The countercuckoo's nest

Changeling

Crit

Sometimes I think it would be good to be able to see movies in a vacuum, or at least a near-vacuum: you tell me Eastwood directs, Jolie stars, Malkovich has a good, meaty, non-self-parodying role, I'm there, and I just watch the damn movie, blissfully unaware of the lukewarm reviews and the reflexively resentful Oscar buzz for Jolie. But it doesn't work like that in the real world, where I feel compelled to read at least the first and last paragraphs of every Times review, plus whatever Lane or Denby or Ansen writes. (On the other hand, that saves me for falling for "Levinson directs, De Niro stars, + self-parodies by Bruce Willis and Sean Penn = What Just Happened?" [52% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.com].)

So. Yes, as she did in A Mighty Heart, Jolie makes you forget about all the Brangelina crap and just buy into her character's unbearably nightmarish ordeal. And Clint is about as good as Little Opie Cunningham at the old heartstring tug. And it's a treat to see Malkovich playing someone uncreepy for a change--though it takes us a while to trust in the uncreepiness of his publicity-hungry minister whose agenda turns out to be just what he says it is.

But that's kinda the problem here--or the biggest one: the late-'20s hats are fabulous, but they're all either black or white. I seem to recall some moral ambiguity in earlier Eastwood films, but a memory of that is all you get here, from start to end. And end. And end. And end. Which is the other big problem: like Christine, the film plods on relentlessly long after most of us would have hung it up. In Christine, it's an admirable, if sad, trait; in the film, it's just frustrating.

Extra credit: the film mentioned near one of the ends of the film (and whose title appears on a marquee at the final end) is the first film and the one alluded to in the title of this post is the second ever to do what?

Trailers

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button--Angie in the feature, Brad in the trailer. Curiously (but not coincidentally), I read a story about this just before leaving for the theater in the Times Holiday Movies section. Unfortunately, my Scribner's edition of The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald doesn't include the source tale--but apparently the movie doesn't owe much to the story anyway, and as it happens, I read a novel this year that does seem pretty close to the story on film, so. Anyway, 4.
  
• The Reader--Speaking of novels, I've had this one on the shelf for more than a decade; maybe it's time to read it now. 4.

And now if you'll excuse me, it's time to pour some bourbon and raise a glass to Studs.