Movie review by Greg Carlson

“District 9,” a zany sci-fi social commentary blended with bugs-on-the-run brio, arose from the ashes of the failed “Halo” movie that was to have been shepherded by Peter Jackson as producer and visual effects specialist Neill Blomkamp in the director’s chair.  Jackson purportedly offered Blomkamp roughly 30 million bucks to come up with something in the wake of the “Halo” implosion, and Blomkamp responded with an expansion of his short movie “Alive in Joburg.”  Set mostly in a hellish shantytown in Johannesburg, South Africa, “District 9” imagines a world in which stranded aliens are treated with the same kind of contempt that ruling classes have shown toward the marginalized in numerous historical examples.  While the film’s setting makes apartheid the most obvious parallel, Blomkamp applies his brush liberally enough to suggest hints of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps and ethnically motivated conflicts from the Middle East to Eastern Europe.

Mid-level field operative Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) works for the ominous Multi-National United, a Halliburton-like contractor retained by the South African government to relocate the alien encampment of the title to a new location outside the city limits.  While Copley’s unfamiliar face is refreshing, the character he plays is a buffoonish dolt whose empty-headed pronouncements make him an ideal candidate for employment at Wernham Hogg paper merchants.  Virtually everything of narrative importance pivots around Wikus, and his fawning, deferential obsequiousness (his father-in-law, who promoted him, comically denies charges of nepotism) initially renders him difficult to like.

“District 9” rockets by so quickly that many of the movie’s hemorrhaging plot gaps won’t bother the grinning customers.  A second viewing might erase some doubts, but Blomkamp and co-screenwriter Terri Tatchell fudge too often to earn a free pass.  One wonders why the brutalized prawns don’t turn their superior firepower against their human oppressors.  For that matter, it makes very little sense that the shady MNU corporation for which Wikus works would seek to eradicate their only link to the technology they so desperately want to control.  Why don’t the humans force an enslaved, terrorized prawn to operate the alien weaponry?

Tonally, Blomkamp attempts to balance black comedy with a superficial soulfulness that aligns viewer sympathy with the beleaguered extra terrestrials.  Disappointingly, only one alien creature (who sports the wryly evocative salvation-oriented name Christopher Johnson) is presented as a thoroughly developed character in his/its own right, and any explanations that the remaining horde of prawns are simply too docile, scared or stupid to stand up for themselves merely reinforces the stereotyping used by dominant groups to justify cruelty against the weak “other.”

Action junkies will relish the movie’s final sections, when Blomkamp shifts all the energy to a video game-style bullet festival.  Recalling the most violent gut punches of “RoboCop.” “Starship Troopers,” and “Aliens,” “District 9” gleefully jacks up a body count worthy of any first person shooter, as scores of expendable human mercenaries are ripped apart in showers of exploding gobs of flesh, limbs, and brains.  The visceral thrill ride diminishes much of the impact made by the intriguing political and social questions posed in the film’s first third and also allows the filmmaker to largely ignore – at least onscreen – the segregationist issues raised at the movie’s outset.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Marc Webb’s “(500) Days of Summer” is, alas, a conventional, male-centric romance masquerading as an appealing hipster fantasy.Were it not for the chemistry of attractive lead performers Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, the movie would have a difficult time sustaining its self-conscious cool throughout the jumble of its fragmented chronology.While marginally better than the bigger budgeted fare that “(500) Days of Summer” closely resembles, the movie would require a total overhaul to be considered a legitimate alternative to glossier “boy loses girl” features.

Gordon-Levitt plays Tom, an unrealistic romantic weaned on the achingly morose poetry of the Smiths and Joy Division – he sports not one, but two tee shirts idolizing the latter, including, in case we might otherwise miss it, the edition emblazoned with “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”Tom clings to the thought that there is a perfect soul mate he is destined to find, and one day he spies the stunning Summer (Deschanel), a new hire at the boutique greeting card company where he works.The two “meet cute” in an elevator: overhearing music from Tom’s headphones, Summer warbles a few lines of“There Is a Light That Never Goes Out,” instantly capturing the young man’s heart.

As Summer, Deschanel thanklessly embodies another variation of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl.Coined by critic Nathan Rabin, the MPDG describes a class of quirky, impossibly beautiful free spirits designed to, in Rabin’s words, “teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”Ultimately, the MPDG is a second-class cinematic citizen, a muse without her own agency who exists to serve the male protagonist on his quest for self-fulfillment.Deschanel’s Summer, who doesn’t believe in the old-fashioned romantic notion of “the one,” becomes a mere object to be won and lost by Tom.

In addition to its failure to operate outside of a strictly masculine point of view, “(500) Days of Summer” offers up a laundry list of clichés: unnecessary stentorian voiceover narration (wildly popular since “The Royal Tenenbaums”), a wise-beyond-her-years younger sibling who dispenses grown-up relationship advice (in full flower following “Bottle Rocket”), and Tom’s wacky comic-relief pals who grind the movie to a halt in every scene in which they appear (Summer, apparently, does not have any friends of her own).Add to that a post-coital musical number complete with animated bluebird, a tribute to the French New Wave, a couple trips to IKEA, and Belle and Sebastian, “The Graduate,” and J.D. Salinger references, and you have a recipe for smarty-pants vogue overload.

“(500) Days of Summer” wears its heart on its sleeve, and desperately wants to be loved by all the trendy kids.  The movie also shields itself in irony, allowing the dismissive and condescending among us to buy in to the blunt obviousness that love hurts (although the most jaded will still turn up their noses at the inclusion of Patrick Swayze’s “She’s Like the Wind”).  The movie gets to have its cake and eat it, in the late-arriving form of Minka Kelly, whose character’s groan-inducing name is introduced with a fourth-wall breaking wink.  Turns out experience, and Summer, were pretty good teachers, even if it’s all a little too cute.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Veteran Hollywood action filmmaker/adrenaline engineer Kathryn Bigelow offers her finest movie to date in “The Hurt Locker,” a brutal and intense tour of duty with a team of American soldiers charged with the ugly, dangerous task of defusing improvised explosive devices in Iraq. Bigelow, whose credits include several films with sturdy cult followings, including the often-overlooked vampire Western “Near Dark” (1987), the bank robber/surfer hit “Point Break” (1991) and the influential cyberpunk mindbender “Strange Days” (1995), continues to demonstrate her facility with stunningly staged, emotionally charged material, but “The Hurt Locker” boasts a level of gritty realism missing from most of the filmmaker’s previous large scale features.

Mark Boal’s screenplay, structured straightforwardly around seven specific set pieces, adroitly balances the pulse-quickening, heart-racing suspense inherent in the bomb squad’s job description with keenly observed, subtly illustrated hints that help explain why a person would pursue one of the most stressful specialties in the military. At the heart of the story is Staff Sergeant William James, played by Jeremy Renner in a breakout performance. Renner, a dependable actor often cast in supporting roles, is marvelous and commanding as James, a deeply troubled professional for whom the daily risk of his life is nothing short of a calling.

James finds a perfect foil in meticulous professional Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie, also excellent), a point man who provides James with cover whenever a bomb call requires the team’s attention. Mackie and Renner invest their characters with a blend of admiration and disgust for one another that speaks to the complexity of a dynamic based upon critical trust and communication. When James recklessly tosses aside his headphones or strips off his hulking Kevlar blast protection suit, Sanborn seethes with dumbfounded frustration and helplessness that contrast sharply with the military’s masculine codes.

For all of its sweaty anxiety, “The Hurt Locker” modifies many of the expectations of combat thrillers. Sustained tension replaces full-throttle depictions of small arms melees, and Bigelow works wonders with the rhythm and pacing of each of the sequences in which James and company find themselves in harm’s way. Even a long distance face-off in which snipers pin down a small group of American soldiers and fire-eating UK contractors is a miniature marvel of spatial dynamics and carefully timed shots. In the sequence, Bigelow suggests the excruciating passage of time without sacrificing any of the nauseating fear that keeps the soldiers on a razor’s edge. Like many of the movie’s scenarios, the desert gunfight has a way of sticking with you long after the film has ended.

“The Hurt Locker” bests nearly all other Iraq war movies in its examination of the psychological effects of armed combat — without resorting to many of the oversimplified explanations movies tend to offer. Instead, several tricky questions are raised that transcend the good-versus-evil dialectic that governs so much of American popular culture. Is James addicted to his impossibly treacherous work? Is he mentally ill? What does it take to be an Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician when the job is so thoroughly perilous? “The Hurt Locker” never gives any definitive answers, and it shouldn’t. To do so would mute its considerable impact.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A thoroughly disappointing variation on “The Bad Seed,” “Orphan” will find a loyal audience in viewers who revel in murderous children and creepy psychosexual games. Despite a late twist that provides the movie with a concussive blast, “Orphan” collapses under the weight of its bloated, unnecessary running time and its lack of imagination. Playing on nonsensical cultural fears related to adoption, “Orphan” cooks up all kinds of unpleasantness and mayhem involving preteens, perpetuating the mythology of a class of cinematic cherubs ready to manipulate adults and unleash hell when no one is looking.

Attractively photographed in Quebec, “Orphan” mostly takes place in and around a gorgeous modern domicile that would be right at home on the pages of “Dwell.” Wealthy John and Kate Coleman (Peter Sarsgaard and Vera Farmiga), already parents to a pair of sweet-faced kids, remain devastated by the stillbirth of a daughter. They adopt 9-year-old Esther (the effectively unsettling Isabelle Fuhrman), a poised Russian with a bizarre penchant for old-fashioned dresses and velvety neck ribbons. Despite the wariness of adorable, hearing-impaired Max (Aryana Engineer) and brother Daniel (Jimmy Bennett), the clueless adults fail to recognize warning signs until it is too late.

Director Jaume Collet-Serra, who also helmed “Goal II: Living the Dream,” has not improved much as a horror filmmaker since his 2005 remake of “House of Wax.” Resorting again and again to cheap shocks underscored with loud musical stingers and bursts (just to make sure everyone jumps out of their chairs), the director never bothers to attempt building suspense when nerve-wracking sensual assault will do. One can only imagine what a storyteller like Alfred Hitchcock might have accomplished with the wild material, but it would certainly contain more wit, intelligence, and respect for its audience than Collet-Serra can offer.

Working from a screenplay by David Leslie Johnson and a story by Alex Mace, the director is not shy about depicting very young people in perilous mental and physical situations. The film’s target demographic is not likely composed of parents, but compassionate viewers will flinch at many of the disturbing, emotionally scarring horrors to which the very young characters are subjected. The criticism is especially vexing in the case Max, who witnesses the majority of the traumatizing atrocities committed by her new sister against classmates, acquaintances, and family members. Broken bones, death by hammer, tree house arson, handgun violence, stabbing by knife, and icy drowning are all on the movie’s unappetizing menu.

By the end of the feature, “Orphan” has provided a clinic in lumbering horror flick clichés. The final sections of the movie, down to the Killer Who Will Not Die, practically pulsate with unrelenting trashiness, from a ghoulish seduction scene to a black-lit gallery of fluorescent erotica, which makes one wonder where Esther received her graphic arts training. All three of the child performers turn in solid work despite the shaky source material. Farmiga and Sarsgaard also bring a level of talent to what would under most circumstances be an embarrassing low-budget quickie – a good description of most of the Dark Castle Entertainment filmography.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Food, Inc.” is the best of a group of movies focused on issues and problems related to the corporatization of the food industry in America and beyond, even as the documentary opts for breadth over depth on a topic as huge as the ever-expanding waistlines of our population. In recent years, movies including “Super Size Me,” “Fast Food Nation,” and “King Corn” have all tackled various aspects of the way we eat, but “Food, Inc.” summarizes many familiar themes in a compelling admonition that raises many important ethical, moral, and fiscal questions about diet and nutrition and the hazards of unchecked big business.

Director Robert Kenner loads his double-barreled shotgun with journalists Eric Schlosser (“Fast Food Nation”) and Michael Pollan (“The Omnivore’s Dilemma”), who appear on camera to explain several of the central arguments of their popular books. Included among the observations is the unsettling idea that the highly industrialized system of American mass food production has changed radically in the post WW 2-era, and can be blamed for increases in contamination as well as a decline in the quality and nutritional value of practically everything we consume.

Critics of the movie’s anti-big business acumen have claimed that “Food, Inc.” is hurtful to the American farmer, citing the 2007 USDA Structure and Finances of U.S. Farms statistic that 98 percent of farms are owned by families and not corporations. This charge misses the mark, however, as Virginia farmer Joel Salatin (whose Polyface Farm was featured in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”) is depicted as the closest thing to a hero in the movie. Salatin, with charm and humor, delivers folksy, commonsense advice on responsible and sustainable livestock management. Along with Gary Hirshberg of organic yogurt company Stonyfield Farm, Salatin represents an alternative to the heavily criticized models of the mega-corporations.

The movie’s section on seed company and agribusiness titan Monsanto is frustrating and frightening, spinning an Orwellian vision of domination so complete that the mind boggles at a culture that supports the residual effects of gene patenting. Like Tyson, Smithfield, and Perdue, Monsanto declined filmmaker invitations to appear on camera, but the company was vexed enough to include a section on its website (www.monsanto.com/foodinc/) devoted to the refutation of charges made in “Food, Inc.” In a bulleted list, Monsanto engages in bizarre spin, stating that the movie “demonizes American farmers,” even though the film does no such thing. Perhaps Monsanto equates “American farmers” with industrial food producers.

No matter where one’s beliefs fall along the political spectrum, it is difficult not to be moved by the story of food safety advocate Barbara Kowalcyk, whose two-year-old son Kevin died after eating burgers tainted with E. coli bacteria. Kowalcyk’s tenacious activism, which takes her to the offices of politicians in Washington, demonstrates the underlying optimism of the film – which sometimes lives in the shadows of the stomach turning imagery of slaughterhouses and the dispiriting scenes in which illegal workers are arrested even though the companies that knowingly hire and exploit them face no consequences for their actions. “Food, Inc.” covers so many topics, it might just as easily have been made into a series of episodes for a show like “Frontline.” Even so, it is compelling and necessary viewing.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

An impressive feature movie debut for advertising veteran and David Bowie scion Duncan Jones, “Moon” succeeds as both technical acting clinic and science fiction brainteaser. Like several of his father’s tunes, most notably “Space Oddity,” Jones’ story – which was crafted into screenplay form by Nathan Parker – ponders helplessness on a cosmic scale. Despite the movie’s lunar setting and spectacular views of starry space, the director focuses on the cramped confinement and numbing monotony of the central character’s miserable existence on the moon. Genre fans will be pleased with the film’s thoughtfulness and acuity.

Created on a modest budget that does not hinder the alternating scenes of claustrophobic isolation and the endless darkness outside the base, “Moon” introduces Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell), a tired Helium-3 miner nearing the completion of a three-year employment contract. Struggling to hold his sanity together, Sam’s only companion is an artificially intelligent computer named Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey in shades of Douglas Rain) that keeps tabs on Sam’s fragile mental state. Some of the best scenes in the movie exploit the cat and mouse dynamic between the two that sees Sam trying to outsmart his minder.

It is impossible to address “Moon” without acknowledging the movie’s sizable debt to Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 landmark “2001: A Space Odyssey.” From the antiseptic and strangely quotidian feel of the capsule interiors to the image of Sam jogging on a treadmill, Jones is not shy when it comes to emulating the master. “Moon” also includes Kubrickian videophone messages and hibernation pods, and Gerty’s presence closely mirrors the HAL 9000. The shadow of “2001” looms large over nearly every post-1968 science fiction movie with an intellectual agenda, and “Moon” joins Ridley Scott’s “Alien,” both the Tarkovsky and Soderbergh versions of “Solaris,” and Danny Boyle’s more recent “Sunshine” as stylistic offspring.

Following an accident in a moon rover, Sam awakes to discover his doppelganger, a perfect replica of himself. The two Sam Bells accept an uneasy coexistence as they try to solve the impossibility of their dilemma. Jones expertly directs the action to allow Rockwell the opportunity to not only inhabit two differentiated versions of the same character, but to play many scenes that require impeccable timing as the two men heatedly confront one another. Combining new and old-fashioned moviemaking tricks that would make Hayley Mills proud, “Moon” should tantalize would-be performers.

In an explanatory coda, “Moon” appears to close off several possibilities suggested in its early scenes. Some viewers, myself included, prefer to wonder whether Sam Bell’s otherworldly encounters might reside in his fatigued and strained imagination. Instead, the protagonist’s crucible functions more directly as a commentary on corporate greed and irresponsibility. The oft-repeated adage that the best science fiction uses a metaphoric future to comment on the present can be applied to “Moon,” and the movie’s fictional Lunar Industries (which echoes the mercenary culture of the Weyland-Yutani organization in the “Alien” series and the Tyrell Corporation of “Blade Runner”) will remind many of the post-Enron world in which giant, barely regulated machines operate without any moral gravity.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Noel Coward’s play “Easy Virtue” is reinterpreted for film by Stephan Elliott following the director’s nine-year hiatus from moviemaking. Elliott fails to match the charm of his beloved cult hit “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” but “Easy Virtue” is an entertaining enough variation on popular Jazz Age themes celebrating new attitudes about pleasure and the assertion of individuality. Between the clever insults and the pretty design, there is enough to enjoy in “Easy Virtue,” even if it is nowhere near great.

“Easy Virtue” previously made it to the screen in 1928 as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s silent features, but the version produced by the future Master of Suspense is unmemorable, despite its focus on scandal and infidelity. One imagines that a chief draw of Coward (who was in his mid-twenties at the time he wrote “Easy Virtue”) is the repartee, and in that department, Elliott’s spin, co-written by Stephen Jobbins, retains many of Coward’s one-liners and snappy retorts. While the number of brilliant lines is in shorter supply than in some of Coward’s other work, there are still several killers that hold up, including one exchange in which the heroine has a terrific response when asked if it is true whether she has had as many lovers as rumored.

“Easy Virtue” focuses on a battle of wills and wits between a bold American race car driver named Larita (Jessica Biel, holding her own against the seasoned British thespians) and her new mother-in-law Veronica Whittaker (Kristin Scott Thomas) following Larita’s impulsive marriage to the inexperienced John Whittaker (Ben Barnes). The action is typical of the drawing room comedy, and even though outright farce is kept to a minimum, several outrageous complications are thrown in the pot (including a doomed Chihuahua, a motorcycle in a fox hunt, and a saucy cancan sans culottes).

Larita is more comfortable around her new father-in-law, Colonel Whittaker (Colin Firth), a disheveled wreck whose sarcastic put-downs are the only thing keeping his nasty family members in check. Firth lends gravitas to his role as a numbed WW I veteran, which enhances his character’s ultimate payoff. Ben’s vicious sisters join Veronica in undermining and picking on Larita, and the Colonel is the only person decent enough to speak up on her behalf. Oddly, husband John fails to understand the extent of Larita’s ordeal, and if there is one dimension of “Easy Virtue” that would benefit from some additional exploration, it is the specifics of the marital relationship of Larita and John.

The theme of upper crust hypocrisy hovers in the margins of the movie, which moves along at a leisurely pace appropriate to its relatively tight 96 minute running time. Elliott does manage to have some fun tweaking the period setting, blending a handful of newer pop songs (including “Sex Bomb,” “Car Wash,” and Billy Ocean’s “When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going” in clever, jazzy arrangements) with a group of vintage tunes by Coward and Cole Porter.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Steven Soderbergh’s “The Girlfriend Experience” is as lean and brutal as its chief attraction Sasha Grey, the young starlet whose appearances in more than 150 porn videos lend the movie an air of authenticity – real or imagined – to the story of a high-priced call girl working in NYC during the midst of the current economic collapse.  Adding another chapter to the tale of Soderbergh’s fascinating balancing act that alternates between big budget Hollywood fare like the “Ocean’s 11” series and the modestly priced, intimate digital features that offer a different kind of introspective artistry, “The Girlfriend Experience” is the most successful of the director’s smaller scale projects.

Covering five days in the life of Chelsea (Grey), “The Girlfriend Experience” is presented out of chronological sequence, and the editing technique parallels the fractured, revolving door nature of the central character’s rigidly compartmentalized life, especially as it relates to Chelsea’s challenging task of maintaining a relationship with her live-in boyfriend Chris (Chris Santos).  The inevitability of Chelsea and Chris fighting over her profession is a foregone conclusion, despite the suggestion that an agreement has been reached some months prior to the period of time glimpsed in the movie.  Soderbergh does not take full advantage of the opportunity to let us see a more vulnerable, more human side of Chelsea.  Perhaps he just refuses.

Grey’s placid inscrutability might arguably be called an inability to act, but her persona and the manner in which she projects it complement Soderbergh’s considerations of a time and place in society when everything is branded and commodified.  When Chelsea is not engaging her wealthy clients in the nuanced small talk of perfectly feigned interest that gives the movie its title, she is seen going over her books and meeting with web designers who might be able to help her refine the business model that she uses to sell herself as a sophisticated total package.  In one clever scene, real life film critic Glenn Kenny plays the Erotic Connoisseur, a reptilian blogger whose notions of supply and demand suggest a sleazy quid pro quo.

Soderbergh takes less interest in the emotional lives of Chelsea and Chris than he does in presenting the ways in which the escort and the personal trainer both cater to a particular line of work that depends on serving a clientele in a manner that creates an illusion of intimacy.  Some viewers may find the comparisons a bit too obvious, but Soderbergh is confident enough in his filmmaking gifts to comment on a variety of issues swirling around the October 2008, pre-presidential election milieu.  Soderbergh’s conflation of capitalism and prostitution is more wryly raised eyebrow than sourpuss jeremiad, and the accompanying tone prevents the viewer from becoming dispirited.

Like “Bubble,” “The Girlfriend Experience” was made available as a pay-per-view video download at the same time it was being presented theatrically, and while the tactic has made some filmmakers nervous, Soderbergh has seemingly embraced a level of flexibility that might well become more and more necessary as audiences expect to see content on their own terms and timelines.  Whether you see it in the theatre or at home, “The Girlfriend Experience” is well worth a look.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Every Little Step,” a documentary chronicling the grueling audition process for the 2006 revival of “A Chorus Line,” achieves some of its lofty goals while leaving just as many stories of the venerable musical frustratingly unexplored. Directors Adam Del Deo and James D. Stern are clearly more interested in the macrocosmic, shaping their movie around the ineffable desire that sees so many hopefuls compete for so few jobs. The movie conveys the strange unity that binds together the affectionately-monikered “gypsies” who bleed, perspire, and weep as they face nearly insurmountable odds to find work in their chosen profession. For anyone interested in the workings of Broadway theatre, “Every Little Step” should not be missed.

“Every Little Step” squeezes in a great deal of drama during its 96-minute running time, including previously unheard material from the original 1974 audiotape sessions that evolved into the workshops that would eventually bring “A Chorus Line” to a whopping run of 6137 performances. Alternating between brief sketches of the show’s origins (though mostly ignoring some key contributors like Ed Kleban and James Kirkwood) and the rounds of monologues and dance combinations at the revival auditions, the documentary engages the same “And Then There Were None” strategy put to good use in Jeffrey Blitz’s “Spellbound.”

Given the popularity of talent shows like “American Idol,” the elimination format of “Every Little Step” is a built-in intrigue generator that keeps most viewers engaged as the casting process moves ever closer to the final decisions. “A Chorus Line,” with its inward-directed gaze, is the perfect meta-musical test case for a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the parameters of its creation. At various times, the movie begins to reflect and refract images like a hall of mirrors (such as the scenes in which Baayork Lee, the original Connie Wong, helps to cast an actor playing an actor in a part based largely on Lee’s own life).

“Every Little Step” contains several gripping scenes, most notably a section of Jason Tam’s stunning audition for the role of Paul. Tam’s heartfelt line readings reduce the grizzled decision makers to tears, and the sequence leaves one yearning for more detail about the actor. Unfortunately, this is a common deficiency of “Every Little Step,” as the moviemakers never fully connect with any of the people trying out for roles. Instead, the interviews contain a multitude of show business chestnuts that ironically shield the performers from revealing anything specific about their own journeys to the stage.

Viewers of “Every Little Step” will not see any content addressing the controversies aroused by choreographer/director Michael Bennett during and after the original production of “A Chorus Line.” Bennett is deified by every talking head in the movie, particularly Donna McKechnie, whose closeness – and onetime marriage to Bennett – affords her a special authority. Surely the documentary would have been more involving had it opened up to a comprehensive accounting of the history of “A Chorus Line,” but given the fact that Bennett estate executor John Breglio is one of the film’s executive producers, “Every Little Step” predictably remains a respectful tribute.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

It should go without saying that the freshly released Tony Scott remake of the 1974 Joseph Sargent version of “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” is utterly unnecessary. Most remakes, reinterpretations, and re-imaginings are. Blasting off with a thumping remix of Jay-Z’s “99 Problems,” the new “Pelham” honors the original hijack/caper movie at least as far as painting a portrait of life in and around the NYC subway system. While the original movie’s tough, gritty New York attained a cult following (with members including the Beastie Boys and Quentin Tarantino), Scott’s version of the city emphasizes a post-Giuliani metropolis understandably concerned with the safety of its metro transit customers and inevitably oriented toward the possibility of terrorism.

Despite his unsavory, headache-inducing predilection for swooping camera movements and jumpy, hyperactive editing, Tony Scott manages to inadvertently get a few things right in his retelling. The supporting cast members, including John Turturro, James Gandolfini, Luis Guzman, and Michael Rispoli, often transcend the boilerplate dialogue offered to their characters. Denzel Washington’s self-effacing transit official provides the star with another opportunity to skillfully project grace under pressure (even if one misses the grumpiness of Walter Matthau). And despite considerable gaps in logic, the pacing is confidently speedy.

Robert Shaw’s cagey Mr. Blue is replaced by a jittery, twitchy John Travolta seemingly fashioned after a Tom of Finland leatherman illustration. Travolta’s aptly named Ryder is an anarchic bundle of nerves whose seductive aural courtship of Denzel Washington’s Walter Garber infuses the film with a homoerotic subtext that closely parallels the “Top Gun” speech delivered by Tarantino in “Sleep with Me.” Scott’s hyper-masculine world – which predictably has little use for women – does make time for plenty of sadism and suggestions of prison rape.

Many of the director’s worst tendencies manifest prominently throughout the movie. Vehicular mayhem occurs much more than necessary. Characters repeatedly point out painfully obvious information that the audience has just seen. The product placement is as shameless as the musical score is manipulative. In addition, all the modernizing updates fail to enhance the narrative, especially the villain’s intense interest in online stock market updates and an undernourished subplot in which a hostage maintains an open video chat with his girlfriend (open question to screenwriter Brian Helgeland: why does the girlfriend have to be depicted as stupid and emotionally needy?).

Finally, “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3” stumbles down the stretch, cutting between a silly runaway train straight out of D.W. Griffith and a good guy/bad guy standoff with only one possible outcome. While the 1974 version depended on a nearly farfetched detail to sew up the story, it worked within the particular world that had been created and kept faith with the film’s dark humor. Scott’s universe, on the other hand, is much less clever and much more predictable. Where the 1974 version showed considerable smarts, the 2009 attempt swaps in action. The difference between the two movies (purposefully ignoring the made-for-television version of 1998) is simple: one leaves the latest version feeling like one of the subway car hostages, relieved to be free of the ordeal.