meredith (Jessica Barden)--a terminally ill, bone cancer patient-- in the hospital stairwell while enjoying a family-stress smoke. It is an immediate tip-off from their meeting the two will form some sort of bond during this crisis and become friends. Glaring plot contrivance, anyone?

Joining this circus-like melodrama is Jonathan's old flame Emily, inexplicably played by Amy Adams, whose extraordinary talent can often defibrillate the most insipid movies with her presence and charm. I'm not sure what she saw in such a cardboard cut-out of a role but she is mostly around to remind us how Jonathan not only alienated his family in his past but lovers too. How anyone could waste Adams' talent so badly is mystifying. The same can be said for Terrance Howard and Jennifer Hudson--the doctor and nurse duo tending to Robert--whose characters are so marginal in the story one might think they were movie-catering staffers who happened to step in front of the camera. That's three Oscar-nominated actors relegated to dull, peripheral roles while the principal actors are left to play out unconvincing characters unconvincingly. Anne Archer wears a pained expression throughout, but if it's supposed to be grief, it comes off more as acute dyspepsia.

Hedlund's Jonathan is the young, smoking, existential anti-hero that comes in convenience store script six-packs. We know that sooner or later he will reconcile with his old flame (though not rekindle), dance with the terminally ill Meredith at a makeshift hospital room prom and the family will all gather on the father's bed (Doctor too!), for what must be the greatest orgy of tears in cinema this century.

The film concludes with Jonathan performing a song inspired by his father before a substantial theater gathering, while Emily smiles and sings along in the wings. Everything turns out alright; all the strife is washed away, Jonathan and Meredith blow kisses to one another as a final goodbye and life is beautiful again.

I hope the man sitting next to me didn't interpret my heaving chest as uncontrollable sobbing. If he had looked closer, he might have seen me suppressing seismic laughter. If only the film had been a comedy.

Code Black

Director: Ryan McGarry

Winner of numerous Best Documentary prizes in 2013, Code Black is a powerful, sobering and disquieting film about young doctors and doctor-hopefuls serving on the staff of The L.A. County Hospital. From them we learn much about the past and present state of healthcare in America and how its prohibitive cost is denying the poor and uninsured proper medical attention. But the film is much more than that.

We learn from L.A. County doctors and staff how the old hospital was once the location of one of the busiest emergency units in the country. Nicknamed C-Booth, the room was once a intense hive of activity, with throngs of medical technicians, nurses and doctors all congregated in what resembled a chaotic scrum. According to one doctor, it would only appear that way to someone unfamiliar with the procedures and roles of those involved. We also learn that the unit was once a place where more people died and more people were saved than anywhere else in the country. C-Booth attains a kind of legendary status among those who served and were served in the unit.

Because the old L.A. County Hospital wasn't up to earthquake code, a new building was erected next door, which meant the end of C-Booth and the beginning of a dramatic change not only in environment, but in how medical service was administered. Larger than its predecessor, the new hospital offers more modern facilities but the young doctors and doctor hopefuls learn that much was lost in migration.

The hospital uses a color coding system to discern the number of patients awaiting care. Black (hence the title) is a designation meaning a waiting room filled to capacity. It's sad and tragic to learn that because so many of the poor and uninsured come to the County Hospital for care, the waiting area can become a welter of sick and those who need immediate attention; sometimes waiting as long as 18 hours to be seen.

The young doctors express their frustration with the system and the heavy politicized nature of healthcare in America. We meet the doctors, learn their histories and how they came to medicine--some having once been patients with life-threatening issues--but what is of paramount concern to them is their indefatigable compassion. One doctor remembers watching as a friend with severe brain trauma was given less-than-optimal care, which inspired him to study medicine. In another scene, we see the young doctors gathered around a restaurant table, discussing the impact of reality upon their ideals. It is ispiring to hear them address the nightmarish problem of treating so many--often with little staff and funding--with care and love; the pursuit of hefty salaries of no concern.

Politics and economic constraints are lamented. A chart of the US and the number of county hospitals in the country willing to serve the needy is so appallingly small as to be alarming. One doctor says that because medical care is geared toward the bottom-line, the poor and needy are seen as not being profitable. It is probably not-surprising that so many of those seen waiting are minorities. But as we see later; a caucasian woman in her 50s', left homeless and penniless when her law practice was embezzled, is forced to seek care as one of the needy. It is a heart-wrenching scene; one meant to draw a slender thread between the financially able and the poor. The fact that so many of us are only a hairsbreadth from such a condition is very worrisome.

In a more optimistic turn, the young doctor's analyze the success of the former C-Booth, citing the intimacy of the room and the visibility of the patient as keys to better treatment. They undertake to simulate the old unit and in doing so, dramatically reduce the waiting time of the patients. The hospital also manages to replenish its dwindling nursing staff and re-open wings formerly closed because of economic hardship.

McGarry skillfully weaves the personal with the socio-political effectively; shedding light on a system in need of dire care and repair. The viewer is well-aware that the beseiged doctors face many ferocious adversaries with ever diminishing resources. Though the statistics offer little optimism, the County staffs across the country seem to be valiantly waging a war against the commodification of healthcare, hoping to reinstate humane, compassionate--and passionate--care for the politically and economically marginalized. Code Black is forceful, touching, unsentimental, a kind of call to arms and ultimately a wrenching experience.

22 Jump Street

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller/Starring: Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Ice Cube, Nick Offerman and Peter Stormare

Apparently a movie need not be very good to merit a sequel but here we are with 22 Jump Street, which is just that. The cast from the first movie is back with a sprinkle of cameos thrown in for at least decent measure.

The story merely exists to provide context and something resembling a plot but the movie really is just a string of gags, mostly bloodless and dumb but occasionally something that registers as amusing or funny accidentally happens.

Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are assigned a new case involving a drug called WhyPhy, which is making the rounds among the students of Metro State, a local college. The two cops go undercover as college students to find the supplier. The joke of course, like the first movie, is that Schmidt and Jenko look a little old to be students; which is the observation of more than just one student.

A student under investigation who died using the drug is seen in a photo supposedly handing it to another student with a tattoo, which is what Schmidt and Jenko use as a lead. While Schmidt's separate investigation leads to a romance with an attractive student named Maya (an intoxicating Amber Stevens), Jenko strikes up a friendship with a football player named Zook (Wyatt Russell). The friendship threatens the quasi-gay relationship Schmidt and Jenko have enjoyed since the first film. So much of the film is a running gag about the homoeroticism involved between Jenko and Zook and though it is played as something natural and unironic, the joke becomes tired, as does the jealous tension simmering between Schmidt and Jenko.

In one of the movie's (few) funnier developments, Maya turns out to be Captain Dickson's (Ice Cube) daughter; setting the stage for a comically tense situation where both Schmidt and Maya's parents meet for lunch. The scene concludes with Captain Dickson angrily and violently helping himself to the buffet, resulting in food being heaped on his plate and flung about with his hands. Ice Cube shows some comic flare in what is probably (for me) one of my favorite moments in the film. I often found the secondary characters more amusing than Schmidt and Jenko. Nick Offerman's Deputy Chief Hardy returns in this movie and I wished he would have been given more screentime because he is funny in the few scenes allotted to him. The same can be said for Jillian Bell's Mercedes; Maya's hostile roommate and Schmidt antagonist. She is given to making fun of Schmidt's age whenever they happen to be in the room together and her barbs are quite amusing.

If only the movie had been consistently funny rather than just a bundle of infrequent, amusing moments. The content of the first movie was pretty thin material on which to launch a second movie. I wondered throughout if the producers might visit another installment on us in the future but a series of bogus trailers for Jump Street movies (everything from Schmidt and Jenko going undercover in seminary school to an equally absurd dance class) hint that 22 Jump Street might mercifully be the end. Please let that be the case.

Life Itself

Director: Steve James With appearances by Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Chaz Ebert, Richard Corliss, A.O. Scott et. al.

It is astonishing to think that a film critic from the Chicago Sun-Times achieved international fame for simply offering his two-cents on films. Roger Ebert was well known to cinephiles and non-cinephiles alike and his appearance on television and in printed media always seemed like a given. A documentary about Ebert seems redundant when one considers the ubiquity of his prescence. But Steve James, the talented documentary filmmaker behind Hoop Dreams, Reel Dreams and Stevie, now offers us a moving, extraordinary biopic on a man I thought I knew.

We first see Ebert in the hospital in what was the last year of his life. His jaw is incurably slack, leaving him with his mouth continuously open; his non-existent lower palate a grim reminder of his thyroid cancer, which made intraveneous feedings necessary and left him barely able to walk. It is Ebert's insistence that he be filmed in this state though it is often difficult to watch.

James' film alternately visits Ebert's past and present and in doing so leaves us with a startling contrast. Much of the film's narration is taken from Ebert's memoir Life Itself and what I thought was a recording of Ebert is actually actor Stephen Stanton, whose voice is almost indistinguishable from Ebert himself.

We see Ebert in old photographs from his childhood in Urbana, Illinois and hear from friends and colleagues how eager he was to have a by-line. His parents encouraged his writing, which eventually earned him the editor's role in his college newspaper. Ebert's friends remember his time as editor as being exceptional for his coverage of salient events of the day, including the violence surrounding the civil-rights struggles in the south.

The film moves on to Ebert's job at the Chicago Sun-Times; where he was offered his coveted by-line as the film critic; a position he would hold for decades. Even the prestige of the Pulitzer prize and lucrative job offers from the New York Times and the Boston Globe couldn't lure Ebert from his position at the Chicago Sun-Times.

From here we enter a darker period of his life, focusing on Ebert's alcoholism, which he remembers as a very real agent in his near-destruction. From the narration, we learn that if not for his terrible hang-overs, he may not have overcome his illness in the late 70s'. By then he was already well on his way to achieving celebrity status with his famous counterpart Gene Siskel on the syndicated movie-review show, which underwent numerous name-changes over the years.

A more humorous, obscure episode in his life was his work as screenwriter for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, a film for which Martin Scorsese offers a tentative endorsement. It is also touching to hear Scorsese talk about Ebert's review of his first feature film, which brought the filmmaker attention, if not acclaim. Later we listen to Scorsese discuss a bleak low-point in his life and career in the late 70s' and how a tribute to his work by Siskel and Ebert at the Toronto Film Festival helped extricate the director from a morose phase. To hear Scorsese tearfully recount the experience, we are moved by his gratitude to the two critics. Scorsese's involvement in the film as Executive Producer might reflect this. It is also interesting to hear Scorsese recall Ebert's pan of The Color of Money; an act for which the director holds no grudge. The account underscores how critics and filmmakers share an uneasy and sometimes adversarial relationship.

We also learn about the behind-the-scenes evolution of Siskel and Ebert's show, whose audience continued to swell in the 1980s' and 1990s'. What began as mutual contempt between the critics, morphed into a close, fraternal relationship. It is astonishing to hear how Ebert felt he was closer to Siskel than any other man in his entire life.

One of the key moments in Ebert's life was his marriage to Chaz Ebert, who contributes her own personal accounts throughout the film. Ebert cites his deep, fulfilling relationship with Chaz as a life-impacting experience. We see her as she lovingly attends to his needs, which were many in his physically diminished state.

Many filmmakers weigh in on what Ebert meant to their careers. Errol Morris discusses Ebert's review of his film Gates of Heaven, which helped bring critical acclaim while Werner Herzog speaks fondly of seeing Ebert's star on his strolls on the walk of fame. Critics also have their say; most notably Richard Corliss, who feuded with Ebert over the supposed dumbing down of film criticism, specifically leveled against the syndicated program.

What it all amounts to is a fascinating, touching portrait of a man who achieved fame for something that doesn't normally bestow fame on practitioners. No film critic since has touched such stratospheric heights and most likely ever will again.

James' film is absorbing, sometimes heartbreaking and often unflinching. Whatever one believes about Ebert as a person or critic, one indisputable truth is his love for cinema. The fact that he spent part of the last year of his life watching films attests to the validity of the statement. For someone who grew up reading and listening to Ebert's reviews, I can honestly say everyone who writes about film, including myself, owes him some kind of debt.
It is interesting to see the camera turned on a critic. We are watching a film about a guy who watched films. It is an interesting paradox and for Life Itself, it makes perfect sense.

Words and Pictures

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Fred Schepisi. Starring: Clive Owen, Juliette Binoche, Bruce Davison and Amy Brenneman

Clive Owen plays Jack Marcus, a private school English teacher who is also a writer of minor renown. When he isn't arriving late for school, he is angry with his class for what he sees as their creative torpor. He also edits the school literary magazine, which is in a slump. The school administration and board threaten to stop publication of the magazine due to the modest quality of the content. Jack contends with a slump of his own in his writing life; a fact weighing against him in his fight to retain the school publication. Compounding Jack's professional misfortunes are his drinking problem and a strained relationship with his estranged son, who he rarely sees but with whom he shares awkward phone conversations.

Enter Dina Delsanto (Juliette Binoche), a painter who has enjoyed some acclaim for her work but has left the city to join the faculty at Jack's school as an art teacher. Her reputation for being difficult precedes her and in the first meeting between Jack and Dina, she coldly resists the playful game he enjoys (and which members of the faculty find annoying) where he asks players to come up with multi-syllabled words. The two share some repartee but Dina mostly gives him the cold shoulder.

If Jack's flaw is his drinking, Dina's is more physical; she has rheumatoid arthritis that is growing progressively worse and which interferes with her work. She often tosses her brush or slashes at the canvass in frustration, unable to maintain motor control.

The movie sets up the characters nicely but they are also too familiar: the hard-drinking writer facing an uninspired class and an artist losing her ability to create. There is more than a whiff of cliche here, which is too bad because Owen and Binoche, two excellent actors with enough screen presence to ignite a haystack, deserve better. They manage to distract the audience from the shortcomings of the writing to keep us watching.

As Jack warms to Dina; the two continue to trade multi-syllabic words in the hallway and her class. A mutual-attraction develops. Adding some color to their budding romance is a debate the two agree to stage where they argue the merits of words versus pictures. Both Jack and Dina have respective moments in class where they hope to convince the students of their arguments. Jack tries to impart an appreciation of the power of words, citing the Declaration of Independence ('We hold these truths to be self-evident...') to underscore the impact of his point. That Jack would use the most famous lines of the Declaration is odd, given their hypocritical nature. He seems to forget that words in political documents can sometimes ring false and hollow if they lack the gold-standard of action to support them. For a professor so bright, this seems like a glaring omission but I guess we are supposed to be in awe of Jack's rhetorical brilliance. In class, the students egg on the teachers, with "Mr. Marcus said' and 'Miss Delsanto said;' which are their pointed attempts to create tension for the coming debate.

The film, like it's nuance-challenged title, makes a stab at the cerebral with its various themes related to words, language, pictures and drawings and the failings of all to sometimes effectively convey meaning and emotion. This could have been explored with some depth but like everything in the film, the themes are worn as fashionable garments; desperately grasping at intellectual credibility.

Again, this is too bad because Binoche and Owen share some fun moments with prickly repartee. Dina's struggle with arthritis could have and should have been a tragic, powerful subplot while Jack's eventual disclosure to the school board that he submitted a poem his son wrote to the new issue of the school literary magazine--an act that threatens his job and fractures his newly-established romance with Dina--seems like another unconvincing, mechanical plot contrivance to show he still has some semblance of integrity. As Jack bears accountibility for his ethical breach and addresses his crippling drinking problem, Dina manages to deal with her arthritis.

Many scenes made me cringe, particularly the one in which the class jerk, Swint (Adam DiMarco) greets Jack outside the school with a salute and 'My Captain, My Captain.' This unwelcomingly recalls Peter Weir's unfortunate, equally cringe-worthy Dead Poet's Society. Another is a sequence where Jack smashes his belongings in his home to further express his frustration, which reads more like the director's we-need-to-show-Jack-losing-control memo to Clive Owen rather than unpredictable, unanticipated behaviour.

And when the debate finally arrives, it's a major disappointment, concluding in what seems to be minutes. Nothing of any importance is exchanged; only interesting quotes by notable artists and writers and Jack's platitudinous chatter about how words and pictures are of equal value and importance and blah, blah, blah.

The Owen/Binoche chemistry is incandescent but the script, Schepisi's stubborn sentimentality, and the film's lazy, cotton-candy intellectualism scuttle what promise the movie had. If movies were merely words and pictures, then an infant's haphazard scribblings would serve just as well as a screenplay. Maybe that's what the cast had to work with.

We Are the Best!

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Lukas Moodysson Starring: Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin and Liv LeMoyne

Swedish cinema in a Summer of Hollywood blockbusters is a strange sight, but hardly an unwelcome one.
Lukas' Moodysson's We Are the Best! takes place in Stockholm, early 1980s'. Two young Swedish friends named Klara and Bobo, are dissatisfied with their parents and home-lives, which they find uncool. Both love punk rock and sport hairstyles to match their musical taste. The girls are social outcasts and are mostly ridiculed at school but what they have is each other. When Klara (Mira Grosin), the feistier of the two, hears some vexing rock music blaring from a youth center, she and Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) barge into the place, demanding equal time to practice their music. The problem is, their band is non-existent though they don't divulge that crucial fact. The band they heard, made up of older guys, are miffed that the girls demand time for themselves but the men organizing the center grant them a weekly time-slot.

Unable to play a single note, Klara and Bobo wield their instruments incompetently but manage to make noise suitable to their punk taste. Klara, ever the leader and the provocateur, begins fashioning lyrics about her disdain for authority figures, like their gym teacher, who forces the unathletic duo to participate in team sports.

Bobo contends with a home-life with a mother who seems to be drawn to every man who is wrong for her while her father is mostly absent from her life. Klara has little patience for her family, who often barge into the her room where the girl's brain-storm lyrics for their songs, insisting they accompany them musically. Her father comically employs a clarinet; an instrument incongruously un-punk. Though the girls improve with repeated jamming sessions, their music remains very raw.

One day they see a classmate perform a classical guitar piece in a school talent show. Though her talent is conspicuous, Klara hates the classical piece, but the booing the girl endures strikes a sympathetic chord with the girls. They approach her the next day at lunch and strike up a friendship. They learn her name is Hedvig (Liv Lemoyne) and eventually recruit her not only into their misfit outfit, but also into their band.

Hedvig is as much an outcast as Klara and Bobo. It isn't long before the girls, while dining with Hedvig's family one night, decide to punk-ify Hedvig's long, plain hairstyle. It is startling to see the transformation, as if Hedvig's former identity is lost in the new coif.
With Hedvig's musical guidance, the band's sound slowly evolves from the discordant to more palatable noise.

As the girl's rebellious streak runs deeper, they begin to show more signs of social mischief, if not disobediance. Hedvig, the reserved voice of reason in the friendship, eventually embraces Bobo and Klara's punkish ethos. One school cafeteria lunch degenerates into a food-fight between the girls as their perplexed schoolmates look on.
As boys become a fact of life, Klara and Bobo's friendship becomes frayed when the two fall for the same boy, which calls for Hedvig to intervene and restore order.

The film is very much driven by the performances of the actors, who are superb in what sometimes seem improvisatory scenes. The girl's impending musical performance is a vague destination in the film while their growth as true rebels--the kind the boy rock band in the film could only dream of being--progresses to disruptive acts. We see the girls in the final credits upsetting patrons in a fast-food establishment by climbing into a large, cardboard box while an angry manager and staff person forcefully remove the girls from the premises. It is apparent the scene is real; the girls unleash their characters on an unsuspecting crowd.

The three girls call to mind the Russian punk-performance band Pussy Riot, which is most likely Moodysson's intention. Punk music is only one weapon in the girl's arsenal of anti-social expressions and the more they act out, the more society seems staid and conformist. When the girls are booed and targeted with projectiles during a performance, they defiantly proclaim they are the best, as the title suggests. It is a good thing art can still imitate life; it would be a sadder world if humanity were free of people like Klara, Bobo and Hedvig roaming the planet, protesting major and minor injustices. And the world of cinema would be sadder if it didn't remind us sometimes that rebelliousness can still find expression in a world where everyone seems to be intoxicated with hand-held devices and the hyper-ephemerality of the internet.

Edge of Tomorrow

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Doug Liman Starring: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton and Brendan Gleeson

Tom Cruise, a sci-fi story, Summer movie season...sound familiar? Given his track record the last few years, it would be reasonable to expect one more tiresome Cruise movie but I was surprised to find he disappointed me--in the most pleasing way. Edge of Tomorrow isn't an assault on the ears and eyes with techno-mayhem straining movie-screen borders, but an exciting, edgy thriller with brains and heart. Sure, it has its moments of destruction and violence but with a terrific script by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, and John Henry Butterworth; based on the novel All You Need is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, it is all a part of the story-fabric rather than an end.

Tom Cruise plays Major Cage, a PR military officer of sorts whose sole responsibility is luring recruits for a war with an alien race called Mimics who have occupied most of Europe though they are contained for the moment. Cage travels to London to meet with General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson), who commands the British/American forces in the war. Brigham orders Cage to join the D-Day-like invasion of the beaches of France to film the combat for recruitment purposes. Cage balks at the idea; demonstrating an appalling lack of spine. Before he can leave the building, Brigham has him tasered and arrested for desertion. Cage wakes to find himself being ordered about by a tough Master-Sargeant named Farell (played amusingly by Bill Paxton) on a military base (formerly Heathrow Airport). Cage is treated as a deserter and stripped of his rank while forced to join a shabby unit who are scheduled to join the invasion force the next day.

His brothers-in-arms have little respect or patience for his un-trained, ill-prepared condition and let him know it; mocking him at every turn. Cage continues to resist the deployment but it proceeds as planned as the aircraft transporting the unit takes enemy fire, forcing the soldiers to leap willy-nilly from the craft's interior.
On the beach, destruction and chaos reign as soldiers are crushed by flying craft shot down from the sky and riddled with enemy rounds. Cage wanders about, afraid and tentative until he comes face to face with the alien enemy: a kind of octopus/spider hybrid; all tentacles and spinning, lethal aggression. While the tentacled creatures batter the humans about, including Cage, he manages to kill a nastier, bigger Mimic known as an Alpha, which drenches him in blood. Cage is also killed in the process. Or is he?

In time Cage learns that Mimic blood has given him the ability to re-live the day from the moment he arrives at the Heathrow base and in doing so, he learns the invasion will fail regardless of military intervention. He tries to convince the soldiers in his unit of his ability and what it means for them but it all has little effect.

While reliving the invasion, Cage meets a soldier who has become the face of the resistance; a no-nonsense woman named Rita (Emily Blunt), who can be seen in recruitment posters with the nickname "Full Metal Bitch."
After several loops where Cage saves Rita from a Mimic attack, she says to him "come and see me when you wake-up." Cage manages to find Rita during her rigorous training with Mimic-facsimiles. She is wary of him at first but understands his predicament. We learn thereafter that she too had his ability once but a blood transfusion dispelled the alien hemoglobin, rendering her unable to loop. Rita explains to Cage that the Mimics are controlled by a centralized mind called an Omega and because his blood has mingled with the aliens, they can attach a transponder--designed by Rita's tech go-to guy Dr. Carter (Noah Taylor)--to Cage that will allow them to locate the Omega. Rita also explains that if the Omega isn't destroyed, the Mimics will win the war because an enemy that knows the future can anticipate any attack. The Omega sends them on a wild-goose chase to a false location but after more looping and Cage's Mimic-ispired visions, they locate the alien mind, which rests underwater inside the subterranean chambers of the Louvre. In a clever twist, Cage also loses his ability to loop, which adds a tense, exciting wrinkle to their final mission.

The film is well-paced, very well-acted and exceptionally plotted. Because Cage relives one particular day, a la Groundhog Day, opportunities for humor abound and pervade what is mostly a dramatic, sci-fi story. It is amusing to see Cage anticipate Master-Sargent Farell's commands and befuddle his hostile unit with facts about their lives.

Blunt and Cruise share some glowing onscreen chemistry. It is refreshing to see Blunt's character as decisive and proactive while Cruise's Cage often follows her lead. Cage and Rita eventually establish an egalitarian bond that runs contrary to the male-always-leads default setting common in most Hollywood action films.

The skein the film creates with its wonderful plot is kept tangle-free though it also keeps one alert. I really liked the ending, which returns the story to something more human after the intensity of the climax. I also had to chuckle, seeing Paris and the Louvre reduced to stone detritus and the Eiffel Tower woefully toppled onto its side. Why Paris seems to always be the whipping boy in many sci-fi action movies is a mystery. I guess Hollywood filmmakers feel American audiences would rather the French suffer the devastation of an alien invasion than New Yorkers or Angelenos.

Doug Liman has given us Go with it's multiple threaded storyline and the hyper-kinetic Bourne Identity and here he gives us a little of both. One can only hope the rest of the Summer offerings will be as entertaining and intelligent. I left the theater feeling the current movie season at the multiplex might not be a bummer after-all. But it's only June.

Maleficent

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Robert Stromberg Starring: Anjelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Imelda Staunton, Lesley Manville, Juno Temple, and Sam Riley

Maleficent, the former nether-hellion from Cinderella, is back but with a character make-over that is both sympathetic and more nuanced. She is also now an anti-heroine and I found myself cheering her on and frowning at the wrongs visited upon her.

Starring a well-cast Anjelina Jolie in the title role, Maleficent is a fairy in a nature-friendly kingdom that is the very incarnation of utopian perfection. Almost adjacent to the kingdom is another; inhabited by humans and ruled by King Henry (Kenneth Cranham) who is determined to destroy everything Maleficent and her kind call home. Tangling this development is Maleficent's love for a human prince named Stefan (Sharlto Copley), who once reciprocated her love.

Maleficent's kingdom suffers an unprovoked attack but the humans are no match for the fairy Queen and the formidable creatures she can summon; including tree-like entities who resemble Tolkien's Ents. Maleficent can also vent her fury on the humans with frightening wings that can cause powerful gusts and batter humans senselessly. The attack is repelled but King Henry on his deathbed promises the crown to whomever can slay Maleficent; a task Stefan undertakes but with reluctance and reservation.

Stefan returns to Maleficent, downplaying his role in the attack and in doing so, charms her. As she slumbers, Stefan slices her wings from her body, which severely diminishes her power in literal and figurative ways.

In presenting the wings to the king, Stefan secures the crown and adding grievous insult to ignominious injury, marries another woman who bears him a beautiful daughter named Aurora. On the day she is to receive magical gifts from three fairies Flittle (Lesley Manville), Knotgrass (Imelda Staunton) and Thistletwit (Juno Temple), Maleficent arrives to curse the child (you know how) and vex King Stefan in the process.

The fairies hide Aurora in the forest but Maleficent's raven/humanoid assistant Diaval (Sam Riley) is able to locate the princess-protection program, thereby allowing the Queen access to the baby. But in a refreshing departure from the conventional story, Maleficent guides rather than menaces Aurora, becoming a maternal figure of sorts. It is King Stefan, in this story, who is the nemesis and baddie. The film leads to a showdown between the adversaries, which is yet another departure from the Cinderella story we all know.

I really liked Anjelina Jolie is this role, which she wears like a comfortable, sexy, cashmere coat. She relishes the mannerisms and her otherworldly facial beauty almost steals the show. Her characteristic high cheekbones are accentuated by prosthetics, which lend her face a sinister beauty while her false-color contacts only mesmerize.
I've tired of her recent roles where she plays CIA-like operatives who can leap from bridges and run up walls to deliver bad-ass kicks. Maleficent is a welcome change for Jolie and she performs beautifully. The supporting cast are quite terrific also: Manville, Staunton and Temple bring bumbling humor to the fairy roles while Sam Riley--always the dark, brooding, edgy presence in other films--has the opportunity to shine in a lighter, more amusing role as Maleficent's factotum. Elle Fanning is the precious innocent, who contrasts nicely with Anjelina Jolie's demonic appearance.

In Cinderella, women are either threatening or frivolous or passive things in need of true love's kiss but this 21st century revisionist take will have none of that. Maleficent is the misunderstood and wronged party and it isn't her rage and thirst for vengeance that threatens the peace but King Stefan. It seems entirely natural that Maleficent would take Aurora under her wing (if you forgive the expression) and guide her rather than dispatch her with a spindle from a spinning wheel.

We root for Maleficent now. It will be nigh impossible to watch Cinderella again without pulling for the woman who was heretofore known as the story's antagonist. Maleficent is a pleasant surprise. It is hardly earth-shaking but it is fun to watch and much of the credit for that goes to Anjelina Jolie, who seduces us with her beauty and wields power the way she wields her wings; with judicial authority and feminine resolve.

A Million Ways to Die in the West

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Amanda Seyfried, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman, Neil Patrick Harris, and Wes Studi

One wouldn't see Seth MacFarlane's A Million Ways to Die in the West for the sweeping vistas or characters with contradictions and dark, ulterior motives usually found in John Ford westerns. But if you happened to be looking for a film that lampoons westerns with crudely-served scatalogical humor, or skewers the prevailing myths of the old west in the same manner, then A Million Ways to Die in the West is what you're looking for.

From an original script by MacFarlane, Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild, A Million Ways to Die in the West tells a revisionist, deconstructive story of the west that is gleefully anachronistic. One knows what one is in for with Seth MacFarlane, particularly from the theatrical trailer, so no illusions about sophisticated humor, please.

Set in Arizona in the 1880s', Seth MacFarlane plays a cowardly sheep-farmer named Albert who detests everything about living in the frontier and says so in a soliloquy itemizing the kind of things that can kill you in the west in a way that is more perspective-from-the-future. It is a running gag in the film that Albert is a terrible sheep-farmer, as his herd is usually scattered all about, including the roof of his home.

Albert is in love with his sweetheart Louise (Amanda Seyfried) but the relationship sours when she grows tired of his character flaws and his inability to be a competent sheep-farmer. She falls in love with the town dandy, Foy (Neil Patrick Harris) who owns a shop that serves men with mustaches. Albert's lack of facial hair is a subtle jab at his lack of masculinity, which Foy exploits one day when Albert wanders in the mustache shop. MacFarlane always cuts a strange figure in movies with his bizarre, blemishless, alabaster complexion but it serves him well here; his smooth skin a comic reminder that a hairless face is something to be avoided in the frontier west

Unable to win Louise back, Albert is helped by a tough, tall, beautiful blonde named Anna who enters the town to rescue her brother from the jailhouse. Anna is married to the most ruthless, intimidating gunfighter named Clinch (Liam Neeson) who discovers his wife has kissed Albert, which leads to a High Noon-like confrontation later in the story. In the meantime, Anna helps Albert to overcome his love for Louise.

The story is secondary, most of the time, to the sight gags and jokes about the old west and the culture. One of them-and an amusing one-is the talk about having one's picture taken and how noone is supposed to smile. Albert shares a story about how he heard someone in Texas actually smiled during a photo, which seems outlandish and unbelievable to Anna and Albert. Another involves Albert's best friend Edward (Giovanni Ribisi), a morally upstanding young man who refuses to bed his fiancee Ruth (Sarah Silverman) before their wedding though she is a town prostitute who is visited at least ten times a day by clients--a fact known to everyone and Edward alike. It is quite funny to listen to Edward and Ruth talk wholesomely about saving themselves for marriage then hear her called gruffly by a saloon patron upstairs for sex, to which she promptly and dutifully complies; leaving Edward sitting pathetically at the table. The jokes are hit and miss and for the latter half of the movie, the story's almost serious narrative kills the momentum of the comedy as if MacFarlane forgot the movie is supposed to be a raunchy farce.

A Million Ways to Die in the West has its inspired moments but they seem too scarce. I'm not averse to humor dealing with bodily functions but films like MacFarlane's seem to use it as a crutch; betraying the famine of ideas that must have beset the screenwriting. A scene involving a duel between Foy and Albert, which ends up with the former defecating in the street seems borrowed by scores of gross-out comedies, including the recent Bridesmaids.

The cast rides along with the raunch and silliness. Sarah Silverman is quite amusing, as is Wes Studi's Cochise and Neil Patrick Harris with his foppish, annoying, handlebar mustache.

The film does have its John Ford, sweeping vistas of the desert southwest, which are breathtaking and unusual for a farce like MacFarlane's.

It made me chuckle at times but not enough. The film is one more missed opportunity but I've seen worse, which isn't exactly olympian praise but hardly a categorical dismissal. I'd like to see him try again, but next time remember to be more generous doling out the gags.