The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012)

The characters of The Hunger Games all have dirty fingernails. This is the primary insight to be intuited from director Gary Ross' incessant close-ups on the dirtied children culled from futuristic districts to fight each other to the death in a lasting reminder of the cost of rebellion. Sadly, fingernails are about the only thing I could make out in frenzied maelstrom of splintered images Ross assembles in sub-Bourne fashion. He's dealing with tricky material—the grisly killing of adolescents for sport—and forced to deliver a PG-13 rating to boot. He responds with a form of compromise: he gets to show teenagers dying horribly by making their demises so utterly incoherent that one cannot be sure anything's happened at all until the camera shows the tiniest splash of blood.

The shakycam mania of Ross' direction frustrated me more than usual because, to my surprise, I found myself engaged by the material. I haven't yet read Suzanne Collins' source novel, though I went straight to the nearest bookstore afterward to pick up a copy. Perhaps in her prose I'll find a more nuanced treatment of the themes, one that gives any kind of space to the material and lets the true horror of the titular games sink in rather than be roughly pushed along with all haste. And if nothing else, I'd like to get a fuller portrait of Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), the insipidly named but instantly memorable protagonist who seems to be locked into opposition with certain sexist trends in young female characters as much as she is 23 other teenagers.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

2008 is shaping up to be a banner year for romantic comedy the same way that 2007 wound up being a revival for Westerns. Hot on the heels of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Wall*E” (which is technically a children’s film but calls to mind the great silent romantic comedy “City Lights”), slacker guru Kevin Smith offers up “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” a film that stacked up controversy long before it hit theaters thanks to its provocative title and its tongue-in-cheek posters.

It’s also one of the funniest films of the decade and the perfect blend of Smith’s own “Chasing Amy” and “Clerks II.”

The plot is summed up by the title: Zack and Miri, two lifelong best friends who find themselves on the verge of bankruptcy after letting the bills pile up, decide to get out of debt by making, you guessed it, a porno. Along the way, they recruit a gang of cast and crew, think up erotic film parodies and ultimately confront deeper feelings for each other. On the surface it looks like a standard romantic comedy with a wacky premise, but that doesn’t take into account Smith’s gift for dialogue.

Fans of Smith’s will recognize the vulgar, rapid-fire wit and the pop culture references, but this time around he also injects moments of truly uncomfortable humor that calls the sitcom “The Office” to mind. After all, this is a film about two friends who have to come to terms with how they really feel for one another; awkwardness is part of the equation. Rogen plays his usual schlub, but for the first time you can buy that he’s paired with an impossibly beautiful (and impossibly single) woman.

The characters, from the leads to the supporting cast, are all quirky and interesting. View Askew alumni Jeff Anderson and Jason Mewes hold their own against Rogen, the current king of comedy, while newcomer (in America, at least) Ricky Mabe gets a lot of laughs with a handful of screen time. Porn starlet Katie Morgan and infamous ex-porn star Traci Lords show off some surprising chops, and Justin Long’s cameo as a gay porn star is brief but instantly memorable. The best of the supporting cast is Craig Robinson, who steals nearly every scene he’s in as Delaney, the racially sensitive de facto producer of the porno.

The only downside of the film is that it’s looser than Smith’s usual fare, perhaps due to the influx of all these improvisers into the film of a man who prefers his actors stick to the script. As a result, occasionally meanders, and a speech from Robinson near the end is so formulaic and schmaltzy that it’s almost uncomfortable. But, as Roger Ebert noted, Smith throws so many gags at you so rapidly that anything that doesn’t connect is quickly lost beneath three jokes that do. The rapid-fire humor is all the more surprising considering how plot-relevant most of it is; most comedies exist as a series of gags, but this is one long joke.

Probably the most refreshing and surprising aspect of the movie is Miri, and by extension Elizabeth Banks, who is breaking out in a big way this year (“Role Models,” W.”). Females in slacker comedies, be they Smith’s films, Judd Apatow’s, or even the British sitcom “Spaced” are often the focal point of maturity. The ladies will hang out with the dudes, but they always grow up a lot faster. Miri is an exception; she swears with the best of them, avoids work even more studiously than Zack does, and, unlike most female slackers, not only gets the pop culture references but makes some herself. Yet she is also keenly aware of her femininity, another rarity in the slacker world. Miri is, quite simply, the best, most charming, most relatable female character to come along since Daisy from “Spaced.”

Ultimately, the film’s brief lags and the rare moments towards the end where the inevitability of romantic comedy cliché seeps in cannot derail such a continuously uproarious flick, and the surprising chemistry between the two leads and strong supporting cast make this possibly the most outrageous comedy since “There’s Something About Mary.” Any moment that feels stale or awkward is as necessary as the big jokes; the discomfort makes it all the more real and tender, and the romantic dialogue is the most powerful, realistic and original since the dialogue in Smith’s own “Chasing Amy.”

Smith’s most accomplished film yet is a surefire hit, and you’d have to be crazy to miss it. Oh, and sit through the credits.

W.

I wish I had been in the room when Oliver Stone announced he was making a biopic on George W. Bush and that the goal of it was not to demonize him, if for no other reason than to see if his pants caught fire. Of all the insufferable celebrities who use every moment of press to give us their unwanted political opinions, Stone is up there with the worst. The fact that he started shooting the movie in May and made sure he released it before the election didn’t inspire much confidence either. Then again, his two previous films about presidents or events directly concerning them, “JFK” and “Nixon,” were bold, revisionist, even-handed dramas, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Surprisingly, he made a pretty great film.

“W.” chronicles the President’s life from his early days at Yale to shortly before his second presidential election. The film is structured out of chronological order, preferring instead to show the growth of W. as a person and to draw parallels. When Vice President Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss) convinces Bush to approve “enhanced interrogation techniques,” the President calls to mind his fraternity initiation, in which he and other pledges sat in a tub of ice water while being force-fed alcohol and generally disoriented.

As with Stone’s previous presidential dramas, “W.” often returns to a theme in the form of an obsession of the protagonist. In “JFK,” it was Garrison’s attempt to prosecute Clay Shaw seemingly because of his homosexuality. In “Nixon,” it was the juxtaposition of Nixon and John F. Kennedy. Here, the defining conflict Bush’s relationship with his father; Junior wants to escape his father’s shadow, but only gets jobs and diplomas on his family name. Even as president, his decisions on Iraq must inevitably be compared to Poppy’s. Junior’s desire to measure up to his family name drives his life; in his youth, he drinks and blows off multiple jobs just to frustrate his father. Even when he runs for Congress, it’s more to prove that he can than an attempt to get into politics.

The turning point in W.’s life is his cold turkey sobriety and his Born Again Christianity. These events save his life, but they also shape his attitude as President. Recovered addicts and Born Again Christians fundamentally believe in a clean slate. The term itself, “born again,” denotes a rebirth, resetting the clock to year zero. They acknowledge the past but must not dwell on it. This psyche might explain why he has stuck by so many bad decisions over his tenure.

Stone has always been a director capable of handling a large cast, and for the most part he succeeds here. Elizabeth Banks plays Laura Bush- who doubles as the film’s conscience- as a supportive, loving woman who reassures her husband even as she chastises him. Jeffrey Wright and Dreyfuss are likewise marvelous, with Wright capturing Colin Powell’s cautious wisdom while Dreyfuss embodying Cheney. Stone draws a parallel between Powell and Cheney; both are men who speak their mind and know their business, but Powell knows the human costs and expresses hesitance while the disconnected Cheney pushes for war in Iraq to open up oil lines. Toby Jones and Scott Glenn play Rove and Rumsfeld as one-note villains who show no consideration for the consequences of their actions. The worst is Thandie Newton’s absurd portrayal of Condoleeza Rice as a screen-mugging parody. Her presence alone hurts Stone’s claim that this isn’t some joke.

Surprisingly, the film portrays Bush sympathetically. Stone paints him as a good man who, though not necessarily simple, is easily manipulated by advisors into the public face of their machinations. What the film lacks in historical perspective, it makes up for with a human element; Bush genuinely believes he is doing God’s work and, as such, cannot question his own decisions. By stopping the film’s timeline in 2004, it avoids the extremities of the Bush administration’s failures and thus is able to make these people seem more relatable, or at least the Bush family.

Stone’s films never strive for absolution for their characters, but rather for understanding. He does not pardon Bush’s actions because he was manipulated, but neither does he condemn any member of the administration. The film is too rushed and lacks Stone’s usual visual mastery, and as such holds little of the replay value of “JFK” or “Nixon.” He also should have fired Thandie Newton after the first rushes came in and recast Rice. However, this is a gripping and entertaining film that blends the facts of Bush’s life with his usual fantastical elements. It’s by no means a masterpiece, but it’s one of the better films of the year.