Christina Waters

The capsule view of Ben Stiller’s in-your-face comedy of egos goes like this: an inconsistent, multi-genre amalgam that delivers some inspired riffs, a Disneyworld of offensive stereotypes, Grade A men-in-groups horseplay, a rousing, shorts-sucking send-up of Hollywood greed, and the genius of Robert Downey Jr. It’s also unspeakably funny.

All of this sometimes brilliant, sometimes so-so cinematic bombast is redeemed by the ease and intelligence of Downey’s cunning performance — a role, within a role, within a role — think multiple personality disorder of the sort to which character actors like Peter Sellers, Marlon Brando, Ben Kingsley were prey.

Downey’s character, Kirk Lazarus - an Australian multiple Oscar-winner (think Russell Crowe) cast as a black Vietnam era soldier — is so committed to his role in the film within the film, that he has undergone drug therapy to darken his skin. Add the appropriate hair treatments and Richard Roundtree/Jim Brown voice lowered an octave or so, and you’ve got an eerie and ironically likeable blaxploitation stud. Downey not only doesn’t back down from what could have been an offensive stereotype, he works it right down to the Shaft.

Downey’s uncanny incarnation of a brother from another planet — Planet Hollywood — creates a terrific bookend performance to Heath Ledger’s Joker. More…

Too long, too cluttered, too disconnected — The Dark Knight contains one artistic masterpiece. The uncanny, ultra-vibrant performance by Heath Ledger. In his feverish hands, the Joker is one of the genuinely original creations of cinema history – and yes, I have to admit, it is such an exciting, smart creation, that it justifies sitting through one of the worst-written, least comprehensible exercises in directorial egomania I can recall. Let’s just say that Dark Knight ain’t Ironman, which still retains its title as champion adult comix film in recent memory.

But back to Ledger’s performance. I was ready for over-the-top. I expected darkly probing criminal psychology writ large. But nothing prepared me to be blown away by such an intelligent collection of acting choices — choices which, sadly, indicate just how high Ledger might have soared, had he lived.

Watching the portrayal of the cocky, quirky, brilliant madman/villain, I found myself rummaging through my film memory banks. Where had I seen some of those gestures? heard that insistent cackling voice, that nuanced, soaring derangement translated into highly specific bodily gestures? Here’s what I came up with. Think about tasting a great wine, all the different elements, the spatial range and movement of flavors from front to back of the palate. Okay.

The edgy stabbing hands and shoulders are pure More…

This Marvel Comix-based big screen adventure is not just for 15-year-old males. Brooding, smart, crisp, astonishing and edgy — that’s Iron Man, and its star Robert Downey Jr. who pretty much owns the screen from the scorching opening in war-torn Afghanistan to the final delightful shot. I repeat, Iron Man is a thinking woman’s gloss on at least three Greek myths, one or two Freudian complexes and the age-old battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.

Value-added for film buffs, Iron Man looks sensational, and serves up an orgy of visual quotes from Metropolis, Aliens, Gattaca, as well as reframing both the tale of Icarus and Plato’s myth of the cave.

As a Blakean flawed genius, Downey works his way into the short list of great American actors. (I know you’re thinking I have slipped a cog here. It’s a marvel Comix industrial design heavy metal flick — but Downey rockets Iron Man way out of the mere fantasy hormone genre.)

Muscular, graceful and charismatically weary, Downey More…

Did I call it, or what? Well, almost. I was wrong about Julie Christie, but otherwise . . . An all-European quartet of major Oscar-winners surely made a statement, though I’m not quite sure what it was. It’s hard not to be moved at Javier Bardem’s jubilation (AP photo). Other than being thrilled about the Coen brothers big win - a more laconic duo is just not imaginable - there were a few, uh, highs.

The beyond-sexy Bardem kissing co-star Josh Brolin. Daniel Day-Lewis kissing George Clooney. Great moments in metrosexuality. Day-Lewis being knighted by “the Queen,” was a delicious bit of improv, as was the slash-and-burn haircut on screenplay winner Diablo Cody — who deserves an Oscar just for her name. More…

Not glued to the tube during this year’s Oscar telethon — I’ll be at a wine class for two of the three hours — I will nonetheless remain in solidarity with all the Red Carpet bling, AND the award-winners. These will include:

Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor - his incandescent portrayal of obsessed oil baron Daniel Plainview shows us how the West was really won.

Javier Bardem for Best Supporting Actor (even though his was arguably the central performance in the film “No Country for Old Men”) Bardem is an uncanny chameleon with vast reservoirs of power and charisma. His performance as an idiosyncratic assassin was the centerpiece of this year’s best film.

Julie Christie for Best Actress - The Academy loves to reward a body of work - as well as enduring screen radiance. Julie Christie has both, and her performance in “Away From Her” was indelible. More…

It’s not hard to believe, watching There Will Be Blood, that Daniel Day-Lewis could simply do a Google Search for an Oscar, and it would arrive at his door the next day via FedEx. He’s that good. And in this would-be epic by director Paul Thomas Anderson, his ferocious performance outstrips the film attempting to contain it.

Not that it’s difficult to become spellbound by Robert Elswit’s probing camerawork of New Mexico and California, or by the eerily engaging soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood. Blood has visual overtones of The Searchers and Giant, yet its tale of moral depression, greed and loneliness bears even closer resemblance to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, with some Elmer Gantry thrown in.

The story, based on “Oil” by Upton Sinclair, is as simple and sweeping as Citizen Kane. It is a tale of one man’s blind obsession and how the fortune that follows alienates him from other people, and ultimately his own soul. But Blood is no tragedy, and Day-Lewis’ character, Plainview, is no visionary. He’s a doggedly ruthless, unlikeable, turn-of-the-century entrepreneur driven to prevail by some dark fire.

The opening scene sets the tone — for both the film and for Day-Lewis’ performance. For the first ten minutes there is no dialogue at all, as we watch the physical ordeal of a man out in the middle of nowhere, deep in a pit digging rock with a pickaxe. The sheer desperate hardship of this life is conveyed in every sinew, every throbbing vein of Day-Lewis’ anatomy. More…

How much is Julian Schnabel paying the film critics? There’s no other reason why intelligent film-goers would succumb to the sophomoric exercise in cinematic vanity that is The Diving Bell & the Butterfly. Intrigued by raves from a wide range of reviewers, including local filmies, I wasted $7 and two hours on this pathetic excuse for a movie about a magazine editor confined to almost complete paralysis and the “life lessons” he learns thanks to attractive therapists, hand-held camerawork and of course, those crucial sub-titles.

Did Schnabel really think that making the film in French would elevate its mawkish, soporific effect? It doesn’t. It just means that you listen to lots of French speakers while you’re being bored to tears.

Wait, I know. Schnabel (a well-connected New York artist famous for painting on really big plates) decided to invoke the “Atonement effect.” You know, that’s where you shamelessly capitalize on a five-minute cameo by a major-but-aging star. More…

How can we explain the Disney-produced mess that is National Treasure 2? How is it possible that Nicolas Cage - with his monochromatic, slack-jawed, puppy-eyed expression, his bad dye job, his cornball tendency to break out in patriotic sweats at the drop of a hat - how is it possible that this man continues to get work in the movies? (Surely it can’t still be the Coppola thing, can it?)

Lacking script, direction, competent acting (except from old pros Jon Voigt, Ed Harris and Helen Mirren, who must have needed the money), National Treasure 2 lurches through a visual wikipedia of great films from the past.

From Indiana Jones we get the underground treasure thing and rolling boulders. More…

I’m not going to be one of those reviewers who complains that the film isn’t as good as the book. It’s worse. Atonement is a film that manages to expose the flaws of the book so glaringly (translation: the film moves from atmospheric, to cloying, to boring, to sentimental, to cliché, to boring) that it makes me wonder why I thought I liked the book so much to begin with.

Director Joe Wright doesn’t so much direct as arrange his handsome cast in upper-crust English great houses, soft-focus lawns and smokey battlefields as if they were so many runway models on a fashion shoot. Atonement is graced with some staggeringly original and effective cinematography, to be sure. And the languidly anorexic Keira Knightley is surely a fetching partner for the insanely attractive James McAvoy. Chiffon never looked so appetizing. Cigarettes have never been smoked with such wanton, wealth-stricken abandon. Never has so much gorgeous imagery been squandered on such an obvious exercise in ironic cleverness. More…

Last week we were all over the map - Luca in Carmel, Soif for appetizers, and Au Midi for dinner. All wonderful stuff in general, with scallops, root veggies and wintry natural meat dishes showing off nicely.

Across Dolores Street from Winfield Gallery, Luca sits between Ocean and Seventh, in a contemporary re-design that moves from the intimate front bar seating, past the wood-burning pizza ovens, into a huge back dining room. Heavy beamed ceilings in the front room, brick barrel vaulting in back, attest to the vintage of this attractive space, masterminded by Mirabel Hotel and Restaurant Group entrepreneur David (Bouchée) Fink.

The lunch menu created by Executive Chef Jason Balestrieri (formerly of LA’s Patina) was instantly appealing, and our quartet ordered glasses of earthy Sardinian Cannonau to go with a shared arugula, pecorino and pear salad, a pizza Margherita, another pizza topped with caramelized onion and wild funghi and a shared salumi plate of artisan-made salametto and speck. I could admire the view of large slabs of hams and cured salumi hanging in a glass aging chamber from my spot on the banquette.

Every flavor was sparkling, from the delicious, ungreasy meats to the perfect pizza. Crisp crust, chewy delicious dough, buffalo mozzarella and San Marzano tomato topping. The arugula salad — inflected with beets and thin slivers of pear — was generous enough for us all to enjoy. Even the opening salvo of crusty bread was terrific, served with an addictive olive oil and balsamic mixture filled with chopped olives.

Put Luca on your list next time you’re in Carmel - open for lunch (during the week) and dinner daily - 831/625-6500.