‘Huckabees’ hits heights of pretentiousness

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On video and DVD

I HEART HUCKABEES, directed by David O. Russell, written by Russell and Jeff Baena, 105 minutes, rated R.

A high-concept, high-minded piece of pseudointellectual trash, “I Heart Huckabees” is one of those stink bombs the intelligentsia like to champion. It’s a cocktail conversation movie for the boxed Chablis, cubed cheese and corduroy set, those who absorb The New Yorker just before a party so they have something to talk about, and those who need movies such as this to say they got the joke, even though the joke is on them.

As directed by David O. Russell (“Three Kings”) from a script he co-wrote with Jeff Baena, this empty, pretentious film is only watchable because of Lily Tomlin, who is in top form here, consistently funny and mischievous in ways that the rest of the movie thinks it is, but isn’t.

If you see the film, see it for Tomlin – she’s marvelous, almost making the experience worthwhile, thus the grade. Otherwise, not unlike the recent “Ocean’s Twelve” and “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” this is fraternity filmmaking that exists on the inside, made by filmmakers who want to keep audiences on the outside. The reason? If anyone did get inside and saw this movie for what it is – and many will – they’d see a fraud.

Describing the dense plot and all of its unwieldy manifestations and machinations is pointless, so let’s cut to the essentials: Jason Schwartzman is Albert Markovski, a seething environmental-activist-cum-bad-poet who is struck by a series of coincidences – the repeated sightings of a tall African man popping up in the most unusual of places.

Jason is certain there’s some otherworldly significance to the sightings, and so he hires two “existential detectives” (Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman) to follow his every move in an effort to discern his truth, the truth and, by the end of the film, hopefully even the meaning of life. After all, as Albert puts it, he has been orphaned by indifference for too long and he needs to reconnect.

Toss into this corked mix Isabelle Huppert as a French sexpot metaphysician with a thing for mud and sex, Jude Law as a slimy corporate executive with a thing for himself, Mark Wahlberg as a disillusioned firefighter and Naomi Watts as the face of the Targetlike superstore Huckabees, and you get a movie that spends too much time reaching for the unusual, grasping for the illogical, and coming away with a mess as a result.

As with the recent “Constantine,” there comes a point in “Huckabees” when you wish the director and the writers would just tell their story straight. Do we really need the scenes in “Huckabees” in which people’s body parts separate and float away as they begin to pixilate? Is it necessary to fragment the story’s structure in an effort to mirror its characters’ fractured lives? Confusion for the sake of confusion isn’t entertaining – it’s just confusing – so why go to the trouble of pushing elements to the fringe if the fringe can’t sustain them?

In “I Heart Huckabees,” the best you can do is isolate yourself from the movie and watch Tomlin. At least it looks as if she’s having fun.

Grade: C-

Also on video and DVD

EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING, directed by Renny Harlin, written by Alexi Hawley, 114 minutes, rated R.

So it wasn’t meant to be, but here it is and there you have it. Break out the holy water, folks – the devil had a time of it in Hollywood.

Smote by problems from the start, “Exorcist: The Beginning” – a prequel to William Friedkin’s 1973 classic horror movie “The Exorcist” – is just what you expect from a film that looped in and out of production for the better part of three years. Along its storied way, the movie went through three different directors: John Frankenheimer died during production; Paul Schrader was given a fiery send-off after producing a dull film; and Renny Harlin apparently came along to muck the whole thing up.

As written by Alexi Hawley, “Exorcist: The Beginning” is an ugly, sometimes grotesquely violent abomination that tries to flesh out the early years of Father Merrin, the priest who helped rid poor Regan of the devil in the first film.

In this film, Merrin (Stellan Skarsgard, taking over for Max Von Sydow) is a former priest trying to find himself in 1949 Cairo. There, in between drinks, he learns about an archaeological dig in Kenya that involves the discovery of a buried Christian Byzantine church. That proves especially curious to Merrin, since no church of that type should be in the area – buried or otherwise.

When he arrives, chaos and disorder abound, with thousands of flies hovering over a site they apparently want no one to enter. Naturally, Merrin and a priest (James D’Arcy) do enter, which unleashes a series of Beelzebub events that involve the alleged possession of a boy, and then the endless graphic deaths of so many others. This includes stillborn babies covered in maggots, hyenas brutally ripping apart a child, death by suicide and other atrocities, some of which involve those old standbys, the Nazis.

Izabella Scorupco is the troubled doctor with the revealing shower scene, the ever-dewy breasts and the dirty secret. She looks waxy and unreal, an automated version of one of Madame Tussaud’s dummies, with her acting just as stiff.

Grade: F

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He may be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Alien vs. Predator – B

Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy – B+

The Bourne Supremacy – B

Catwoman – B-

Cellular – B+

Collateral – B+

Dawn of the Dead – A-

De-Lovely – B

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story – B

Elf – B+

Ella Enchanted – B

Envy – D

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – A-

Exorcist: The Beginning – F

Fahrenheit 9/11 – A-

The Forgotten – D

Friday Night Lights – B+

Hero – B+

I Heart Huckabees – C-

I, Robot – B+

Kill Bill Vol. 2 – B

King Arthur – B

The Manchurian Candidate – B+

Man on Fire – B

Maria Full Of Grace – A

Mean Girls – B+

The Motorcycle Diaries – A-

Napoleon Dynamite

– B+

The Notebook – B+

Open Water – A-

Paparazzi – D-

Ray – A

Saw – D

Shall We Dance? – B

Shark Tale – B-

Shaun Of The Dead – B+

Shrek 2 – B

Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow – A-

Spider-Man 2 – A

The Stepford Wives – C

Super Size Me – C-

Taxi – D+

Troy – C-

The Village – D+