Movie review by Greg Carlson

A shapeless mess of half-formed characters and overly familiar scenes of bitter domesticity, “Smart People” does not appear to have been crafted by moviemakers who share the title’s description. Even with an excellent cast containing several familiar faces, “Smart People” switches between shrill exhibitions of passive-aggressiveness and melancholic bouts of serious self-pity. With minor exceptions, none of the movie’s inhabitants is likable enough for audience members to muster much sympathy, and the low-key direction and leisurely pacing will cause some to check their watches more than once.

Dennis Quaid plays Lawrence Wetherhold, a crusty Carnegie Mellon English literature professor still reeling from the death of his wife. Resented by students and barely tolerated by colleagues, Lawrence holds the world in contempt for the miserable state of his day-to-day existence. Along with the typical bursts of withering verbal sarcasm, we know that Wetherhold is a jerk because he takes up two spaces with his shoddy parking. One such incident leads to an unlikely act of rash physicality and a mild injury to the professor’s cranium. The convenient head trauma brings Wetherhold into contact with lonely ER doctor Janet Hartigan (Sarah Jessica Parker), a former student who once harbored an inexplicable crush on the grouchy sourpuss.

Forbidden by the hospital to drive his vehicle, Wetherhold reluctantly grants his irresponsible slacker brother Chuck (Thomas Haden Church) room and board in exchange for chauffer duties. Once ensconced in his brother’s house, free-spirit Chuck forms an unlikely bond with niece Vanessa (Ellen Page), a studious Young Republican who outwardly ridicules her uncle’s lack of ambition. Glad for the company, Chuck introduces Vanessa to alcohol and weed, and she repays him with an awkward and inappropriate crush. Both sets of couples are mismatched for comic effect, but Mark Poirier’s script is so zealous, every intended point of connection between opposites turns out to be a missed opportunity.

Page delivers another performance that shows off her effortless charm as a wiseass, but Vanessa Wetherhold is no Juno MacGuff, and her incestuous affection for Chuck lands like a brick. Actor Ashton Holmes, who plays Vanessa’s poet brother James, suffers through a part so completely underwritten he didn’t even rate inclusion on the movie’s one-sheet. Quaid is thoroughly unlikable in the film’s key role. Why a successful physician like Parker’s Hartigan would tolerate his arrogance and self-absorption is never successfully explained. Of the principal cast, only Thomas Haden Church comes close to playing someone who might be fun to know.

First time feature helmer Noam Murro relies too heavily on syrupy score cues from once and future Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt (who at one point virtually plagiarizes Jimmy Page’s “That’s the Way” chord structure). Collaborator Poirier’s writing doesn’t help matters, but Murro fails to find a comfortable tone. It is uncertain whether the viewer is supposed to identify with the dysfunctional clan or chuckle at their obvious faults. The moviemakers seemingly want to have it both ways, and the result is an inedible stew. “Smart People” has nothing on similarly themed works from which it seems so obviously derived. Skip it and rent “The Squid and the Whale” or “Wonder Boys” instead.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In “Stop-Loss,” Kimberly Peirce mostly follows the strong filmmaking instincts she displayed in her chilling feature “Boys Don’t Cry,” although the story this time is far less gripping. A war movie in the sub-category of “returning home” tales, “Stop-Loss” jettisons political fire in favor of a handsomely drawn portrait of a small town coming to grips with the social costs exacted by combat. The movie’s vibe is occasionally reminiscent of Vietnam films like “The Deer Hunter” and “Coming Home,” two well-remembered late-70s works that overshadow “Stop-Loss” in most respects. American audiences will likely ignore the movie, and it is precisely this apathy about the war in Iraq that hamstrings the film’s thematic agenda.

Ryan Phillippe, who recently played a disillusioned soldier of World War II in “Flags of Our Fathers,” applies more of the same clenched-jaw stoicism to his Staff Sgt. Brandon King. Depicted by the moviemakers as a squared-away, by-the-book straight arrow, King is overwhelmed by grief and guilt when he loses men in tense urban combat in Tikrit. Once he and pals Steve (Channing Tatum) and Tommy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) return to Brazos, Texas, it is instantly clear that stateside readjustment will not come easy. Peirce ladles out generous portions of genre tropes, from post-trauma flashbacks to alcohol soaked binges to domestic abuse.

Abbie Cornish, who plays Steve’s long-suffering fiancée Michele, receives second billing and a seat in the getaway car next to King when he goes AWOL. “Stop-Loss” might have had something more powerful to say about the coping mechanisms of family members with loved ones in the military, but the story is unrelentingly filtered through King’s eyes, leaving Cornish with little to do beyond react to King’s run of troubles. All of the movie’s female characters are given precious little screen time, and suffer the same fate.

“Stop-Loss” caroms wildly between shoulder-shrugging support for the war and the central character’s indignation at being mistreated by a government he dutifully served. Despite spitting out a line of profanity admonishing George W. Bush (likely designed to draw cheers of approval in many theaters), the movie plays it completely safe in the arena of too-familiar gung-ho abstractions like honor, duty, and brotherhood. As a result, the movie cannot win, since doves will feel let down by the outcome and hawks won’t stand for the movie’s long road trip of bitter disobedience.

Peirce can be commended for at least trying to make a serious-minded feature about a conflict that is still unfolding, but the movie is too confused, toothless, and squishy to stand for anything specific. Does Peirce disagree with a policy that, in essence, operates as a “back door draft” (to use the movie’s term) to keep overtaxed soldiers on the front lines? One might say the answer is “I guess so,” but “Stop-Loss” feints when it should be swinging hard. It acquiesces when it could take a stand. The movie, which too often relies on the adrenaline-fueled, ass-kicking jingoism of chest-thumping American might, flits between scenes that would be at home in a recruitment video and reminders that young men come home missing their eyesight or limbs. This ambiguity is a liability, and “Stop-Loss” never finds a solid grip.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Frank Langella shares a tremendous performance as Leonard Schiller, a fading, aging novelist courted and flattered by the attentions of an ambitious graduate student in “Starting Out in the Evening.” Adapted from the 1998 novel by Brain Morton, Andrew Wagner’s screen adaptation is a literate, quiet experience that will please voracious readers as much as it will bore those who crave action and spectacle. Deliberate, placid and visually quite stunning, the labor of love was shot in less than three weeks on a budget of roughly half a million dollars on location in New York City.

Despite flirting with the pitfalls of a May-December story, “Starting Out in the Evening” sets its sights on a great deal more than the expected trappings. The movie is self-conscious enough to acknowledge the naked ambitions of its central characters, and we get to know them as fully rounded individuals prone to the twists and turns of vanity and self-doubt. The appropriately named Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose) might be the more obviously calculating of the central pair, but the movie doesn’t skimp in revealing just how much the nearly forgotten Schiller basks in the fawning sweet talk of the much younger woman. Who wouldn’t enjoy being called important and underappreciated?

The movie is slightly less compelling when it leaves the company of Schiller and Wolfe for Schiller’s almost forty-year-old daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor). Ariel, desperate to have a child before she reaches middle age, rekindles a romance with an old beau (Adrian Lester) even though he refuses to consider the possibility of starting a family. The draining hourglass metaphor that drives both father and daughter might work better on the page than on the screen. Taylor, however, is an accomplished performer, and her presence in the movie is welcome, especially in the slightly bitter dutifulness she brings to her occupation as the offspring of a once lauded artist.

“Starting Out in the Evening” succeeds in the depiction of Schiller’s caution in the presence of the beguiling Heather. The old man initially keeps his admirer at a distance, painfully aware that a quid pro quo offer is on the table from their first meeting. Heather wants a story, a thesis, and eventually a publication out of the relationship; Schiller knows it but succumbs to his ego anyway. When the opportunity for physical intimacy rolls around (with a kind of persuasive inevitability), the movie hits its stride. An erotically charged pas de deux, beginning with an anointing by honey and ending with a shot of aching restraint, is memorably rendered and thoroughly believable.

Sometimes, the movie comes close to taking itself too seriously. Schiller himself is nearly humorless. Characters occasionally seem to point out the all too obvious, which can feel slightly condescending. “Starting Out in the Evening” is nothing if not earnest, though, and all four of the major actors are terrific. When Schiller and Wolfe venture outside his tastefully appointed Upper West Side hibernaculum, we glimpse the dog-eat-dog enterprise of NYC’s publishing world, stuffed to bursting with cruelty and rejection. It is no wonder the moviemakers side with the austere, old-fashioned wordsmith whose time has come and gone.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Tepid comedy “Drillbit Taylor” might have been titled “Superbad: The Early Years,” given the movie’s familiar teaming of an overweight motormouth, a slimmer, more sensitive best pal, and a bizarre, third-wheel goofball bringing up the rear. Unfortunately, the characters in the more recent movie aren’t nearly as charming or as smart as Seth, Evan, and McLovin. Despite a producing credit for Judd Apatow, an appearance by Leslie Mann, and writing contributions by Seth Rogen, “Drillbit Taylor” is strictly bottom-shelf material completely unworthy of the talents involved. Interestingly, another writing credit belongs to Edmond Dantes, the pseudonym of the often-AWOL 1980s teen-movie kingpin John Hughes. Needless to say, “Drillbit Taylor” is no “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” – from which it cops several gags. Heck, it isn’t even “Weird Science.”

Owen Wilson plays the movie’s title character, a homeless con artist who agrees to protect the nerdy schoolboys from the unwanted attentions of a thuggish bully. The movie never decides whether the audience should primarily identify with the title character or the hapless kids who hire him. Caroming haphazardly between the two points of view, “Drillbit Taylor” manages to forego character development almost entirely: McLovin was lavished with the kind of tiny details that made him three-dimensional in “Superbad,” but his “Drillbit Taylor” counterpart remains irritatingly shapeless. The same is true for nearly everyone else.

“Drillbit Taylor” goes overboard with unnecessary montages, and in one of them, Adam Baldwin shows up sporting the same style of military jacket worn by his character Linderman in the cult classic “My Bodyguard.” Presumably, Baldwin is on hand to acknowledge the moviemakers’ debt to the earlier film, but he merely serves as a painful reminder of the superiority of the original article. “Drillbit Taylor” gleefully references all kinds of pop movie culture of the past thirty years or so, from Wilson’s Colonel Kilgore attire to the “Fight Club”-esque intimacy of male bonding through violence. The references, apropos of nothing, just sail past.

If the movie has a silver lining, it is manifested in the comic touch of Leslie Mann. As a teacher whose poor judgment has led her through a series of relationships with dirtballs and losers, Mann could easily anchor her own feature instead of being stuck with the thankless task of playing the love interest to the less interesting Drillbit. Mann and Wilson share a weird chemistry, and both actors are good enough to convince us that their dysfunctional relationship, despite its lack of logic and plausibility, could happen. The way that the two lustily eyeball each other during their first meeting in the faculty lounge is one of the few genuinely funny moments in the whole movie.

The failure of “Drillbit Taylor,” however, rests with its timid conventionality. “Knocked Up” and “Superbad” were often praised for their willingness to incorporate a level of sensitivity nearly always absent from the raunchy slapstick designed for young male audiences. “Drillbit Taylor” feels like it pulls all its punches, and it is most definitely impaired by its PG-13 rating. Director Steven Brill never finds the right rhythm for the half-baked screenplay, and the laughs are few and far between.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Marjane Satrapi’s four volume graphic novel memoir “Persepolis” comes to life in beautifully rendered animation in the Academy Award-nominated movie of the same name. Recounting the author’s journey from childhood to young adulthood, “Persepolis” will offer the majority of its American viewers the rare opportunity to peek inside a largely unknown world of experiences. In addition to its memorable design, which breathes stark, expressionistic life into Satrapi’s drawings, the movie neatly balances coming-of-age themes common to all cultures with the particularity of the social and political upheaval of the Islamic Revolution.

The story commences in Tehran in the late 1970s, as Marjane’s progressive family watches in fear as the Shah’s monarchy crumbles under Khomeini. As one repressive system yields to something even more frightening, Marjane (voiced as a kid by Gabrielle Lopes) takes things in stride, mostly trusting the word of her family, skeptically challenging her teachers at school, and ignorantly acting out with a group of friends. Satrapi, who co-wrote the adaptation and co-directed the movie with comics artist Vincent Paronnaud, stuffs the frame with all kinds of humorous detail, including her own mania for pop music. Acquired on the black market, the cassette tapes Marjane adds to her collection include an eclectic range of performers: ABBA and the Bee Gees vie with Michael Jackson and Iron Maiden.

Once the Iran-Iraq War commences, Marjane’s parents send her to the French Lycee of Vienna, and the separation leaves a lasting impression on the youngster as she struggles through puberty. In terms of plot, “Persepolis” adopts a linear, episodic chronology, but Satrapi infuses the narrative with her ever-changing personal philosophy, made all the more impressive by the author’s healthy dose of self-deprecation. As Marjane explores a range of ideologies, including nihilistic and existential leanings that feed into her anger and depression, the movie retains a refreshing honesty about the changes one undergoes on the path to maturity.

“Persepolis” includes a few brief color sequences, but the majority of the movie unspools in elegant black and white. Despite the film’s computer assisted enhancements, the traditional 2D, hand-drawn work, which was completed on paper and then felt-tip inked by a team of artists, immediately evokes an unmistakable warmth that cannot be replicated by software. Animation enthusiasts will positively swoon at the craftsmanship of the feature, and it is a safe bet to suggest “Persepolis” will be scrutinized by animators interested in alternatives to the dominance of 3D modeling and graphics programs like Maya. At times, “Persepolis” nods to animation history, with cutout-style moments that recall seminal work like Lotte Reiniger’s “The Adventures of Prince Achmed.”

Not too surprisingly, the Iranian government has voiced displeasure at “Persepolis,” and made a successful bid to have the movie withdrawn from the Bangkok International Film Festival. A few screenings of “Persepolis” have taken place publicly in Tehran, although according to the Middle East Times, a number of scenes were censored before the showings received the go-ahead. Viewers in the United States might take the privilege of criticizing their political leaders for granted, but “Persepolis” hardly strikes one as anti-Iranian. If anything, it aches with the central character’s longing and love for her homeland, even as she lives in exile.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Jason Statham effectively plays the leader of a gang of robbers in “The Bank Job,” a decent British caper movie in the classic tradition. Loosely based on actual events that took place in London in 1971, the screenplay prefers speculation and invention to historical precision, which ideally suit the movie’s working class ambitions and dry sense of humor. Statham has been primarily known to American audiences for his tough guy roles in Guy Ritchie movies as well as for his martial arts proficiency in the “Transporter” films. In “The Bank Job,” the actor is provided a chance to shine as a more dimensional character, and demonstrates a genuine charisma that should lead to bigger and better opportunities.

Despite its convoluted plot involving compromising photos of Princess Margaret, the Black militant known as Michael X, corrupt police officers, a sleazy Soho porn producer, an ex-model turned government instrument, and a possible media blackout driven by national security concerns, director Roger Donaldson manages to keep the intertwined plot threads relatively clear, mostly entertaining, and nearly always on track. So many balls in the air at once inevitably reduce the allotment of time that can be devoted to developing the supporting players, but with few exceptions, the characters are fleshed out and interesting.

Statham’s Terry Leather is a sports car mechanic and dealer who reconnects with old flame Martine (Saffron Burrows) when she approaches him about tunneling under a Lloyds vault to make off with the contents of safe deposit boxes. Like all heist movies, a team of specialists is required, and “The Bank Job” fulfills its obligations efficiently, introducing a Rogues Gallery of affable conmen who certainly appear to be more amateur than professional. Martine, hoping to earn immunity following an airport drug bust, doesn’t tell the fellows that in essence, they are being set up, since she is literally and figuratively in bed with an operative and every step of the burglary is being monitored by spooks from MI5.

The safecracking itself is picked up by a ham radio operator listening in to walkie-talkie chatter (one part of the movie that is rooted in history), and the suspense cranks up as one set of cops closes in while the intelligence agents watch and wait. Donaldson has an affinity for the nearly bumbling thieves, and the plot often employs fortunate breaks and blind luck to keep the protagonists one step ahead of the various factions that would like to apprehend them. By the final act, the cat and mouse games turn on a series of public meetings in which documents are to change hands, and Statham partakes in some of the physical violence that seems to be expected of him.

“The Bank Job” doesn’t compare to legendary genre examples like “Rififi” or even more recent offerings like “Inside Man,” but there is something reassuring about the clockwork expectations of caper flicks that enthusiasts will find appealing. Burrows’ smoldering femme fatale complements Statham’s steely eyes and square jaw. Donaldson doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with their relationship, and cuts away when the two succumb to their mutual attraction. In a different movie, the adulterous romance might have been explored in more detail, but “The Bank Job” is strictly about business.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Streamlining the Philippa Gregory novel upon which it is based and stream-rolling a good chunk of historical record, “The Other Boleyn Girl” generates interest in the casting of Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, two starlets who often make choices a cut above their well-paid young peers. Originated on high definition digital video, the movie boasts a reasonably attractive look in comparison with 35mm motion picture film. A prequel of sorts to Shekhar Kapur’s “Elizabeth” films, “The Other Boleyn” girl easily trumps last year’s “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” which traded a strong central performance for a stilted screenplay and a gargantuan sense of self-importance. The ambitions of “The Other Boleyn Girl” are substantially less bombastic, and the result is a workmanlike, if forgettable, period costume drama.

As Anne Boleyn, Natalie Portman turns in a strong and colorful performance. While Johansson’s Mary is faithful and naïve, Portman’s Anne is devilish and calculating. Portman manages the challenge of playing a character whose manipulative scheming shifts precariously toward the unsympathetic. When lashing out at her sister, Anne’s ambition can make her ugly, but Portman finds complexity underneath the icy surface, and she ultimately wins the sympathy of the viewer, especially when facing the executioner’s blade.

The movie is not without serious deficiencies, and chief among them is a blithe ignorance regarding the politics behind the couplings that dominate the action. In essence, “The Other Boleyn Girl” unfolds like a sudsy teen-focused TV show, turning Henry the Eighth into a smoldering, conceited football quarterback perpetually led around by his single-minded desire to bed every attractive female in sight. There is little that can be done by Eric Bana, who succumbs to a flat and undernourished depiction of a priapic monarch. Henry’s desire for a male child is merely given lip service; this king just wants to get it on.

Despite Anne’s iron-willed determination and sharply honed sense of self, “The Other Boleyn Girl” also fails to adequately examine the reprehensible manner in which papa Thomas Boleyn (Mark Rylance) and his brother-in-law the Duke of Norfolk (David Morrissey) openly and shamelessly use the beautiful sisters as sexual pawns in a bid for favor, power, and wealth. As Anne and Mary’s mother, Kristin Scott Thomas occasionally rages against the ethical void created by the literal pimping of her children, but the movie certainly could have paid more attention to the ways in which gender impacts governance and the affairs of state.

The wonderful Ana Torrent, whose performance in Victor Erice’s masterful “The Spirit of the Beehive” in 1973 has assured her cult status, comes the closest to exploring the double standards dividing men and women in “The Other Boleyn Girl.” As Katherine of Aragon, Torrent radiates a courtly calm. Katherine’s inability to produce a male heir jeopardizes her position as queen consort in the Tudor line, but her long marriage to a philandering royal has given her a perspective unfathomed by the impetuous Anne. Had the movie shared more of Katherine’s point of view, it might have been more than just another screen melodrama imagining the lives of crowned heads.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Michel Gondry, the music video maestro who champions a handmade, do-it-yourself craftiness in the process of making his films, might never top “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” which has thus far been the strongest realization of his work as a director and Charlie Kaufman’s as a screenwriter. Sadly, Kaufman is not on hand to sculpt the story of “Be Kind Rewind,” Gondry’s tale of Passaic, New Jersey misfits who shoot their own low-tech versions of features including “Ghostbusters,” “Rush Hour 2,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and “King Kong,” to name a few. Gondry calls this process “sweding,” and despite the movie’s anachronistic VHS time-warp, members of generation YouTube will smile at the remakes, mash-ups, and collages.

With characteristic calm, Mos Def plays Mike, a counter jockey at Be Kind Rewind, a dusty rental outlet that has so far avoided upgrading its inventory to DVD. Mike’s obnoxious pal Jerry (Jack Black) inadvertently erases the entire collection of tapes, and out of desperation, foolishness, and perhaps a smidgen of stupidity, the buddies shoot fifteen and twenty-minute condensations of hit movies with a beat-up camcorder and special effects that rely heavily on cardboard, wire, and any other unwanted junk that happens to be lying around. Their sketchy renditions cause a sensation in the neighborhood, and pretty soon supply is buried under an avalanche of demand.

Corporate suits arrive to levy a multi-billion dollar fine for copyright infringement, and Gondry manages a few sly asides about big media’s clampdown on creativity that echo some of Lawrence Lessig’s astute comments. Oddly, viewers of a certain vintage will identify striking similarities between the premise of “Be Kind Rewind” and the “Blockblister” sketches of Nickelodeon’s “The Amanda Show.” Charges of plagiarism are as tricky as the funhouse mirrors of “The Lady from Shanghai,” though, when the director’s raison d’etre is the intertextual flattery by imitation of homemade fan films, which have been around for a very long time.

On another level, “Be Kind Rewind” speaks to the intimate connection between audiences and their favorite films, and even though many of the “sweded” titles would not qualify as classics, the trippy digests point to an obsessive zeal that has manifested in the real world in works like Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho” and the recently resurrected “Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation.” At a certain point, however, aping one’s heroes pales in comparison with making something unique, even if Gondry likes to have it both ways. Ultimately, the filmmaker presumes that his efforts deserve an audience, though the vast majority of the amateurs encouraged by Gondry to pick up a camera and “swede” their own favorites end up making mediocre or awful garbage entertaining only to the participants.

The best aspects of “Be Kind Rewind” follow the directive that originality is more valuable than the replica, and the production of a documentary about Fats Waller by the Be Kind Rewind team and members of the surrounding community sound the movie’s expressive blue notes. Reminiscent of “Cinema Paradiso,” the exhibition of “Fats Waller Was Born ‘Here’” nearly transcends the silliness that constitutes far too much of the movie’s running time. It is pure fantasy to imagine that a no-budget, black and white biopic fabricating both the birthplace and the resume of a jazz musician who died in 1943 would fill the streets with bewitched and mesmerized passersby, but for folks who believe in the power of moviemaking, it sure is nice to think so.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Any person hoping that director Doug Liman would recapture some of the pulse-quickening glory of his past successes should steer clear of “Jumper,” a disappointing and empty-headed hybrid of action and science fiction with no reverence for the strongest concerns of either genre. Based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Steven Gould, Liman’s movie version changes several key incidents present in the book, and few of those alterations make any sense. It took multiple drafts and a handful of writers to concoct the screen version of “Jumper,” and every person involved seems to have forgotten to include memorable characters and a coherent narrative. The end result is a movie that wants to go everywhere, but ends up stuck in one place.

Hayden Christensen, who replaced actor Tom Sturridge following the start of production, plays David Rice, a young man who discovers that he possesses the ability to teleport anywhere in the world merely by concentrating on where he would like to be at any given moment. Like Kurt “Nightcrawler” Wagner of the X-Men, Rice’s power carries with it the suggestion of super-heroism, but the callow punk prefers the trappings of unearned cash and expensive toys to helping others. Rice’s materialism might have been a theme worth exploring, but “Jumper” has the attention span of a butterfly, never alighting on one idea long enough.

Instead, Rice bounces around the globe, familiarizing himself with top vacation destinations until he feels confident enough to whisk his childhood crush Millie (Rachel Bilson, as blank and nearly as bland as Christensen) off to Rome for a private tour of the Colosseum. In the meantime, another “jumper” named Griffin (Jamie Bell, whose character should have been the movie’s main protagonist) reveals himself to Rice, confirming that a group of shadowy operatives known as Paladins methodically hunt and destroy teleporters. Little reason is given for the zeal of Paladins, but white-haired leader Roland Cox (Samuel L. Jackson, shouting), who pursues Rice like Javert chases Valjean, proclaims things like “There are always consequences!” in a booming voice.

Liman has a gift for staging frantic action, and “Jumper” contains a few scenes in which the movie’s premise is fully realized. Logical or not, Griffin can teleport large objects (like double-decker buses) with him as long as they are moving, and the result is a moment or two of genuine spectacle trapped amidst the wreckage of a story about which nobody cares one iota. “Jumper” is certainly made for teenage boys, and its preoccupation with mindless fighting and chasing, as opposed to a genuine interest in the culture of the places selected as “jump sites,” is a millstone around the film’s neck.

Strangest of all is the movie’s treatment of Rice’s mother, played by Diane Lane in a virtual cameo. Unlike the novel, Mrs. Rice harbors a secret of her own, but the film leaves the mother-son relationship frustratingly unresolved, and a late scene feels utterly half-baked, as if something more substantive should follow. Instead, “Jumper” retreats into the recesses of adolescent wish fulfillment, where it is as shallow as a puddle.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Academy Award nominee Julian Schnabel makes films that often focus intensely on the trials of a reflective (some would say self-obsessed) male protagonist. “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” adapted from French “Elle” editor Jean-Dominique Bauby’s 1997 memoir, follows Schnabel’s previous two features, “Basquiat” and “Before Night Falls,” in such a manner, fixating on a person who sees the world with a particular and idiosyncratic vision. Bauby suffered a massive and virtually completely paralyzing stroke in 1995, and the result left him bedridden and totally dependent on the care of others. He was able to control the muscles of just one of his eyelids, and eventually dictated his thoughts through blinks that corresponded with letters of the alphabet.

Schnabel depicts a great deal of the film’s action from the first person point of view of the incapacitated Bauby, played effectively by Mathieu Amalric. Working closely with ace cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, Schnabel labors to bring the viewer inside Bauby’s so-called “locked-in syndrome,” which approximates the sensation of being buried alive. The arresting opening sections of the film shift in and out of focus along with Bauby’s consciousness. Double exposures, shifts in light, and rapid fades to and from black share the limitations of Bauby’s post-trauma. In one highly stylized shot, the audience witnesses the sewing shut of Bauby’s eyelid from his vantage point. The moment is not for the squeamish.

Schnabel’s training as a painter lends the proceedings a self-conscious artiness, but the purposefulness of the sequencing, which replicates Bauby’s snail-paced cycle of days, often sucks the air out of the film and leaves viewers in want of something meatier to chew over. Schnabel might have desired to excise the risk for melodrama inherent in a showdown between Bauby’s mistress and the mother of his kids, but he lacks the skill of a Bresson, and doesn’t quite pull it off. Instead of approaching transcendence by withholding necessary scenes, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is more apt to make us wonder where the key interactions went.

Amalric, who spends most of the movie with his face frozen in a droopy-lipped mask, is a terrific actor, and Schnabel fortunately includes scenes of Bauby’s memories, (including a vacation to Lourdes with a pious lover) which give the performer an opportunity to move around. The supporting cast is strong, and Max Von Sydow is every bit his legendary self as Bauby’s nonagenarian father, dominating the screen in a pair of excellent scenes.

Some viewers might feel that Schnabel holds Bauby at too great a distance, refusing sentiment in order to sidestep the traps that would plunge the movie into the realm of the maudlin. Not surprisingly, the film crackles to life when Schnabel assembles certain abstractions; the opening and closing credits, designed by the director, are expressive bookends. In the former, titles are layered with close-ups of milky x-rays. The latter shows a montage of massive shelves of ice reattaching themselves to glaciers as the film is run in reverse motion. It is a beautiful and startling effect.