David Fincher, Benjamin Button
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant, Milk

Official release after the jump.

DANNY BOYLE

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
(Fox Searchlight Pictures & Warner Bros. Pictures)

Mr. Boyle’s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Manager: Sanjay Kumar
First Assistant Director: Raj Acharya
Second Assistant Director: Avani Batra
Second Second Assistant Director: Sonia Nemawarkar

This is Mr. Boyle’s first DGA Feature Film Award nomination.

DAVID FINCHER

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
(Paramount Pictures & Warner Bros. Pictures)

Mr. Fincher’s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Manager: Daniel M. Stillman
First Assistant Director: Bob Wagner
Second Assistant Director: Allen Kupetsky
Second Second Assistant Directors: Pete Waterman, Stephen F. Lonano

This is Mr. Fincher’s first DGA Feature Film Award nomination.  He previously won the DGA Commercial Award for Speed Chain (Nike), Gamebreakers (Nikegridiron.com), and Beauty for Sale (Xelibri Phones) in 2003.

RON HOWARD

FROST/NIXON
(Universal Pictures)

Mr. Howard’s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Manager: Kathleen McGill
First Assistant Director: William M. Connor
Second Assistant Director: Kristen Ploucha
Second Second Assistant Director: Scott R. Meyers

This is Mr. Howard’s fourth DGA Feature Film Award nomination.  He was previously nominated in this category for Cocoon in 1985, and won the Award in 2001 for his direction of A Beautiful Mind and in 1995 for Apollo 13.

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN

THE DARK KNIGHT
(Warner Bros. Pictures)

Mr. Nolan’s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Managers: Kevin De La Noy, Susan Towner, Jan Foster
First Assistant Director: Nilo Otero
Second Assistant Director: Brandon Lambdin
Additional Second Assistant Director: Jessica Franks
Second Second Assistant Director: Greg Pawlik
Location Manager: James R. McAllister

This is Mr. Nolan’s second DGA Feature Film Award nomination.  He was previously nominated for Memento in 2001.

GUS VAN SANT

MILK
(Focus Features)

Mr. Van Sant’s Directorial Team:

Unit Production Manager: Barbara A. Hall
First Assistant Director: David Webb
Second Assistant Director: John R. Saunders
Second Second Assistant Director: Ian Calip
Additional Second Assistant Director: Cindy A. Taylor

This is Mr. Van Sant’s second DGA Feature Film Award nomination.  He was previously nominated for Good Will Hunting in 1997.

The DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film has traditionally been one of the industry’s most accurate barometers for who will win the Best Director Academy Award; only six times since the DGA Awards began in 1948 has the Feature Film winner not gone on to win the corresponding Academy Award:

1968: Anthony Harvey won the DGA Award for The Lion in Winter while Carol Reed took home the Oscar® for Oliver!

1972: Francis Ford Coppola received the DGA’s nod for The Godfather while the Academy selected Bob Fosse for Cabaret.

1985: Steven Spielberg received his first DGA Award for The Color Purple while the Oscar® went to Sydney Pollack for Out of Africa.

1995: Ron Howard was chosen by the DGA for his direction of Apollo 13 while Academy voters selected Mel Gibson for Braveheart.

2000: Ang Lee won the DGA Award for his direction of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon while Steven Soderbergh won the Academy Award for Traffic.

2002: Rob Marshall won the DGA Award for Chicago while Roman Polanski received the Academy Award for The Pianist.

There is probably no other group as powerful in the Best Picture race than the Directors Guild.  Sure, one or two can slip through the cracks but year after year, it has proven its track record, particularly in choosing the winner for the Director Oscar but also Best Picture.  For the most part, the give or take a year or two, a film or two, the director is the star of the Best Picture race.  Even though films are a collaborative medium, where much is owed to the producers, the actors, the writers and the cinematographer — success or failure is almost always on the director.

The demographic, it is assumed, within the DGA mirrors the Academy, with a little bit of BAFTA thrown in for good measure.

As far as I can tell there are three ways for a director to ensure a DGA nod.  The first is that their movie is the talk of the town.  Having an impressive background helps but isn’t essential.   In Danny Boyle’s case, he is bringing his career of making interesting, dazzling films along with his Slumdog success.  The film wouldn’t be doing what it’s doing if it weren’t for Boyle’s long history coupled with this particular film’s success.

That takes care of Boyle - most talked about film, up to now unrecognized brilliant director.

There is also the respectable veteran doing reliable, even great work - that’s Ron Howard and Clint Eastwood this year, though Howard has the edge for having delivered of the year’s best films.   It is also Sam Mendes and Stephen Daldry, and perhaps Ed Zwick.

There is a wunderkind slot, that director who comes out of nowhere and causes a stir with his (or her) sudden but promising brilliance.  That was Christopher Nolan with Memento and it remains Christopher Nolan, who just jumped way ahead of the game with the year’s most profitable film.  But The Dark Knight, should it get in, will be there because it is simply too big to ignore.  That happens sometimes and when it does, the film threatens to mow down all that comes before it.

The epic film slot - curiously, that is David Fincher this year with Benjamin Button.  Benjamin Button is the kind of film that would have swept these awards twenty years ago, before the indie chokehold of great cinema that has been taking place lately.  A more cynical voting body tends not to award films that are sweeping, romantic and epic - although they did love The English Patient. Back then, though, Anthony Minghella was coming out of nowhere.

Fincher himself is also in the same situation as Boyle, Gus Van Sant and Darren Aronofsky. to a degree - he’s a guy who doesn’t make “Oscar movies” usually but has a very loyal and ardent fan base.  Zodiac was one of the most critically acclaimed movies last year.  But Fincher, unlike Boyle, is not affable and accessible.  Boyle proves himself the most friendly of the bunch and with Ron Howard in the mix you know that’s saying a lot.

But beyond the more familiar names this year there are a great many directors who could pop up unexpectedly when the Oscars announce.  There is usually one mismatch at least.  The choice reflects the smaller branch of Oscar directors and not the larger branch in the DGA, which probably mirrors the whole Academy more.

Those names would probably be Mike Leigh, Andrew Stanton (not eligible for a DGA nom), Woody Allen, etc.

The DGA, as you can see by last year, almost always matches with Oscar for the Best Director win and the DGA winner, more than even the Oscar Best Director winner, matches with Best Picture.  That is why the DGA matters more than the Globes, which will be held this weekend, and the Critics Choice awards, held this Thursday.  The DGA, most of the time, rules.

The real question for me this year is The Dark Knight.  If that fifth slot is still open — there is a possibility that John Patrick Shanley could be there instead, or Mendes or Daldry.  It is, even though it doesn’t look like it, a wide open race.

Nonetheless, my predictions remain (because I really do believe that Christopher Nolan deserves it).  I am, however, expecting at least one surprise.

Danny Boyle
David Fincher
Ron Howard
Christopher Nolan
Gus Van Sant

The Charts…

Won DGA | Won Oscar
*Nominated for Oscar Best Pic
+Won Best Pic

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1997

1996

1995

1994

1992

1991

1990

For the win only

+also won Best Picture

(best picture that didn’t match director)

]]> Wed, 07 Jan 2009 15:05:59 +0000 robert benton robert dga robert wise director oscar oscar robert altman john john avildson The Deep Impact of the DGA http://cinemaratty.com/article/3bc9912f07e4f54e895cd542555c78fe http://cinemaratty.com/article/3bc9912f07e4f54e895cd542555c78fe

(List appended and including some films not yet released in Manila; plus my contribution to the Sight and Sound Magazine Films of 2008 (pdf file))

So what was worth watching and what--at least in my opinion--was a total waste of time and money in 2008?

Dave Filoni's Star Wars: The Clone Wars aims to be a cross between Japanese anime and Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's 'Supermarionation,' successfully combining the worst of both worlds: the clunkiness of Japanese anime), the wooden inexpressiveness of marionettes. Easily the most execrable of producer George Lucas' recent product (though Revenge of the Sith (2005) could give it a run for its, for its--well, let's call it "money," and leave it at that), and easily the foulest mainstream Hollywood movie of the year.

The best thing about Ed Harris' Appaloosa his screen realization of the 2006 Robert Parker novel, is that it's easygoing, casual, and mostly familiar; the worst thing about the movie is that it's easygoing, casual, and mostly familiar. It's a largely straightforward, slightly absurd, considerably bloated remake of a Western classic; you enjoy it, but it doesn't break new ground, it doesn't show you something startling or new, doesn't make your blood sing.

Frank Darabont's The Mist faithfully follows Stephen King's novella (which, frankly, I'd always thought owed no small debt to John Carpenter's terser, tighter The Fog (1980)), and plods along without much verve or distinction, falling into the standard-issue postapocalyptic melodrama between us (politically and culturally enlightened folks) and them (Christian fanatics led by Marcia Gay Harden, ironically the only actress to leave any kind of impression because she gives the material the respect it deserves (as dietary roughage)). With a twist ending that practically redefines the meaning of the term "cheap thrill."

Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino's Horton Hears a Who? is a largely inoffensive effort from a largely inoffensive writer (Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Suess). In terms of animation the movie's not exactly Studio Ghibli--it isn't even substandard Pixar--and its largely undistinguished digital animation fails to either excite or enrage a viewer. In which case one is tempted to ask: "who cares?"

Byron Howard and Chris Williams' Bolt represents Disney's latest attempt at 'family-friendly' fare so totally devoid of point and bite and flavor that the movie ends up like an order of McDonald's French fries confined under glass. The concept (a dog deluded into thinking the episodes of his weekly TV show, brimming over with super ninjas, attack copters, and gasoline fireballs, are his real life) borrows heavily from Peter Weir's The Truman Show (1998), which in turn borrowed the idea from the late, great Philip K. Dick's brilliant 1959 novel Time Out of Joint--to considerably lesser effect, in my opinion.

Jon Favreau's Iron Man for maybe the first fifteen minutes plays like glorious satire, with Robert Downey Jr. putting forth an entertaining Portrait of the Rich Weapons Manufacturer as degenerate bastard; then things become considerably less interesting (and less honest) when said weapons manufacturer sees the light and fights to redeem himself by donning shiny red-and-gold armor (you wonder what he uses for polish). Mostly inoffensive, save for the waterboarding scene--folks, for the record, waterboarding was inflicted on suspected terrorists, not the other way around.
Somewhat more acceptable politically speaking is Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk mainly because the Hulk represents nonconformism, and his story plays out as a kind of comic-book protest against military paranoia in general (the Hulk is superhumanly strong; ergo, the generals believe, he must be controlled, or destroyed). That said, it's hard to like this conventionally told, action-oriented Hulk, especially when Ang Lee's far more fascinating 2003 version--with its hints of child abuse and Oedipal rage--is available on DVD.

In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Spielberg might have acknowledged the changes time has wrought on Indy and his world by dealing with Indy's aging body, with the escalating paranoia found between nations, with the increasing untrustworthiness of the American government (all not altogether irrelevant issues at the time of this movie's release). Instead Spielberg has the hero hide inside a fridge to escape an atomic explosion, then fly off to South America to delve deeply into the urgent issue of crystal skulls and extraterrestrials. A wasted opportunity.

On Catherine Hardwicke's adaptation of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight--let me sum up: sodden melodrama decked out with unimpressive vampire trappings (and frankly cheap-looking CGI effects), storyline basically stolen from the second season of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (difference is, Whedon's a wittier, far more imaginative writer than Meyer could ever hope to be). To add insult to Filipino audiences' injuries, Meyer's sucky little romance is tinged with sexism (the heroine can only be fulfilled and satisfied by her man, and waits patiently to be either protected or rescued by him) and racism (the heroine ignores the token Asian, the token Native American, the token African-American villain, and zeroes in on the pretty Caucasian with sparkly-white skin).

Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight isn't exactly a bad movie; it isn't the Second Coming either, which is basically the problem I have with the picture. It's a largely photocopied version of the Batman comics, with a motiveless (and as such uninteresting) Joker played with one-note intensity by the late Heath Ledger (no, I don't believe in giving an actor a break even if he did pass away). It borrows elements from respected comic writers Alan Moore and Frank Miller (among others) without borrowing their often mordant sense of humor. Writer-director Nolan crams hot-button issues (terrorism, the question of civil rights, the issue of domestic surveillance) into his picture without bothering to integrate them, or restate them in creatively dramatic terms; he shoots car chases and fight sequences as if he had liquored up his cameraman first, then cuts the footage together for maximum incoherence. An overproduced, overpraised, underimagined mess.

Andrew Stanton's animated feature Wall.E (you wonder at the quantity of digitally animated features--are we having some kind of Golden Age? Or, considering the quality of much of this, a Tin Age?) starts out somewhat interesting, then quickly fizzles out. The first forty minutes are a largely silent Chaplinesque pantomime interspersed with excerpts from The Music Man, and can easily be seen as a parable--or at least an extended sketch--on loneliness. Unfortunately Wall-E himself is designed to mercilessly jerk tears from an audience (those uptilted binocular eyes beg you to pick him up and cuddle him), and the movie's latter half wastes its time on an easily resolved conflict that dramatizes the dangers of couch potato-ing. Like The Dark Knight not an especially bad picture but compared to what Studio Ghibli, Studio 4°C, Madhouse, Gainax, Production I.G., Radix, Bliss Pictures, 2.4.7 Films, Les Amateurs and Aardvark Animations have done, mostly simpleminded kiddie fare.

Speaking of kiddie fare, Mark Osborne and John Stevenson's Kung Fu Panda is the kind of high-concept digital animation I actually find more tolerable, mainly because it doesn't put on airs or strive for romantic tragedy--no Chaplin bathos, just slapstick. With an arguably livelier voice cast that includes Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, and the original drunken master himself, Jackie Chan (underused--but then, how can you use the still physically eloquent Chan when all you have is his voice?), and perhaps one inspired sequence, where the panda and his sifu battle with chopsticks over a steamed dumpling.

By many standards Peter Berg's Hancock is inferior to Nolan's better-produced, better-promoted superproduction. The plotline has a helter-skelter quality; the picture's tone careens from low farce to high tragedy (with lumpy, ugly bits of violence tucked away here, there); the director in all probability thinks he's got more originality and control of the material than he actually has. But Will Smith makes for an appealingly unkempt, unwholesome superhero, and the idea of him and Charlize Theron once being a hot item generates more electricity onscreen than a dozen Iron Men. It's not a perfect movie, maybe not even a good one, but it has a subversive spirit (even if not much else is), and the determination to pull its superhero down from his ten-foot marble pedestal and get him dirty. Or at least a little mussed.

Matt Reeves' Cloverfield takes a clever concept and runs a fair distance with it--basically informing us that the world today is seen almost exclusively through digicam eyes, and that even a giant monster loose in the streets of Manhattan cannot be appreciated, much less comprehended or feared unless properly viewed--that is, on a video screen. So what if the characters are written and acted like so many computer constructs? Sometimes an idea, executed with sufficient skill, can evoke its fair share of pleasure.

Andrew Adamson's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is darker, more satisfyingly ambivalent fare than the previous installment (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe), with Lucy, Edward, Susan and Peter as the former kings and queens of Narnia, called back to face a more human enemy, the Telmarines, who invaded their kingdom hundreds of years ago. C.S. Lewis' fantasy masterpiece, ostensibly pitched towards younger readers, on further reading reveals itself to be more sophisticated than anything Tolkien might have dreamt up (the concept of relative time, for example--where one year on Earth is equivalent to a thousand on Narnia). Adamson's competent, and has actually improved since his last feature effort, but one wishes for an adaptation done by a real filmmaker--John Boorman or Julie Taymor or even Guillermo del Toro come to mind.

'Twas David Edelstein's end-of-the-year list that tipped me off about Patricia Rozema's Kit Kittredge: An American Girl. This ain't cutting edge filmmaking folks, but it does put front and center on honestly established dramatic terms an economic Depression we may find ourselves dwelling on and mulling over with greater and greater urgency, as the present depression plays itself out.

Roger Donaldson's The Bank Job is a fine example of that most termite of termite arts, the well-made genre picture (in this case, a bank heist), with maybe one twist--it's a truer story than the filmmakers claim, with one of the producers actually having met two of the real-life robbers. Director Donaldson first came into international attention with the evocatively low-rent divorce drama Smash Palace (1981), flew to America, and hasn't made a decent film since. One appreciates this recent evidence that he can still turn in a crisp, finely tuned thriller.

The aforementioned Julie Taymor is the kind of wild-card filmmaker that infuriates as much as fascinates. Her idea in making Across the Universe (2007)--an extended music video of the Beatles' greatest hits, held together by little else than a g-string of a plot and the sheer brilliance of her style--suggests she owns a huge, bulging brass pair, and that she's not afraid to use them. The film is as much a failure as it is a success (whether more success than failure or vice versa is a matter of opinion), but one thing you can't accuse it of being is boring.

There's termite art, and then there's Chris Carter's The X Files: I Want to Believe, possibly the most underrated mainstream Hollywood movie of the year. Coming out years after the demise of the TV series and even more years after the first feature, this film doesn't aspire to earth-shaking revelations, or end-of-the-world scenarios; instead, it's a small-scale investigation into a series of kidnappings that includes the odd grisly detail (an amputated arm, a head on ice). Better yet, it's the story of Dr. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson, more gravely beautiful now than before), partner to former FBI agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny, still boyishly charming), and her crisis of faith. Should she believe in Mulder? Should she believe in the telepathic and precognitive powers of a former priest and child molester (Bill Connolly)?

It's not the X Files we knew and loved, at least not completely; no aliens popping out of shadows, not a word said about government conspiracies, and our heroes have left the FBI years ago--they have no badges to flash, guns to wave. On the other hand Mulder and Scully are still partners; you feel the weight of their years as friends (and perhaps more than friends) sharing a profound trust and intimacy, the weight of their years as agents sharing risk and danger. In the end Carter's film is less a paranormal thriller than a delicately wrought character study, and is all the better for it.

In a time when people are craving gigantic CGI effects or digital animation or pictures catering to the so-called sensitive side of fortysomething slackers, Stiller still knows the apparently lost art of going for the jugular. His Tropic Thunder is possibly the comedy of the year, if only because it provokes gigantic laughs out of a severed head among other grotesqueries, and applies all that grossness to the ridiculous, self-centered, wholly overpaid activity we know of as moviemaking.

The Coen Brothers hit a home run last year with No Country for Old Men. Their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's action-packed dirge on inevitable mortality has enough solemnity to overwhelm their usual snarky persona, and impressed enough audiences and critics to create a boxoffice hit, earning along the way a gold doorstop or two.

Not a big fan of No Country; I don't think it's McCarthy's best (that arguably is the more deeply felt The Road), nor is it the Coens', who seem strangely muted in this picture.

With Burn After Reading the brothers are back to their usual, irredeemably cynical selves, and we realize what we were missing all along: a free hand at writing the material, a determined lack of seriousness, the ability to express their philosophy freely, without lip service to humdrum humanist sentiment. Burn is uncut Coen, done in a rare ensemble mode (their usual schtick is to surround a chosen protagonist with a cast of eccentric characters). Not all comedies should be this unrelentingly, self-consciously, preciously odd--that would be unbearable; but thank God this one is.

Talking about dark comedies, Stuart Gordon barely made a ripple with a low-budget based-on-a-true-story film called Stuck, but the picture should really be better known; if Nolan's idea of absurdist horror is Ledger cavorting with a faceful of psychedelic makeup, what till he gets a load of Stephen Rea in this picture, hanging on for dear life from the windshield of a car.

What could be odder (and more exciting) than Gordon flying under the radar with a new horror-thriller? How about Johnny To, flinging together elements from Silence of the Lambs, Eyes of Laura Mars, The Killing, and even what looks to be a more complicated version of the climactic gunfight in Sergio Leone's Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 1966) to create Sun taam (Mad Detective, 2007). The film would make a fascinating double bill with Carter's X-Files movie; what Carter treats as a desperate drama past almost all possibility of hope or redemption, To treats as a deeply comic obsession, with enough bravura filmmaking and traces of melancholy to make the mix uniquely his own

After spending all this time lambasting big-budget digital superproductions, I suppose it's ironic that one of my favorite films this year happens to be a Hollywood superproduction. Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy 2: The Golden Army has the color, style, and romanticism, pitched at an epically conceived level, that Nolan's The Dark Knight could only dream of achieving--and this with what is essentially a workplace comedy (think The Office only with demons and monsters and underground elves thrown in). This is about the most perverse superproduction I've seen in recent years, with huge CGI action sequences that reach their emotional crescendo not when the hero wins, but when a monster passes away; elaborately constructed sets that del Toro's camera glances at in passing, focusing instead on two friends singing Barry Manilow's "I Can't Smile Without You" (the film's emotional high point). The picture was probably too much of a good thing--it made modest boxoffice business before being crushed by the bat juggernaut. But of course--the film is a rare delicacy that needs proper savoring (in private, like a kinky indulgence); anything else would have been like pigging out at McDonald's.

I mentioned one possibility for a double bill; let me propose another--Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married (his best work in years), paired with Arnaud Desplechin's Un conte de Noel (A Christmas Tale). If, as Tolstoy once put out, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, Demme and Desplechin's respective families demonstrate the truth of that statement with a wealth of sharply observed details. Demme's Buchmans with their multicultural, multiethnic nuptials have every reason in the world to be happy, and somehow still manage to miss the mark; Desplechin's Vuillards are cooler, less accommodating, less affectionate overall, and yet manage to be startlingly openminded when it comes to casual adultery (or maybe it isn't casual, is why they're so supportive). The source of either family's pain is the premature death of a child; the source of their redemption (or at least basis for some kind of truce) being accommodation, the spirit of tolerance, no small helping of hypocrisy or inertia or even just plain laziness (too tired to break off relations, in effect)--in other words, anything and everything that will help maintain or regain for them the precarious balance of their lives.

With Zodiac (2007) David Fincher fashioned an impressive three-hour epic meditation on the time it would take to accomplish a single goal--in this case, the identity of a killer. In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button his sights have been raised to a higher, more ambitious level--meditating the passage of time sufficient enough for an entire life. Never mind Eric Roth's wannabe sentimental script (practically a clone of the one he made for Forrest Gump (1994)); never mind that Brad Pitt playing the eponymous character has for the first time in his life turned in an impressive performance (or at least is so perfectly cast that he failed to ruin this one)--the real star of the film is Fincher's beautifully measured filmmaking, with its amazing palette of subdued hues and tints (all done on HD digital, mind you).

Talking about indulgences, some of the best films I've seen this year come not from the Hollywood compost pit with its digital ordure but from the Filipino independent filmmaking scene, arguably the most vital and creative in the country (maybe the world). Seen just a small sample but what I've seen is impressive, from Adolfo Alix's Tambolista (Drumbeat, 2007) an edgy and poignant drama about two youths dreaming of buying a drum set (and the price they ultimately pay) to Jerrold Tarog and Ruel Dahis Antipuesto's Confessional (2007) a cute little number that opens exactly as its title announces, as a casually winning first-person narrative that is funny and insightful and not a little cynical, to Dennis Marasigan's Tukso (Temptation, 2007), with its Rashomon-like fractured narrative revolving around a murder (his sophomore feature after the excellent Sa North Diversion Road (North Diversion Road, 2005)) .

Two of the finest of this year's digital productions are Rico Ilarde's Altar and John Torres' Taon noong ako'y anak sa labas (Years when I was a child outside).

Italian gay rights activists are protesting over a TV network's airing of Brokeback Mountain - with a erotic sequence and a prolonged kiss between the two male lead characters cut from the broadcast version. Such censorship is standard on American TV where even classic movies are routinely butchered for reasons of content and to enable the networks to squeeze in more commercials. (In the U.S, even the end credits of feature films are virtually eliminated to allow crass promotional blurbs to dominate the screen the second the movie ends.) However, in Italy, where overt sexual behavior is a mainstay of TV broadcasts, the censoring of Ang Lee's Oscar winner was deemed offensive by gay activists who say similar scenes between straight characters are left unedited. The network said a cut version of the film had been aired by accident. For more click here

And given the overall quality of the enterprise, perhaps he is. One cannot help but compare Norton's sleepy performance in The Incredible Hulk with Robert Downey's kinetic, vibrant Iron Man performance. Different characters, of course, but Norton's Banner comes off as a cipher. Bill Bixby was never a cipher...

The Incredible Hulk actually begins promisingly, with a well-paced, interesting sequence set in Brazil. It's 158 days since Bruce Banner's (Edward Norton's) last hulk-out, and he's busy trying to discover a cure for his Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde syndrome.

Simultaneously, Banner is participating in meditation and breathing exercises to help control his anger, the very trigger that spurs the transformation into the not-very-jolly green giant. Meanwhile, our hero wastes his brilliant mind toiling away in a local bottling factory. But one day there's an accident in the factory, and Banner's blood is spilled...

Before long, General Ross (William Hurt) and his minions -- among them Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) -- trace Banner to Brazil and attempt to catch him there. There's an exciting chase.

Banner transforms into the Hulk and evades his hunters for good (brushing off bullets like they're mosquitoes...). Banner then returns to the United States, to Culver University in Virginia, and encounters the love of his life, Dr. Betty Ross (Liv Tyler). Naturally, she still loves him, and wants to help him. There's a droll scene here in which the long-suffering, long-separated couple almost makes love, but Banner fears a premature...transformation...and begs off. I guess it happens to the best of us...

Meanwhile, the dogged but unrealistically-reckless General Ross realizes he requires a super soldier to capture the Hulk, and begins injecting Blonsky with a dangerous serum that will improve the aging grunt's speed, dexterity and strength. There's a battle on campus, but the Hulk escapes. Again.

Afterwards, Bruce and Betty race for New York City, where the mysterious Dr. Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson) might have a cure.

But then General Ross tries to capture Banner again (see a trend developing here?) Then -- injected with Hulk blood -- Blonsky transforms into the monstrous Abomination and inexplicably starts attacking his former brethren in the Army. And, well, it takes a monster to beat a monster. So Banner is dropped (literally...) into the battle zone. Cue the special effects...

And, well, that's it. That's everything. The Incredible Hulk is structured as a series of increasingly witless chases and escapes leading up to a rather underwhelming final battle. Chase. Attack. Escape. Rinse and repeat.

Director Louis Leterrier has apparently studied the contemporary superhero movie playbook, and he adheres closely to it here, with precious little deviation or ingenuity. So we get the touching-if-stale doomed love affair scenario (Banner and Ross), familiar to us from Spider-Man (2002), Batman Begins (2005) and every other superhero movie since the dawn of time. Here, there are also echoes of the King Kong, beauty-and-the- beast syndrome (evident as well in Hellboy).

We also get the ubiquitous Stan Lee cameo (see: Iron Man, Fantastic Four, The Hulk, etc.). There's even the familiar villain who wants to utilize the hero (or his technology) as a devastating weapon (see: Iron Man).

There's even the by-now de rigueur "Superhero Triumphant" shot which virtually closes out film. You know how the Dark Knight struts like a gargoyle atop Gotham's noir-ish skyscrapers? Or how Spider-Man swings through Manhattan's glass and steel valleys? Or how Superman orbits the Earth after a day's work? Well here, The Incredible Hulk lumbers from NYC rooftop to rooftop, until the picture fades out into glorious sunlight.

Yawn. When the film was finally over, I agreed with The Abomination, who -- during the final battle -- asked the Incredible Hulk a pertinent question. "Is that all you've got?"

Movie, is that all you've got?

But I suppose this brand of faux-angsty, solemn phantasmagoria is precisely what the majority of franchise fans desire. A superhero movie that plays it relentlessly safe and doesn't rock the boat or reach for artistic heights. What seems obvious here is that producers Hurd and Arad learned their lesson from Ang Lee's ambitious failure and learned it hard. They decided not to commit one daring or original idea to celluloid in this sequel. Better to make a movie of extended chases and monster wrestling matches than something interesting about the human condition, about the "rage" we all control. Underneath everything else in this movie is the barely audible, frightened whisper:

Don't make fanboys angry. You wouldn't like your box office receipts when they're angry...

So what you get in The Incredible Hulk is a reflexive pandering to the base demographic so obvious and desperate it would make even a serial panderer like Sarah Palin blush with embarrassment. Thus we get endless in-jokes and references to the comic-book and TV show. Look, there's Bill Bixby (in footage from The Courtship of Eddie's Father)! Look, there's Lou Ferrigno! Listen, they just mentioned reporter Jack McGee! Why, we even get a franchise cross-over scene with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and General Ross that forecasts an Avengers movie! One meant, no doubt, to cause spontaneous fan orgasms. Man, this movie is such a bad-ass mo fo! Isn't it cool that the whole Marvel movie universe is connected?

Sure. But it would have been cooler if The Incredible Hulk was...good.

To my shock, film critics largely praised this sub-par effort. In doing so, they failed to mention the egregious lapses in tone, particularly during the cringe-inducing moment wherein Banner and Ross arrive in NYC. They promptly and ridiculously term the Big Apple "the most aggressive" city on Earth (Gimme a break! They should see the Wal-Mart in Monroe on a Saturday night...). They then take an exaggerated and dangerous ride in a cab. Betty gets mad and screams at the negligent cab driver, prompting an embarrassed-looking Norton to note that he knows some techniques for anger management. This scene is so ridiculous, so campy, so piped-in from another planet, that you just wince with discomfort. It's so bad you can't believe your eyes and ears.

Soon after, it's the audience's anger-management that's tested as Tim Blake Nelson (Samuel Stern) delivers one of the worst supporting performances I've seen in a superhero film since Lambert Wilson in Catwoman (2004). He plays Stern like a crazy, hyper-active clown. Maybe he was inspired by the 1960s Batman, but regardless his performance sticks out like a sore thumb. Every trace of believability seeps out of the picture when he's on-screen mugging.

Also, if you delve at all into the details of The Incredible Hulk, the story doesn't make any sense. For one thing, General Ross appears to be the highest ranking, most powerful general in the United States, because he launches full-scale attacks (replete with roaring gunships and sonic cannons...) on an American college campus with no blow-back either from the Army or the President himself. The attack makes the nightly news (and the Hulk is even recorded on a civilian phone camera). But nobody in the U.S. government seems to take notice. Nobody panics. Nobody makes a statement. General Ross apparently just has carte blanche to do whatever the hell he wants, including the conspicuous war waging on American soil.

And why does Blonsky immediately turn against his former allies in Armed Forces once he becomes the Abomination? The movie establishes that as the Hulk, Banner remains true, at least somewhat, to his human character. He remembers Betty and is gentle with her; protective. So a career army officer like Blonsky -- one who has fought with these men in the trenches literally all his life -- becomes a hulkish monster and turns instantly on them? That one's never explained either.

But more to the point, the film's narrative largely invalidates Banner's point of view. He is on the run (and in hiding) because he doesn't want the American military to create a league of super soldiers. Well, first off, Ross already has a different (non Hulk variety...) super soldier serum.