Reeling

Review: ''Capitalism: A Love Story''

People who decry his films as self-serving exposes of previously known facts that only preach to the converted miss the overriding achievement of what makes Michael Moore important. For all his lack of objectivity and occasional fact twisting, Moore takes on dauntingly complex subjects - the health care industry, gun control, political abuse of power - and turns them into hugely entertaining, provocative pictures.

You don't necessarily have to agree with Moore to enjoy his movies, although agreeing helps. I can't imagine that too many Goldman Sachs board members are going to be fawning over Capitalism: A Love Story, in which Moore depicts our country's affair with capitalism as a romance gone horribly sour. In his usual mix of vintage film footage, TV news clips and fresh interviews, Moore argues that capitalism has devolved from being a system of giving and taking - which in the 1950s allowed people such as his father, a middle-class auto-industry worker, to pay off his house by the time Moore had entered kindergarten - into a system of mostly taking.

Capitalism: A Love Story illustrates its thesis by hopping from subject to subject, and some information may be new to viewers who don't keep up with their CNN: Airline pilots so poorly paid they have to rely on food stamps and part-time waitressing jobs to get by; a judge who accepted bribes from the privately run juvenile-rehabilitation facility to which he sent kids for posting gossip on their MySpace page; or a little-known policy known as "dead peasants" (which was news to me) in which blue-chip companies such as AT&T take out secret life insurance policies on their employees, naming themselves as sole beneficiary.

Moore also scores some indelible home-video footage, such as a film a family shot as the cops started busting down their door in eviction proceedings. Moore's overall tone in Capitalism is more muted and less comical than in previous films (although several sequences in which he shows up at the offices of corporate giants, trying to interview their CEOs, are so tired even the security guards who ward him off look bored). The movie is a call to arms, or at least to action, although Moore never specifies what that action should be. But this lively, infuriating and occasionally moving film certainly leaves you thinking, and there isn't a dead spot in it. That's the mark of a real filmmaker, not just a muckraker.

Review: ''Zombieland''

 

The zombies of Zombieland don't shamble and shuffle like those of George A. Romero's seminal living-dead pictures. These flesheaters are of the run-and-sprint variety: They come at you with alarming speed, like the ones in the Dawn of the Dead remake or the virus-carriers in 28 Days Later. These zombies are post modern - Undead Version 2.0 - and so is the movie.

More comedy than horror show, Zombieland is the latest - and arguably most irreverent - attempt to wring laughs from a doom-and-gloom scenario in which the world has been overrun by the dead who have risen to eat the living. "I wish I could tell you this was still America," laments Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), the film's narrator, a timid college student who is one of the few remaining survivors of the unspecified plague (an offshoot of mad cow disease) that has decimated the country.

Columbus has devised a list of common-sense rules to ensure survival in this hostile new universe, such as "Cardio," because you'll need to run pretty fast when the undead are after you, or the ever-useful "Double Tap," which means don't be stingy with your bullets, and always pump one more slug into a fallen zombie - just to be sure.

Columbus' safety-first approach to survival is the mirror-opposite of the lackadaisical attitude of Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a gun-toting thrill seeker who roams the country gleefully killing zombies while obsessively searching for the world's last remaining Twinkie. The pair are Zombieland's amusingly mismatched odd-couple heroes; they are eventually joined by sisters (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) enroute to a California amusement park that is rumored to be completely devoid of zombies.

Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick originally conceived of Zombieland as the pilot episode for a TV series, then expanded the script into feature-film length. Plentiful traces remain of the awesome show that might have been, such as a brief interlude, complete with flashy graphics, highlighting the "Zombie Kill of the Week," awarded to the most elaborate and ingenious dispatching of a monster.

The laidback structure of Zombieland, which amiably ambles along with the four protagonists as they embark on a series of mini-adventures, is further evidence of the project's TV roots. A visit to a supermarket, a tour of Beverly Hills and the vandalizing of a souvenir shop for the reckless thrill of it don't exactly add up to a driving plot, which is why Zombieland feels slighter and less essential than previous zombie comedies such as Shaun of the Dead or Return of the Living Dead.

But first-time director Ruben Fleischer gives Zombieland the look and feel of a real movie, framing his widescreen images with impressive skill and creativity. Fleischer also displays a genuine flair for comedic timing (part of the reason the jokes work so well is that they've been shot and edited so skillfully), and he deftly leavens the movie's broad comedic overtones with a layer of pathos, gently reminding us of the great tragedy nestled underneath the laughs, which helps the characters take root as something more than just clowns.

But Fleischer never lets Zombieland tip over into drama for too long, because the overriding mission here is to laugh in the face of the apocalypse (when Harrelson's Tallahassee recounts an unexpectedly moving tragedy from his past, the scene catches you by surprise with its sadness, until Harrelson caps off the story with "I haven't cried like that since Titanic"). Throw in a zombie roller-coaster ride (literally), the best opening-credits sequence since Watchmen and the year's funniest surprise celebrity cameo, and Zombieland becomes a blood-soaked blast of gory - but not too gory - horror fun.

Review: ''Whip It''

The kind of movie that makes the term "formulaic crowd-pleaser'' seem like a good thing, Whip It is completely predictable from the first frame. It also is ridiculously, utterly entertaining. Drew Barrymore's smashing directorial debut harkens back to an era in which Hollywood studio pictures could still move and enthrall the audience while plying in hoary cliches.

Although the setting of Whip It is fresh territory for movies - the independent women's roller-derby circuit - pretty much everything that happens in the film can be traced back to other pictures, from The Karate Kid and The Bad News Bears to Saturday Night Fever. That comparison may sound like a dreary mishmash, but Barrymore, working from a screenplay by Shauna Cross (who adapted her novel, Derby Girl), has crafted a spirited and engratiating coming-of-age tale by focusing on the basics: Character, performance and an unflagging energy that makes the almost two-hour film seem to flit by in half the time.

Ellen Page (Juno) stars as Bliss, a 17-year-old in a dirt-speck Texas town who is resigned to living out the dreams of her parents (Marcia Gay Harden and Daniel Stern) by competing in regional beauty pageants that celebrate conformity and tradition. Intrigued by a flier advertising a roller-derby competition in nearby Austin, Bliss and her best friend Pash (Alia Shawkat) sneak out to catch one of the raucous, booze-soaked games, lying about their age to get inside the warehouse where the event is held.

 Bliss is instantly smitten by the camaraderie and abandon of the skaters, who sport such names as "Maggie Mayhem'' and "Bloody Polly'' and seem to be having the time of their lives smacking the hell out of each other. Although tiny and frail-looking, Bliss is inspired to attend the open tryouts for the Hurl Scouts team. After she makes the cut, she begins to lead a double life, telling her parents she's taking SAT prep courses while actually learning the rough-and-tumble ways of a roller-derby girl.

Barrymore, who also appears as one of the Hurl Scouts' most injury-prone skaters, treats the sport with the same carefree attitude the athletes do: This isn't the Super Bowl or the World Series but simply something recreational for the girls to do outside of their normal lives as wives, mothers and career women (only the team's exasperated coach, amusingly played by Andrew Wilson, seems really to care about winning).

A terrific ensemble cast, which includes Saturday Night Live's Kristen Wiig, stuntwoman Zoe Bell, the singer Eve and a re-energized Juliette Lewis, convey the allure and sheer fun of the sport. The aura of sisterhood created by the actors is so effective that even when Barrymore resorts to one of the corniest cliches imaginable -- a food fight -- the result is exhilarating.

Whip It also finds room to give Bliss a romantic interest, in the form of a low-key singer (Landon Pigg) who may or may not be as straightforward and honest as he seems. But Barrymore's main focus is the emergence of Bliss' individuality in an atmosphere that doesn't exactly condone out-of-the-box originality. Page, even more likable here than she was in Juno, is at her most effective in scenes opposite her well-intentioned but oppressive parents, who only intend the best for their daughter, but can't differentiate between their own dreams and those of their child.

Barrymore infuses Whip It with her natural, effusive personality, and although the roller-derby sequences are choreographed more for fun and laughs than sportsmanship, she also pulls off the occasional visually striking sequence (such as a lovely scene in which Page and Pigg make out underwater). Whip It doesn't reinvent the cinematic wheel, but the movie does remind you how much fun riding that wheel can be when it's given just the right kind of spin.

Things that make you think ''Why?''

Director David Cronenberg is in discussions with 20th Century Fox to remake his own remake of The Fly. The Hollywood Reporter's Steven Zeitchik reports Cronenberg is intrigued by the prospect of the creatures he could create with contemporary special effects, which have gotten a lot better since 1986.

This is so wrong on so many different levels. How could Cronenberg, who got career-high work out of Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis the first time around, be interested in recreating those characters with other actors? With the possible exception of Jeremy Irons' twisted twin brothers in Dead Ringers, The Fly's mad doctor and his suffering girlfriend are the most memorable protagonists in Cronenberg's canon.

All these years later, The Fly remains one of the grossest and most visceral horror films I've ever seen. I still have trouble watching the sequence in which the monkey teleportation goes seriously haywire, or the scene in which Goldblum's teeth and nails start falling out. The makeup and creature effects in that movie are already awesome. Why redo them with annoying CGI fakery?

The Fly is also a standalone master class in the various tones and tactics horror filmmakers use to scare us. Depending on the scene, the film is a beautiful example of dread and tension (Davis' discovery of those odd hairs on Goldblum's back), sudden shocks (the armwrestling scene, or the baby-delivery bit) and, of course, the old-fashioned gross-out (here, let me vomit some acid on your ankle for a second and see what happens!)

The prospect of Cronenberg returning to material he has already executed so well is disheartening, especially coming from one of the most brazen and iconoclastic genre filmmakers to work within the studio system (anyone who could con Hollywood into releasing films as bizarre and discombobulating as Videodrome and Crash has to rank amongst the all-time greats).

I hope the negotiations between Cronenberg and Fox break down and the project goes kaput, or that someone else directs it. Leave The Fly alone, Mr. Cronenberg. If you want to remake one of your old movies, try Shivers or Rabid. I wouldn't mind seeing new versions of either of those, especially Shivers. That movie is nutty.

Review: ''Fame''

The new Fame is practically identical to Alan Parker's 1980 original -- I mean, it's the same damn movie -- except for all the parts with heart and humor and poignancy and soul and fun. The main difference between the two films -- aside from the fact the original was rated R, to reflect the reality of New York City teenagers, and the new one is rated PG, to reflect the reality of Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers fan clubs -- can be summed up in one scene.

In Parker's version, a dance student is devastated after she's told she doesn't have the talent to cut it at the New York High School of Performing Arts, and appears to be contemplating suicide as a subway car approaches. But when the train hurtles past, she's still standing on the platform, shrugs and says "F--- it. If I can't dance, I'll change to the drama department."

In the new Fame, which was directed by music video veteran (and apparent telenovela buff) Kevin Tancharoen, the dejected dance student, now a boy, still opts not to jump in front of the train. But he collapses in a heap of melodramatic sobs into the arms of his worried pals. Oh, the tragedy!

Oh, the headache this movie gave me! The mostly-unknown actors who make up the cast of Fame are an undeniably talented song-and-dance bunch, blessed with grandly photogenic faces, lovely voices and the moves to go along with them. But the movie does them no favors. For example, Naturi Naughton belts out a beautiful rendition of Out Here On My Own (one of only two songs from the original to survive the jump to 2009, along with the title track, which is wasted over the end credits). But she has been directed to overemote and overact horribly during the performance, instead of allowing her singing to carry the scene, and she comes off like an early-round loser on American Idol, the sort that makes way too many funny faces to be taken seriously.

There are other odes to the original Fame, including a recreation of the impromptu cafeteria jam/dance session (although set to a different song), which gives the film its sole moment of genuine musical juice. But most of this remake, which was written by Allison Burnett, chucks out the multi-layered characterizations and interwoven storylines of Christopher Gore's 1980 screenplay. In their place, we get a dishearteningly rote romance between two students (Asher Book and Kay Panabaker) which could have been lifted out of any teen-oriented TV serial, and an angry, brooding kid (the musically gifted Collins Pennie) waiting for a teacher to step up and break through to him.

The instructors in Fame are all played by familiar TV actors (Megan Mullaly, Kelsey Grammer, Bebe Neuwirth), but with the exception of Mullaly, who at least gets to belt out a number, the roles are all thankless. Debbie Allen, who played the dance teacher in the 1980 film, returns here as the school principal, presumably as a nod to fans of the original. A better tribute would have been to make a movie that didn't condescend to its intended teen audience and coddle them with hollow fairy tales about how, if you do your homework and try really hard, all your dreams will come true, no matter what your lot in life happens to be.

Better still, they should have just left Fame alone. Parker understood that just because you're making a musical doesn't mean you have to coat it in sugar and candy hearts. Forget about living forever: This new Fame will be lucky to hang around for a month.

The Facebook movie gets a cast

Variety reports that director David Fincher has begun putting together the cast for The Social Network, his film about the creation of Facebook based on a screenplay by The West Wing's Aaron Sorkin.

Zombieland's Jesse Eisenberg will play Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Justin Timberlake will play Sean Parker (the former Napster honcho who became Facebook's founding president) and Andrew Garfield will play Eduardo Saverin, the other Facebook founder who left the enterprise over a money dispute. 

If it was anyone other than Fincher directing, The Social Network would smack me as the kind of movie that should be airing on HBO. But after what Fincher did with newspaper reporting and research in Zodiac, I can't wait to see his take on the creation of the most popular online social network ever.

The casting of Eisenberg has a tiny bit of irony, since the actor scores a nice zinger at Facebook's expense in Zombieland. "You know what the best perk about [living in] Zombieland is: No Facebook status updates!"

Viva España!

The Miami International Film Festival, Miami Dade College and Centro Cultural Español-Miami are hosting the Festival of New Spanish Cinema, a weeklong festival of Spanish films running Tuesday Oct. 6 through Sunday Oct. 11 at the Tower Theater, 1508 SW Eighth Street, Miami.

 The series kicks off with a 7 p.m. cocktail reception Tuesday, followed by a screening of The Shame (La verguenza), director David Planell's drama about a married couple (Alberto San Juan and Natalia Mateo, pictured above) who decide their eight-year old adopted Peruvian son is too much for them to handle and contemplate sending him back home.

Here is the schedule for the rest of the festival. Tickets for all screenings are $6 ($5 for Film Society members, MDC students, CCE members and senior citizens) except opening night, which is $10. A special all-screenings pass is $40. For more information, call 305-237-3456.

7:30 p.m. Wed. Oct 7 and Sunday Oct. 11: Camino, an exploration of religious fundamentalism centering on an 11 year-old girl confronting two defining life issues: Love and death.

7:30 p.m. Friday Oct. 9: Amateurs, the story of a lonely 65 year-old retire who must decide if the teenage girl suddenly claiming to be his daughter is telling the truth.

9:30 p.m. Friday Oct. 9: Desperate Women (Enloquecidas), a comic thriller about three women on the trail of a man who may or may not be dead, directed by Juan Luis Iborra (Mouth to Mouth, Km. 0).

 

5:30 p.m. Saturday Oct. 10 amd Sunday Oct. 11: De Profundis - The Sound of the Sea, an animated love story about a painter whose boat capsizes and is rescued by a mermaid.

7:30 p.m. Saturday Oct. 10: A Fiance for Yasmina (Un novio para Yasmina), a comedy about a wife suspects her husband is cheating on her with another woman, who in turn is trying to get her elusive beau to tie the knot.

9:30 p.m. Saturday Oct. 10: One-Armed Trick (El truco del manco), a drama about an aspiring hip-hop artist suffering from paralysis in half of his body since birth, which won three Goya awards (Spain's equivalent to the Oscars).

''Highlander'' gets a reboot

The house that Twilight built has hired director Justin Lin and producer Neal H. Moritz to remake the Christopher Lambert VHS/cable TV staple Highlander, with the intention of launching a new franchise.

Variety reports Iron Man screenwriters Art Marcum and Matt Holloway are working on a script, so the remake may turn out to be decent. I've never been able to sit through any of the Highlander movies myself: There's something about the concept of an immortal Scottish swordsman I find just a wee bit boring.

The news is the latest nail in the coffin (at least to me) of the career of the talented Lin, who demonstrated great promise as a filmmaker before he sold his soul to the studios. I interviewed Lin in 2002 when his terrific Better Luck Tomorrow played at the Toronto Film Festival, and he talked excitedly about the kinds of stories he hoped to tell in future projects.

''It's not just about wanting to see three-dimensional Asian-American characters on the screen,'' Lin said back then. "I also want to see three-dimensional Latino characters and African-American characters and gay characters. I want to see three-dimensional people, period. The big studios are going to do what they're going to do, and that's fine. But I want to support movies that are independent and original and that take chances. That's the only thing I can do.''

Since then, Lin has directed two installments of the Fast and the Furious franchise and a glorified TV-movie (Annapolis). I guess youthful ambition doesn't stand a chance against a fat Hollywood paycheck.

Understanding the Coen brothers

I saw Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man this morning, and aside from thinking it is one of their best films, I also felt the movie explained a lot about the cynicism and detached attitude that permeates their entire body of work.

A Serious Man is the first movie by the Coens that is based on anything remotely autobiographical, and it is also the first film in which they grapple with their Jewish heritage and upbringing. This is why the movie, although just as bleak and unforgiving as their other comedies, also feels more heartfelt and personal. After seeing it, you understand the Coens' previous films a little better (even Barton Fink). The ending alone - which is pretty stunning - encapsulates everything they've always expressed in their films in a neat 60 seconds.

I've never interviewed the Coens before, but I'll talking to them via telephone for a few minutes tomorrow. The fact that they are doing phone interviews for A Serious Man is another indication, I think, of how this one means a little bit more than usual to them.

The best juvenile delinquent movie you've (probably) never seen

Viceland.com has published a tremendous, cooler-than-cool oral history of the making of 1979's Over the Edge, one of the best (and least seen) films about contemporary suburban teenagers getting into all sorts of trouble.

Best remembered as the 14 year-old Matt Dillon's debut film, Over the Edge is, to my knowledge, the first cautionary tale ever made about how the sterility and blankness of gated suburban communities leads to terminally bored kids, and you know what happens when idle hands abound. Larry Clark, Gus Van Sant and even John Hughes all sprang from this movie.

Here is Dillon talking about his relationship with the film's director, Jonathan Kaplan:

Jonathan was great. He was like a big kid; we just loved him, we really did. He was the perfect guy to direct that movie. He was fun. Whenever you were around him your mood just elevated. There was always a lift with him. He had a great energy, and a great personality. We were very direct with each other. He’d say, “Get the f--- out of here!” And I’d go, “No! F--- you!” That’s the way we related to each other.

In the scene that takes place at the police station— I’ve just been arrested—Jonathan gave me the type of direction which was perfect for a 14-year-old kid. He told me to knock the typewriter off the desk. But one of the writers came running in and said, “You can’t do that! I have to actually use that typewriter to write tomorrow’s scene!”

I was like, “C’mon, Jonathan. You said I get to knock the typewriter off.” Jonathan said, “All right, listen, I’m sorry, but you can’t knock over the typewriter. But here’s what we can do. In the party scene that’s coming up, instead of walking into the party with just one girl, I’ll let you walk into the party with your arms around two girls.” I thought, That’s good. That’s a good deal.

Opening today

A diverse batch of movies hits South Florida this weekend, beginning with the eye-popping Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which was co-directed by Miami's Phil Lord. Here is Sue Corbett's excellent Weekend cover story about the making of the film, and here is my review. See it in IMAX (or even Liemax) if you can. It's worth it.

Also opening is Jennifer's Body, stripper-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody's follow-up to her Oscar-winning Juno. The movie's subtexts are more interesting than what's actually onscreen, but they're great subtexts.

Another Miami homeboy (or at least part-time Miami resident), Matt Damon, stars in Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!, a fascinating fact-based drama turned into a comedy simply by the director's approach. The movie is fine by itself, but it also doubles as a primer for film students on how to achieve and maintain a particular tone, no matter what your subject matter happens to be.

The ever-intrepid Connie Ogle reviews the Jennifer Aniston-Aaron Eckhart romantic drama Love Happens, calling it "lazy... but not unbearable." Distributor Samuel Goldwyn didn't bother to tell me that Paul Giamatti's Cold Souls was opening this week, or else I would have reviewed it myself. The film sounds very intriguing.

At the Cosford Cinema, the documentary Unmistaken follows a Buddist monk's search for the reincarnated soul of his teacher. At the Miami Beach Cinematheque, the excellent Afghan Star, about Afghanistan's version of Star Search and the consequences faced by its contestants (particularly the women), returns for another weekend run. I've found myself thinking a lot about this movie since I reviewed it in July. It's terrific.

The Tower Cinema in Little Havana is featuring a showcase of Colombian films this week, along with the U.S. premiere of La Mala, the story of a young woman obsessed with becoming a singer. Check out the theater's complete schedule here. And if you're in a stay-home mood, the new Blu-ray of An American Werewolf in London boasts a fantastic transfer, and also includes a new feature-length documentary about the making of the film.

Review: ''Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs''

A word to the wise: Do not, under any circumstances, see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs without eating first. The gigantic pancakes, cheeseburgers, hot dogs and ears of corn that rain from the sky may wreak cataclysm on the poor citizens of a small island in the Atlantic Ocean, but the food is rendered in such beautiful, photorealistic detail - and in jawdropping 3D - that your stomach will be growling long before the end credits roll.

An uncommonly fleet and whimsical cartoon that embraces the freewheeling, anything-goes spirit of vintage animation, this adaptation of the beloved children's book by Judi and Ron Barrett is the rare kind of kiddie flick guaranteed to disarm anyone. Miami homeboy Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who co-wrote and co-directed, have paced the movie at cyclone speed and packed every frame with so many visual and aural gags that repeat viewings are almost mandatory. (Check out, for example, the names of the opportunistic businesses that pop up in the background after the food deluge turns the town into a tourist hot spot.)

Multiple viewings will also be highly pleasurable. The story of a crackpot inventor (voiced by Bill Hader) who creates a machine capable of turning water into food, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs initially feels a little too frantic, but you quickly learn to keep pace with the filmmaker's rhythms.

Aimed squarely at young children, the movie, which follows what happens when the town gets carried away with the wondrous invention, and the food raining down starts to grow and grow, imparts worthwhile lessons about gluttony, about being true to yourself and about chasing your dreams.

Mostly, though, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a joyful romp, devoid of the tiresome pop-culture references of the Shrek pictures and blissfully ignorant of the story formulas established by Pixar (and aped by countless, lesser imitators). This movie answers to no other, and Lord and Miller cheerfully follow their already-insane premise to its increasingly surreal resolution.

By film's end, you have huge roasted chickens threatening the hero (yes, the food becomes sentient), slices of pizza flying around like Tie Fighters, a fisherman trying to use a computer to send his first e-mail and Times Square being flattened by giant bagels. The psychedelic-era Beatles would have loved this film. So will Food Network addicts. Where's Masaharu Morimoto when you really need him?

Review: ''Jennifer's Body''

Like a demon in sheep's clothing, Jennifer's Body comes on like just another entry in an endless cycle of teen-oriented horror pictures. But there is a much more savage - and substantial - beast lurking beneath. Not since Brian De Palma's Carrie has a horror movie so effectively exploited the genre as a metaphor for adolescent angst, female sexuality and the strange, sometimes corrosive bonds between girls who claim to be best friends.

Directed by Karyn Kusama (Girlfight, Aeon Flux) and written by Diablo Cody (this is her follow-up to the Oscar-winning Juno), Jennifer's Body could certainly be described as a feminist horror film. This is the story of Jennifer (Megan Fox, proving she can act after all), the most beautiful and sought-after girl in school, who fawns over the members of an indie rock band (led by The O.C.'s Adam Brody), is sacrificed to Satan for her efforts and returns as a demon who lives off the flesh of adolescent boys.

Jennifer's best friend since childhood, Needy (Mamma Mia's Amanda Seyfried), is somewhat bookish and nerdy, but she's much more adjusted and sane than her prettier, more slutty pal. Needy has a steady boyfriend, the all-around nice guy Chip (Johnny Simmons). She gets good grades in school, and she makes the best of life with her single, largely absent mother (Amy Sedaris, in a brief but effective performance).

Jennifer and Needy wear matching heart-shaped pendants engraved BFF, but that bond becomes sorely tested after Jennifer shows up at Needy's door covered in blood, screeching like a banshee and projectile-vomiting black goo that looks like "roadkill and sewing needles mixed together."

"Sandbox love never dies," a pre-possession Jennifer says about her unlikely friendship with Needy, who is at least three circles beneath her in the high-school social pecking order. But the manner in which their undying friendship is taxed - and the unexpected ways in which it develops - make the worst behavior of Heathers and Mean Girls combined seem like the antics of a 4-H Club campfire singalong.

One of the themes Kusama and Cody explore in Jennifer's Body is the love-hate nature at the center of friendships between girls as they edge into adolescence - the unspoken rivalry and jealousies that become interwoven into their relationships (boys don't have that problem because we basically don't change after the age of 12).

Jennifer's Body is also uncommonly fearless when it delves into the subject of teen sex. When the baby-faced Needy and the even younger-looking Chip get together for a stay-at-home date and start talking about condoms and lubrication, the conversation comes as a shock, because movies have traditionally taught us that only the "bad'' girls have sex when they're 16. The good ones - those who, like Needy, do their homework and are responsible - never slide past first base.

One of the most astonishing sequences in Jennifer's Body is a cross-cutting between Jennifer as she gets ready to devour her latest conquest, a piercings and makeup-sporting Goth (Kyle Gallner), and Chip and Needy as they have awkward, tentative sex. In the midst of the action, Needy begins to have visions of Jennifer's bloody, murderous antics. But the inexperienced Chip interprets her horrified groans and moans as signs of pleasure, and the camera catches his fleeting, smug "I'm such a stud" grin. Later, after they've stopped, Chip asks the still-terrified Needy "Did I hurt you?" Even at their young age, the boy and girl already inhabit different galaxies when it comes to sex.

A lot of Jennifer's Body is peppered with such perceptive and compassionate odes to the agonizing rites of adolescence. But the movie is an unwieldy and ungainly contraption, stuffed with Cody's immensely quotable but self-conscious dialogue, which constantly reminds you of the screenwriter's presence at its edges ("Jennifer is evil. Actual evil. Not high-school evil'').

Jennifer's Body isn't particularly scary: Kusama feints at frightening her audience early on, but her heart just isn't in it, and she eventually loses interest. And the movie's humor is either too stale (Wikipedia gags were funny when we first heard them on The Office two seasons ago) or too dark and scalding for laughter. And some jokes, such as an ill-conceived riff on 9/11, stick out for their offensiveness.

The movie is going to frustrate a lot of critics, because Kusama is constantly shifting tonal gears, and she never tells you what you should be thinking or feeling. The film also seems to contradict itself in the way it views its characters. Is Jennifer a monster or a victim? That ambivalence will puzzle many viewers, but it is ultimately what makes Jennifer's Body so intriguing. There's a lot more going on here than just this week's dead-teens-on-parade show. If the movie had pulled double-duty and delivered the horror goods, it could have been a classic.

Keanu Reeves remembers Patrick Swayze

Keanu Reeves, who co-starred with the late Patrick Swayze in the best movie ever made about surfers who rob banks while wearing the masks of former U.S. presidents, has told Eonline.com that Swayze started jumping out of airplanes to prepare for a parachuting sequence in the film and got so hooked on the experience the producers had to serve him with a cease and desist order to force him to stop doing it.

"He was a beautiful person, an artist," Reeves said. "Patrick, he just wanted to experience life and for his work he wanted to take the opportunity of the film and it gave him that sense."

I watched Point Break again earlier this summer while preparing to interview The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow and was surprised to see how well it holds up. This has to be one of the most preposterous action pictures ever made, but you don't feel that way while you're watching it - in big part, I suspect, because of the lack of stupid CGI effects that would have inevitably been used if the movie was made today.

It's the difference between the genius Die Hard and Live Free or Die Hard, with its silly computer-generated stuntwork. CGI should be declared off-limits to directors of reality-based action films. I can't think of a single good one that uses them extensively. Comic-book movies are obviously exempt.

''The Cove'' will be screened at the Tokyo Film Festival

In a surprising last-minute decision, organizers of the Tokyo Film Festival have agreed to screen The Cove, the documentary expose of the horrific dolphin slaughter that takes place annually in the Japanese coastal town of Taiji.

In an interview with the Associated Press, festival chairman Tom Yoda declined to discuss how the decision was reached, but admitted there had been strong arguments against showing the film, which could lead to "an unexpected controversy."

"We considered the freedom of expression," Yoda said. "And there was interest in the work from all over the world." 

The Cove's presence at the festival will be downplayed - it isn't even part of the festival's official program book - but the fact the movie is being shown there at all should be thrilling news for director Louis Psihoyos and dolphin activist Richard O'Barry. Both of them told me they believe if The Cove was ever shown in Japan, public outcry would ensure the dolphin slaughter would cease.