Mona Lisa frown

Bohemian California-native art history professor Katherine Watson gets a job at a prestigious and conservative 1953 women’s college, her liberal West Coast values clashing with the school’s conservative East Coast principles. The moment I saw Mona Lisa Smile’s trailer, this premise presented to me, I knew I’d love the film. Plus, it starred a beret-donning Julia Roberts and an all-female cast of Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Marcia Gay Harden. A few months and two hours later, the harsh, sad truth extinguished all of the little enthusiasm I had left: This is one horrible film.

As I’ve said, the film’s plot has a freethinking art history professor named Katherine Watson (Roberts) trying to introduce the traditionalist all-female Wellesley College to her feminist beliefs. However, that would seem to be a difficult task, considering that its students’ main priority is to nab a husband. "I thought I was headed to a place that would turn out tomorrow’s leaders, not their wives," Katherine exclaims upon hearing this. With her own syllabus, she uses paintings to open her students’ minds to new, more open-minded ideas, causing her to ruffle some feathers among the administration, especially when she compares Picasso and Pollock’s modern art to the classic Michelangelo the school adores, again proving their acute traditionalism.

Mona Lisa Smile had so much potential, and blew it all. It even contradicts its own feminist message. The film supposedly encourages individualism and non-conformation, when the script itself is just another mundane, humdrum stencil that follows the typical chick flick formula. The film opposes stereotyping, when the characters themselves are stereotypes: Dunst plays the bitch everyone loves to hate; Stiles is the timid teacher’s pet; Gyllenhaal plays the sex-crazed slut. Even Julia Roberts doesn’t give as great a performance that she usually gives, making Marcia Gay Harden Mona Lisa’s only saving grace; though her role is small, Gay Harden is fantastic as the prim and proper Nancy. In Mona Lisa Smile, nothing much happens, and with an idiotically inane script and lackluster performances, it doesn’t even seem to be aware of the same feminist values that it is preaching. In a word: boring.

Bottom Line: We now know the reason behind the Mona Lisa’s mysterious smile – it didn’t have to watch Mona Lisa Smile.

Grade: C-

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In The Cut

In an unneeded career makeover, America’s sweetheart Meg Ryan temporarily gives up romantic comedies for In The Cut, an erotic thriller based on Susanna Moore’s novel. Ryan plays Franny Thorstin, a literature professor that gets involved into an affair with the detective (Mark Rufallo) investigating a murder case outside her apartment. That’s basically it; this film has no actual plot, and that’s what causes its downfall. Acclaimed director Jane Campion fails horribly in making a film with as much passion and erotic emotion that the two characters experience. Both Ryan and Ruffalo act drunk throughout most of the film, and it doesn’t help that their characters like having sex right in front of us every 20 minutes, preventing a tangible storyline from actually emerging. Is them achieving an orgasm really more important than In The Cut being a good movie? And not only does the film not have a story, but it’s so slow at unfolding its non-plot. It’s lethargic and sluggish in telling a tale of nothingness. Inert and idiotic, In The Cut lacks the emotional substance needed to balance out its carnal, erotic self-centeredness.

Bottom Line: Proof that Meg Ryan should stick to her forte – romantic comedies.

Grade: D

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The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Based on the classic 1974 original, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre tells the story of a group of horny teens that stumble upon a house of a family of cannibals, led by the timeless horror villain Leatherface, the chainsaw-wielding baddie who skins his victims then wears their faces as masks. Also, it’s inspired by a true story, giving the films an uneasy anxiety. I loved the original, and I was expecting a lot from this. Just like a typical teen slasher flick, the acting from starlets like Jessica Biel is bland, the script is stupid, but the blood is gloriously splattered. Though it’s not as radical and revolutionary as the original, it still provides the scares, shocks, surprises and stomach-turning gruesomeness required; sights like a huge hole through the head of a girl after she shot herself from the mouth and a guy hanging from a hook are just plain gross, wonderfully gross, but gross nonetheless. Fans of the slasher genre will love Chainsaw Massacre, especially because of the nostalgic novelty surrounding the film.

Bottom Line: Next to the original Massacre, this is a horror movie buff’s ultimate nostalgia guilty pleasure.

Grade: B

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The Last Samurai

In The Last Samurai, director Edward Zwick helms Tom Cruise in the Dances With Wolves-inspired epic. Cruise plays Captain Nathan Algren, a Civil War vet who’s hired by the Japanese government to "modernize" their army, eliminating old Japanese values and traditions to make room for more globalized national development. Algren then moves to 19th century Japan, and upon learning that the government wishes to eradicate a group of rebel samurais – the last of their kind – he is captured by that same faction during a forest brawl. He is spared by the samurais’ piercing leader, Katsumoto (Academy Award Best Supporting Actor nominee Ken Watanabe), and is forced to live in their strikingly picturesque village in the mountains. There, as his wounds heal, Algren falls in love with the ways of the samurai, their principles of honor and humility, and fights for them as the emperor’s (Shichinosuke Nakamura) mighty army of cannons and gatling guns battle their puny army of swords.

Again, just as in most of his films, Tom Cruise gives another less than superior performance in The Last Samurai; you just can’t cease imagining him as Tom Cruise, more so Nathan Algren. This role is the same part Cruise has been playing his whole career, with a couple of exceptions: his roles in Minority Report and Jerry Maguire, his two best films. Samurai is shot brilliantly; the battle scenes filmed with epic majesty and genuine emotion. However, the best part of The Last Samurai isn’t its acting, nor its writing or directing: the film is just so damn gorgeous. The lush, beautiful Japanese landscape, the intricately carved verdant mountains, the handsome, linear Japanese architecture; they’re all part of what makes the film so elegant, so lovely. The Last Samurai may not be a bad film, but it isn’t a very good one either. At its best, it is a triumphant, moving, inspiring tale of unflinching passion; at its worst, it is a dull, dreary exercise of temporary monotone.

Bottom Line: A stylistic, elegant, gorgeous filmmaking exercise with all the best intentions.

Grade: B

To Do List Movies

• Don’t watch Mona Lisa Smile.

• Don’t watch In The Cut.

• Watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

• Watch The Last Samurai.

TV

• Watch American Idol. Again, just to remind you, American Idol is shown every Thursday, 9 p.m. on Star World.

• Watch The 46th Annual Grammy Awards. Personally, I watch the Grammys simply for its performances, though the awards are neat, too. I’m hoping Grammy voters will "shake it like a Polaroid picture" and give the impossibly catchy Hey Ya! by OutKast the Record Of The Year award. It will be shown on Monday, 8 p.m. on Star World.

Books

• Read Angels & Demons by Dan Brown. Though it’s not as eye opening as The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, Robert Langdon’s first adventure, in which he attempts to save the Vatican from destruction, proves that Dan Brown is one of the smartest and most ingenious authors of our time.

Award Show Countdown

23 days till the 76th Annual Academy Awards

2 days till the 46 th Annual Grammy Awards

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For comments, questions and suggestions, e-mail me at lanz_gryffindor@yahoo.com.