Berry bad Gothika

Winning an acting Oscar usually earns you respect from your peers, admiration from fans, several studios offering new projects, and a hefty $15 million-plus added to your next paycheck. However, this isn’t always the case. Many Oscar winners have gone on to succeed their triumphs with less than spectacular careers: Mira Sorvino, for example, after winning Best Supporting Actress for 1995’s Mighty Aphrodite, hasn’t exactly had the follow-ups one would hope for; most recently, last year’s critically ravaged, three-and-a-half hour Civil War epic Gods And Generals. Likewise Marisa Tomei, who, after winning for 1992’s My Cousin Vinny in the same category, only has 2001’s In The Bedroom to show for it. And after critical and commercial bombs like What Dreams May Come, Chill Factor, Instinct, Boat Trip and lately, Radio, Cuba Gooding Jr. leaves studio executives yelling, "Show me the money!" They, with audiences, are wondering whether his Best Supporting Actor victory as Jerry Maguire’s hyperactive, hilarious Rod Tidwell was just a fluke. And then comes Halle Berry. First, she starred in the dreadful 2001’s Swordfish. But she quickly redeemed herself that same year with her startling, intensely heartbreaking performance in Monster’s Ball, for which her won a Best Actress Oscar. However, since then, she starred as an orange bikini-wearing Bond girl in the marginally acceptable Die Another Day and as a weather-controlling superhero in X2: X-Men United. Should an Oscar winner really drag herself down to this level of supporting, action flick roles? Now, here comes the once-promising Gothika, which now poses an even bigger question: Shouldn’t someone take back Halle Berry’s Oscar?

As the trailers go, Dr. Miranda Grey (Berry), a respected criminal psychologist, is an expert of knowing what is rational, what is logical, what is sane. But after having an encounter with a strange, Samara-looking woman, she wakes up inside the same asylum she once worked in. Her former colleague, Dr. Pete Graham (Robert Downey Jr.) then tells her that she’s been charged with her husband’s (Charles S. Dutton) murder, a murder she has no recollection of committing. With everyone convinced of her insanity, Miranda now has to find a way to regain her memory and her freedom, with the help of Chloe Sava (Penelope Cruz), a satanic patient.

Halle Berry really must have been crazy to do a movie like this. Sebastian Gutierrez’s ridiculous screenplay is completely laughable, with its downright outrageousness and absurdity. Unintentionally hilarious lines like "I’m not deluded, I’m possessed!" made me laugh out loud, and left me wondering why Warner Bros. advertised Gothika as a horror film and not as a comedy. Dozens of unexplained plot holes and an easy-way-out ending also give it the feeling of a cheap straight-to-video movie, which it should’ve been. Even Halle Berry gives a dreadful performance, overacting and exaggerating in scenes where it need not be; she shivers, screams and cries, taking this film too seriously when Gothika is just one big joke.

Gothika plays like a spoof of itself, as if director Mathieu Kassovitz was determined to direct the next Scary Movie installment or a Saturday Night Live skit. The whole cast and crew is even taking the film so seriously, so earnestly, that they are apparently unaware of how dumb it is. The worst and most laughable horror movie of the past year, Gothika doesn’t deserve Halle Berry. Should someone take back Halle Berry’s Oscar? Not yet, but this is the last straw. If summer’s Catwoman is as bad as this, the Academy should definitely consider it.

Bottom Line: A Berry, Berry, bad film. This totally un-scary, jaw-droppingly stupid faux horror flick will even make you cry – with laughter.

Grade: D+

Love Actually

Romantic comedy god Richard Curtis has written some of the best of the last half-century, with such love fests as Bridget Jones’s Diary, Notting Hill and Four Weddings And A Funeral to his credits. But with Love Actually, his directorial debut and most elaborate love fest yet, Curtis attempts to direct 10 interwoven stories that have to do with different forms of love (mostly set in London) during Christmastime.

Hugh Grant, the British romantic comedy staple, plays David, the newly elected British prime minister who falls in love with his personal assistant Natalie (Martina McCutcheon). David’s older sister Karen (Emma Thompson) is growing suspicious of her husband Harry’s (Alan Rickman) incessant flirtations with Mia (Heike Makatsch), a female employee. Meanwhile, Harry’s American secretary Sarah (Laura Linney) sums up the courage to ask out Karl (Rodrigo Santoro), another colleague. Jamie (Colin Firth), a writer in the midst of a painful break-up, travels to France for inspiration for his novel. There, he falls in love with his Portuguese maid Aurelia (Lucia Moniz). Daniel (Liam Neeson), a lonely widower, is left to care for his 11-year-old son, while his son asks for advice on a crush he has in school. To complete the 10 stories, we have Juliet (Keira Knightley), who is being courted by her husband’s best friend; a horny young Brit who travels to Wisconsin in hopes of finding a girl; Judy (Joanna Page) and John (Martin Freeman), two movie stand-ins who hit it off after a sex scene together; and fading rock star Billy Mack (Bill Nighy), who hopes that his Christmas ditty (and Love Actually’s delightful anthem) will hit no.1 in the singles chart.

Curtis truly is a magician when it comes to pulling on heartstrings while at the same time tickling the funny bone; his snappy, crisp signature style of Brit humor is as much palpable here as in his previous films. But its Love Actually’s all-star cast that is the real treasure: Grant, with his signature utterance of "Right…" is wonderful, and Nighy is hilarious. Likewise Firth, Rickman, Neeson and the angelic Knightley. Laura Linney, one of my favorite actresses, after a dark turn in Mystic River, once again gets the comedic juices flowing, lovesick and all. But it’s the amazing Emma Thompson who completely steals the show from the entire, 100-plus-person cast. Her portrayal of a wife frightened that her husband was leaving her brought everyone to tears; without a doubt, she deserved a Best Supporting Actress nom.

Love Actually may not be the best Curtis film, but it is a great one nonetheless. Sweet, sometimes sad, and generally hilarious, the film is like a restaurant dessert cart: you get tasty little samples of everything, and though you may not like them all, they’re all so sweet.

Bottom Line: A superb, funny romantic comedy that is literally all about love.

Grade: B+

Lost In Translation

In Sofia Coppola’s Tokyo-based Lost In Translation, Bill Murray plays Bob Harris, a fading Hollywood movie star in Japan shooting a whiskey ad to earn a quick buck. Also staying in Bob’s posh hotel is the fresh-from-Yale Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a young, wide-eyed woman accompanying her idealistic photographer husband (Giovanni Ribisi) on an assignment. Both desolate Americans in a strange country, and their relationships falling apart, they quickly become friends when they meet in the hotel bar. Together, they set off on an adventure across the unusual city of Tokyo, eating sushi, misunderstanding the Japanese accent, and singing in karaoke bars, but ultimately, they find solace in each other as their relationship deepens.

Writer/director Sofia Coppola, born into Hollywood royalty from legendary director father Francis Ford Coppola, proves that she can hold her own, despite the already famous marquee name. Only her second feature film after 2000’s critically admired The Virgin Suicides, Coppola creates a masterpiece; she writes Lost In Translation with such delicate precision, grace and hilarity. But usually, in many scenes, absolutely nothing is said, there is no dialogue: the scenes in which Charlotte is looking out her hotel window, pensive, searching for something to hold on to; the scene when the two are lying in bed, comforted by the other’s presence; and the film’s loveliest, final scene. These are what give Lost In Translation its true, utmost beauty, the fact that the film is able to convey oceans of emotion without uttering a single word.

Also, the two leads’ performance are amazing: Johansson is incredibly poignant and touching, her sadness and meekness magnificent onscreen. But it’s Murray who gives the performance: his comic subtlety, his dry wit, his emotional thrust – they all make up the best performance of his already spectacular career.

Lost In Translation is a brilliant work of art, its incredible beauty and sensitivity portraying something disarmingly real and honest. Bill Murray is remarkable; the film’s hilarious wry humor just wouldn’t work without him.

Bottom Line: Sofia Coppola and Bill Murray should most definitely get Lost more often.

Grade: A

To Do List Movies

• Watch Love Actually.

• Don’t watch Gothika.

• Watch the trailer of The Passion Of The Christ. Mel Gibson’s ultra-controversial, incredibly gory film about the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life has been the most talked-about film of all time, opening with almost $25 million on its first day alone, which is big for any movie, and even bigger for a religious film. For those of you extremely excited to see it as I am, whet your urges by watching the film’s trailer, which itself it very powerful. You can stream it from www.movies.com. I just hope conservatives don’t ban the film from being released here, since as a YS reader e-mailed me, "It is an open secret" that there are "narrow-minded Catholics" in the Philippines.

TV

• Watch For Love Or Money 2. Erin, the gal who chose the $1 million dollars over the guy during the show’s first season, now gets the chance to pick the guy of her dreams, with a few new twists. But the question still looms: will he pick her over the money? It is shown every Thursday, 10 pm, on Star World.

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For comments, questions and suggestions, e-mail me at lanz_gryffindor@yahoo.com.