Milk: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

If you put yourself through Steven Zallian's remake of All the King's Men, and endured Sean Penn's ridiculous, scenery-devouring performance as Willie Stark, perhaps you began to wonder if Penn was on his way to becoming a new version of Al Pacino, someone who was just going to impose himself upon a movie, yelling and screaming over his co-stars and the script. After watching his portrayal of Harvey Milk, however, I take that thought back because Penn shows what a fantastic actor he can be by totally immersing himself into a character who relishes his free-spirited, hedonistic lifestyle, while also living in fear of hatred and persecution, but eventually finds his identity and purpose in a passionate fight for legitmacy and equality.

Everyone involved with the production does great work here - whether it's James Franco, who exudes a subtle strength and warmth as Milk's lover and best friend; Emile Hirsch, as perhaps a younger version of Milk, who finds fulfillment in a larger cause; or Josh Brolin, who loses his apparent innocence in what he perceives as a betrayal - including Gus Van Sant, who's emerged from the hibernation of smaller, experimental films to create what I think is the best movie he's ever made.

It's not a perfect film, with a screenplay that follows some of the standard biopic story beats and perhaps tries to fit too many characters in - though I certainly wouldn't dare to suggest who would be taken out, as these are real people who all played a role in actual events, and each actor makes you care about his or her character (with the unfortunate exception of Diego Luna, who's really kind of annoying) - but maybe I just felt the end came about too quickly because I was enjoying the whole thing so damn much.

The Day the Earth Stood Still: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

I know I saw the original The Day the Earth Stood Still on TV as a child (probably on a Saturday afternoon), but other than the iconic image of the big robot (which I didn't even remember was named Gort), what I mostly remember is that any message that much of science fiction from the 50s and 60s tried to convey was totally lost on a kid who just wanted to see laser guns firing and spaceships zooming through battle. So I didn't carry any nostalgia or affection into this remake.

But as I was watching Keanu Reeves drone his way past Jennifer Connelly's wide-eyed disbelief throughout this new version, I wondered if anyone else would've come up with this story and these characters if they weren't following the blueprint of the original movie, rather than just thinking it would be cool to update the special effects and make the message more pertinent to 2008, and if the answer is no, then what was the point of making this movie? However, I could just be cranky about the borderline criminal underuse of Jon Hamm, whose role could've been played by a Jon Hamm's John Ham sandwich.

Punisher: War Zone - A Four-Sentence Movie Review

With revenge stories such a popular film genre (there were two of them last year with The Brave One and Death Sentence), I find it kind of baffling that, in three different attempts, Hollywood somehow can't figure out how to make a decent movie with Marvel Comics' gun-toting crusader, the Punisher.

Maybe it's that filmmakers think they have to do something different, otherwise they've just made yet another revenge movie, or that they think the lead character must be super-heroic since he comes from the comic books, or that they feel Frank Castle has to show a glimpse of humanity to placate a mainstream audience, whereas comic book readers don't care if he just pops into the story, blows off a half-dozen heads, throws out a one-liner, and moves on to the next criminal slaughter.

As someone who grew up reading some Punisher comics (and greatly enjoyed Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's darkly humorous take of a few years ago), I think what makes the Punisher so appealing to comics fans is that they're used to seeing a hero who's content to put the villain in jail because he has to do the right thing and doesn't want to kill, so to see someone whose version of justice is to spray the bad guys' brains all over the wall brings an entirely different sense of wish fulfillment.

Punisher: War Zone definitely gets that right (as you can see here), yet beyond the extreme blood and gore, there isn't any "art" to the violence - none of the slow-motion fetishizing of gunfire or balletically choreographed fight scenes that we've become accustomed to - which reminded me of an interview I read with Ray Stevenson, where he said he wanted to make sure no one left the theater wanting to be the Punisher, and while that might be noble, such a sentiment may have resulted in a movie much less gratuitously entertaining than it could've been.

Rachel Getting Married: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

Maybe I'm speaking for myself here, but if you've been to (or participated in) a good share of weddings in your lifetime - even if someone close to you is getting married - they all seem kind of the same, and it's kind of the same with wedding-centered movies, as well, with story beats that includes the groom having cold feet, the bride being a control-freak monster, the interfering mother, and the best man/good friend guest who's just a little too cool for school and manages to make some fun for himself.

What's so refreshing about Rachel Getting Married is that none of these formulaic elements apply, so all of the characters and their foibles felt very real, and while watching the movie, I kept thinking to myself that this was a wedding I really would've enjoyed attending - as long as I had some distance from the family drama (enough of my own, thanks).

Anne Hathaway's character, Kym, comes into the story like a looming natural disaster, a destructive force ready to lay her narcissism, manipulation, and guilt trips all over the family that's dared to move on with their lives while she's in drug rehab and living with a tragedy no one should have to carry on his or her own, and though everyone seems to dread her arrival, cringing in anticipation of what terrible thing she might say or do to ruin her sister's nuptuals, you realize that those feelings of hurt, resentment, and hate are only so passionate because they're fueled by an inherent love.

With one of the main secondary characters being a musician (and played by Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio), you might expect music to be a part of the movie, but Jonathan Demme cleverly utilizes the various musicians scattered around the family compound - out in the yard or on the porch, practicing what they'll be playing for the wedding and jamming among contemporaries - to provide a score for the film, and though maybe it's a bit precious for them to be playing sad music when Kym is feeling melancholy, for example, the overall effect is an unexpected, yet understated, surprise.

W: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

It's probably a bit too cute to wonder whether or not Oliver Stone has, well, lost his stones, but his last two films - World Trade Center and, now, W - haven't had much of what I like to call "whacked out Oliver Stone shit" in them, with no acid-tripped cuts or close-ups, long monologues, or seemingly warped, demented insights into his characters. But with these two most recent films, depicting events so fresh in our history and memory, perhaps there just isn't enough distance from them, leaving Stone without the time or inclination to create whatever theories or attacks might normally brew in his mind (though he was apparently leaning that way at one point), and I think that's reflected in the film's rather open ending.

Having said that, I still enjoyed this movie quite a bit, largely because of the acting (Josh Brolin is great as George W. Bush, portraying him as something of a buffoon, but also as someone who eventually believes he may have found a calling, even if it's taken him to a place where he's in way over his head; Richard Dreyfuss is sufficiently menacing and manipulative as Dick Cheney, especially when it comes to making the case for war; but I still haven't figured out if Thandie Newton's version of Condoleezza Rice, in which she almost comes off as a stroke victim and supreme ass-kisser, is brilliant caricature or a SNL-like parody that doesn't fit with the rest of the cast) but also because it gives political junkies a "greatest hits" re-telling of the last six to eight years, confirming much of the bellicosity, megalomania and arrogance that we've perceived from the Bush administration.

Stone attempts to be accurate in this film (something he presumes to care about, judging from these footnotes at the movie's official website) - and perhaps more fair than haters would've liked him to be, though plenty of cheap shots are taken - but his attempt at an overarching view of Bush, to figure out the man through the events and people that may have shaped him, also causes him to overlook two key events that will surely dictate this president's legacy - 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina - yet haven't been studied and investigated as thoroughly as the administration's march to war, which further cements the sentiment that a story that is still being told, whose ending has yet to be finalized, probably shouldn't have been told quite yet.

Religulous: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

My favorite types of people tend to be those who are intellectually curious, who realize that they might not know much about a particular subject and thus try to learn more about it (as Sarah Vowell said in a recent interview, "Why wouldn't you want to be as smart as you can?"), so I was pretty envious of Bill Maher getting himself a director and film crew and touring the world in an attempt to understand various religions and the people who put such credence in them.

As funny as this movie was when Maher either got an unexpectedly candid response from one of his interview subjects or brought light to some of the more, shall we say, extreme belief systems that have been created in the name of worship, it also seems disingenuous of him to say "I don't know" and use it as the fundamental premise of his opposition to what he sees as the blind allegiance of organized religion, but then acting like the smartest guy in the room when he's talking to someone about their faith.

Have you ever had an argument or discussion with someone whose views you knew just weren't going to change, who can barely even bother to acknowledge the other side, no matter what was said?

Ultimately, that's what prevented me from absolutely loving Religulous, despite my sharing many of Maher's views on the divisiveness that organized religion has caused in our culture and society at-large, a yearning to understand those differences, and an envy of those who can lean upon their faith to make some sense of the world they live in.

Mamma Mia!: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

Pierce Brosnan truly - deeply - cannot sing. Meryl Streep can, and at least looked like she had a good time. Stellan Skarsgard must have lost a bet when he agreed to be in this. 106 minutes of screaming women, whining men, and Abba songs made my testicles shrivel, and has had me on a testosterone IV drip ever since, but I am the greatest son in the world for taking my mother to see this movie (and she had a great time, which is really all that matters).

Wanted: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

Sometimes, I feel like I'm a pretty simple man who doesn't ask for much from this life, and giving me a movie with Angelina Jolie firing a lot of big guns, beating the crap out of anyone who gets in her way, and somehow managing to be haltingly seductive while doing it (I don't think she has to try too hard with that) fulfills many of those simple needs.

Beginning with the part where Jolie walks up to James McAvoy's hen-pecked, walked-over, beaten-down, miserable office drone of a character and tells him to come with her (raise your hand if you wouldn't do that), Wanted is almost two hours of total male fantasy that amazingly doesn't include pornography - unless you consider sensationalized, computer-generated depictions of elegantly crafted bullets spearing through foreheads while trailing blood and brain matter behind them kind of sexy (and we don't like to judge here).

Watching this movie, with its balletically staged action sequences and physics-defying violence (yet still with nothing as ridiculous as the car launching into the helicopter in Live Free or Die Hard) kind of gives you the same feeling after eating a tub of popcorn at the theater, when what your body really needed was an actual meal with protein and vegetables instead of carbohydrates soaked in something resembling butter.

Of course, that popcorn also tastes really good, especially when you're in the mood for something salty, and outside of the Wachowski brothers, I'm not sure anyone creates reality-bending special effects and action like Timur Bekmambetov (check out Night Watch and Day Watch if you're in the mood for some fun sci-fi/fantasy stuff), but after you've shoveled it all down your gullet, do you really feel that good about yourself?

Hancock: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

Leading up to the summer, I thought the surplus of superhero movies would make Hancock kind of a flop, but I obviously (stupidly?) underestimated the power of Will Smith and the appetite for these kinds of movies, not to mention that no one's seen Big Willie Style play one of the guys in a tight leather outfit with abilities far beyond those of mortal men.

"What if Superman was an asshole?" seems to be the guiding premise of this film, and it starts out with such promise, addressing the millions of dollars in damage that's caused by these extraordinary displays of strength and power, and shaking up typical superhero story equations such as the hero being summoned to fight the bad guys, leaving said bad guys captured in precarious positions for the police, and invoking the awe and adoration of the general public.

I just wish Peter Berg (whose work I've really enjoyed, especially The Rundown) and his screenwriters would've dug deeper and pushed the idea even further, asking questions like why someone with superhuman abilities automatically decides to help people and be a hero, instead of using those powers to do whatever the hell he or she wants, and with Jason Bateman's publicist character trying to improve Hancock's approval amongst the masses, the opportunity was there to explore that territory.

One reassuring aspect of the movie is that an actress of Charlize Theron's talent (and I mean that sincerely) isn't given as useless a role as the marketing would lead you to believe, and actually has something meaningful to bring to the story (though her ultimate role seemed like a bit of a stretch that came out of nowhere, as entertaining as it was for a few scenes).

Iron Man: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

In the two weeks or so since Iron Man hit theaters, it occurred to me that trying to write a review might be redundant, as I've already written about how interesting I find the character of Tony Stark and how excited I was to see Robert Downey, Jr. do his thing with the type of role that should make him a star.

And Downey absolutely owns this movie, bringing the wit and charm that has made him so utterly capitvating in roles such as Tommy Larson in Home For the Holidays, Terry Crabtree in Wonder Boys and Paul Avery in Zodiac, yet also infusing Tony Stark with a vulnerability and heroism that makes him a fascinatingly compelling character. Downey is so enjoyable to watch, in fact, that hiding him in that super-suit kind of takes some of the thrill from the inevitable climactic battle scene, which is unfortunately rendered a bit coherent by sequences that moves just a little too fast - probably to hide the seams that hold the CGI special effects and physical action together.

As fun as it is to see Stark test out each version of the Iron Man armor (an essential part of the character), and riveted by his robot servants into the final kick-ass product, the scenes in which he tells Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts (another great performance) how important she is in his life, or when his fellow prisoner in Afghanistan tells him not to squander the second chance he's been given, both scenes are more believable (and touching) than you might expect from a rock 'em, sock 'em comic book action flick.

Leatherheads: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

While promoting The Good German on The Daily Show two years ago, I recall George Clooney raving about all of the old-fashioned techniques and equipment - lens, lights, microphones, etc. - Steven Soderbergh employed to make his film appear as authentically 1940s as he could, to which Jon Stewart said, "I have one question for you: Why?"

Clooney doesn't take that gimmick quite so far with Leatherheads, though he's certainly trying to capture the feel and spirit of 1930s screwball comedies with formulaic set-up/joke dialogue, much of it carried by a roguishly charming man and a brassy dame serving and volleying quips back and forth like a tennis match. Clooney manages to re-create the type of zany comedy that just doesn't get made anymore, but while it's entertaining enough with three well-cast leads (Clooney and Renee Zellweger actually seem perfect for their roles), but it also feels like he's trying so hard to give the movie a certain tone and style that it makes the story far less substantial than it could've been.

This actually is kind of a similar movie to Eight Men Out in terms of showing how money can affect athletes and poison motives that were presumably pure, thus requiring a sport to incorporate rules and authority figures to maintain the pretense of fair play and professionalism in the name of commerce, but tackling heavier, far more complicated subjects like that would get in the way of slapstick chases and the romance they can lead to.

Southland Tales: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

Director Richard Kelly holds a special place in my film-loving heart for bringing Donnie Darko to the world, but that movie was six years ago, so it's been a long wait to see if he could follow up on the promise of his first effort. Southland Tales shows that Kelly might still be one of the most creatively ambitious filmmakers working a film set today, and the cast he assembled for this project indicates that plenty of other people believe in his talent, but since seeing this movie back in late November, I haven't been able to explain to anyone just what the hell this thing is about.

I'm a fan of The Rock, which was almost enough for me to go see this (no, I haven't seen The Game Plan, and probably never will unless I'm somehow trapped in front of a television with a small child), and it's fun to see him play a different role than the unstoppable machines he normally portrays that can kick ass with a wink and a smile, but ultimately he's a hub for a bicycle wheel with many, many surreal spokes that could really use a decent tire to make it ride more smoothly (and sensibly).

It seems like Kelly tried to compose a commentary on our country's war-mongering ways, its fascination with celebrity (especially the titillating kind), and the need for our politicians to control us through constantly peddling fear, but then the story stops for scenes like Justin Timberlake lip-syncing The Killers' "All These Things That I Have Done" (which is just as weird as it sounds, but it might be the best part of the movie, and can be seen here), and you wonder if he was also trying to say other things that were also shoehorned into what ultimately becomes a congealed, over-stuffed (especially with former Saturday Night Live cast members), yet admirably grandiose mess.

Cloverfield: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

After its "what the hell was that?" teaser that ran front of Transformers in July, Cloverfield created a whole lot of anticipation for a new kind of "monster attacks big city" movie, but if you've seen the trailer, you've essentially already seen the movie because it follows much the same format of getting you to think you're watching one kind of story, only to broadside you with the realization that it's a vehicle for something else entirely.


Maybe the key difference is that the trailer fools you thinking it's an indie, beautiful people, slice-of-life sort of movie, but then jolts you into a disaster movie, while the actual movie carries the expectations of being a monster flick, but turns out to be more of a story about a relationship with several heavy-handed visual allegories to September 11th.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy Cloverfield because the special effects are great when they count most, whether in the scenes of New York City's destruction, initial fleeting glimpses of the monster between buildings, frenzied swings of the hand-held camera as the characters just can't help but look back while also trying to run for their lives, the final money shot of the beast in almost-full view, and most especially during the subway tunnel sequence in which the words "turn on the night vision" bring about the movie's scariest, creepiest, most thrilling payoff.

Telling its story almost entirely from the ground-level, part of the crowd, regular citizen perspective (thanks to what is apparently the world's most powerful, longest lasting camcorder battery) was also an interesting twist to the monster/disaster genre, even if I thought the characters we follow are largely hipster douchebags who seem like they were taken straight out of that new KFC Hot Wings ("Anything is possible!") commercial, and I was kind of hoping the giant monster would pick them off the street and eat them like chicken wings.

Related Links:

• Suds & Soliloquies' review (and review of a review)
• The Film Geek's review
• io9: Theories on the Whisper at the End of Cloverfield

[UPDATED at 11:30 a.m.]

The Savages: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

Maybe a film about a brother and sister dealing with putting their elderly father in a nursing home isn't the best choice for a matinee with your mother (who's far from elderly, by the way) on a Saturday afternoon (though perhaps you'd enjoy having "This is a preview of my life.  Are you trying to tell me something?" whispered in your ear while you're watching).

With Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney leading the cast, I'll admit I was predisposed to enjoy this movie before I even took off my coat and sat down, but it's difficult to imagine any other actors playing their characters because they inhabit the roles so completely, and Tamara Jenkins's script gives them so much emotional baggage and just enough backstory to play with.

Ultimately, Mama Cass actually enjoyed this movie because, in her words, "That's how life works," and that's exactly the poignant, bittersweet note that Jenkins hits while following two people still trying to put their lives together after an utterly dysfunctional upbringing.  I realize that sounds mopey and depressing, but Jenkins never tries to make you feel sorry for her characters, or bogs down the story with unnecessary exposition explaining exactly what may have transpired between father and children (or brother and sister), nor does she try to create comedy, insert slapstick scenarios, or shoehorn cleverness where it doesn't belong.

I'm Not There: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

The musical biopic genre sorely needed a fresh approach, something that wasn't going to follow the paint-by-numbers "Behind the Music" formula of rise, fall (due to drugs, of course), rise from the ashes, and eventual contentment that most of these stories (Ray, Walk the Line, and the upcoming parody Walk Hard) seem to follow, but could still sum up the career and capture the creative spirit of the musician, and that's exactly what Todd Haynes has done for Bob Dylan with I'm Not There.

Haynes' choice to use six different actors (including Batman and The Joker) to portray Dylan (or a Dylan-esque figure) seems head-scratching, but think of each actor and story segment as a representation of a certain phase of his career (for example, a 12-year-old black kid embodying the early development of Dylan's musical tastes and style, which was heavily influenced by the blues) and the whole idea makes such brilliant sense - even if you're not overly familiar with Dylan's biography, which I'm not - that you wonder why no one's ever tried it before.

Not all of the segments work (Richard Gere's didn't quite seem to fit with the rest of the movie), but the flashiest and most radical interpretation is Cate Blanchett's androgynous portrayal of the late 1960s, Don't Look Back incarnation of Dylan that seemed utterly unlikable, yet was surely formed by the endless attempts by fans and media to mold him and his music into the defining voice of a generation, a burden that would probably make almost any artist run and hide.  Blanchett's performance might be seen as too gimmicky to deserve an Academy Award (although you could probably say the same thing about her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator), but she should absolutely score a nomination and if she wasn't already considered the best actress on the planet, this should give her the title.

Lions for Lambs: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

When I first saw the teaser trailer for Lions for Lambs, I was a little bit irritated because it didn't tell me much about the movie, other than Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise, and Robert Redford were in it - with Cruise asking Streep if she wants to win the war on terror and Redford scolding someone with "Rome is burning, son!  And the problem is us, all of us, who do nothing!" - and the story probably had to do something with the war in Iraq.

It turns out, however, that the trailer (again, a teaser) captured almost everything this movie is about, which is basically a 90-minute lecture by Redford (though he didn't write the screenplay) directed at three sources: the government, for getting us into this predicament and appearing to be clueless as to how to get us out of it; the media, for brainlessly selling this war to the American people without asking tougher questions and challenging those in power; and young people - perhaps college students, more specifically - for being too cynical and apathetic to affect change in this country when they're in an ideal position to do so.  But the actors most certainly sell it, especially Redford as the antagonistic, yet nurturing professor that many of us were fortunate to learn from in college, along with Cruise in a role that's perfect for him, because his character is just a little too polished, but very opinionated, and arrogant enough to think he has all the answers.

Those who prefer to go to the movies to escape that sort of stuff or just don't prefer having a finger wagged at them will probably hate this thing (and judging from the critical consensus and last weekend's box office, that's the majority opinion), but if you really liked The West Wing, and enjoyed seeing characters trading intelligent, passionate ideas and opinions, engaged in serve-and-volley dialogue that makes you think about the world we're currently living in, you might just dig it.

The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford: A Four-Sentence Movie Review By the Windbag Ian Casselberry

Whenever I hear that a movie is featuring Jesse James, I'm reminded of the dozens of times I watched The Long Riders on whatever movie channel we had once we got cable, how glorious the gunplay and sex (and Caine as a cowboy!) was to my grade-school self, and how that movie (along with the Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone flicks) surely must have influenced my current affection for Westerns.  Unfortunately, The Long Riders was a long time ago, and to the best of my knowledge, there hasn't been a portrayal of Jesse James (and that includes the one with Colin Farrell and the chick from Heroes) that's come anywhere near a movie that made me run around our townhouse complex with my friends, shooting die-cast metal six-shooters (cap guns were the shiznit, I reckon), and constantly getting me in trouble with neighbors - and thus the manager of our complex.

Going into this version of the James story, I knew that it was going to be slowly and deliberately paced, with plenty of long, lingering shots of wheat stalks swaying in the wind and clouds moving along the sky, along with the added tedium of characters contemplating... whatever the hell the voiceover narration (blurgh) told us they were contemplating, but was also confident that the presence of Sam Shepard (for any Western to be good, it must have Shepard, Sam Elliott, or Robert Duvall in the cast), as well as the assassination referenced in the title meant that the movie wouldn't be missing too many key ingredients.

The more I think about it, the more I feel like the fable-like tone of the movie - including the camera's loving adoration of Brad Pitt simulating the culture's fascination with the outlaw, and everyone in James' company shivering with fear and suspicion, reminding us that this "hero" was a thief and a killer - is actually perfect, better suited to deal with a legend and whatever tales might come with that, rather than attempt a closely historical account that could demystify any memories - from movies, storybook, or otherwise - that some of us might still enjoy.

Pushing Daisies: A Four-Sentence TV Review

Maybe it makes me feel like a smarter pop culture consumer, or maybe I just yearn for something different among much of the like-minded entertainment we're served these days, but I tend to have a soft spot for movies and TV shows (and books, even) that are near-impossible to sum up in one sentence, and Pushing Daisies most certainly fits in that category.

Okay, it's the show about the guy who can bring people back from the dead with one touch and happens to use that talent to solve murders on the side, which helps supplement his pie shop, but that's kind of a run-on sentence, and if you've been reading these Four Sentence Reviews for a while, you know I don't often favor such comma-filled, punctuation-exploiting, word-bloated rambles.

I'm not sure there's ever been a television show so infused with whimsy, romance, and pathos, featuring an utterly charming lead character who's encountered so much tragedy in his life that it compels him to shut himself off from many of the emotional comforts we all crave, and whose supernatural talent pays the bills, but also happens to keep him from experiencing the only true happiness he's ever really wanted.  Not everyone will like Pushing Daisies (I can think of some friends who might not care for it), and its quirky, goofy, sweet, surrealist tone (which is very reminiscent of the movie Amelie, if you saw that) will either be loved or hated by viewers, but if the rest of the series lives up to the pilot episode that premiered last Wednesday, this is a show that deserves to be appreciated for daring to be different and challenging the limits of programming that television can give us.

3:10 to Yuma: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

"Women want to be with him, and men want to be him" is a cliche often reserved for figures such as James Bond or George Clooney, but I think it can also apply to Ben Wade, the roguishly charming, lethally homicidal, yet curiously ethical outlaw played by Russell Crowe in 3:10 to Yuma.  At certain points during the movie, it seemed almost comical to me how Wade magnetically attracts the attention of anyone in the room with him (especially the few women in the story; "Howdy, I'm Ben Wade - bad-ass and total sex machine"), but it's entirely believable, given that outlaws were likely the celebrities of their day.

In the presence of such a mythic figure, people let their curiosities and inferiorities overwhelm them, which explains the motivations of every other character in the story - particularly Christian Bale's Dan Evans, who seeks to redeem himself in the eyes of a family and community that looks down upon him - and gives Wade the physical and psychological advantage in every situation.  If I've made this sound all character-driven and talky, don't worry because it also brings all the gunfighting, shoot-em-up violence you could ever want in a modern Western, mostly thanks to Wade's sidekick, Charlie Prince, who allows Ben Foster to re-invent himself from a guy who's played mostly wussies (like on Six Feet Under) to an unhinged killing machine.

The King of Kong: A Four-Sentence Movie Review

As someone who spent many of his pre-adolescent days pushing quarters into arcade video games, The King of Kong showed me what I could've been if I'd had a) more disposable income at that age, b) a little bit of discipline (I could give up on something fast if I wasn't any good at it), c) fewer interests (comic books and drawing were big with me back then), and d) perhaps a better mode of transportation than a bicycle.

But even if I'd taken video gaming more seriously, I'm not sure I'd have reached the smileless obsessiveness of guys like Billy Mitchell, who assumes a cold-blooded, take-no-prisoners pose to not only explain his achievements in his chosen hobby, but to defend the honor and presumed integrity of the record scores he's set, and makes an absolutely fantastic villain for this documentary. The story also has a perfect underdog hero in Steve Wiebe, a husband and father of two (the scene in which Wiebe plays his record-setting game while his son is pleading with him for attention is one of the funniest things you'll ever see/hear), who plays Donkey Kong as a way to console himself after being laid off from his engineering job, finds a sense of purpose in pursuing Mitchell's record score, and seeks some fulfillment in a life that's presented quite a few letdowns.

The world these people live in, or choose to enter, is so bizarre - with all of its self-imposed rules, ethics, biases, and alliances - that it almost seems like another existence (well, maybe not for those of us who spent our summers having our senses flooded by electronic beeps and jingles in darkened arcades), yet the movie gets you to feel something - whether it's sympathy, empathy, or disdain - for them, which is kind of amazing to experience.

P.S. (This doesn't count among the four sentences) To the college kid in front of me in the ticket line who opted for a different movie because he "hates documentaries," I feel sorry for you.