Arbitrage (Nicholas Jarecki, 2012)

To pinpoint the moment Arbitrage ceases to be plausible is to assume it ever established any kind of suspension of disbelief at all. And when Richard Gere fails from the start to make his billionaire hedge fund manager, Robert Miller, look remotely in his element with business talk, the commentary Nicholas Jarecki wishes to tie to his evil money-handler does not work. Hell, Gere's utter ineptness is but one of several early giveaways of the lack of care paid to the film. Unconvincing as a hedge fund guru, Gere is equally out of place with his family, with whom he has an unironically loving relationship yet looks like a total stranger around them. Perhaps that can be explained by his affair with an Italian artist, who enjoys the financial support of her lover yet lives in a flat that looks like an IKEA showroom.

Like the privileged child of a 1990s movie, the mistress throws a fit when Miller gets caught in a meeting and misses her important exhibition. After she gesticulates for a bit, the two head out and Miller passes out briefly at the wheel, leading to an absurdly oversized single-vehicle accident that leaves the woman dead and Miller terrified. Or maybe just extremely annoyed. Hard to say. Jarecki uses this involuntary manslaughter as a fatuous analogy. The man covers up his company's books to keep up appearances as the great hedge fund scheme implodes with exponentially increasing speed, and now he has to cover up his physical crime. This is an obvious, and common, method of tying more abstract, technically legal financial chicanery to that which people universally consider a violation of the law, and ostensibly it should make Miller seem doubly a villain.

Youth Without Youth (Francis Ford Coppola, 2007)

Francis Ford Coppola's modern rejuvenation is one of the most unexpected and wonderful occurrences of contemporary American cinema. Almost entirely written off as a has-been who burned out while trapped in his mock-up Vietnam, Coppola's seeming early retirement after 1997's The Rainmaker appeared less premature but, if anything, belated. But Youth Without Youth was not merely Coppola's first film in a decade but his greatest in a generation, at least since 1983's Rumble Fish. The usual round of scathing late-period reviews greeted the director's work, but if one looks past a script that clearly reads better than it sounds aloud, Youth Without Youth becomes one of the most powerful expressions of the possibilities of the new cinema and, for all its reduced scale and budget, an astonishing leap forward in the classically minded Coppola's search for the Gesamtkunstwerk.

Based on the novella by Romanian author Mircea Eliade, Youth Without Youth wears its literary influences on its sleeves, introducing a 70-year-old Romanian intellectual, Dominic Matei (Tim Roth) at the end of a career spent unsuccessfully tracing linguistics to the origins of language. Despondent for a life wasted in solitary confinement, he returns home with plans to commit suicide, until a bolt of lightning strikes him as he crosses the street. Left horrifically charred, blind and near death, poor Dominic appears to suffer one final injustice before he shuffles off this mortal coil. Then, he makes a full recovery with breathtaking speed, not merely recuperating but aging backwards three decades.

Invincible (2002)

As exploitative and insulting as Holocaust movies are, anything that tends to take place before the Holocaust is usually worse. There's a sort of winking referencing, a manipulation of foreknowledge for sick irony. It's what makes Life Is Beautiful far more enraging outside of the concentration camp than within it. But, of course, if anyone could make a film about pre-Final Solution Nazi Germany that offered up a straight-talking portrait, it would be Werner Herzog. And by straight-talking, I mean so utterly bizarre that you'd fly off in a rage if the material was handled any other way.

But isn't that what makes Herzog such an exciting and singular filmmaker, arguably the most visionary director working today? His combination of surreal imagery and documentary-like verité allows him to explore the theme of existentialism and the human identity better than any other filmmaker I've ever seen. That search for identity plays a big role in Invincible, in which a Jewish strongman's faith leads him to defiantly claim his Jewish heritage in the middle of 1932 Berlin.

Ostensibly Herzog based the film on a true story, but if this is your first tango with the director I should warn you how loosely you should interpret the word "based." Herzog searches for that "ecstatic truth" of his, and as such he fudges dates, events, and anything else in order to propel his characters towards the purpose he gives them. Case in point: the real Zishe Breitbart died a full 7 years before the events of this story, in 1925. Yet his story works so well as a piece of Nazi defiance that Herzog just lifted the story and shifted it down the timeline.

As he often does, Herzog casts untrained actors in order to carry the film. Jouko Ahola may not have the chops to star in a character study, but he is perfect for the part. A two-time winner of the World's Strongest Man competition, Ahola certainly looks the part, but his lack of polish comes in handy for the character as well. Breitbart is a man of simplicity and geniality. A "real" actor likely would have called attention to this, but Ahola just walks through the scene taking in information, then responding like a normal person.

Breitbart lives in a small town in Poland, where all the locals know him as the strongest man around. A talent scout visits and sees Breitbart in a competition with another strongman. The contender lifts a boulder, and Breitbart walks up and lifts the man as he holds the stone. The scout takes Breitbart to see his first film and before long the strongman is in Berlin, working in a variety show run by Hanussen (Tim Roth), a supposed mystic who also employs a pianist Maria, and a mime he dubs Rothschild trotted out to appease the growing Nazi clientele. When Zishe lumbers through his door, Hanussen comes up with a plan. "We will Aryanize you. A Jew should never be as strong as you."

So he puts a blond wig and tosses Zishe (under the stage name Siegfried) on stage, where he delights the brownshirts. Here is an example of Aryan perfection. Hanussen, who knows of the Nazis' dabblings in the occult and wants in, speaks endlessly of the power of the mystical and the will of the body and things of that nature. Breitbart stands there but does not take it in, and finally has enough. He announces his Judaism to the crowd as he rips of his wig and proclaims himself the next Samson.

Breitbart is a fairly straightforward character, but then so is Hanussen. We expect him to be furious -- and he is -- but he notices the lines of Jews eager to see the strongman and sees nothing but dollar signs. After all, in 1932 the Nazis had power but were not yet rounding up Jews in the street; soon the cabaret theater becomes as much a boxing ring as a show, as the seats get split right down the middle between enraptured Jews and enraged Nazis.

Breitbart of course represent Jewish identity, a voice unwilling to hide as Nazis come to prominence. Yes, he is more symbol than man, but Herzog's characters (even his documentary subjects) often fit this description. Hanussen likewise fits a thematic role: the foil. Where Breitbart bulges with ridiculous musculature, he's genial and open-faced. Hanussen, on the other hand, is hunched over, as if always scheming to himself. When he must go to trial to prove whether or not he is a mystic or just a con man, we learn a shocking truth about him that offers up the flip-side of identity, the kind that masks itself in shame and fear and rage.

The film slips for me at the end, when Zishe returns home to warn his Polish brethren of a vision he has of the coming Holocaust. I mentioned my distaste for Holocaust-related dramatic irony, but sure enough the crowd who hears him retorts with "The Germans could never invade Poland! They have no army!" Well, they do have one, full of 100,000 men. "Well, we should still worry about Russia, not Germany." But there are moments of this proud Jewish man's fear of the coming events that forgive this. When he explains his vision to a rabbi, the man responds that he just doesn't understand what Zishe is trying to say. "I don't know if I understand either," sighs the strongman, and it sums up -- whether Herzog even realized it or not -- the entire suffering of the Holocaust in one understated moment: people simply can't comprehend such an event, so how could they ever prepare for it?

Invincible isn't in that top-tier of Herzog's classic narratives, but it's an honest and bold depiction of a man who proved wrong the notion of Aryan superiority, that the Jews were just weak and greedy. It never insists upon itself, and for that it deserves special mention amongst any film remotely concerned with the Holocaust, which usually spell SUFFERING in bold letters while never actually telling the story properly. There is a shot, as in all Herzog films, that seems to sum up at least one aspect of the film, and as in all Herzog films it's just weird. He films a flood of crabs walking out of the sea and shuffling about on the beach. Is it an allusion for the rise of the Nazi tide? Does it capture the jittery, horrifying feeling in the pit of Zishe's stomach when he sees what will come of the National Socialist party? Did Herzog just think the crabs were kind of cool? You never can tell with him, and it's why I'll always hold him dear to my heart.

The Incredible Hulk

2008 will certainly go down as the year of the superhero movie. There was a string of surprisingly great romantic comedies ("Forgetting Sarah Marshall," "Zack & Miri Make a Porno," and, in my eyes, "Wall•E"), but this is the year that comic book films finally gained legitimacy. "Iron Man" launched the commercial comeback (he never stopped doing movies) of über-actor Robert Downey, Jr. and offered up a sleek superhero you couldn't help but love, the "The Dark Knight" came 'round and decimated everything in its path. Complete with superb performances not only from Ledger but most of the ensemble cast, it set a new standard for the genre by focusing on how a hero affects the world around him, and how those reactions filter back to him.

Even "Hellboy II" was a masterstroke; it just had the rotten luck of coming out a week before TDK. Yet that film overflowed with humor and visual splendor (if not necessarily plot), and I love it more and more each time I see it. But there was another superhero movie that came out last year that slipped through the cracks somewhat. It lacked the buzz and, frankly, the quality of the other films, but it still made a decent amount of bank. I’m talking about a little film with a big green hero: “The Incredible Hulk.”

The last Hulk movie was a total disaster. There are those who try to convince me that Ang Lee (maybe the most overrated director working today) created a complex Hulk, one that focused more on Bruce Banner’s psyche than on mindless action. I know what Lee was trying to do but, from the bottom of my heart, I don’t care. I don’t give a good goddamn if the complete lack of lighting symbolized the darkness of Bruce’s repressed memories, or if the poodles represented- well, horrible writing. It was dull, pretentious, and didn’t even tackle the psychological aspects of Hulk properly. I know Bruce Banner is a deeper character than anyone gives him credit for, but couldn’t he just hit something every now and then? After a few years, Ed Norton and Louis Leterrier came in to try to clean up the mess with a reboot. Did it work?

Yes and no. “The Incredible Hulk” is a pure action romp. For just about the totality of its near two-hour running length, Banner will be on the run from the military, pausing only to transform and punch a few of them. Eventually, the army will do something stupid, and Banner will have to save the day because it’s right, yadda yadda yadda. The point is, Norton Hulk smashes all over the place in fine fashion.

How can I tell this won’t try to mine the same psychological issues as the last film? The totality of the plot is presented in the opening credits montage. Apparently what Universal took away from the venom lobbed at “Hulk” was plot of any kind was bad and people just want to see punching. Judging from some of the more fanboyish reviews I’ve seen, they might not have been totally wrong. Actually, what little plot there is seems to be lifted almost entirely from the old “Hulk:” General Thunderbolt Ross knows Banner is radioactive, and considers him U.S. Army property and tracks him down. Meanwhile, Banner is in love with Ross’ daughter, which just pisses the old man off. Really, the biggest difference in these three characters is that the Banner of this film accidentally radiated himself rather than live in a house too close to a weapons testing site as a child. I like this version better.

Ross tracks Banner down in South America, and sends his top lackey Emil Blonsky (a Russian-born man who is now British, I guess because Tim Roth didn’t care enough to try to be American) and a team of commandos to subdue Banner, who promptly gets angry, and you know what happens next. Blonsky becomes Banner’s nemesis; the thrashing he takes at Hulk’s hands leaves him wanting a rematch. He gets one, and this time the Hulk actually hits him, to devastating effect. Oh, it’s on now. As the broken Blonsky lies in a hospital bed, he agrees to a dose of Super Soldier serum to fix his wounds so he can fight get the piss beaten out of him once more.

But wait! Emil knows that even with the (faulty) serum, he cannot win. So what does he do? Blast himself with radiation in the hopes that he too will be a giant beast thing because, as we all know, the best way to fight fire is by dousing yourself with gasoline. Despite the fact that Banner’s survival is billed as a miracle, the exact same thing happens to Blonsky, only thanks to the serum he is stuck in the mutated body.

So it all comes down to a showdown between freaks. Ross picks the lesser of two evils, and Banner agrees to help because…well, I don’t know why, but he must have a reason. Maybe he just wanted to be near Betty, which is kind of sweet but also stupid. This is all nitpicking, of course, because the final fight is suitably bad-ass. We all know who’s going to win, but it was a pure piece of blockbuster action in comparison to the more serious fare (even in the explosions) of “Iron Man” and TDK.

So how does the film fare in the end? I certainly didn’t dislike it, but the total rebellion against plot greatly hurts the film. What attachment am I supposed to have to these characters? Even though I know of their importance and decades-long history, within the context of this film franchise I couldn’t care less who lived or died because we never truly delve into them. The superb cast has so little to do that I’d rate the performances of the actors in Lee’s “Hulk” over them, because at least they did something.

The details of production are somewhat infamous; Norton and Leterrier wanted a much deeper movie, but the people with the money cut it to make pure action fare. The DVD comes with a slew of deleted scenes (though I suspect there are more), and they addressed almost every plot hole or rushed look in the movie. In a year of unprecedented creative control for comic book movies, “The Incredible Hulk” reminds us just how little the people with the money know and how much they’re capable of screwing up. This new “Hulk” is not a bad film by any means, but it’s instantly forgettable. Somewhere between the mindlessness of this fun ride and the dense psychological drama of the previous iteration lies the true Hulk film. I do not know if they’ll make a sequel, but if Universal gives Norton and Leterrier some freedom, they might have a big hit on their hands.

Reservoir Dogs

Written and Directed by: Quentin Tarantino

Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut caused quite a stir back in 1991. It, along with Richard Linklater's Slacker, paved the way with the independent film explosion in the mid-90s on the shoulders of films like Clerks and Tarantino's hit follow-up Pulp Fiction. Upon release, Reservoir Dogs established the former video store clerk as a bold new talent who had probably the most extensive knowledge of film of any director since Godard and used that knowledge to fill his films with endless references and quotations that fans could pour over for weeks. Yet for all the praise that was heaped on this film and all the people who still list it among their favorites, I never really connected with Reservoir Dogs.

The film is told out of sequence and mostly in flashback following a botched diamond heist leaves a six-man crew in disarray. Mr. Brown (Tarantino) is dead, Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker) is missing, and Mr. Orange is bleeding like a stuck pig. Meanwhile Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) and Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) fret over how they can get Orange to a hospital without the cops getting him, and the two come to the conclusion that someone in their midst is a rat.

Seems simple, right? Well it is. No matter how complicated the out of sequence editing makes the film seem, the fact is the plot gets summed up in about 2-3 minutes of dialogue. Even before a flashback reveals the undercover cop in their midst you can easily guess who it is. Yet the film ultimately succeeds despite this shortcoming thanks to Tarantino's justly lauded gift for dialogue.

The opening diner conversation that ranges from a critical analysis of Madonna to a debate on tipping remains one of the hallmarks of Tarantino's career. It tells you a lot about the characters and sets the stage for meaty, hilarious dialogues to come. From there we cut to the aftermath of the failed heist. This first act stands as the high point of the film, in which the events of the robbery are only alluded to in the dialogue, which the actors deliver at a frenzied pace without ever losing themselves.

Then we have to watch all this play out. Imagine if The Third Man's Harry Lime was not a person but the entire story, constantly mentioned and alluded to, then suddenly thrust onto the screen. This can work for a person, but not a plot. These flashbacks kill the momentum of the present timeline, in which the crazed Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) tortures a captured police officer in order to get the name of the rat.

The infamous ear scene might be Tarantino's most defining. Ask the average person to name a scene after Quentin Tarantino, and they're likely to name this one. Madsen's hulking shuffle to the beat of "Stuck in the Middle With You" as he moves in to slice the ear of the hapless cop horrifies even as you laugh in amazement at how outrageous Tarantino can be. The writer-director would cause a similar sensation (albeit much more intense) in the Zed sequence of Pulp Fiction.

And that's where the flashbacks kill everything. After this shocking, landmark scene that leaves us on the edge of our seats, we have to go through an extended flashback of Tim Roth's mission to infiltrate the crime ring, working out a cover story to get leader Joe (Lawrence Tierney) to trust him. We already know Roth's character is the cop, and frankly I don't care if he wormed his way into a well-organized band of thieves with a well-told story about how he carried marijuana for a friend. Honestly, it just raises questions about the level of secrecy and planning Joe claims to utilize.

Nevertheless, this is an entertaining film, if for no other reason than it introduced Tarantino's dialogue to the world. Indeed, the conversations in this film remain his most naturalistic. Some people maintain that Tarantino's dialogue works because it's how people actually speak, but I think by the time a vapid, self-absorbed DJ makes a Zatoichi reference we've moved somewhat away from reality. His dialogue remains inherently fascinating and brilliant, but this, along with about half of Pulp Fiction, remain his only work with dialogue that sounds like it could come from people. It's a fun enough movie, and I continue to rewatch it even now, but I'd much rather see any of Tarantino's other films on a rainy day. Except maybe Death Proof. Let's not get carried away.