December 7th, 2006

  Whatever you do this holiday season, if anyone recommends a dirge called The Fountain, take them off your Christmas list. I donít care what a movie is about, but I have one rule that never changes: It has to make sense. This hopeless head trip by Darren Aronofsky, the loopy maverick who explored the glamour and squalor of drug addicts in the miserable, depressing flop Requiem for a Dream, doesnít make one lick of sense, and it doesnít seem to be about much of anything at all.Ý

ÝÝIt does, however, continue to raise serious questions about who advises Hugh Jackman on his film career. How can the most charming, talented, and versatile new star in show business pick so many rotten movie roles? As fabulous as he was on Broadway, singing and dancing and soaring his way to a Tony award in The Boy From Oz, and as appealing as he was in Woody Allenís marvelous Scoop, I could barely sit through Kate and Leopold, Someone Like You, Van Helsing, Swordfish, The Prestige or the three brain-dead X-Men travesties. I know he makes enough money from this junk to afford himself the luxury of returning to the stage, but in my opinion, he should come back soon while the welcome mat still welcomes. Bad movies blow ill winds. In The Fountain, they reach gale force.

ÝÝThis demented alternative reality doodle knits an epic love story through three time zones. In the year 1500 Mr. Jackman plays a Spanish conquistador named Tomas who is sent by Queen Isabella (played in torturous headdresses by Rachel Weisz, who in real life is Mrs. Darren Aronofsky). Isabella sends the loyal, romantic soldier to the jungles of South America to find the mythical Fountain of Youth. What he finds is a tree from the Garden of Eden, hidden in a Mayan pyramid in Guatemala. Eating the bark from this tree of life, he manages to survive the Inquisition. (Whoever drinks its sap will live forever, goes the legend.) Five hundred years later, Mr. Jackman plays Tommy, a cancer research scientist who is trying to cure his wife Izzi (short for Isabelle, get it?) from a brain tumor. By golly, thereís some of that sap left in the lab, but his boss (amazingly youthful Ellen Burstyn, looking like sheís been drinking it all along) wonít let him have any. Cut to 2500, where Mr. Jackman is now Tom, a bald 26th century astronaut in prison-stripe pajamas who looks like an Auschwitz inmate and spends a lot of time on a distant planet called Xibalba in the lotus position. By this time, he has his own Tree of Life, which floats to the Planet Earth from a dying star in Billie Burkeís bubble from The Wizard of Oz.

ÝÝDespite all the dumb dialogue about parallel domains and toxicity reports, the movie covers a millennium and despite its 96-minute running time, it seems to take a millennium to get through it. At a time when more people than ever have become obsessed with the desire to stay young, defy the aging process, and prolong life, a movie about living forever really ought to have more impact than this irritating muddle. Apparently the idea for The Fountain began in 1999 as a rough sketch on a restaurant napkin and unfortunately progressed no further than the restaurant garbage disposal. Oh, whatís left is a jumble of pop-Buddhist philosophy and hysterical symbolic visuals that choke on their own spiritual confusion without a shred of originality. (The ridiculous ending seems inspired by Stanley Kubrickís overrated 2001: A Space Odyssey, and twice as pretentious.) As a filmmaker, Mr. Aronofsky has an overwrought imagination, so you might find some of the set pieces arresting, but the three acts that challenge time and space eventually suffocate the dramatic content. Hugh Jackman as the three time travelers just looks three times more uncomfortable than he does playing werewolves and vampire hunters, and the trio of stories bounce in and out of sequence like drunks playing hopscotch. The lasting effect is of being smashed in the head by falling bricks. When The Fountain premiered at the Venice Film Festival, it was loudly and rudely booed. When it moved to the Toronto Film Festival in September, the press notes promised its desire to grapple with the larger questions of life, art, and the universe results in work that is challenging and provocative. The only challenge here is how to keep the audience from snoring, and the only provocative issue raised by The FountainÝis how it ever got financed in the first place.

ÝÝJames Bond is back, and Casino Royale may signify the rebirth of a franchise everyone eulogized in the last, dismal chapter, Die Another Day. Now in its 21st reboot, something new has been added to spice up the traditional 007 martini. The die-hards who always name Sean Connery as the real, best, and one and only James Bond are being forced to think again. Daniel Craig, the sixth 007, has blond, preppie hair, blue eyes, rock-hard sixpack abs, and a youthful pit-bull instinct none of the other Bonds had. He is sexier and younger than Connery, funnier than Roger Moore, and more of a ruthless womanizer than Pierce Brosnan. He also looks better in the kind of Speedo none of them would have dared to wear, and seems confident of blowing up the world and getting out without an Aston Martin. In fact, before Judi Dench drafts him against her better judgment as 007, he drives a Ford. This 007 knows how to cry, and I wouldnít be at all surprised if he also eats quiche.

ÝÝThe titles are a mass of roulette wheels and playing cards, but there isnít a Bond girl in them, and in his search for Le Chiffre, the arch fiend who finances the worldís most lethal terrorist cell and weeps blood from his eye sockets, Bond doesnít even bail out of a helicopter. In fact, he arrives in a bulldozer and does more body-punishing acrobatics than any of his suaver, older predecessors by chasing a gang of villains across a construction site in Madagascar like a Mexican jumping bean. The curvaceous sexpot from the British Treasury who breaks his heart (French actress Eva Green) doesnít show up until 007 tries to win back some of the money he cost Her Majestyís government by joining a $150-million poker game at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. The sex scenes and the verbal sparring matches that follow add up to the most erotic Bond film in years. Daniel Craig gets ample opportunity to show off his already proven acting prowess as well as his bared muscles, especially in a brutal nude torture scene that involves quite a thrashing in places where the sun donít shine. The monstrous Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) moves the ouch factor up so many notches that a lot of macho guys, for obvious reasons, will only be able to watch this sadism with their legs crossed. Ý

ÝÝThe locations are glamorous and the sets are lavish, but not laughably so, the violence is wincingly real, and the only gadget is a defibrillator in his car that saves Bondís life after heís been poisoned. Both the jokes and the thrills move at a satisfactory pace that allows you to catch your breath between heroics and orgasms, thanks to three screenwriters (including Paul Haggis, of Crash). The movie is a bit too long for my taste, and the women look anorexic. I also wonder of modern terrorists still do business with valises full of money like the one that blows up on a canal in Venice, dragging Bond underwater. Still, the excitement has a freshness thatís been missing from the Bond films for years, and the new 007 is incredibly impressive. Daniel Craig has nerves of steel and balls of brass, but if heís doing his own stunts, then in ten years heís going to need knee surgery and a hip replacement.

ÝSHORT TAKES: Put down that Big Mac, suck in that gut, and repent, you sinners. Get ready for Fast Food Nation, which is supposed to be an ensemble piece about the filth, danger, and horror behind the scenes in the junk food industry. Letís face it. The world is hooked on tacos, pizzas, and fries, but only America seems to be getting fatter by the day. When theyíre not wolfing down crap on the go, theyíre nuking frozen leftovers in plastic containers. In what little plot there is, the miscast Greg Kinnear plays a marketing expert in a hamburger franchise called Big One, assigned to investigate reports that the meat patties contain animal feces. In Texas, he visits the slaughterhouse where the meat is processed wholesale, and meets Bruce Willis, meat supplier who works for such a bargain price that itís worth any buyerís profits to overlook bone shards in the burgers and toenails in the chicken specials. Director Richard Linklater pours on the vomit factor by taking his cameras inside the slaughter rooms where they slash the throats of cows and dump the waste pollution into the water supply. The movie has a few points to make about manís inhumanity to animals, but loses focus fast. Alas, instead of an exposÈ on how food franchises are poisoning us, the movie spends entirely too much time telling the story of the plight of illegal Mexican immigrants who work the conveyor belts and assembly lines for long hours and cheap pay, and ends up making no serious points at all. With Patricia Arquette, Bobby Cannavale, Ethan Hawke, Kris Kristofferson, and Avril Lavigne...Actress Joey Lauren Adams, best known for her excellent work in Chasing Amy, makes a formidable directing debut with Come Early Morning, a modest but honest-as-grits film about loneliness in a small Southern town that plays like a Carson McCullers short story. Ashley Judd gives another realistic performance as Lucille, a tough Arkansas cookie who lays floors, drives a pickup truck the color of key lime pie, and not only canít commit to a man, but canít even remember the last time she kissed somebody while sober. Looking for directions on a dead-end road, she looks for affection from her father (Scott Wilson), a disillusioned guitar player who has lost his ability to communicate with everyone except God, and from a handsome cowboy named Cal (charismatic Jeffrey Donovan) who works as a roofing contractor and does everything to win Lucilleís trust. By the time she gives in, heís moved on to another girl. Nothing happens, but as a tone poem about little people living small lives, the film has a bittersweet taste that lingers like the finish of a moody, first-rate novel. Sound direction by Ms. Adams and marvelous performances by a reliable cast that includes Stacy Keach, Tim Blake Nelson, and the great Diane Ladd open a new window to a world of Holy Rollers, greasy diners, and one-night stands in seedy motels that is definitely worth a look. A small movie with big rewards.