Moneyball / **** (PG-13)

Billy Beane: Brad Pitt

Peter Brand: Jonah Hill

Art Howe: Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Scott Hatteberg: Chris Pratt

David Justice: Stephen Bishop

Casey Beane: Kerris Dorsey

Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Bennett Miller. Written by Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin and Stan Chervin. Based on the book “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” by Michael Lewis. Running time: 133 min. Rated PG-13 (for some strong language).

I’m not a baseball person. I got most of my passion for any sports from my father, who turned me into an avid football fan, but none of my family ever watched baseball when I was growing up. My dad got into it long after I’d left home and my brother has become a fan as well. I suppose the fact that my area Major League team is the Kansas City Royals hasn’t helped me develop a taste for it. I’ve enjoyed the games I’ve seen in stadium, but I just can’t get into all the numbers that the majority of baseball fandom seems to be about.

As a cineaste, however, I can tell you that no sport has provided more great movies than that of baseball. The new true-life story of “Moneyball” is in the best tradition of great movies based on sports. It tells the story of Billy Beane, one time pro player who finds himself later in life the general manager of the financially challenged and performance struggling Oakland A’s. Beane became famous in 2002 for building a roster of players based on a computer program that calculated the best percentages of under valued players getting on base. His outside of the box thinking paid off by producing the longest winning streak in league history and a trip to the playoffs for one of the league's lowest budget teams. Beane feared that not making it to the World Series would erase his achievement from the history books, but after his amazing season many of the league franchisees adapted his methods of recruitment.

I didn’t know much of this going into the movie, but any knowledge of the events depicted here has little impact on the effectiveness of the filmmaking. “Moneyball” is a basic great movie. It isn’t flashy. It doesn’t have car chases or sex scenes. It doesn’t go into drug use. It doesn’t muddy up its story with a romance or a false conflict with a superior. It doesn’t give you a rollercoaster rise and fall story. There isn’t even really a whole lot of baseball in it. It’s simply a fascinating story about a real person and the thing he did that nobody believed would work.

Brad Pitt plays Beane. We see him struggling with frustration towards his scouts as they maintain business as usual after the team loses their three marquee players to teams with more money. They don’t understand his notion that they’re playing a game with the big budget teams that they cannot win. They’ve accepted it; he refuses.

With this performance and his work in the past summer’s “The Tree of Life”, Pitt is bound to have a major push for a best actor nomination this awards season. It is more likely that his work in the previous film will garner the awards bid, but his presence in this film, along with his producer’s credit here, is bound to play a role in an inevitable nomination. In keeping with the overall mood of the movie, Pitt plays Beane with a cool demeanor that rarely discloses the tension he holds beneath the surface. There is a funny moment when he asks his daughter if he looks worried. She doesn’t hesitate to proclaim that he does.

Beane finds a kindred spirit when he goes to Cleveland to bargain for a new marquee player. He notices that a meek little man in the corner seems to have the ear of the manager and therefore the GM on every player decision. This man is Peter Brand, who feels that he is misunderstood although he is listened to by upper management to some degree. He sees a gaping misuse of talent in the league, and soon discovers that instead of buying a marquee player, Beane has purchased him to be Oakland’s new Assistant GM.

Jonah Hill (“Superbad”) deserves as much, if not more, acclaim for his performance here as Pitt does. Hill’s presence here suggests that he will play the sassy sidekick that he has in the variety of gross out comedies that populate most of his resume. On the contrary, Hill plays Brand as even more subdued than Pitt’s fairly laid back Beane. In doing this, Hill is able to capitalize on an actor’s greatest skill—the ability to listen.

I can’t remember a major role in which we get to see an actor truly listen to the people around him as much as we get to see Hill listening in this movie. It makes his character stronger that he has the patience to take in what everyone else is doing and telling him. When he does speak, it is important. The juxtaposition of that importance against Hill’s quiet, benevolent delivery makes him more real, more in the moment than most performances you’ll see in any other major Hollywood production.

Director Bennett Miller (“Capote”) and screenwriters Steven Zaillain (“American Gangster”) and Aaron Sorkin (“The Social Network”) trim all the fat off this story, so all you get are the essentials. There aren’t the typical histrionics that populate most real life sports stories. There are no dramatic realizations, no surprising revelations. This is a pure workplace drama, where everyone behaves pretty much as if this is his everyday job. There are players who are partiers, but everybody knows that ahead of time. People are fired and traded to other teams, but that’s part of the business of professional sports. Everybody behaves as if this is their chosen path and they have to live with it.

The filmmakers do award the audience one sports cliché in their depiction of the A’s record-breaking 20^th consecutive win. But this is not done merely as some dramatic device, because it really happened. The A’s really did have an 11-0 lead that the Kansas City Royals actually overcame to nearly stole the game away from the A’s. Because of the nature of this nail-biting event, it plays like one of those sports movie moments. But, it also gives the dramatic closure that the A’s failed to find in the big game that year.

Unlike many cinematically reproduced stories from real life, “Moneyball” lacks all the expected rhythms and developments of formula. Instead it considers its subject, not as something greater than the real world from which it is inspired, but rather a part of reality. It is grounded and set in its true origins. The men depicted in it are just men. They changed the business direction of an American institution, but they were only trying to do their jobs. In depicting their story simply and succinctly, the filmmakers have realized a mirroring accomplishment with their film about those men. This is what they did. This is how they did it. The movie lets that speak for itself.

Horror Thoughts ’11 Week 1: Sept. 30-Oct. 5

eXistenZ (1999) ***

Director/Writer: David Cronenberg

Starring: Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Ian Holm, Willem Dafoe, Don McKeller, Callum Keith Rennie, Christopher Eccleston, Sarah Polley

“eXistenZ” takes the David Cronenberg notion that everything is creepier if it’s organic to the video game front as it imagines the next generation of video experience to involve a virtual reality world, which people will enter through controllers the plugs directly into their bodies and breathes and moves as if they are as alive as their users. There is a great deal of sexual innuendo in the concept, like the way that people who don’t have game ports in their bodies are referred to a ‘virgins’. The act of plugging in is not a very veiled suggestion of sexual activity. And, like today’s video game culture, this future version is just an extension of the sex and violence that dominates our most popular entertainment.

“eXistenZ” doesn’t really play like a horror movie, however. It’s more like what an action thriller might look like if filtered through “Naked Lunch”. It does sport a high “Twilight Zone” feel to it, especially in the way the movie ends up. The notion that nothing that you’ve seen is what you thought at first and the twist of who the Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh characters really are at the end all owe a great deal to “The Twilight Zone”. The production design is pure Cronenberg, though.

Transylvania 6-5000 (1985) **½

Director/Writer: Rudy De Luca

Starring: Jeff Goldblum, Ed Bagley Jr., Jeffery Jones, Joseph Bologna, John Byner, Carol Kane, Michael Richards, Geena Davis

My dear precious wife does love her silly eighties movies, and I can see the appeal. “Transylvania 6-5000” is really minor work, but it’s done with heart. The cast is surprisingly strong. I doubt that when Geena Davis was running around the set in her skimpy Vampira costume she ever could’ve imagined that one day she’d be playing a first female president on the small screen in the series “Commander In Chief”.

What works in this implausible comedy that never quite becomes spoof is the interjection of absurdity into the comic details of each scene. Carol Kane telling her husband which spots to clean on the window, Michael Richard trying to get Ed Bagley to slip on banana peel, the psychic bashing a hole in her table after every reading, all these quirky details add to the absurdity of this plot, which just wouldn’t amount to much without the extra effort. I have to say in the end that it isn’t entirely recommendable; but if you’re in the right mood, it will give you a good laugh.

Insidious (2011) ***½

Director: James Wan

Writer: Leigh Whannell

Starring: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins, Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, Barbara Hershey

“Insidious” is a damn scary movie! I mean this movie will scare the crap out of you. It’s scarier than it has any right to be. It’s certainly scarier than any PG-13 movie has any right to be. In fact, it’s so scary; I don’t think PG-13 is an appropriate rating for it. This movie should be rated R, based on its frightening images alone. One F-bomb is dropped, but there’s no gore, no sex, no nudity, barely even any violence. It’s just scary as ‘H’, ‘E’, double hockey sticks.

The directing and writing team of James Wan and Leigh Whannell show for the second time in their careers a commanding sense of the horror genre. Previously they essentially invented the sub genre of torture porn with the original “Saw”, a movie that had better qualities than any of its sequels or copycats. Now, they’ve artfully pieced together a possession story that embraces many horror signatures, but implements them in such abundance and with such unique application that it’s as fresh as “The Exorcist” or “Poltergeist”. What’s more, it has more scares per minute than those classics. I’m serious. This movie will scare you.

Western of the Week

Undead or Alive (2007) *½

Director: Glasgow Phillips

Writers: Glasgow Phillips, Scott Pourroy

Starring: Chris Kattan, James Denton, Navi Rawat, Matt Besser, Chris Coppola, Leslie Jordan, Brian Posehn

Although the horror/comedy “Undead or Alive: A Zombedy” is not a good movie, I couldn’t help but hold some affection for it, or at least some affection for what it was trying to do. I chose it simply because the thought of SNL’s Chris Kattan starring in either a western or a horror movie is just ludicrous.

I was glad to see it was also a comedy, because a serious take on zombies in the old west is not something I’m sure I really want to see (although I will with a later Horrofest ’11 feature “Quick and the Undead”). The presence of comedian Brian Posehn as the first zombie was also something nice to see. He makes a good zombie. I recall a bit he had in his stand up act about the only role he’d ever play in a horror movie would be that of the creepy guy in the corner getting off on everything the killer did to the victims. He’s charming here as a zombie, however.

Unfortunately, all these happy qualities don’t a good movie make. It has a few good moments, but most of the jokes fall flat. It might’ve been funnier if the zombies had more to say about the inconveniences of being dead and hungry. There’s very little zip to the script, but it has a fun and unexpected conclusion.

Grace (2010) ***

Director/Writer: Paul Solet

Starring: Jordan Ladd, Gabrielle Rose, Samantha Ferris, Malcolm Stewart

“Grace” gets deliciously sadistic in its final act, making for a capable and somewhat sublime indie horror feature. The story involves a couple pregnant with their first child. The mother is a health food nut, who bears with her overbearing mother-in-law. After a car accident leaves her without her husband and her baby stillborn, she decides to continue with her plans for a natural birth with her wet nurse. Somehow the baby comes back to life upon birth, but there’s something not quite right with it.

I’ll spare you the baby’s secrets to discover on your own. These are the issues that occupy the somewhat meandering middle passages of the movie. I could’ve done with about twenty minutes less of the mother dealing with the baby’s special needs. With a running time of 83 minutes, that might seem a strike against the movie that it might not overcome, but the final fifteen minutes make every other minute of the movie worth it.

Desperation is a great motivator for horror, and this movie has desperation down to an art form. I love how the character relationships come together in one big bloody mess by the end of the movie. “Grace” may have been better as an hour-long episode of a horror anthology, but it is juicy horror.

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2011) *½

Director: Kevin Munroe

Writers: Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, Tiziano Sclavi (comic book series “Dylan Dog”)

Starring: Brandon Routh, Sam Huntington, Anita Briem, Taye Diggs, Peter Stormare, Kurt Angle

I misidentified the source material of “Dylan Dog” in my Horrorfest preview, stating that it was a video game adaptation, when it’s actually based on an Italian comic book. I’m not sure what an Italian comic book artist knows about New Orleans, but there it is.

I really wanted to like “Dylan Dog: Dead of Night”. One reason for that is because I think Brandon Routh got a bad deal with the whole “Superman Returns” thing. I liked that movie better than most people, and I particularly liked Routh as the seminal alien hero. I also very much enjoyed Routh’s run on the television series “Chuck”. How terribly miscast he is here, though. I suppose Dylan Dog is some sort of gumshoe go-between for the living and the undead in his New Orleans universe. Routh is about the furthest thing you could get from a noir hero, however.

I guess the whole thing is supposed to be some clever merging of genres: horror, film noir, and comedy. It never really digs into any of them. It’s got the noir atmosphere, but Routh’s good looks, well-mannered speech, and athletic self-confidence play against the noir archetype. The horror elements are played earnestly, but look schlocky. And, the comedy never quite snaps. All in all, it makes for a disappointing ride that looked like it could’ve been so much fun.

Red Riding Hood (2011) **

Director: Catherine Hardwicke

Writer: David Johnson

Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Shiloh Fernandez, Max Irons, Gary Oldman, Julie Christie, Virginia Madsen, Billy Burke, Lucas Haas

“Red Riding Hood” is another example of a concept that looked like it had the potential to be something good, but falls flat. It doesn’t fall quite as squarely on its face as “Dylan Dog” does, but it never quite musters up the scares it might have.

Catherine Hardwicke, the author of the first “Twilight” film, takes a classic creature feature approach to this adult look at the rather frightening fairy tale. Instead of filming on location, the setting is cast in the woods that are obviously sets built to give it a sort of Universal Monsters feel. Writer David Johnson has fashioned the tale of a little girl who meets a wolf into a werewolf plot that has a village terrorized and a werewolf hunter that might be more dangerous than the wolf. It still has all the stopping points of the children’s story, the heroine wears a red cape, there’s a brave woodsman, and a grandmother that might be hiding something.

There is some fun to be found here, but sometimes the references to the story have to stretch to fit into the plot they’ve built. Although, there’s a great cast, some of the veteran performers seem to struggle to connect with the material. Perhaps the attempts at showing the production’s seams require a stronger script to keep the material connected to a reality that allows the audience’s emotions to run at a pace necessary for the horror to work. Perhaps that thought is entirely too complex for a cinematic telling of “Little Red Riding Hood”.

Penny Thoughts ’11: Sept. 23-29

From Russia With Love (1963) ***½

Director: Terence Young

Writers: Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, Ian Fleming (book)

Starring: Sean Connery, Daniela Bianchi, Pedro Armendariz, Lotte Lenya, Robert Shaw, Bernard Lee

Last week, our oldest boy found himself in a bunch of hot water when he not only played a video game he knew he was restricted from playing, but he had to steal it from the house to do it. We’re pretty strict about what the boys are exposed to in terms of violence and language. He knew we didn’t want him playing my James Bond video game, but it had been eating at him for the four years that I’ve had it, and he finally broke.

It probably came as quite a surprise to him that after a week of no video games for that stunt I broke out “From Russia With Love” for our family movie night, the very movie that video game was based on. Needless to say, he was thrilled. My James Bond video collection has been gnawing at him nearly as bad as that video game had.

I chose to start him out on “From Russia With Love” for a few reasons. 1) It’s my favorite of the PG-rated Bonds. 2) It was the one the game was based upon, but the game had invented much more violence than can be found in the movie. 3) It’s one of the least action oriented Bonds. I hope this gave him an appreciation for that fact that there’s more going on in these movies than people shooting at each other.

The verdict: he loved it. The youngest, not so much. His favorite phrase throughout the screening, “When are they going to fight and stuff?” The oldest got it, though. I started watching Bond movies when I was about his age, and it’s probably the perfect age to start. It has all the silly action and comedy that are Bond signatures, but he’s old enough to pick up on the plots and the twists and even some of the innuendo. Hopefully, he won’t really understand that for another few of years, though.

The Conspirator (2011) ***

Director: Robert Redford

Writers: James Solomon, Gregory Bernstein

Starring: James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Kevin Klein, Evan Rachel Wood, Tom Wilkinson, Justin Long, Danny Huston, James Badge Dale, Colm Meaney, Alexis Bledel, Johnny Simmons, Toby Kebbell, Norman Reedus

I had read some disappointing reviews of this movie at the time of its theatrical release. At that time, many accused the movie of lacking power behind its historical material. Director Robert Redford hasn’t had a great track record of late, coming off a couple of commercial and critical flops, which followed a string of critically lauded movies. “The Conspirator” is closer to the former category than the latter, but it’s not a bad movie.

This is the first of a couple of movies about our 16^th President, Abraham Lincoln, that have been in the works for quite some time. It isn’t really about Lincoln, however, but about the country’s lust for revenge after a national tragedy. It follows the military criminal hearings of the assassins of Lincoln, focusing specifically on the trial of Mary Surratt, the mother of one of the men suspected of conspiring to kill the President, Vice President and Secretary of State during the final months of the Civil War. Surratt was the lone female indicted as a co-conspirator and with her son the only unaccounted for member of the conspiracy; the pressure was on the military tribunal to convict her for her son’s crimes.

James McAvoy plays her reluctant lawyer, who only takes the case because of the apparent violation of her rights as an American citizen to a public trial by her piers. The movie wisely doesn’t really answer the question as to whether she was actually a conspirator in the assassination, because that’s not the point. The point has more to do with our government’s recent decision to try suspected terrorists by military tribunal, rather than within the bounds of our public legal system. It’s about what America is supposed to stand for, the rights we allow our citizens to assure that such matters do not amount to petty revenge above justice. The difference is that Surratt was a citizen and most of the terrorist suspects were not. But when it comes to the ideals of a society, should that matter?

Of Gods and Men (2011) ***½

Director: Xavier Beauvois

Writers: Xavier Beauvois, Etienne Comar

Starring: Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale, Olivier Rabourdin, Philippe Laudenbach, Jacques Herlin, Loïc Pichon, Xavier Maly, Jean-Pierre Frin

“Of Gods and Men” tells the fascinating true story of Trappist monks in Algeria who get caught up in the local politics of fundamentalist terrorists inflicting their terror on the impoverished community that they are charged to care for. Their story isn’t really about the politics, however, but rather their choice to walk in the shadow of God.

I’ve never seen anyone’s decision to live within the grace of God so well explained as it is in this movie. The choices these monks are faced with force each of them to question their beliefs and their choices. They don’t only question their personal choice to live as men solely devoted to their God, but also the choices they are forced to make by both sides of the conflict. As men of God they cannot refuse to help any one in need, even the terrorists when they come with a wounded man. They understand, however, that the terrorists will use any help they get as an excuse to demand even more from them. Any help they give the terrorists will seem a betrayal to their flock, who struggle daily with the havoc wrecked on their lives by the terrorists. What’s a true man of God to do?

The message of love these men send with their sacrifice to humanity through their devotion to God is clearer than any government decree or fanatical demand. Love is the answer. If only more of us could understand that, we might just have Heaven here on Earth.

Western of the Week

Yellow Sky (1948) ***

Director: William A. Wellman

Writers: Lamar Trotti, W.R. Burnett

Starring: Gregory Peck, Anne Baxter, Richard Widmark, Robert Arthur, John Russell, Henry Morgan, James Barton, Charles Kemper

William A. Wellman’s western “Yellow Sky” brings a great many things to mind. It isn’t a great western, but it is a good one. It’s good for the time period in which it was made. It’s entertaining. It has some good action sequences. It has some cookie cutter characters, but not the main ones.

First, there’s Gregory Peck in a fairly early role, although he was already a star. He wasn’t Atticus Finch yet, and it shows. He plays the leader of a band of thieves who has a change of conscience. He’s not a good guy to begin with, and it’s easy to see why the rest of the group might turn on him. He’s Gregory Peck with that voice of his, so you can see how he got the job, but his hold on it is tenuous thanks in part to a much more sinister Richard Widmark as the second in command. But also, thanks to Peck’s own lankiness and ability to show his weaknesses and doubts.

Second, was rape not a crime before the 60s? It seems the heroes of these older westerns get away with actions against women that no hero, no matter how flawed, could even think of getting away with today. Now, of course Peck attacks the cute as a button Anne Baxter before he has his change of heart. In fact, it’s what begins to change it. But still, the way he goes at her is just wrong, and everyone in the movie just shrugs it off as something that happens. Of course, she does shoot him. I guess if rape victims were given a chance to shoot their assailants there would be more justice in the world.

Third, I’ve been a fan of James Bond for a long time and I can’t believe I had never heard of this movie before I saw it on Netflix Instant. I don’t know if this movie is cited as an influence on Bond, but there is one shot in this movie that is undeniably repeated in almost every Bond movie. Near the end of the film, when Widmark is trying to gun down his former colleague, we get a point of view shot from inside the barrel of his gun. This is the exact same shot that opens all but one of the official Bond pictures.

Horrorfest ‘11

Temperatures are beginning to drop. The wind is rising up. And, WalMart has filled their front aisles with bags of candy as if shoppers are going to be handing them out tomorrow and knowing full well they’re going to eat them and come back for more before Halloween. That’s right. At A Penny in the Well that means it is time for the annual Horrorfest. I’m so excited.

Streaming movies has put a whole new twist on Horrorfest, now that I’ve really begun to capitalize on the technology. It means that Horrorfest can include potentially thousands of horror movies. It makes writing a preview for each new Horrorfest a little more difficult, as I can pick and chose movies more in tune with my daily whims. I’ll try my best to prepare my faithful readers on what to expect from this year’s Horrorfest films.

Some movies I know I will be watching this year include our opening film, David Cronenberg’s typically disturbing take on video game culture “eXistenZ”, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and a young Jude Law. I’m not sure how much of a horror film this is, but with the organic video game controllers sported in the film, it’s sure to be a little quease inducing, very graphic, and ultimately unsettling enough to fit right in with the Horrorfest atmosphere.

Some of the recent theatrical releases that have made it to BluRay that I will be watching include, the video game adaptation “Dylan Dog: Dead of Night”, Nicolas Cage’s medieval supernatural thriller “Season of the Witch”, the latest Twilightian take on Little Red Riding Hood, which drops the “little” from its title, another swipe by Paul Bettany to carry a religious themed horror actioner in “Priest”, Anthony Hopkins nod to the exorcism route “The Rite”, and the team that brought us “Paranormal Activity” shows us just how scary kids can be in “Insidious”.

Speaking of kids, I am a family man, and as usual I will include some family programming in this year’s fright fest. One of my wife’s favorites from childhood is the comedy horror spoof “Transylvania 6-5000”. We’ll see how our kids feel about that one. The boys and I will also take a dark journey into the fantasy world of Jim Henson in “The Dark Crystal”.

The centerpiece of this year’s festival will be a look at the classic Universal monster “The Mummy”. We’re not going on an Indiana Jones inspired adventure with Brendan Frasier and Rachel Weisz, however. No, we’ll be revisiting the one that starred Boris Karloff wrapped in toilet paper, the 1932 original. We’ll also watch Universal’s resurrection of the franchise to capitalize off their other monsters’ success starting in 1940 with “The Mummy’s Hand”, and continuing with “The Mummy’s Tomb” (1942), “The Mummy’s Ghost” (1944), and “The Mummy’s Curse” (1944). That should be plenty of dead Egyptians for this year.

As usual, we will also be visiting an array of cult horror flicks thanks to the convenience of Netflix Instant Streaming and Crackle. Some of the titles will include, the French zombie flick “The Horde”, the controversially disturbing picture “The Human Centipede: First Sequence”, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s hallucinatory “Santa Sangre”, last year’s summer’s end sleeper “The Last Exorcism”, the second of Dario Argento’s Three Mothers Trilogy “Inferno”, and “Trick ‘r Treat” is a recent cult flick that I’ve always heard good things about.

We will have our requisite trip back to the silent era of filmmaking with a classic horror tale. German filmmaking great F.W. Murnau will darken Horrorfest’s door once again with his take on “Faust”. We will also try to endure the French erotic vampire film “Lips of Blood” without subtitles. The lack of subtitles seems to be the primary argument on Netflix keeping this movie’s star rating down. We’ll see if it’s all that bad or if people should just learn to get over the language barrier.

We’ll also tackle a new subgenre of horror for this year’s festival. In keeping with my desire to watch a western every week for this entire year, we’ll be taking a swing at the rather shaky looking hybrid of the horror western. We’ll be looking at the questionably titled movies “Quick and the Undead” and “Undead or Alive”. “The Burrowers” looks to be the only of this experiment that might actually be good. I don’t know if I can handle any more than three horror westerns, though.

And finally, we will try to grab a couple of horror flicks in the cinema for some full-length reviews. This year I’d like to try to see “The Thing”, the remake of the remake of “The Thing from Another World” with Mary Elizabeth Winsted in the Kurt Russell role. I’d also like to see if the “Paranormal Activity” crew can keep the quality of the franchise up with their prequel to the first movie in “Paranormal Activity 3”.

As is always the case when I write my annual Horrorfest preview, I cannot wait to start watching these movies. As with last year’s Horrorfest, our weekly feature Penny Thoughts will be replaced for the month of October with Horror Thoughts so all of you can follow along at home. Now, turn off the lights and watch some scary movies.

Drive / ***½ (R)

Driver: Ryan Gosling

Irene: Carey Mulligan

Shannon: Bryan Cranston

Bernie Rose: Albert Brooks

Standard: Oscar Isaac

Blanche: Christina Hendricks

Nino: Ron Perlman

FilmDistrict presents a film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Written by Hossein Amini. Based on the novel by James Sallis. Running time: 100 min. Rated R (for strong brutal bloody violence, language and some nudity).

“If I drive for you, you give me a time and a place. I give you a five-minute window, anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours no matter what. I don't sit in while you're running it down; I don't carry a gun... I drive.”

This is the sales pitch given by the man known only as Driver in the new thriller “Drive”. The movie isn’t about his getaways, though; it’s about his life in between the getaways.

Ryan Gosling (“Half Nelson”) plays Driver as a stoic. That’s an understatement. He makes Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name look like a party animal. He doesn’t feel like one of those people who’s been holding things in and is about to explode. It’s very clear that his unnerving calm is what allows him to stay in control of every element in his life. He’s considering letting go of some of that control, however.

As is usually the case when men lose control, there’s this woman, a neighbor in his apartment building. Her name is Irene (Carey Mulligan, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps”). You can see that Driver wishes to ask her out. Finally, after running into her often enough to seem a sign, he speaks with her. He starts spending time with her and her son, Benicio (Kaden Leos). Benicio’s father is serving a prison sentence. Irene likes Driver, but I don’t know how she knows he likes her. We know it because we spend so much time with him.

Most of that time is spent with his mentor and manager, Shannon (Bryan Cranston, “Breaking Bad”). Shannon, a former stunt driver himself, manages both Driver’s daytime work and his extra curricular activities. Shannon wants to manage Driver into a stock car racing career, but needs money from his sometimes employer Bernie Rose. Comedian Albert Brooks (“Broadcast News”) makes a career spinning turn as the not-so-nice small time gangster, Bernie.

Bernie’s much nicer than his business partner, Nino (Ron Perlman, “Hellboy”), however. It doesn’t take a degree in film study to predict that Driver will eventually end up on the wrong side of his business dealings with Bernie and Nino, but I like the way the plot takes him there on an unpredictable path. That unusual plotting also comes into play in the way Driver’s relationship with Irene’s husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac, “Sucker Punch”), plays out after he’s released from prison.

Plotting isn’t really what this movie is about, however. Under the direction of Nicolas Winding Refn, “Drive” is more about mood than anything. The movie is Driver’s stoic personality down to its core. From the droning electronic score by Cliff Martinez (“Traffic”) and its accompanying ‘80’s style music with its detached vocals to the slow tracking camera movements by cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel (“The Usual Suspects”), the filmmakers take on a poker face mirrored by their main character. This film doesn’t blink. It doesn’t give anything away, but it draws you into its foreign world of crime and punishment through the service entrance. Driver’s actions, or rather inaction, often feel gauche in this thriller setting, but they never betray his character or the intentions of the filmmakers.

Refn, in this film and his previous films “Bronson” and “Valhalla Rising”, proves himself to be a stylish filmmaker with a knack for turning seemingly typical thriller material into character driven approaches to action filmmaking. Along with his screenwriter, Hossein Amini (“The Wings of the Dove”), Refn isn’t afraid to quiet the thriller format down to make a thinking man’s action movie. With an economy of words and a heavy reliance on photography, this film artist has been able to redefine genre filmmaking into a hybrid of great dramatic filmmaking and terse action elements. “Drive” might seem awkward to filmgoers expecting a typical crime thriller, but it will seem divine to those more willing to try a new twist on an old recipe.

Penny Thoughts ’11: Sept. 16-22

King Kong (1933) ****

Directors: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Shoedsack

Writers: James Creelman, Ruth Rose, Merian C. Cooper, Edgar Wallace

Starring: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot, Frank Reicher, Sam Hardy, Nobel Johnson

For the first time, my boys have watched the original “King Kong”. I gave them a choice. I offered them the original black and white version or the color 1976 version with the Twin Towers instead of the Empire State Building. I told them they had to wait the see the 2005 version because there were some pretty scary images in that one. I didn’t mention its three-hour running time.

Jude wanted the original. Jack wanted the color one. I believe that was his only argument against the original. He didn’t want to see a black & white movie. Jude reminded him that they had seen a Three Stooges movie in black & white, and it was really funny. Jack eventually caved, and we watched the original.

The boys really enjoyed it. I don’t think they appreciated it quite as much as I did. I really admire the non-special effects sequences for their frankness about Fay Wray’s sexuality and Carl Denham’s honest obsession. Jack noted that Bruce Cabot, despite his poor acting skills, looked a lot like Harrison Ford. Jack also continuously commented on the “cheesy” special effects. I tried explaining to him that at the time, those special effects were state of the art. That didn’t matter to him. They were still cheesy.

Patton Oswalt Finest Hour (2011) ***

Director: Jason Woliner

Wrtier/Star: Patton Oswalt

Comedian Patton Oswalt is one of the great comic observers of our times. Coming out of the nerd culture that has become the mainstream, Oswalt’s observations on the hypocrisy of people in general and the entertainment industry specifically make for some of the funniest comic bits by any comedian out there.

In “Finest Hour”, Oswalt offers commentary on subjects as diverse as being a role model to his daughter, the unlikely survival of circuses as an entertainment venue, and the displeasures of being a New York City resident. He makes oblique pop culture references and comments on universal experiences. Oswalt’s comedy will make you laugh and think. That’s the best kind of comedy there is.

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop (2011) **

Director: Rodman Flender

Starring: Conan O’Brien, Andy Richter, Jack Black, Jim Carrey, Stephen Colbert, Kyle Gass, Jon Hamm, Jack McBrayer, Jon Stewart, Eddie Vedder, Jack White

Everybody thought the firing of Conan O’Brien from the Tonight Show was one of entertainment’s greatest all-time tragedies. I felt NBC made a cowardly move, but it was business. I admire O’Brien’s brand of humor and am glad that he found a new home to continue it. One of the best-known stipulations of the settlement clause he made with NBC for their breach of contract was that he would not compete against them on late night television for 8 months, or some such time frame. What was Conan to do with that free time? That is the subject of the new documentary “Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop”.

The doc follows the live road show Conan put together during those months. It gives us all the backstage rundown of the affair and some of the onstage antics as well. What it does not give us is anything of substance or value. There is no real insight into the life of the popular late night entertainer. There are a few scenes where he has trouble controlling his temper over the craziness of what he has chosen for himself. Those are the movie’s most interesting.

For the most part, this doc is a one-note tune played repetitively over the course of an hour and a half.  There’s too much of Conan telling us that he lost his job and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. There’s too much of Conan arguing some minute detail of the production and ultimately getting his way. There’s too much of everyone in Conan’s presence laughing at whatever insults he jokingly slings around, while none of the other writers appear to contribute anything to the show. And never once is the very large cash settlement for an undisclosed amount paid to Conan by NBC ever even hinted at. I was very disappointed that this documentary felt so guarded by its own subject matter.

Double Take (2009) **

Director: John Grimonprez

Writers: John Grimonprez, Tom McCarthy (story)

Starring: Ron Burrage, Mark Perry, Alfred Hitchcock, John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev, Walter Cronkite, Tippi Hedron, Richard Nixon, Diana Ross, Fidel Castro

The documentary “Double Take” is the first movie in a long time that I can say that I just don’t get. I don’t get it. It’s a history of the Cold War as told through archival footage and the words, dreams and movies of Alfred Hitchcock. That much I get I suppose, but I don’t get why or what I’m really supposed to take from it.

The movie plays like some sort of dream. It’s a collage of images and a montage of words. Many of the images are well known from both the Cold War and Hitchcock’s films. The words are likewise. Some of the soundbites of Hitchcock and rerecorded soundbites by a soundalike are easily relatable to the Cold War. Others remain a mystery. I don’t know what his story about the origin of his famous film term McGuffin has to do with our conflict with Russia.

Really, at the end of this film I’m at a loss to even come up with any sort of judgment of it. It exists as its own entity, and I have little with which to put in perspective for myself let alone others. Certainly, if you’re a Hitchcock fan or a follower of the history of the Cold War, this movie will contain points of interest. I can’t say it provides any worthwhile thesis on either subject, however. Or maybe it does, and I just don’t see it.

Western of the Week

Tom Horn (1980) **

Director: William Wiard

Writers: Thomas McGuane, Bud Sharke

Starring: Steve McQueen, Linda Evans, Richard Farnsworth, Billy Green Bush, Slim Pickens, Peter Canon, Elisha Cook

Steve McQueen’s portrayal of real life western lawman Tom Horn is one of my favorite performances by the icon. I’ve always liked McQueen, but I felt he was always pigeonholed into the same character. Tom Horn is a different character for him. He’s a goofball. He’s unusual. I love that McQueen got a chance at this role before his tragic death. This was his second to last movie.

Unfortunately, the movie itself isn’t exactly top notch. Too much of it seems to exist simply to have McQueen go around with a shotgun and kill people. He gets hired by a ranch association to run rustlers out of a northern territory. He does so, and then the ranchers decide to get rid of him by framing him for a cruel murder.

When it comes to character and substance this movie is lacking in every way. Sometimes that can work with a western, but when you’re trying to tell the story of a real life hero of sorts, especially if you’re only telling the lesser-known parts, I think some sort of depth is required. McQueen does his best with the material to put together a three dimensional person, but there’s nothing there in the story. This could’ve made a good story if the writers and director were a little more focused on the motivations rather than just the violence alone.

Contagion / *** (PG-13)

Dennis French: Enrico Colantoni

Dr. Leonora Orantes: Marion Cotillard

Lyle Haggerty: Bryan Cranston

Mitch Emhoff: Matt Damon

Dr. Ally Hextall: Jennifer Ehle

Dr. Ellis Cheever: Lawrence Fishburne

Dr. Ian Sussman: Elliott Gould

Sun Feng: Chin Han

Roger: John Hawkes

Jory Emhoff: Anna Jacoby-Heron

Aubrey Cheever: Sanaa Latham

Alan Krumweide: Jude Law

Dr. David Eisenberg: Demetri Martin

Beth Emhoff: Gwyneth Paltrow

Dr. Erin Mears: Kate Winslet

Warner Bros. Pictures presents a film directed by Steven Soderbergh. Written by Scott Z. Burns. Running time: 105 min. Rated PG-13 (for disturbing content and some language).

To this date, the scariest book I’ve ever read is Richard Preston’s “The Hot Zone”, a non-fiction thriller about the origins and incidents of the hemorrhagic fevers caused by the Ebola and Marburg filoviruses. I read it alone in my first apartment. I was single and was convinced that we were all going to die very soon. Obviously nature was very angry with us.

After a few months, I realized the incidences depicted in the book were isolated and measures were in place to help prevent a wide spread outbreak of such devastating diseases. Steven Soderbergh’s new film “Contagion” shows us those measures and all the problems we will face in implementing them in a way that won’t be misinterpreted as some form of restrictive oppression and conspiracy. Now, I am scared once again.

Following the hyperlink format that he used in his excellent film “Traffic”, Soderbergh gives us a large cast of characters that fill different roles in the progress and process of spreading, containing and controlling the outbreak. The cast of characters is spread across a wide range of international locations, though most of the procedural process is contained to the United States. Every time we meet a new character title cards cue us as to the character’s location and the population of that city. The large size of the Minneapolis population surprised me.

The virus enters the U.S. through a Minneapolis family. Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow, “Country Strong”) is returning from a business trip to Hong Kong with what appears to be a cold. She stops off in Chicago to visit her lover before returning to her family. She’s dead within 2 days. Her husband, Mitch (Matt Damon, “Invictus”), is hit with a triple whammy as his stepson exhibits symptoms as quickly as his wife did, and Mitch is placed into quarantine to prevent the spread of this mysterious super-virus.

Dr. Ellis Cheever (Lawrence Fishburne, “Mystic River”) heads the CDC team responsible for the identification, containment, and solution process of dealing with the virus. He sends Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet, “Mildred Pierce”) to be his on site envoy at ground zero in Minneapolis, while Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle, “Pride and Glory”) tries to reproduce the virus so a vaccine can be developed. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization sends Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard, “Inception”) as a liaison to Hong Kong to trace the origins of the virus.

Screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (“The Informant!”) takes a very clinical approach to these story elements. He concentrates on the CDC procedures and facts about identification and containment of such high impact diseases more so than on the emotional impact of what these characters are going through. The cinematography, by Soderbergh himself, is cold, filled with blue hues to enhance the clinical feel of the scientific approach. Film editor Stephen Mirrione never allows the picture to linger on the aftermath of any of the plot’s setbacks. This conforms to the clinical approach of the writing and direction and also suggests what these experts know about this situation—there is no time to mourn.

Events on a global scale such as this cannot unfold in a bubble, however, and the filmmakers don’t contain their study of this super virus to the scientific community. Soon the CDC feels the influence of the U.S. government as a military liaison (Bryan Cranston, “Breaking Bad”) is sent to oversee their progress and toughen up the containment strategy. This is also a world where information—and more importantly misinformation—is at the public’s fingertips. Jude Law (“Sherlock Holmes”) is a conspiracy blogger who claims to function as a hard-nosed journalist. He spreads fear and doubts about the integrity of the information being fed to the public by the CDC about the outbreak.

“Contagion” lacks some power because of its clinical approach. Characters never get a good chance for development, so the audience can’t relate to some of their situations on an emotional level. I believe the subplot about the WHO liaison’s kidnapping is intended to evoke an emotional response about her kidnappers’ situation, but the movie doesn’t spend enough time on their story for their emotion or Dr. Orantes’ empathy to sink in. Matt Damon’s character is finally given an emotional outburst at the end of the film, and this works well to give the audience some closure on what we’ve just experienced.

Despite its lack of emotional power, “Contagion” is compelling and frightening enough on its procedural depiction alone. The filmmakers do a good job of covering more bases than you can anticipate in terms of the problems that will arise during an epidemic crisis such as the one portrayed here. There’s even a feel of the classic disaster picture to be found here. And, if there’s anything I can be sure of after seeing this movie, it’s that I am cancelling my plans to open a pig and bat farm.

Our Idiot Brother / **½ (R)

Ned: Paul Rudd

Miranda: Elizabeth Banks

Natalie: Zooey Deschanel

Liz: Emily Mortimer

Dylan: Steve Coogan

Jeremy: Adam Scott

Cindy: Rashida Jones

Janet: Kathryn Hahn

Billy: T.J. Miller

Ilene: Shirley Knight

Omar: Sterling Brown

The Weinstein Company presents a film directed by Jesse Peretz. Written by Evgenia Peretz and David Schisgall. Running time: 90 min. Rated R (for sexual content including nudity, and for language throughout).

It wouldn’t take anyone long to think of that particular family member that everyone rolls their eyes about when they’re mentioned in conversation. “What’s he done now?” is a question often asked about this person. People fear that he will show up at family gatherings. But, he’s family, so no one can say anything. “Our Idiot Brother” shows us such a family member and offers a little insight about how the family blemish is not always the only flaw to be found there.

This is a comedy about a stoner that approaches its comedy much like a stoner. It’s cool. You don’t have to laugh, man. Just chuckle if it feels right. It’s laid back and unconcerned about most of it developments until its climax, when it shows a little concern before sliding back into a mellow haze. This type of comedy has many appeals, but it won’t make your ribs hurt from laughter.

Paul Rudd (“How Do You Know”) is Ned, a free spirit who is clueless enough to be duped by a uniformed cop into selling him weed. The scene does a good job of showing just how Ned could think a fix might seem like a reasonable and honest request from a uniformed police officer. But Ned, his badge is right in front of your face. C’mon, man.

Ned is released on parole for good behavior, but his girlfriend who runs the organic farm he worked on has already moved on to a seemingly more clueless stoner. She kicks him out and keeps the dog. C’mon, man! He must have a place to live as part of his parole agreement, so he goes to his family for help.

Ned has three sisters, none of whom are stoners. Miranda (Elizabeth Banks, “The Next Three Days”) is the power player, a journalist looking for the story that will make her career. She abuses her neighbor, Jeremy (Adam Scott, “Piranha 3D”), who probably likes her to allow her to do so. Natalie (Zooey Deschanel, “500 Days of Summer”) is another free spirit, but in the sexual sense. She has finally settled down with her girlfriend, Cindy (Rashida Jones, “Parks & Recreation”). Liz (Emily Mortimer, “The Pink Panther”) is the stay at home mom. She’s married to a documentary filmmaker, Dylan (Steve Coogan, “The Other Guys”).

Ned makes his rounds living with each of his sisters and messing up their lives in various ways. He discovers that Liz’s husband is cheating on her. He destroys Miranda’s big break at her publishing firm. He’s reveals a secret to Cindy that threatens her relationship with Natalie. All the while he’s desperately trying to get his dog, Willie Nelson, back. He also mistakes his parole officer for a therapist, and turns his nephew on to violence, which ruins his chances of getting into a prestigious private elementary school.

The thing about Ned is that he is a screw up, but he always thinks the best of people. Nothing he does is malicious. He never realizes that he’s revealing something that he shouldn’t. Rudd plays this like a born stoner. It’s so easy to like Rudd, and he makes it so easy to like Ned. You don’t want Ned to mess things up, but you know he’s going to. Despite his clear lack of intelligence about etiquette and obviously inappropriate behavior, Ned rarely does anything very wrong. It’s really the others who are doing things they shouldn’t. Ned just has a gift for placing himself in the middle of his siblings’ conflict ridden lives.

Eventually, it becomes clear that Ned is rarely the family problem that he seems to be. It’s the family that have their issues and problems. Ned is merely the scapegoat because he makes himself an easy target. The screenplay by David Schisgall and Evgenia Peretz is very smart about how families work. The direction by Jesse Peretz (“The Ex”) focuses the blame as much on Ned’s sisters as it does on Ned’s stoned antics. The result is a somewhat unbalanced comedy that meanders between serious character study and silly slapstick.

In many ways, “Our Idiot Brother” is an admirable comedy for not presenting its titular idiot with typical idiotic material. It’s smart in its observations about siblings and the fact that we can’t hang all of our own stupid choices on one person. Moreover, we are usually more to blame for our own problems than any other individual. However, the movie never really dives into its comedic elements. It’s funny, but the comedy is on a very slow simmer that never jumps into the spotlight the way laughs usually do. “Our Idiot Brother” is an enjoyable comedy that may leave some wanting for more laughs.