FilmJerk Favorites

A group of unique directors and the essential works that you've got to see.

||| Stanley Kubrick |||
Stanley Kubrick

A filmmaker of international importance, Kubrick was one of the only directors to work within the Studio System and still have full artistic control over his films from scripting through post-production, prompting Time Magazine to compare Kubrick’s early independence with the magnitude of Orson Welles.

An uncompromising antiwar film, this gut-wrenching drama depicts a World War I officer as he labors with an ultimately futile defense for three painfully sympathetic men tried for cowardice. Kubrick artistically utilizes a beautifully washed-out black and white photography to represent the muddied boundaries of right and wrong, and the many gray areas that lay between.

A fabulous and inspiring adventure, this visually stunning epic stars Kirk Douglas as the heroic slave who fights to lead his people to freedom from Roman rule. Although a clear departure from Kubrick’s oeuvre, “Spartacus” is an all time classic helmed by a man with a precise vision who is equally capable of crafting colossal spectacle, tense tête-à-têtes, and a tender moment between lovers.

This film is so stylish it’s easy to forget it’s a horror film at heart. Considered to be the thinking man’s thriller, Kubrick molds this very particularly “Stephan King” material into the portfolio of his films about human failure, as the hero’s desperate desire to become somebody ends in frustration and tragedy.

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Kit Kittredge: An American Girl

By BrianOrndorf

June 19th, 2008

It's easy to see that "Kit Kittredge" is after family audiences. It's a harmless tale told without a lick of objectionable content, sure to offer relief to many parents unwilling to subject their children to the heated warfare of lowbrow summer entertainment. However, as generous in spirit as "Kittredge" is, it's an absolute chore to sit through for anyone not plugged into the "American Girl" franchise hoedown.

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl

Watching her family hope to make ends meet during the Great Depression, Kit Kittredge (Abigail Breslin) remains courageous, even trying to score work with the local paper writing about matters of the unemployed. When her father (Chris O’Donnell) heads out of state to find work, it forces Kit’s mother (Julia Ormond) to take in eccentric boarders (including Stanley Tucci, Joan Cusack, and Jane Krakowski), most of which have great distaste for the hobos that fill the manual labor jobs of the neighborhood. One of the homeless kids, teenager Will (Max Theroit), is a friend of the Kittredges, and when he’s accused of theft, Kit springs into action, trying to uncover the clues that will clear Will’s name and save the family home from foreclosure.

“Kittredge” is born from the popular “American Girl” doll line, which gives young girls (and Marie Osmond types) a chance to experience life from a different era and perspective. It’s an interesting concept for a toy, and if there’s anything to outright praise about the “Kittredge” movie, it’s the obsession with Depression iconography. The picture is all soup lines, chicken-feed-bag dresses, and the use of “hobo” as the ultimate four-letter word (seriously, these characters wield the term like a switchblade).

Director Patricia Rozema embraces the era and manufactures an agreeable cardboard backdrop for Kit and her adventures, but she overdoses on the earnestness, turning Kit into a blinding beacon of one-dimensional goodwill and kid-sized worry. “Kittredge” has been drained of complexity to satisfy the wee ones in the audience, and I’m absolutely fine with that; what troubles me about the picture is its amplified presentation. The cast is all wildly gesticulating arms and heavily-pronounced melodrama, while the plot itself is pulled straight from a “Scooby-Doo” episode, with slapstick bad guys and cartoonishly greedy motivations. Rozema pitches everything to the rafters, turning the picture into a sugary, aggravating caper.

The perky pinch is also felt by Breslin, pushed here by Rozema to give an adult performance dancing across the emotional rainbow, but she’s too limited to have much effect. Breslin is entering the Dakota Fanning phase of her career: the place where studios lust after her name, thus pressuring the actress to take roles beyond her skill level. Breslin sells the earnestness of Kit, but not the gravity, and her performance is cringingly robotic as a result.

“Kit Kittredge” is hopelessly vanilla entertainment, and while it’s sure to please some matinee attendees, it’s going to feel like a demonic endurance ritual to the less inclined.

My rating: D