Sometimes you want to sit at home. While it’s not encouraged, it’s understood. It sucks to rent a bad movie so the Lost Reel Review is here to help guide you on your path to good movie rentals.

Turturro and crew got the brunt end when producers pulled a LeBron on Paramount after filming.

John Turturro, Bob Nelson and Mel Smith are absolutely hysterical in the unbelievably forgotten comedy Brain Donors (1992). Why was it so forgotten? Producers David and Jerry Zucker (remember Airplane! and The Naked Gun series?) jumped ship just before the film’s big-screen release. Initially, it was titled Lame Ducks and billed among the year’s funniest films. After the Zuckers ducked out Paramount pulled the marketing campaign and took it out of theaters after initial screenings. Instead it hit the video circuit and developed a decent cult following.

Directed by Dennis Dugan (who also directed Happy Gilmore, Beverly Hills Ninja, and Don’t Mess with the Zohan among several others), Brain Donors is based on the Marx Brothers comedy A Night at the Opera. It follows Roland Flakfizer, a personal injury lawyer (played by Turturro), who battles attorney Lazlo to become director of the Oglethorpe ballet company. Nelson and Smith help Flakfizer’s mission and complete the trio of nonsense. It pulls from a lot of Three Stooges comedy, with no shame in seeking laughs while destroying one crowd’s night at the ballet.

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Dirty Work (1998) – Norm MacDonald plays Mitch who is down on luck and needs cash quick. So he begins a “revenge for hire” business with Artie Lange playing his best pal. The revenge gets entirely out of control. It has direct connections to Brain Donors with a hysterical broken up ballet scene, and no regard for comedic boundaries. Directed by Bob Saget with unforgettable cameos by Chris Farley and Gary Coleman – it was Farley’s final project.

The Jerk (1979) – Steve Martin‘s first leading role was a smash hit (which he co-wrote), so I feel like it’s sort of a cop out to recommend it like you haven’t seen it. However, since it’s more than three decades old, it works. The movie is based on gags (go figure) and the gags are based on many of Martin’s experiences as a youth working at a theme park (read his book Life Standing Up – just do it). Martin plays Navin Johnson, a white man raised by a black family, who moves to St. Louis to find a new life.

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There is an entire industry built around the attempt to understand dreams, an industry that would be bigger and more mainstream if such a thing were actually possible. The truth is you can keep any number of interpretive books on your nightstand and notepads and pens handy to write thoughts down with and still never get to the heart of what the nether regions of your mind are trying to tell you. Lucid dreams–ones in which the dreamer is aware he or she is dreaming, and can sometimes even manipulate the dream–are the closest we get to presenting the subconscious mind in a way the conscious one can grasp. Inception, the latest film from director and screenwriter Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento), lives in the lucid dream, and while his sprawling story of mental espionage and a widowed father’s only chance at redemption is both commendable and compelling–it may be the best movie of the year so far–it chooses to ignore one important truth: The human subconscious is a dark, messed up place to tell a story.

In the world of this movie, the United States military develops technology with which it can induce sleep in a group of people and, with the help of a portable device that fits in a suitcase, all of them can end up in the lucid dreamscape of one of the sleepers to try and extract information from that person. Basically, it’s the most passive form of interrogation ever conceived. (Already the plot is reaching quite a bit, though it must be said that if the U.S. military can turn Flipper into a killing machine then anything is possible, really.) Leonardo DiCaprio (The Departed, Gangs of New York… okay, he was in Titanic) plays Dom Cobb, the best in the world at “extraction,” the process of going into someone’s dreams to get that one piece of information a person would never, ever tell you. Who else could want such technology? Mega-high-budget corporations spying on one another; these are Cobb’s contract employers. When one such high-dollar, high-risk heist goes wrong his mark (played by a very hard-to-understand Ken Watanabe) becomes his new boss, offering Cobb a cleared criminal record and a way back into the States to be with his kids if he just does this one little thing that’s supposedly impossible: Plant a thought in the mind of an heir to a corporate empire, getting him to dissolve his father’s business–and make this heir believe it was his idea all along.

Sploosh, sploosh.

What follows is a mixture of Ocean’s 11, The Matrix and In Dreams, with Cobb and his team of helpers diving not one but three levels into the subconscious of young heir Robert Fischer, Jr., played by Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins, Red Eye), to try and execute their plan–in other words, they induce a dream… within a dream… within another dream. Here’s where Nolan’s brilliant high-wire act of storytelling begins, as by the time you follow the crew to the top of a snowy mountain you’re following three stories simultaneously. Lots of directors have tried the story-within-a-story approach and failed spectacularly at it, and that was just with two stories usually. Nolan, his set designer and visual effects crew put together three radically different environments that don’t ignore one another or their respective story arcs; in fact, what happens at one level of subconscious has magnified effects in each lower level. Falling from a height in one level will feel like zero gravity in the level below it and falling into a bathtub will send an aquatic avalanche into the room you’re standing in one dream-level down. All of this makes for epic visuals, particularly as Ariadne, played by Ellen Page (Juno), learns how to manipulate dreamscapes during her training as the “architect” of the dream the crew will enter in Fischer’s mind. Physics, space and time slip away as you watch Paris literally fold on top of itself like a city turned calzone. It’s mind-bending, literally and figuratively.

The idea of the dream “architect” is a little outlandish, but acceptable in context–Cobb can no longer build believable dreamscapes because the figure of his dead wife haunts his, so he has someone else create the lucid not-realities–but the problem comes in what the architect designs. See, in spite of all the folding, bursting and flooding, these lucid dreamscapes seem so, well, normal. There is none of the horrifying randomness that comes in actual dreaming; instead, what we see in the real world is mirrored exactly. For example, in lucid dreams the dreamer can look for telltale signs they are dreaming, such as text that reads differently or blurry on second glance. Where is that in this movie? Or maybe an out-of-place face, person or happening? Are dream “architects” too good for that stuff? Does being a maze-building genius mean such a person isn’t subject to the whims of the subconscious mind? It’s a stretch to believe this once you think about it, but it’s a necessary sacrifice, if you will, in order to keep a Hollywood movie acceptable to a Hollywood movie’s audience. In other words, don’t get crazy, scary or otherwise lose the plot thread.

There’s one other Hollywood intrusion that tries to muck up Inception: The stereotypical Love Interest, in this case Cobb’s dead wife, played by Marion Cotillard (Public Enemies, Big Fish) who continues to haunt Cobb’s dream worlds and sabotage his work. She is his greatest obstacle in the movie, but the truth is her character comes off as one-dimensional and uninteresting. In a movie where characters can float through air and manipulate their physical realm, all she seems able to do is huff and occasionally stab someone you don’t want her to. She’s a plot device and little more. What reels her back into relevance, really, is DiCaprio, who gives an insane-sounding movie (go ahead and read the second paragraph of this review again and see) with a hackneyed lost-love subplot the titanium-strong link it needs to hold everything together. The fear and desperation one sees in Cobb is the realest thing in any of the alternate realities he drifts in and out of, as well as an interesting counterpoint to the cool hand and quick wit he must show during his heists. That these opposites serve to undermine each other should come as no surprise.

While it (necessarily) has some tuned-down elements required of any big-budget Hollywood flick, what Nolan has crafted is a movie with lasting visuals and a plot that is both riveting and thought-provoking. It’s not how dreams really go, but that’s what David Lynch movies are for. This, instead, is an internal epic, a movie as claustophobic as it is sweeping, one that goes everywhere while never leaving the darkness you see when you close your eyes.

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Sometimes you want to sit at home. While it’s not encouraged, it’s understood. It sucks to rent a bad movie so the Lost Reel Review is here to help guide you on your path to good movie rentals.

Triplets of Belleville (2003) is almost creepy. With earth-toned shades of dreary brown dominating the animation. Triplets takes viewers on a mostly silent journey as a elderly woman tries to track down her grandson who was kidnapped while competing in the Tour de France. The grandmother teams up with her aging canine and sisters to create one of the greatest getaway scenes I’ve ever watched. It’s clearly geared to adults – greatly to blame for losing to Finding Nemo for Best Animated Feature – and features a rhythmic, timely, strange but masterful soundtrack. The story is well constructed and dialogue perfect (when used). Comedy comes in doses as grandmother flaunts uncanny frog-gigging ability.

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Waking Life (2001) – A digitally enhanced live action masterpiece directed by Richard Linklater which dances through a young man’s thoughts while in a constant state of lucid dream (I think). Discussions of reality, existentialism and even the age old meaning of life question prevail. Fascinating animation make it visually exciting.

I Heart Huckabees (2004) – Jason Schwartzman is the frontman for an environmental group which is trying to keep a box store – Huckabees (Wal-Mart/Target) – from opening. Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin play existential detectives and Jude Law is the Huckabee’s CEO. Hilarity ensues. If that’s not enough, Naomi Watts is involved and she hasn’t to date harmed interest.

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(The following is a review of Winter’s Bone, the film based on a local novel that was adapted for cinema and won best film and best screenplay at the Sundance Film Festival. It was shot entirely locally, more specifically in Christian and Stone Counties. Many of the cast and crew had local ties. WB will be at SGF’s Campbell 16 on June 18. This review is done by a guy who doesn’t normally do movie reviews. Hang on, tight.)

There are many preconceived notions about Winter’s Bone. Depending on what you know, or what you don’t know, this is likely what you have heard.

• It won awards at the Sundance Film Festival.
• It was shot entirely here in the Ozarks.
• There are local actors and actresses.
• Meth is involved.

All of those things are true, but when trying to explain what Winter’s Bone is, I think it’s best to start with a simple statement and then go into what it is not. My official opinion (solidified by years of movie and TV watching…)

Great movie, mediocre story.

The scene is set in Forsyth and follows the path of the 17-year-old Ree Dolly and her family, which includes her missing meth-cooking (and using?) father, her catatonic mother and two younger siblings. Ree is the main character who tries to juggle school, cooking and cleaning duties and, essentially, all parenting. When she finds out her father has been released on bond, she’s told that he put the family’s only true possession — their house — up as collateral. The danger is heightened after the sheriff says he’s skeptical the father is going to show for his court date.

The story is set with pitfalls for Ree and she must overcome them in order for her family to be able to survive as one unit. However, there are many moments in the story that are implied, but not fully explained. I don’t want to ruin the entire plot for you with Cliff’s Notes, but while much of the story is Point A to Point B to Point C, etc., a substantial amount of the danger is heightened by elements that aren’t directly described. Instead, they are forbidden even for Ree to know, and, in my opinion, it’s asking the viewer to take major leaps of faith with the plot and the characters. For me, it wasn’t overly effective, although it’s possible that someone could inject their own adrenaline-pumping suspense. I just don’t think it will be as obvious for every viewer. Did I believe in Ree as a heroine? Yes. Do I agree that her path was difficult and she deserves to be portrayed as a protagonist that makes the impossible happen? Absolutely. I just didn’t agree with the story’s payoff at the end. Storywise, I found myself wanting more.

On the other hand, Winter’s Bone dominates with its visual details. I would imagine part of its success nationwide, at least in filmmaking circles, is its setting and how it delivers such an unusual set of circumstances — unusual, at least, to those from different walks of life. Think about it. When you watch it — whether at Campbell 16 or if you were at the recent 450-seat screening at Missouri State’s Plaster Student Union — some of the scenery might not be as system-shocking as it would to be to someone living in an urban setting. On the same token, SGFers are going to grade the depictions of these locations on a curve because they have seen, or know of, places like this. For me, it gets an A.

This isn’t just rural Missouri; this film is set off the backroads of the backroads of the backroads, a right-left-right turn off of Highways like D, HH and Y. Most of us who have grown up around the area have seen this slice of rural Missouri at least once, if not lived in it or near it. We’ve seen the dilapidated farm houses, the ones that are family investments of ancestors that haven’t been updated in years, have a Dish Network dish or the state-of-the-art wood-chopping machines. The surplus bales of hay are used as jungle gyms until they’re needed for food or money. Stray dogs become lookouts and friends. Winter’s Bone hits these details like meticulous sniper fire.

MSU alum Lauren Sweetser played Ree's best friend, Gail.

The language wins, too. We’re not beaten over the head with “I reckon,” “Y’all,” or “Warsh.” It’s a nice touch, yet there’s still a certain necessary and familiar twang in their dialogue. Anything that would have been too over the top we would immediately have called BS. The scenery shots are amazing, a compliment not only to the rural images of trees and cloudy skies, but to director Debra Granik’s infatuation with details and her eye for them. It’s the same reason when many move to this area they say they spend time driving around and looking at trees. The perspective on our surroundings was refreshing.

It’s also a reminder of those who live with virtually nothing out in the Ozarks, hunting for their food — there’s a squirrel-skinning scene — and using wood stoves. The beginning of the movie moves slowly, trying to illustrate exactly how Ree has and comes from nothing. Granik toys with the viewer’s attention span, hoping that the visuals bide her enough time until the story gets to moving at a better pace.

As for the methamphetamine portion of the story, I was pleasantly surprised. As I said to MSU alum Lauren Sweetser in our video interview, I was worried about the way the Ozarks would be portrayed. Winter’s Bone should be described this way: It’s a story about meth and how it can wreck families, but meth isn’t an active on-screen character.

You know how in AMC’s Breaking Bad you get a glimpse into meth culture, including scenes of cooking and selling it? Winter’s Bone doesn’t take you inside the meth labs. It doesn’t show the ingredients and the cooking utensils. And not that I was expecting gritty Trainspotting-like meth usage, but meth’s screen time is shorter than reading this paragraph. The fact that it wasn’t gratuitous made me very happy — and relieved.

Arguably my favorite part of the entire film revolves around the character Teardrop, Ree’s uncle. Again, I don’t want to spoil his role, but think of a mix between Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino. I felt the movie needed more of his unpredictability, but his role, while important, was limited.

In all, there is no doubt Winter’s Bone is a unique drama, especially when measured against many movies we have all seen. While it’s based on Ree’s journey, there isn’t a feeling of conventional suspense or mystery. Much of it is left up to interpretation. There are scenes that are some of the most gripping and uncomfortable that I have seen in some time, but they don’t seem to blend with the rest of the stoic tone. But maybe that’s the problem, and it’s only mine. It’s not traditional.

But I found myself getting lost in the details, the stunning visuals and the authenticity of the scenery, not the story. I think Granik deserves an awful lot of credit because she breathed incredible life into a mediocre story. (I should note I never ready Daniel Woodrell’s novel, so I have no foundation to compare it to the film.) I’d love to see what she could do with a good plot, because her eye for detail and scenery is incredible. Considering it was made with the help of dozens of local actors, cast and crew, that alone should be enough to get you to Campbell 16 on June 18. It’s the only time, as of now, it will be shown on the big screen in Springfield.

Check out our previous Winter’s Bone coverage:

• Listen to the audio of the post-screening Q&A with cast, crew and the audience.
• Watch our video Q&A with actress Lauren Sweetser.
• Watch video of two bands that have music in Winter’s Bone.
• Click here for the film’s official website.

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James Cameron spared no time or expense to place a giant, two-hour-and-forty-minute, $200-to-$500-Million “L” on humanity’s forehead with his live action/CGI sci-fi epic Avatar, the story of man’s attempt to connect with a tribal alien race in order to exploit its land for profit. Thanks, Jim. At least this bitter pill comes in the form of a movie that is visually rich and, when one turns a blind eye to Cameron’s occasionally sloppy storytelling, is even compelling at times. Best of all, Celine Dion‘s heart does not, at any point, go on.

Avatar is Cameron’s first turn directing a feature film since 1997′s Titanic, which is close to how long it took to develop this movie. Cameron says he had to wait for technology to catch up to the script he wrote in order to bring it to life properly with digital animation. Waiting was a sound decision; the visuals lead the way in this movie from the very beginning, taking the viewer to the far-off planet of Pandora, where the indigenous people are eight feet tall and blue and can literally plug into the plants and animals to communicate with them.

Unobtainium: You can't touch this.

Yes, the planet’s name is Pandora, the same name as the girl with the little box you don’t want to open. Also, the name of the precious metal the humans are on Pandora to try and mine out from under the natives: Unobtainium. Really, Jim? Was MC Hammer unwilling to give up the rights to the word canttouchthisium? Here’s the thing with Cameron’s opus: He’s not sweating little details such as names or, you know, actual science, and if you do an otherwise good movie will slip through your fingers. He’s a director telling a story, not a script writer or even a CGI guru. Avatar is about big visual impact and overarching plot themes, not floating mountains that aren’t snow-capped but still manage to have waterfalls or creatures with regenerating carbon fiber (a man-made substance) for skeletons.

Such is the bizarre world of the Na’vi, the race of eight-foot-tall blue people who inhabit the inhospitable-to-humans Pandora. How, then, to connect with the Na’vi and convince them to stop sitting on their giant kajillion-dollar unobaitium stash? Scientists figure out how to engineer Na’vi bodies and have them telepathically controlled by humans in a control outpost. One of their Na’vi drivers is Jake Sulley (Sam Worthington), a Marine veteran pilot called in because of his genetic similarities to his deceased superpilot brother… except for his legs, which haven’t worked since the accident that sent him out of military life not long before. From the moment he arrives, Sully is the servant of two masters: the scientists, led by Na’vi expert Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), who want him to act as a social experiment while in his Na’vi body, and the military men who want him to do recon on the land so they can plot to extract the Unobtainium. What’s more, both sides mock and degrade him for rolling around in a wheelchair, even as he becomes the prodigy neither side has ever had on Pandora before. Can’t a blue-person pilot get any love around here?

The answer is yes, courtesy of the Na’vi, who take Sulley in and put him in the care of the tribe chief’s daughter, Neytiri (voiced by Zoe Saldana), who spends all of her time teaching Sulley to hunt and how to bond with the plants and animals of Pandora, all of which the Na’vi can plug literally plug into and connect with psychically. What could possibly happen? Yup, they fall in love and get it on in the glowing forest. Since Neytiri is betrothed to the tribe’s best fighter, this might be what one would call “a situation.” Now the man called upon to appease the Na’vi and get them to relocate must do so while convincing them he didn’t do it all for the nookie, all while the humans begin their march on the land to take the Unobtainium by force. 

The movie starts treading on Michael Bay territory from here with lots of explosions and grandiose fighting sequences, but the parallels are already set. The Na’vi, hyper-in-tune with the nature around them and sitting on valuable land they’re being pressured off of, are basically Cameron’s sci-fi take on the American Indian. An overacting Giovanni Ribisi plays Parker Selfridge, the government man pushing the button to pillage Pandora and who becomes the epitome of Man the Greedy Planet-Killer. When Sulley tells the Na’vi “they already killed their mother, and they’ll do the same to yours,” he’s talking about Earth. If you pull your 3-D glasses down slightly, you can feel the metaphorical “L” being stamped on your forehead. Cameron puts the viewer firmly on the side of the Na’vi toward the end, even if the viewer isn’t eight feet tall, blue or equipped to plug into his or her planet USB-style. By now, the Na’vi don’t even matter, really; it’s all about watching the humans negotiating via air-to-surface missile at this point. Cameron’s job is done; he’s told a flawed story well, using contrived, sometimes stereotypical characters to get across a penetrating message dressed in flashy, breathtaking CGI. Spend the extra money to see this film in 3-D, as the game-changing graphical presentation is positively absorbing in three dimensions. Being absorbed in Na’vi life in Pandora is all part of Cameron’s storytelling strategy anyway, and it might help that “L” on your forehead hurt a little less.

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Psychologists would probably have a field day with Cormac McCarthy. The author’s two most recent novels, The Road and No Country for Old Men, share two things in common. First, now that The Road has been released starring Viggo Mortensen (who is making a dark-horse bid for inclusion in the “great actors of our time” discussion) and Charlize Theron, we can say both have been made into feature films. Second, both explore the one thing mankind doesn’t want to talk about: its animal nature. We are animals, but we have built Society to hide and restrain the natures and tendencies we’re born with. When those tendencies do come out, they become classified as “breaking the law.” Killing and theft are commonplace in Nature, but Society is better than that. So what happens when s*** hits Society’s fan and all the handshakes and yes-please-thank-yous and netiquette are gone and all we’re left with is the beast within? This is the question at the heart of The Road‘s premise, and though it becomes hard to watch at times, McCarthy and director John Hillcoat (The Proposition) flesh it out marvelously, if not perfectly.

In a way, The Road is the perfect opposite of No Country For Old Men. Where No Country watched Society implode from within in a world not fully aware of that implosion, The Road watches humans cling to the last remnants of their humanity–”the fire inside,” as Mortensen’s son, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee, calls it–in a world destroyed by some unmentioned catastrophe and visibly in its death throes. Every city and town is laid to waste, most people are dead, trees are leveled everywhere, earthquakes and fires happen periodically and the world is constantly rainy and cold. (Here, by the way, is where we run into the movie’s major annoying trait: The lack of expository details. Did humans cause the catastrophe? Was it a nuclear holocaust? Meteor strike? Did Sarah Palin answer the red phone? Answers are desired and not given. Won’t be the last time, either.)

In this post-apocalyptic world, people do whatever they must to survive, wandering the world foraging abandoned buildings, sleeping in burned-out cars and stealing whatever they must to make it to the next day. In this world, man no longer considers it wrong to kill man; indeed, Mortensen’s character tells us cannibalism is on the rise. Don’t worry, though; this father-and-son duo are the self-described “good guys” and would never do that. Anything else, though, just might be fair game, especially in Mortensen’s eyes. Hey, it’s a cruel world and he’s got a son to protect… and two bullets in what looks like a .38 revolver to do it with. This could get ugly.

There’s a lot of ugliness in the movie, actually, from the stark and vivid wasteland brought startlingly to life in the film to the hunting parties and aforementioned cannibalism that’s heard onscreen but not seen. The ugliness also resides within Mortensen’s character, a man so obsessed with doting after his young son that he drifts into cold, vengeful mania at times. Maybe he’s driven to madness by the dreams of his wife (Theron), who slowly went crazy herself and committed suicide sometime after the unknown catastrophe with no reason given. (Remember that expository detail thing we talked about? Yeah. There it is again.)

Mortensen’s character lives only for taking care of his young boy, who is a total wet noodle and needs a lot of taking care of. Not that watching so much death and destruction wouldn’t be cripplingly traumatic, but Mortensen ends up carrying the boy–literally–every time danger comes. Really? The boy can’t even run? Ever heard of survival instinct, kid? Apparently not, as he wanders off to try and make contact when he spots another boy his age and falls asleep rather than keep watch over camp. Then again, maybe his bumbling is necessary to advance the plot; pushing shopping carts through grey landscapes can only hold the viewer’s attention for so long, really.

In a movie that is almost exhaustingly bleak there are moments of redemption, when “the fire inside” wins, and they come out best during cameo appearances by Robert Duvall, Michael K. Williams and Guy Pearce. At the moments when Mortensen’s character most looks down at humanity, giving in to the beast within, his son looks up at humanity and sees these people for what they are: People whose hands have been forced by extraordinarily trying times. In the child’s eyes, Society can still come out on top, but it has a beast of a fight on its hands to do it.

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