* * * * *
Indigenous myth telling can be complicated to western minds that have blurred Finding Nemo with Joanah (or was that Pinnochio) and the Whale, but this expertly told story lends itself well to both myth and entertainment. After languishing in “development-hell” for nearly a decade, the last rewrite of Witi Ihimaera’s novel, The Whale Rider was finished by Niki Caro. She then directed this, her second film, to become New Zealand’s biggest screen hit ever.
Filmed in Whangara, there’s not much of the fabled New Zealand scenery to be had in this film, but from the vista of our seats the panorama of feelings that play on the fine featured face of Keisha Castle-Hughes were enough to make truck drivers weep. Between this young actress and her grandfather, played by Rawiri Parantene, lies the story of a conflict that makes you forget you’re watching a movie. Suddenly you’re transported to your own family, your own childhood, your own conflict with tradition and growing up in a world that is changing around you.
New Zealand has a long history of woman’s rights being the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote (1893) and this story plunges, with great cultural sensitivity, into the coming-of-age, coming-to-power of a young Maori girl. The pre-teen Pai has been raised by her grandparents in a cultural setting that might be compared to “the Res with water” for Maori’s. Early in the story, when she chides the older Maori women for smoking, you know immediately that this youngster is a leader. Sadly, in the patriarchal mind-set of Paka, her grandfather and the tribal leader, she is a woman and not worthy to be consider as the one to lead their people. Throughout, the youngster pushes the lines of tradition and with each insurgence she pushes her grandfather’s love further and further from her. At a time when most children are busy testing authority, Pai tests Maori tradition with a vigor and an unrelenting wisdom that becomes a battle, one she knows intuitively she will win.
No car chases here, no shootings, no plot-points that immerse us in blood, Whale Rider is driven by hard-core acting and a display of changing tradition that is rarely revealed with such care. Oh yes ... there is also whale riding.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
The Wages of Fear
* * * *
DVD Review - Classic Adventure - Foreign
We all know that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), but what about The Wages of Fear? This 143 minute masterpiece, co-written and directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, expresses the results of fear in a variety of hues that render this black-and-white classic, dazzling.
First released in 1953, The Wages of Fear opened two years later and 20 percent shorter in New York. The winner of the Palme d’or at Cannes, Clouzot’s film has been hailed as a singular film achievement rivaling the Master of Suspense; Hitchcock.
This existential adventure opens in the grungy village of Las Piedras, a Latin American community controlled by the only major employer; American owned Southern Oil. This dilapidated backwater is the habitat of a colorful crowd of unemployed European drifters and indigenous peoples who hang around swatting flies, playing cards and drinking their time away. Even in their lighthearted conversations and lifestyle there is an overwhelming sense of abandonment to a hopeless situation and unspoken fears.
Faced with a disastrous oil well-fire, Southern Oil decides to hire four non-union drivers from the community. The mission: drive two beat-up trucks three hundred miles over a rarely utilized road, into the mountains, through impenetrable jungle, across scorching desert, transporting barrels of hair-trigger nitroglycerin to extinguish the fire. There is no shortage of volunteers for this perilous mission, and while the first hour of the tale establishes the antiheroes and their desperate lives, the remainder of the story is reminiscent of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The hand-picked drivers include a swaggering young Frenchman (Yves Montand), an old Parisian con artist (Charles Vanel), an Italian with lung disease (Folco Lulli) and a steely German pilot (Peter van Eyck).
It’s hard to imagine, in this day of the monster fast-action film, that seventy minutes of two trucks driving five miles an hour could be entertaining, but Clouzot lays masterful track to accomplish just this. The first hour of the film is spent in the village setting, where I became nearly as despondent as the occupants and began to wonder how I was going to escape the dreadful dead end environment. Then the opportunity arrived, and along with the chosen four I departed, feeling that at five miles an hour I was being jettisoned away from Las Piedras at the speed of light.
At the time of its release, the controversial elements of capitalism, global economy, and exploitation of Third World countries by the First World countries were glossed over or not spoken of at all. That and the hint of homosexuality were enough to have this film clipped by the censors. But, The Wages of Fear was re-released in New York in 1992 and can be seen in its full-length version today. The film is mostly sub-titled, except where the Americans are speaking, and there are moments of archaic melodrama, but this is a classic masterpiece for a reason.
DVD Review - Classic Adventure - Foreign
We all know that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23), but what about The Wages of Fear? This 143 minute masterpiece, co-written and directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, expresses the results of fear in a variety of hues that render this black-and-white classic, dazzling.
First released in 1953, The Wages of Fear opened two years later and 20 percent shorter in New York. The winner of the Palme d’or at Cannes, Clouzot’s film has been hailed as a singular film achievement rivaling the Master of Suspense; Hitchcock.
This existential adventure opens in the grungy village of Las Piedras, a Latin American community controlled by the only major employer; American owned Southern Oil. This dilapidated backwater is the habitat of a colorful crowd of unemployed European drifters and indigenous peoples who hang around swatting flies, playing cards and drinking their time away. Even in their lighthearted conversations and lifestyle there is an overwhelming sense of abandonment to a hopeless situation and unspoken fears.
Faced with a disastrous oil well-fire, Southern Oil decides to hire four non-union drivers from the community. The mission: drive two beat-up trucks three hundred miles over a rarely utilized road, into the mountains, through impenetrable jungle, across scorching desert, transporting barrels of hair-trigger nitroglycerin to extinguish the fire. There is no shortage of volunteers for this perilous mission, and while the first hour of the tale establishes the antiheroes and their desperate lives, the remainder of the story is reminiscent of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The hand-picked drivers include a swaggering young Frenchman (Yves Montand), an old Parisian con artist (Charles Vanel), an Italian with lung disease (Folco Lulli) and a steely German pilot (Peter van Eyck).
It’s hard to imagine, in this day of the monster fast-action film, that seventy minutes of two trucks driving five miles an hour could be entertaining, but Clouzot lays masterful track to accomplish just this. The first hour of the film is spent in the village setting, where I became nearly as despondent as the occupants and began to wonder how I was going to escape the dreadful dead end environment. Then the opportunity arrived, and along with the chosen four I departed, feeling that at five miles an hour I was being jettisoned away from Las Piedras at the speed of light.
At the time of its release, the controversial elements of capitalism, global economy, and exploitation of Third World countries by the First World countries were glossed over or not spoken of at all. That and the hint of homosexuality were enough to have this film clipped by the censors. But, The Wages of Fear was re-released in New York in 1992 and can be seen in its full-length version today. The film is mostly sub-titled, except where the Americans are speaking, and there are moments of archaic melodrama, but this is a classic masterpiece for a reason.
The Trilogy
* * * *
Movies offer visual feasts that are unlike the cognitive acrobatics required when reading a novel. Because movies play out visually what’s lost to the audience is all of the pre-story, back-story, in-between story. In a novel, even in a well written short piece, much of this information can be related, but movies are limited to strict time-frames. The Trilogy, written and directed by Lucas Belvaux, is a cinematic answer to that problem. Three films, shot simultaneously, describe not only different stories, but each in a different genre. With this, Belvaux gives us film as literature.
All three stories, On the Run, An Amazing Couple, and After the Life are placed in present day Grenoble. The films follow a number of different people, all within a two-week period in their lives. Much like Kurosawa’s Rashamon, these three story’s are all told from different perspectives with major characters from one film playing minor characters in another. These concentric circles draw the audience in deeply, and by the third film perception begins to take on the feeling of a fun-room mirror at the circus. Belvaux’s intent is that we experience the three genres of thriller, comedy, melodrama while dwelling within the same narration, and he does this very well.
1. On the Run
Bruno Le Roux (Lucas Belvaux) escapes from prison, but he cannot escape reality. On the lam, Bruno returns to Grenoble, where he plans to take care of unfinished business. Primary on his list is to kill the man he believes is responsible for his capture and life-sentence. Secondary, is his belief that the Marxist cause still lives, and that the masses will rise up once he has renewed the terrorist activities that caused his incarceration. But, much has changed in twenty years, and the flame of rebellion is no longer available for his fanatical approach to change. This thriller follows Bruno along a path of killing and hiding. Finally, he is forced to realize that the world has passed him by, yet in true fashion he remains a rebel to the end. While he could simply be smuggled into another country and live his life in freedom he chooses another path, more suited to his style. This movie has one of the most perfect endings I’ve ever seen.
2. An Amazing Couple
Cecile Costes (Ornella Muti) and Alain Costes (Francois Morel) are a happily married couple until a stream of poorly communicated events threatens to tip their life into disaster. Cecile is a high-school teacher, and Alain is a successful attorney who loves his wife so much that he decides to hide an upcoming surgery from her so that she won’t worry. What ensues is a scene by scene revelation of two people who are so paranoid and suspicious that one communication error leads to another with both feeling that the other has something to hide. Cecile believes that Alain is having an affair, while he begins to believe that she is plotting to have him killed. She has him followed, tracks his moment by moment activities and goes through everything in his office. He convinces his secretary that Cecile is trying to do away with him, and the two of them work to overturn the fantasized plot. This comedy is sometimes darkly illustrated but it has tremendously funny moments.
3. After the Life
This is the most riveting performance of the three films. Pascal Manise (Gilbert Melki) is a cop whose daily involvement in the grimier side of Grenoble life is only a side-show event to his personal life. Agnes Manise (Dominique Blanc), his wife, is addicted to morphine, and the central conflict arises from the fact that he has become her supplier in order to keep her love. When events from the other movies interfere it becomes impossible for him to supply her habit, and their once stable relationship begins to unravel. Dark from the start, this film tells us a story about a man we thought we knew, but in the end a totally different opinion is formed about the character of Pascal.
There are many surprising moments in these three films. I would love to tell you more but take the time to go to Madstone and see all three. This is, I predict, one of the better film events of the year.
Movies offer visual feasts that are unlike the cognitive acrobatics required when reading a novel. Because movies play out visually what’s lost to the audience is all of the pre-story, back-story, in-between story. In a novel, even in a well written short piece, much of this information can be related, but movies are limited to strict time-frames. The Trilogy, written and directed by Lucas Belvaux, is a cinematic answer to that problem. Three films, shot simultaneously, describe not only different stories, but each in a different genre. With this, Belvaux gives us film as literature.
All three stories, On the Run, An Amazing Couple, and After the Life are placed in present day Grenoble. The films follow a number of different people, all within a two-week period in their lives. Much like Kurosawa’s Rashamon, these three story’s are all told from different perspectives with major characters from one film playing minor characters in another. These concentric circles draw the audience in deeply, and by the third film perception begins to take on the feeling of a fun-room mirror at the circus. Belvaux’s intent is that we experience the three genres of thriller, comedy, melodrama while dwelling within the same narration, and he does this very well.
1. On the Run
Bruno Le Roux (Lucas Belvaux) escapes from prison, but he cannot escape reality. On the lam, Bruno returns to Grenoble, where he plans to take care of unfinished business. Primary on his list is to kill the man he believes is responsible for his capture and life-sentence. Secondary, is his belief that the Marxist cause still lives, and that the masses will rise up once he has renewed the terrorist activities that caused his incarceration. But, much has changed in twenty years, and the flame of rebellion is no longer available for his fanatical approach to change. This thriller follows Bruno along a path of killing and hiding. Finally, he is forced to realize that the world has passed him by, yet in true fashion he remains a rebel to the end. While he could simply be smuggled into another country and live his life in freedom he chooses another path, more suited to his style. This movie has one of the most perfect endings I’ve ever seen.
2. An Amazing Couple
Cecile Costes (Ornella Muti) and Alain Costes (Francois Morel) are a happily married couple until a stream of poorly communicated events threatens to tip their life into disaster. Cecile is a high-school teacher, and Alain is a successful attorney who loves his wife so much that he decides to hide an upcoming surgery from her so that she won’t worry. What ensues is a scene by scene revelation of two people who are so paranoid and suspicious that one communication error leads to another with both feeling that the other has something to hide. Cecile believes that Alain is having an affair, while he begins to believe that she is plotting to have him killed. She has him followed, tracks his moment by moment activities and goes through everything in his office. He convinces his secretary that Cecile is trying to do away with him, and the two of them work to overturn the fantasized plot. This comedy is sometimes darkly illustrated but it has tremendously funny moments.
3. After the Life
This is the most riveting performance of the three films. Pascal Manise (Gilbert Melki) is a cop whose daily involvement in the grimier side of Grenoble life is only a side-show event to his personal life. Agnes Manise (Dominique Blanc), his wife, is addicted to morphine, and the central conflict arises from the fact that he has become her supplier in order to keep her love. When events from the other movies interfere it becomes impossible for him to supply her habit, and their once stable relationship begins to unravel. Dark from the start, this film tells us a story about a man we thought we knew, but in the end a totally different opinion is formed about the character of Pascal.
There are many surprising moments in these three films. I would love to tell you more but take the time to go to Madstone and see all three. This is, I predict, one of the better film events of the year.
The Three Burials of Melquiadas Estrada
* *
Three, that’s the number of times they bury old . . . what’s his name? One of the reasons this fairly good film is having problems filling seats is the title: no one can remember it. Though it may be politically correct to have a Spanish name other than Juan or Pedro, it becomes a liability when it’s difficult to remember and even more so if most of the movie going public can‘t pronounce it. They may go but they won‘t talk about it. The title issue is not the only reason this first time directorial debut by Tommy Lee Jones is not selling tickets.
The Three Burials of Melquiadas Estrada has many brilliant moments, a great cast of characters and plays to the cowboy myth that continues to survive in pockets, even today, on both sides of the border. This comes across succinctly when Melquiadas Estrada first meets Pete Perkins, ranch foreman, and states “Yo soy un caballero.” This moment bridges the world between the two men. It’s here one senses the movie might have some honest potential. This is soon shredded away as the film progress into a morass of scenes too heavy handed and created solely to build character for people that we don’t really need to care about.
The premise that attracted me to the film, is excellent. Three Burials is a revenge story that intends to replace the obligatory death finale with an object lesson. Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) and one of his hired-hands, an undocumented worker, Melquiadas Estrada (Julio Cedillo), become best friends. When Melquiadas is murdered Pete looks for, and finds the killer, Border Patrolman, Mike Norton (Barry Pepper). He kidnaps Norton and forces him to exhume the corpse of Melquiadas. Handcuffed, Norton is taken to the hovel where Melquiadas lived and at gunpoint is compelled to drink from the dead man’s cup and dress in his poor work clothes. This is where the trek for the two men begins. On horseback Perkins takes Norton to Mexico to return Melquiadas to his home, for burial . His motivation is based on a promise made to Melquiadas, but it weakens the story. What should have been and could have been a great story dwindles to blind obeisance to a dead man’s wishes that in the end turn out to be either false or corrupted by time, we‘re never quite sure which.
In story-land this trek is a revenge process for Perkins. In movie-land the trek is normally a place where characters develop their arc, the thing that leaves us satisfied at the end. What happens here is that so much time is spent at the beginning of the film on characters in the border town- people that we don’t need to be involved with- and the trek time is shorted leaving us without characters we understand or feel sympathetic toward. One of the finest examples of this in recent movie making is O’Brother. In that film the characters go on a journey and take us with them. But the journey starts right away, it gives us time to learn about the characters so that in the end we understand, sympathize and like these simple criminals. Not so in Three Burials. The object lesson becomes blurred and the story lost.
Though I think the writing went astray, there are good characters, good scenes and Tommy Lee does a fairly good job directing. This will be a fine film to see, once it comes to video.
Three, that’s the number of times they bury old . . . what’s his name? One of the reasons this fairly good film is having problems filling seats is the title: no one can remember it. Though it may be politically correct to have a Spanish name other than Juan or Pedro, it becomes a liability when it’s difficult to remember and even more so if most of the movie going public can‘t pronounce it. They may go but they won‘t talk about it. The title issue is not the only reason this first time directorial debut by Tommy Lee Jones is not selling tickets.
The Three Burials of Melquiadas Estrada has many brilliant moments, a great cast of characters and plays to the cowboy myth that continues to survive in pockets, even today, on both sides of the border. This comes across succinctly when Melquiadas Estrada first meets Pete Perkins, ranch foreman, and states “Yo soy un caballero.” This moment bridges the world between the two men. It’s here one senses the movie might have some honest potential. This is soon shredded away as the film progress into a morass of scenes too heavy handed and created solely to build character for people that we don’t really need to care about.
The premise that attracted me to the film, is excellent. Three Burials is a revenge story that intends to replace the obligatory death finale with an object lesson. Pete Perkins (Tommy Lee Jones) and one of his hired-hands, an undocumented worker, Melquiadas Estrada (Julio Cedillo), become best friends. When Melquiadas is murdered Pete looks for, and finds the killer, Border Patrolman, Mike Norton (Barry Pepper). He kidnaps Norton and forces him to exhume the corpse of Melquiadas. Handcuffed, Norton is taken to the hovel where Melquiadas lived and at gunpoint is compelled to drink from the dead man’s cup and dress in his poor work clothes. This is where the trek for the two men begins. On horseback Perkins takes Norton to Mexico to return Melquiadas to his home, for burial . His motivation is based on a promise made to Melquiadas, but it weakens the story. What should have been and could have been a great story dwindles to blind obeisance to a dead man’s wishes that in the end turn out to be either false or corrupted by time, we‘re never quite sure which.
In story-land this trek is a revenge process for Perkins. In movie-land the trek is normally a place where characters develop their arc, the thing that leaves us satisfied at the end. What happens here is that so much time is spent at the beginning of the film on characters in the border town- people that we don’t need to be involved with- and the trek time is shorted leaving us without characters we understand or feel sympathetic toward. One of the finest examples of this in recent movie making is O’Brother. In that film the characters go on a journey and take us with them. But the journey starts right away, it gives us time to learn about the characters so that in the end we understand, sympathize and like these simple criminals. Not so in Three Burials. The object lesson becomes blurred and the story lost.
Though I think the writing went astray, there are good characters, good scenes and Tommy Lee does a fairly good job directing. This will be a fine film to see, once it comes to video.
The Terminal
* *
I have spent too many hours in airports not to have anticipated the very clever idea of a man trapped in an airport as a movie plot. But, a clever idea is almost where the plot of The Terminal terminates. With an A-list cast, including: Tom Hanks as Viktor Navorski, Catherine Zeta-Jones as flight attendant Amelia, the ever wonderful Stanley Tucci as the antagonist, Frank Dixon the story soars on credible acting, but descends rapidly by pandering to self-indulgent sentimentalism and too many directions.
Viktor is a traveler from the fictional country of Krakozhia. He becomes trapped in the international terminal, at a New York city airport, when a coup in his native country invalidates his passport. During this same period Frank Dixon, a mid-level bureaucrat, is anticipating his dreamed-of, well-deserved promotion to Airport Manager. The conflict between these two mounts in proportion to the pace of the movie but never completes a satisfying arc. By the end of the movie Frank seems to become just another fan of Viktor’s, and we’re left wondering why we watched the struggle between these two for 128 minutes.
Along the way ... Amelia gets in the way. This is the never-ending love story that never needed to be. I’m not sure why this was thrown into what stands alone as a good premise, other than the Hollywood penchant to throw the kitchen-sink at the audience using major star attachments. By the end of the movie I found myself wishing that Amelia’s story were different, because it never really goes anywhere. It’s one of the few times I have ever felt that the movie would have been better if the boy won the heart of the girl.
Stephen Spielberg has surely produced better films than this, but the classic characteristic’s of his work are present and provide for a comfortable if not totally engaging ride. It is clean with excellent attention to detail and character movement. The set direction is the best money can buy as an entire terminal was manufactured for the film. With just the faintest of recollection we are harkened back to the earlier Spielberg, the director that provided the heart of such great films as ET. But, this is not that strong a story-line, and a break on the heartstring-tugger should have been a consideration.
What really inspires this piece is the performance of Hanks. The fact that he learns English in less than a couple of days is forgiven while he bumbles through the airport living on free soda-crackers and packets of mustard and catsup. Early on, when he learns of the coup in his country on the airport television, his panic and grief are translated easily, and this, the most touching scene in the film, brings back memory’s of 9/11. Another role, that of Gupta, an aging airport janitor, is played superbly by Kumar Pallana who nearly steals the show with this role of man who has been trapped, many years, in the same airport for an entirely different reason.
If you wish that M&M’s had another layer of sugarcoating or that all cakes were six-layer instead of three, this might be the movie for you. If you loved the simple, direct sincerity of In America, skip this and go see The Chronicles of Riddick.
I have spent too many hours in airports not to have anticipated the very clever idea of a man trapped in an airport as a movie plot. But, a clever idea is almost where the plot of The Terminal terminates. With an A-list cast, including: Tom Hanks as Viktor Navorski, Catherine Zeta-Jones as flight attendant Amelia, the ever wonderful Stanley Tucci as the antagonist, Frank Dixon the story soars on credible acting, but descends rapidly by pandering to self-indulgent sentimentalism and too many directions.
Viktor is a traveler from the fictional country of Krakozhia. He becomes trapped in the international terminal, at a New York city airport, when a coup in his native country invalidates his passport. During this same period Frank Dixon, a mid-level bureaucrat, is anticipating his dreamed-of, well-deserved promotion to Airport Manager. The conflict between these two mounts in proportion to the pace of the movie but never completes a satisfying arc. By the end of the movie Frank seems to become just another fan of Viktor’s, and we’re left wondering why we watched the struggle between these two for 128 minutes.
Along the way ... Amelia gets in the way. This is the never-ending love story that never needed to be. I’m not sure why this was thrown into what stands alone as a good premise, other than the Hollywood penchant to throw the kitchen-sink at the audience using major star attachments. By the end of the movie I found myself wishing that Amelia’s story were different, because it never really goes anywhere. It’s one of the few times I have ever felt that the movie would have been better if the boy won the heart of the girl.
Stephen Spielberg has surely produced better films than this, but the classic characteristic’s of his work are present and provide for a comfortable if not totally engaging ride. It is clean with excellent attention to detail and character movement. The set direction is the best money can buy as an entire terminal was manufactured for the film. With just the faintest of recollection we are harkened back to the earlier Spielberg, the director that provided the heart of such great films as ET. But, this is not that strong a story-line, and a break on the heartstring-tugger should have been a consideration.
What really inspires this piece is the performance of Hanks. The fact that he learns English in less than a couple of days is forgiven while he bumbles through the airport living on free soda-crackers and packets of mustard and catsup. Early on, when he learns of the coup in his country on the airport television, his panic and grief are translated easily, and this, the most touching scene in the film, brings back memory’s of 9/11. Another role, that of Gupta, an aging airport janitor, is played superbly by Kumar Pallana who nearly steals the show with this role of man who has been trapped, many years, in the same airport for an entirely different reason.
If you wish that M&M’s had another layer of sugarcoating or that all cakes were six-layer instead of three, this might be the movie for you. If you loved the simple, direct sincerity of In America, skip this and go see The Chronicles of Riddick.
Take The Lead
*
Way back, sometime between the fall of Troy and the birth of Fred and Ginger, ball room dancing was invented. In Take The Lead we never learn why, or exactly how, but what we do learn is that one man can save a film from total disaster if he uses every bit of charisma he possesses and wears really tight pants.
This first directorial effort by music video veteran, Liz Friedlander, is so pathetically Hollywood that it loses what good story intention it may have started with. Its all been done before, and better, in film’s like To Sir With Love and any number of other school-room genre dramas that didn’t have the benefit of great music. Take The Lead
The film opens when Dulaine approaches a principle (Alfre Woodard) with a plan to teach ballroom at her school. What transpires to get him to this point we never learn, but he does convince her, and so starts his journey. Of course, she gives him the worst of the worst to teach and after they steal his bicycle and tease him unmercifully he has a breakthrough where he actually gets them all to dance. Really, it’s that totally captivating and suspenseful. Finally, there is a surprise ending. If you guessed a ballroom competition, where the poor inner-city kids- who’ve had a total of five weeks dance instruction- beat a bunch of rich white kids who’ve been dancing ball room all their lives, you’re wrong. It’s a tie. Whew, don’t you feel better?
As hackneyed as the storyline is, I can’t blame the actors. There are some credible performances, wonderful music, and of course there is the continued display of ball room as an art form that bridges generations and cultures. In the past I’ve reviewed Shall We Dance and Mad Hot Ballroom, and I’ve seen the original Japanese version, Shall We Dance U several times, all are better in nearly every category. If you just have to see this one, wait until it’s at the dollar theater. In fact wait until it’s fifty-cent day at the dollar theater. Of course it would be best is to skip the movie completely, save your pennies and buy the soundtrack.
If you like the- good teacher comes to a bad school and makes a difference- storyline, my suggestion is last year’s release, The Choir. This quiet drama takes place right after World War II in the French countryside. Here, a newly hired music teacher takes on a group of young boys, some orphans, some local delinquents and forms a choir. His primary conflict is less with the children than with the system they’ve been placed in. Eventually he leaves and seems to fade into obscurity, but the contribution he’s made will lasts a lifetime. This film has heart, credibility good acting and is fairly well written. You will not waste your time with this musical piece. is very loosely based on the story of Pierre Dulaine (Antonio Banderas), a Spanish/French ballroom dance instructor, in New York, who brought ballroom dance to the city school system. But, this story is much better told in last years documentary Mad Hot Ballroom where the characters, and their seemingly inescapable inner-city lives, are real.
Way back, sometime between the fall of Troy and the birth of Fred and Ginger, ball room dancing was invented. In Take The Lead we never learn why, or exactly how, but what we do learn is that one man can save a film from total disaster if he uses every bit of charisma he possesses and wears really tight pants.
This first directorial effort by music video veteran, Liz Friedlander, is so pathetically Hollywood that it loses what good story intention it may have started with. Its all been done before, and better, in film’s like To Sir With Love and any number of other school-room genre dramas that didn’t have the benefit of great music. Take The Lead
The film opens when Dulaine approaches a principle (Alfre Woodard) with a plan to teach ballroom at her school. What transpires to get him to this point we never learn, but he does convince her, and so starts his journey. Of course, she gives him the worst of the worst to teach and after they steal his bicycle and tease him unmercifully he has a breakthrough where he actually gets them all to dance. Really, it’s that totally captivating and suspenseful. Finally, there is a surprise ending. If you guessed a ballroom competition, where the poor inner-city kids- who’ve had a total of five weeks dance instruction- beat a bunch of rich white kids who’ve been dancing ball room all their lives, you’re wrong. It’s a tie. Whew, don’t you feel better?
As hackneyed as the storyline is, I can’t blame the actors. There are some credible performances, wonderful music, and of course there is the continued display of ball room as an art form that bridges generations and cultures. In the past I’ve reviewed Shall We Dance and Mad Hot Ballroom, and I’ve seen the original Japanese version, Shall We Dance U several times, all are better in nearly every category. If you just have to see this one, wait until it’s at the dollar theater. In fact wait until it’s fifty-cent day at the dollar theater. Of course it would be best is to skip the movie completely, save your pennies and buy the soundtrack.
If you like the- good teacher comes to a bad school and makes a difference- storyline, my suggestion is last year’s release, The Choir. This quiet drama takes place right after World War II in the French countryside. Here, a newly hired music teacher takes on a group of young boys, some orphans, some local delinquents and forms a choir. His primary conflict is less with the children than with the system they’ve been placed in. Eventually he leaves and seems to fade into obscurity, but the contribution he’s made will lasts a lifetime. This film has heart, credibility good acting and is fairly well written. You will not waste your time with this musical piece. is very loosely based on the story of Pierre Dulaine (Antonio Banderas), a Spanish/French ballroom dance instructor, in New York, who brought ballroom dance to the city school system. But, this story is much better told in last years documentary Mad Hot Ballroom where the characters, and their seemingly inescapable inner-city lives, are real.
Sweet Sixteen
* * *
In the lobby, before the film started, I overheard a woman cheerfully chattering about the last film she saw. How heartwarming it was and how funny and la, la, la. As I took my seat, I turned and saw her smiling face . . . she waved, I smiled and waved back. Later, as the screen lit-up with Liam’s face and he used the “C” word for about the five-thousandth time, I noticed she was gone!
Unlike Hollywood’s current wave of movies that describe teenage angst in terms of beer drinking, funny sex, belching and passing gas this film is not for the fainthearted or for those looking for an easy laugh. Winner of the Best Screenplay Award at this years Cannes, Sweet Sixteen is anything but sweet as it compels us to enter the life of fifteen-year-old, Liam.
A likeable truant who peddles cigarettes on the tough streets of Glasgow, Liam, along with best friend Pinball (William Ruane) begins to hawk more than smokes. His dream is to raise enough money so that when his “mum” returns from years in prison, their life will be different, it will be
better. Stealing the stash of his mother’s heroin-dealing boyfriend, Liam sets up his own drug dealing operation. Before long, he attracts the attention of the local drug kingpin, but not in a bad way. Intrigued with Liam’s audacity, the gangster puts the teenager on the payroll. All that’s left now is for Liam to cross the line. The line that takes a young boy from flirting to disaster, from fifteen to sixteen.
Director Ken Loach, is well known for his unorthodox approach to filmmaking. Here, with the combination of hand-held cameras, a touch of film noir, and the on-screen presence of Martin Compston as Liam, Loach hits an unorthodox home run. While researching for this film on location, Loach opened up local auditions for the lead roles and found Compston, a young, raw talent who literally shells the audience with his riveting performance. The screenplay is brilliant in it’s clarity and straightforward storyline and although the violence is kept to a minimum, the one-hour and forty-six minutes is filled with profanity ... almost every line. The other odd bit here is the use of sub-titles. The Scottish spoken is rarely decipherable, and it takes some getting used to hearing what you know as English but cannot clearly understand without the written words on the screen. What this means, is that if you’re in for gritty, real-life and well done, you not only get to hear the profanity but you can read it as well.
In the lobby, before the film started, I overheard a woman cheerfully chattering about the last film she saw. How heartwarming it was and how funny and la, la, la. As I took my seat, I turned and saw her smiling face . . . she waved, I smiled and waved back. Later, as the screen lit-up with Liam’s face and he used the “C” word for about the five-thousandth time, I noticed she was gone!
Unlike Hollywood’s current wave of movies that describe teenage angst in terms of beer drinking, funny sex, belching and passing gas this film is not for the fainthearted or for those looking for an easy laugh. Winner of the Best Screenplay Award at this years Cannes, Sweet Sixteen is anything but sweet as it compels us to enter the life of fifteen-year-old, Liam.
A likeable truant who peddles cigarettes on the tough streets of Glasgow, Liam, along with best friend Pinball (William Ruane) begins to hawk more than smokes. His dream is to raise enough money so that when his “mum” returns from years in prison, their life will be different, it will be
better. Stealing the stash of his mother’s heroin-dealing boyfriend, Liam sets up his own drug dealing operation. Before long, he attracts the attention of the local drug kingpin, but not in a bad way. Intrigued with Liam’s audacity, the gangster puts the teenager on the payroll. All that’s left now is for Liam to cross the line. The line that takes a young boy from flirting to disaster, from fifteen to sixteen.
Director Ken Loach, is well known for his unorthodox approach to filmmaking. Here, with the combination of hand-held cameras, a touch of film noir, and the on-screen presence of Martin Compston as Liam, Loach hits an unorthodox home run. While researching for this film on location, Loach opened up local auditions for the lead roles and found Compston, a young, raw talent who literally shells the audience with his riveting performance. The screenplay is brilliant in it’s clarity and straightforward storyline and although the violence is kept to a minimum, the one-hour and forty-six minutes is filled with profanity ... almost every line. The other odd bit here is the use of sub-titles. The Scottish spoken is rarely decipherable, and it takes some getting used to hearing what you know as English but cannot clearly understand without the written words on the screen. What this means, is that if you’re in for gritty, real-life and well done, you not only get to hear the profanity but you can read it as well.
Stranger Than Fiction
* * * * *
“Mr. Crick, I think I like you.”
Doesn’t sound like much of a line does it? But, in the new film by Marc Forester (Monsters Ball, Finding Neverland) this line becomes one of those - “You...you want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down.”- lines we remember forever. Stranger Than Fiction is less the quirky comedy it’s being advertised as, and more the meaningful moral tale that harkens back to predecessors like; It’s A Wonderful Life, The Truman Show and The Apartment. Like these films, Fiction will have you laughing at the appropriate points, but more with the irony of those close-to-home truths than with cleverly written gags.
Harold Crick (Will Farrell), an IRS auditor, awakes one morning to discover an unseen voice, seemingly omniscient and with some control of the routine monotony he considers his life. Crick’s newest audit, Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhall), proprietor of a small bakery, and retro-revolutionary, decides exactly how much tax she will pay based on her approval of the governments expenditures. This sets up immediate conflict between the forces of the predictable and the strength of the unpredictable.
What should be a simple audit turns into more as the voice in Harold’s life begins to promote changes. The voice is the voice of author Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) who is working on her newest novel that just happens to run concurrent to the real life of Harold Crick. Somehow, a juxtapositional quirk of parallel universe dynamics has placed these two events together. This is not good thing and the voice soon reveals Harold’s death is not just immanent but looming. Harold’s shrink advises him to seek out Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), a professor of literature. Convinced that Crick is not a lunatic, Hilbert agrees to help and begins a search to discover what living author could be considered. For Harold’s part he must log daily events to determine whether he is in a comedy or a tragedy.
Enamored with Ana, Harold logs his contact with her and soon concludes that he‘s in a tragedy. When romance sparks between the two, Crick decides he’s in a comedy. At this point Crick and Hilbert learn the voice belongs to world renown author Kay Eiffel and she always kills her main character. Crick searches her out, and soon author and character come face to face. With a less talented cast this story would have come apart right here, but Emma Thompson gears it up and the story moves impressively into the last act.
One of the jewels of the film is that there is never any lame attempt to examine this fracture in reality. The story simply reveals a character who must change in order to live. Little does Harold Crick know, it’s this revelation that is the heart of the story. At one point, when Hilbert feels that nothing can be done to avoid Cricks impending end, he tells Crick to go out and enjoy what’s left of his life. “Eat as many pancakes as you like.” he says. Harold thinks this is a ridiculous thing to say until Hilbert reminds him that the point is not pancakes or life, but whether the life being lived is less fulfilling than the pancakes that could be eaten. Stranger Than Fiction will become a see-over film that people will want to see again and again. The performances are stellar, the writing is artful and clear, the direction and production values are surprising and interesting, and there seems no way to avoid liking Mr. Crick.
“Mr. Crick, I think I like you.”
Doesn’t sound like much of a line does it? But, in the new film by Marc Forester (Monsters Ball, Finding Neverland) this line becomes one of those - “You...you want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down.”- lines we remember forever. Stranger Than Fiction is less the quirky comedy it’s being advertised as, and more the meaningful moral tale that harkens back to predecessors like; It’s A Wonderful Life, The Truman Show and The Apartment. Like these films, Fiction will have you laughing at the appropriate points, but more with the irony of those close-to-home truths than with cleverly written gags.
Harold Crick (Will Farrell), an IRS auditor, awakes one morning to discover an unseen voice, seemingly omniscient and with some control of the routine monotony he considers his life. Crick’s newest audit, Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhall), proprietor of a small bakery, and retro-revolutionary, decides exactly how much tax she will pay based on her approval of the governments expenditures. This sets up immediate conflict between the forces of the predictable and the strength of the unpredictable.
What should be a simple audit turns into more as the voice in Harold’s life begins to promote changes. The voice is the voice of author Kay Eiffel (Emma Thompson) who is working on her newest novel that just happens to run concurrent to the real life of Harold Crick. Somehow, a juxtapositional quirk of parallel universe dynamics has placed these two events together. This is not good thing and the voice soon reveals Harold’s death is not just immanent but looming. Harold’s shrink advises him to seek out Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), a professor of literature. Convinced that Crick is not a lunatic, Hilbert agrees to help and begins a search to discover what living author could be considered. For Harold’s part he must log daily events to determine whether he is in a comedy or a tragedy.
Enamored with Ana, Harold logs his contact with her and soon concludes that he‘s in a tragedy. When romance sparks between the two, Crick decides he’s in a comedy. At this point Crick and Hilbert learn the voice belongs to world renown author Kay Eiffel and she always kills her main character. Crick searches her out, and soon author and character come face to face. With a less talented cast this story would have come apart right here, but Emma Thompson gears it up and the story moves impressively into the last act.
One of the jewels of the film is that there is never any lame attempt to examine this fracture in reality. The story simply reveals a character who must change in order to live. Little does Harold Crick know, it’s this revelation that is the heart of the story. At one point, when Hilbert feels that nothing can be done to avoid Cricks impending end, he tells Crick to go out and enjoy what’s left of his life. “Eat as many pancakes as you like.” he says. Harold thinks this is a ridiculous thing to say until Hilbert reminds him that the point is not pancakes or life, but whether the life being lived is less fulfilling than the pancakes that could be eaten. Stranger Than Fiction will become a see-over film that people will want to see again and again. The performances are stellar, the writing is artful and clear, the direction and production values are surprising and interesting, and there seems no way to avoid liking Mr. Crick.
The Station Agent
* * * *
Along the side of the B-line tracks in tiny Newfoundland, New Jersey sits a minor, almost invisible fragment of railroad history. A weather-beaten orphan of the past, when the world traveled by rail, an exhausted railway station waits to welcome the newest in it’s long line of occupants, Finbar McBride.
The Station Agent, a film written and directed by Tom McCarthy, is the story of a man who’s significance can’t be quantified in inches proving that stature is best measured as the resiliency of the human heart. Fin (Peter Dinklage), born with achondroplasia a form of dwarfism, has recently inherited the old railway station. This is the perfect place for him to hide and to live his life without the towering regard and humiliation the world heaps on top of those who don’t ... measure-up. What happens is quite the opposite.
Having lived in the city most of his life, Fin has actually done quite well at hiding in the midst of the masses. At one point, as he walks down the street, a young boy points, laughs and yells out “Hey, where’s Snow White?” Fin walks on, seemingly oblivious to the remark, the walls are so high that it’s not his hearing that’s barricaded but his heart. Now, at the station, in this microcosmic environment he is unexpectedly confronted with the involvement he so sought to hide from. Joe Orams ( Bobby Cannavale) sells hot-dogs and coffee from a nearby stand and just wants conversation with someone besides the local red-neck yokels. As unrelenting as a dog with a ball, Joe romps, uninvited, uninhibited and charmingly into Fin’s privacy, bringing the one thing that Fin seems never to have had, fun. Olivia Harris ( Patricia Clarkson) who almost runs the modestly sized main character over, twice in the same day, establishes the hinge that finally allows Fin to come to grips with his own internal agony. It’s difficult to feel sorry for yourself when you are helping someone else that you care for.
This film is a wonder of minimalist dialogue, yet it garnered the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Best Script at Sundance. I sat in my seat the entire eighty-minutes and watched the actors act, not dialogue each other to death. This is vitally refreshing and recalls the point that they’re “motion pictures”, pictures with sound and not the other way around. I become easily bored with the overbearing, slice-of-life, dialogue thrashed, verbiage trashed (like this rant) pieces. Not here. The skillful work of Dinklage, drew me inside of the Finnerby Nolton character. I winced when the lady in the store retrieved a camera and stole an intrusive picture of the “cute little-man.” Not from shame, but for that feeling. You know, that “feeling” as a new kid, in a new school, walking into a new class. The dreadful experience that the attention you’re receiving is harshly curious, unkind and unwanted. Numerous other scenes exemplify the difficulty of life in the small lane and most of them came without words, just subtle actions and marvelous acting.
A second award was snapped up as well, and it’s easy to see why as this film stokes your heart with feelings seldom or never felt, makes you cry a little, makes you laugh a little and then makes you feel like things will work out just fine. For all of this the Station Agent captured the coveted Sundance Audience Award. Any time is a good time to see a film like this one, but the upcoming season is an absolutely perfect time to add this gem to your holiday movie stocking.
Along the side of the B-line tracks in tiny Newfoundland, New Jersey sits a minor, almost invisible fragment of railroad history. A weather-beaten orphan of the past, when the world traveled by rail, an exhausted railway station waits to welcome the newest in it’s long line of occupants, Finbar McBride.
The Station Agent, a film written and directed by Tom McCarthy, is the story of a man who’s significance can’t be quantified in inches proving that stature is best measured as the resiliency of the human heart. Fin (Peter Dinklage), born with achondroplasia a form of dwarfism, has recently inherited the old railway station. This is the perfect place for him to hide and to live his life without the towering regard and humiliation the world heaps on top of those who don’t ... measure-up. What happens is quite the opposite.
Having lived in the city most of his life, Fin has actually done quite well at hiding in the midst of the masses. At one point, as he walks down the street, a young boy points, laughs and yells out “Hey, where’s Snow White?” Fin walks on, seemingly oblivious to the remark, the walls are so high that it’s not his hearing that’s barricaded but his heart. Now, at the station, in this microcosmic environment he is unexpectedly confronted with the involvement he so sought to hide from. Joe Orams ( Bobby Cannavale) sells hot-dogs and coffee from a nearby stand and just wants conversation with someone besides the local red-neck yokels. As unrelenting as a dog with a ball, Joe romps, uninvited, uninhibited and charmingly into Fin’s privacy, bringing the one thing that Fin seems never to have had, fun. Olivia Harris ( Patricia Clarkson) who almost runs the modestly sized main character over, twice in the same day, establishes the hinge that finally allows Fin to come to grips with his own internal agony. It’s difficult to feel sorry for yourself when you are helping someone else that you care for.
This film is a wonder of minimalist dialogue, yet it garnered the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Best Script at Sundance. I sat in my seat the entire eighty-minutes and watched the actors act, not dialogue each other to death. This is vitally refreshing and recalls the point that they’re “motion pictures”, pictures with sound and not the other way around. I become easily bored with the overbearing, slice-of-life, dialogue thrashed, verbiage trashed (like this rant) pieces. Not here. The skillful work of Dinklage, drew me inside of the Finnerby Nolton character. I winced when the lady in the store retrieved a camera and stole an intrusive picture of the “cute little-man.” Not from shame, but for that feeling. You know, that “feeling” as a new kid, in a new school, walking into a new class. The dreadful experience that the attention you’re receiving is harshly curious, unkind and unwanted. Numerous other scenes exemplify the difficulty of life in the small lane and most of them came without words, just subtle actions and marvelous acting.
A second award was snapped up as well, and it’s easy to see why as this film stokes your heart with feelings seldom or never felt, makes you cry a little, makes you laugh a little and then makes you feel like things will work out just fine. For all of this the Station Agent captured the coveted Sundance Audience Award. Any time is a good time to see a film like this one, but the upcoming season is an absolutely perfect time to add this gem to your holiday movie stocking.
Stardust
* * *
Fantasy/Action/Adventure
A Babylonian Candle that carries it‘s owner to any chosen destination. A dirigible outfitted sailing ship that sails the high skies fishing for lightning. A Greek chorus of dead prince siblings who cannot leave the earth until a king is named. A magic unicorn. An evil prince who’ll stop at nothing to find the missing key to his kingdom. Three malevolent witches whose single desire is to capture the star that will give them eternal life. A star that falls from the night sky to becomes a beautiful girl, and a boy in search of the one thing that will make his life complete; true love. This is Stardust.
While some will go to this film with Princess Bride in mind, Stardust has a different tone and style than Bride, being consciously written in the tradition of a pre-Tolken English fantasy. It is concerned with the adventures of Tristan, a young man from the village of Wall, a place named for an old rock wall to its east where there is a small opening; a portal to the magical world of Faerie. Tristan promises the girl he loves that he will cross the wall into forbidden Faerie and retrieve a fallen star if she will wait one week before giving her hand in marriage to another. Thus begins Tristan’s journey.
Conceived in 1997 by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, Stardust was originally a graphic novel that was then written, graphed and printed in book form. Matthew Vaughn, director of Layer Cake, picked up Stardust and was able to gather a team of actors that lend the piece credible performances. Michelle Pfeiffer as the leading wicked witch and Robert De Niro as Captain Shakespeare can’t help but steal the show. Claire Danes as the fallen star and Charlie Cox as Tristan are somewhat bland in comparison to the aforementioned but they mange to develop a strong chemistry that makes their roles engaging.
An old fashion hero’s journey, Stardust doesn’t dress itself up with a political correct heroine, or try to balance out evil as poor parenting, or make excuses for human behavior. It is the tale of a boy who becomes a man by undertaking a quest and it is a fine attempt to reengage a world we have lost. This is a story about magic; from the moment it opens until the curtain falls and is the kind of movie you will want to see in the dark with a big screen in front of you.
Fantasy/Action/Adventure
A Babylonian Candle that carries it‘s owner to any chosen destination. A dirigible outfitted sailing ship that sails the high skies fishing for lightning. A Greek chorus of dead prince siblings who cannot leave the earth until a king is named. A magic unicorn. An evil prince who’ll stop at nothing to find the missing key to his kingdom. Three malevolent witches whose single desire is to capture the star that will give them eternal life. A star that falls from the night sky to becomes a beautiful girl, and a boy in search of the one thing that will make his life complete; true love. This is Stardust.
While some will go to this film with Princess Bride in mind, Stardust has a different tone and style than Bride, being consciously written in the tradition of a pre-Tolken English fantasy. It is concerned with the adventures of Tristan, a young man from the village of Wall, a place named for an old rock wall to its east where there is a small opening; a portal to the magical world of Faerie. Tristan promises the girl he loves that he will cross the wall into forbidden Faerie and retrieve a fallen star if she will wait one week before giving her hand in marriage to another. Thus begins Tristan’s journey.
Conceived in 1997 by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, Stardust was originally a graphic novel that was then written, graphed and printed in book form. Matthew Vaughn, director of Layer Cake, picked up Stardust and was able to gather a team of actors that lend the piece credible performances. Michelle Pfeiffer as the leading wicked witch and Robert De Niro as Captain Shakespeare can’t help but steal the show. Claire Danes as the fallen star and Charlie Cox as Tristan are somewhat bland in comparison to the aforementioned but they mange to develop a strong chemistry that makes their roles engaging.
An old fashion hero’s journey, Stardust doesn’t dress itself up with a political correct heroine, or try to balance out evil as poor parenting, or make excuses for human behavior. It is the tale of a boy who becomes a man by undertaking a quest and it is a fine attempt to reengage a world we have lost. This is a story about magic; from the moment it opens until the curtain falls and is the kind of movie you will want to see in the dark with a big screen in front of you.
Spanglish
* *
There are a number of ways to discuss what could be and should be one of the best movies of the year. Management Science expert, Russell Ackoff, states “To manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather than their behavior taken separately.” This would be one way to discuss Spanglish. My wife, noted movie companion and higher household intelligence, sums up this movie with an early management science era term: “hodgepodgy.”
My view is that this good effort is a lukewarm, hodgepodge of separate behaviors. It’s not that Spanglish is unlikable but unfocused; as writer/director James Brooks (As Good As It Gets, Broadcast News) tries to shoehorn a size twelve story into a size six time frame.
John and Deborah Clasky (Adam Sandler and Tia Leoni) – living seemingly perfect lives of ostensibly perfect Angelo’s in nearly perfect California – hire a Mexican immigrant housekeeper, Flor (Paz Vega). The film starts and ends with a tale about Christine (Shelbie Bruce) and her mother Flor, but their tale is soon eaten by the larger dysfunction of the Clasky household. While John; a successful chef and all-around good-guy searches for level terrain in both his personal and professional life, Deborah spends most of her time keeping everyone in the house spinning with her flailing manipulation and over-the-top madness. This should be enough, but thrown in for good measure is Deborah’s mom (Cloris Leachman) and her daughter, Bernice (Sarah Steele), and each of these characters have a story.
Unlike the recent A Day Without A Mexican, Brooks delivers an extremely idealized picture of what undocumented workers deal with when coming to America. Though, this can be better than the jobless prospects faced at home, undocumented work is certainly not the Cinderella-like life portrayed here. The film would have been a more creditable piece had it not been quite so myopic here. As it is, the most work Flor does is to straighten a thing or two while she spends most of the movie trying to evade the wrangling tentacles of Deborah. The fact that Flor is drop-dead gorgeous is not lost on John and as Deborah’s gyrations become too much for him to bear he begins to fall in love with the housekeeper.
Thankfully, there are fine character performances from everyone and I left feeling that I would like to have known more about each character. While Sandler may be one of the major comic figures of the day, it’s Leachman’s portrayal of the alcoholic mother that gets the laughs. Both Bruce and Steele, as the daughters, wedged their way into their roles perfectly, and Leoni, though sometimes too much, leaves you thinking that you know someone like her. Paz Vega, newcomer to American films will surely be sought for future films, but I feel it’s her role that displays the primary flaw in the picture. Throughout the film she develops and finalizes an arc with everyone but the insane housewife who causes so much trouble, Deborah. This is like bringing everyone together at the O.K. Corral and skipping the gunfight for malted’s.
Ironically, the most defining thing about this movie is it’s title. The word Spanglish, the indistinct love-child noun of Spanish and English, is the perfect title for this out of focus film. Good for video or afternoon cheap seats but don’t pay night fare for this.
There are a number of ways to discuss what could be and should be one of the best movies of the year. Management Science expert, Russell Ackoff, states “To manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather than their behavior taken separately.” This would be one way to discuss Spanglish. My wife, noted movie companion and higher household intelligence, sums up this movie with an early management science era term: “hodgepodgy.”
My view is that this good effort is a lukewarm, hodgepodge of separate behaviors. It’s not that Spanglish is unlikable but unfocused; as writer/director James Brooks (As Good As It Gets, Broadcast News) tries to shoehorn a size twelve story into a size six time frame.
John and Deborah Clasky (Adam Sandler and Tia Leoni) – living seemingly perfect lives of ostensibly perfect Angelo’s in nearly perfect California – hire a Mexican immigrant housekeeper, Flor (Paz Vega). The film starts and ends with a tale about Christine (Shelbie Bruce) and her mother Flor, but their tale is soon eaten by the larger dysfunction of the Clasky household. While John; a successful chef and all-around good-guy searches for level terrain in both his personal and professional life, Deborah spends most of her time keeping everyone in the house spinning with her flailing manipulation and over-the-top madness. This should be enough, but thrown in for good measure is Deborah’s mom (Cloris Leachman) and her daughter, Bernice (Sarah Steele), and each of these characters have a story.
Unlike the recent A Day Without A Mexican, Brooks delivers an extremely idealized picture of what undocumented workers deal with when coming to America. Though, this can be better than the jobless prospects faced at home, undocumented work is certainly not the Cinderella-like life portrayed here. The film would have been a more creditable piece had it not been quite so myopic here. As it is, the most work Flor does is to straighten a thing or two while she spends most of the movie trying to evade the wrangling tentacles of Deborah. The fact that Flor is drop-dead gorgeous is not lost on John and as Deborah’s gyrations become too much for him to bear he begins to fall in love with the housekeeper.
Thankfully, there are fine character performances from everyone and I left feeling that I would like to have known more about each character. While Sandler may be one of the major comic figures of the day, it’s Leachman’s portrayal of the alcoholic mother that gets the laughs. Both Bruce and Steele, as the daughters, wedged their way into their roles perfectly, and Leoni, though sometimes too much, leaves you thinking that you know someone like her. Paz Vega, newcomer to American films will surely be sought for future films, but I feel it’s her role that displays the primary flaw in the picture. Throughout the film she develops and finalizes an arc with everyone but the insane housewife who causes so much trouble, Deborah. This is like bringing everyone together at the O.K. Corral and skipping the gunfight for malted’s.
Ironically, the most defining thing about this movie is it’s title. The word Spanglish, the indistinct love-child noun of Spanish and English, is the perfect title for this out of focus film. Good for video or afternoon cheap seats but don’t pay night fare for this.
Somethings Gotta Give
* * *
Growing up with such notable films as Beach Party Bingo I’m living proof that teenage romantic comedy’s are not the most recent commercial brainchild of Hollywood, but in fact have been around for longer than Geritol. The difference between 1960 and now is that trying to find a good adult ‘rocom’ (that’s Hollywood talk) these days is about as easy as finding a guiltless party in the boardroom of Enron. And there’s nothing funny, or romantic about that.
Something’s Gotta Give has a number of prominent problems that the critic’s are chewing into gimcrackery simply for the sake of something to say, but all-in-all it rides high on performance, compelling scene construction and dialogue. With cast members Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Amanda Peet, Keanu Reeves and Frances Mcdormand there is enough talent to keep anyone involved, even though the movie might be too long for it’s own good.
Harry Langer (Nicholson), rich bachelor and senior playboy likes women, exclusively the under-thirty set. At 63 Harry still struts like ... well, like Jack Nicholson. On a weekend tryst to the Hamptons with, much younger girlfriend Marin (Peet) Harry’s libido loses out to his ticker and with heart-attack in hand he gets stuck with Marin’s mother, Erica Barry (Keaton). Harry wears silk pajamas, smokes expensive cigars and owns a leading Hip-Hop record label. Erica writes intuitive, award winning Broadway plays, wears flannel nightwear and doesn’t allow smoking in the house. Shades of African Queen! The two, despite their initial dislike for each other, are thrown together and suffer through forced interaction until it takes hold.
Love is something that both main characters have avoided most of their lives. A divorcee, Erica has hidden behind her uniform of turtle-necks, affected smiles and computer keyboard for years. Harry, on the other hand, has charmed love out of his life by dating only women that are too far from the clock to hear it ticking. For Erica, love happens all too quickly. A late evening offer to make pancakes leads to a scene that is both titillating and honest in it’s warmth. Anyone who has looked into the eye’s of another and felt that feeling that could kick-start a 747 Jumbo Jet will love this scene.
Harry has a ways to go, and that is the rest of the movie. With an audience of mature women in mind, Writer/Director Nancy Meyers (What Women Want, Parent Trap), gives Erica her very own young love interest who comes in the flavor of Harry’s 38-year-old Doctor. A simple ploy that doesn’t fool anyone for a moment, Julian (Reeves) plays the other man role just long enough for Harry to realize that he might lose the only woman he has ever been in love with. But we all know what happens in the end, and unfortunately the end, which is laid out as a plot twist, terminates more like a well defined plot undulation.
What you are familiar with, the scene of Nicholson falling against the wall at the sight of a naked Keaton, is funny yet there are funnier scenes that await. Both Keaton and Nicholson give wonderful performances and one of the best, by McDormand, could have been bolstered by seeing more of her in this film. Critical movie issues aside, Something’s Gotta Give has enough to give to make it worth seeing.
Growing up with such notable films as Beach Party Bingo I’m living proof that teenage romantic comedy’s are not the most recent commercial brainchild of Hollywood, but in fact have been around for longer than Geritol. The difference between 1960 and now is that trying to find a good adult ‘rocom’ (that’s Hollywood talk) these days is about as easy as finding a guiltless party in the boardroom of Enron. And there’s nothing funny, or romantic about that.
Something’s Gotta Give has a number of prominent problems that the critic’s are chewing into gimcrackery simply for the sake of something to say, but all-in-all it rides high on performance, compelling scene construction and dialogue. With cast members Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Amanda Peet, Keanu Reeves and Frances Mcdormand there is enough talent to keep anyone involved, even though the movie might be too long for it’s own good.
Harry Langer (Nicholson), rich bachelor and senior playboy likes women, exclusively the under-thirty set. At 63 Harry still struts like ... well, like Jack Nicholson. On a weekend tryst to the Hamptons with, much younger girlfriend Marin (Peet) Harry’s libido loses out to his ticker and with heart-attack in hand he gets stuck with Marin’s mother, Erica Barry (Keaton). Harry wears silk pajamas, smokes expensive cigars and owns a leading Hip-Hop record label. Erica writes intuitive, award winning Broadway plays, wears flannel nightwear and doesn’t allow smoking in the house. Shades of African Queen! The two, despite their initial dislike for each other, are thrown together and suffer through forced interaction until it takes hold.
Love is something that both main characters have avoided most of their lives. A divorcee, Erica has hidden behind her uniform of turtle-necks, affected smiles and computer keyboard for years. Harry, on the other hand, has charmed love out of his life by dating only women that are too far from the clock to hear it ticking. For Erica, love happens all too quickly. A late evening offer to make pancakes leads to a scene that is both titillating and honest in it’s warmth. Anyone who has looked into the eye’s of another and felt that feeling that could kick-start a 747 Jumbo Jet will love this scene.
Harry has a ways to go, and that is the rest of the movie. With an audience of mature women in mind, Writer/Director Nancy Meyers (What Women Want, Parent Trap), gives Erica her very own young love interest who comes in the flavor of Harry’s 38-year-old Doctor. A simple ploy that doesn’t fool anyone for a moment, Julian (Reeves) plays the other man role just long enough for Harry to realize that he might lose the only woman he has ever been in love with. But we all know what happens in the end, and unfortunately the end, which is laid out as a plot twist, terminates more like a well defined plot undulation.
What you are familiar with, the scene of Nicholson falling against the wall at the sight of a naked Keaton, is funny yet there are funnier scenes that await. Both Keaton and Nicholson give wonderful performances and one of the best, by McDormand, could have been bolstered by seeing more of her in this film. Critical movie issues aside, Something’s Gotta Give has enough to give to make it worth seeing.
Singing In The Rain
* * * * *
This is one of my all-time, Top 10 movie picks, and it constantly amazes me how many people have not seen it. For sheer entertainment value Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds cannot be topped. The recent success of Chicago and Moulin Rouge indicates there is interest in the return of the musical, but unlike those two this film brings us the talents of true “song and dance men (and woman).” What startles one when it is first viewed is the absolute clarity and artistic vision that Gene Kelly brought to this piece. The songs are familiar, the dance routines put Michael Jackson to shame, the story is fun and the glitter is old time Hollywood.
This is one of my all-time, Top 10 movie picks, and it constantly amazes me how many people have not seen it. For sheer entertainment value Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds cannot be topped. The recent success of Chicago and Moulin Rouge indicates there is interest in the return of the musical, but unlike those two this film brings us the talents of true “song and dance men (and woman).” What startles one when it is first viewed is the absolute clarity and artistic vision that Gene Kelly brought to this piece. The songs are familiar, the dance routines put Michael Jackson to shame, the story is fun and the glitter is old time Hollywood.
Silver City
*
Another Bush-whacker from the Independent Nation of Hollywood, but this one leaves me wondering, “What are all of these people going to do if Bush loses?” With no conservative at the helm for story material the stock of independent producers will plummet like a mob informant in the East River, or like John Sayles newest release, Silver City. While I respect much of what this writer/director has done in the past I have to pen this column as a WARNING - BOREDOM, TEDIUM AND JUST PLAIN BAD MOVIE AHEAD!
During the Clinton administration there was a national average of three-hundred hours, per day, conservative talk-radio spewing, anti-Clinton rhetoric. Now there is a constant stream of political diatribe from the progressive movie industry that is being produced at a dizzying pace, and some of it is very good, not this. Silver City leaves you with the feeling that Sayles arose from bed one morning and decided he had better cash in his liberal chits before the election. Single handedly he invents a totally new genre - the preachypolmysrocomdocdrasatnoir. The only thing this isn’t is a SciFi/Western, but .... you just can’t think of everything before your first cup of coffee. Sayles, who can be both deft and witty falls far short with spurts of pie-in-the-face humor and all the dramatic deftness of tying Polly to the railroad tracks.
The story opens with gubernatorial candidate Dickie Pilager (Chris Cooper) being prepared, at the edge of a beautiful mountain lake, to film an environmental TV commercial. Because he is so incredibly stupid he can’t remember what to say, Chuck Raven (Richard Dreyfuss), the astute but Darth Vader-like campaign manager, must be there to direct him. Suddenly, while casting his fishing line into the pristine water of the lake the candidate hooks a hand. No, not his own but one attached to a body floating in the water. Raven deduces that this may be a plot by the evil opposition, and this becomes the impetus that propels the story forward. From here, investigator and past left-wing journalist, Danny O’Brien (Danny Huston, son of John Huston) is hired to contact three suspects for damage control. During this journey (for which he was badly cast) O’Brien eventually discovers why the dead man ended up in the lake, but because the whole story flounders in a morass of plots, endless plot threads and badly cast characters without meanings ... we don’t really care.
The cast of thousands also includes Daryl Hannah, Michael Murphy, Kris Kristofferson, Maria Bello, Billy Zane, Mary Kay Place, Thora Birch and the always incredible Tim Roth. Player power abounds here and I left thinking that this could have been a close, but forgivably more humble rendition of China Town. If the story teller would have concentrated on a very defined political message, instead of the “everything we do as western man is evil and bad,” and thrown in a more defined mystery element this may have been a credible outing.
Most of the time this column is dedicated to great movies, every once in a while I have to post warnings. So here it is - WARNING!
1. Republicans - go see Sky Captain, and NEVER entertain the thought of watching this movie.
2. Independents - stay home altogether and only rent this if Nader becomes the next President.
3. Democrats - only see this if John Sayles is invited to your house for cocktails.
Another Bush-whacker from the Independent Nation of Hollywood, but this one leaves me wondering, “What are all of these people going to do if Bush loses?” With no conservative at the helm for story material the stock of independent producers will plummet like a mob informant in the East River, or like John Sayles newest release, Silver City. While I respect much of what this writer/director has done in the past I have to pen this column as a WARNING - BOREDOM, TEDIUM AND JUST PLAIN BAD MOVIE AHEAD!
During the Clinton administration there was a national average of three-hundred hours, per day, conservative talk-radio spewing, anti-Clinton rhetoric. Now there is a constant stream of political diatribe from the progressive movie industry that is being produced at a dizzying pace, and some of it is very good, not this. Silver City leaves you with the feeling that Sayles arose from bed one morning and decided he had better cash in his liberal chits before the election. Single handedly he invents a totally new genre - the preachypolmysrocomdocdrasatnoir. The only thing this isn’t is a SciFi/Western, but .... you just can’t think of everything before your first cup of coffee. Sayles, who can be both deft and witty falls far short with spurts of pie-in-the-face humor and all the dramatic deftness of tying Polly to the railroad tracks.
The story opens with gubernatorial candidate Dickie Pilager (Chris Cooper) being prepared, at the edge of a beautiful mountain lake, to film an environmental TV commercial. Because he is so incredibly stupid he can’t remember what to say, Chuck Raven (Richard Dreyfuss), the astute but Darth Vader-like campaign manager, must be there to direct him. Suddenly, while casting his fishing line into the pristine water of the lake the candidate hooks a hand. No, not his own but one attached to a body floating in the water. Raven deduces that this may be a plot by the evil opposition, and this becomes the impetus that propels the story forward. From here, investigator and past left-wing journalist, Danny O’Brien (Danny Huston, son of John Huston) is hired to contact three suspects for damage control. During this journey (for which he was badly cast) O’Brien eventually discovers why the dead man ended up in the lake, but because the whole story flounders in a morass of plots, endless plot threads and badly cast characters without meanings ... we don’t really care.
The cast of thousands also includes Daryl Hannah, Michael Murphy, Kris Kristofferson, Maria Bello, Billy Zane, Mary Kay Place, Thora Birch and the always incredible Tim Roth. Player power abounds here and I left thinking that this could have been a close, but forgivably more humble rendition of China Town. If the story teller would have concentrated on a very defined political message, instead of the “everything we do as western man is evil and bad,” and thrown in a more defined mystery element this may have been a credible outing.
Most of the time this column is dedicated to great movies, every once in a while I have to post warnings. So here it is - WARNING!
1. Republicans - go see Sky Captain, and NEVER entertain the thought of watching this movie.
2. Independents - stay home altogether and only rent this if Nader becomes the next President.
3. Democrats - only see this if John Sayles is invited to your house for cocktails.
Shall We Dance
* * *
I’m not a great fan of baseball or dance movies. Baseball films are generally about as exhilarating as a round of mid-day golf in Phoenix in the summer. And dance? Well, I can’t dance so why would I pay good money to sit in a dark theater and watch other people dance? Those were my thoughts before walking into the Starport, early Friday afternoon, to watch Shall We Dance. Later, on my way out of the theater, I shuffled to the left, shuffled to the right, threw my hands in the air and shook my booty. Not a scene you want to contemplate.
Originally produced in Japan and released 1996 under the title of Shall We Dansu? this American remake is the story of a man who lives a life of quiet desperation. Happily married John Clark (Richard Gere) won’t admit that his life has become a vast plain of sameness; a place where nothing much happens. Each morning he goes to his job, each evening he returns to his lovely wife (Susan Sarandon) and his two great kids. A life to be envied, but is that it then? Is that all there is?
One evening, on the commuter train home John looks up at a passing building and sees a sign advertising a dance studio, above the sign a woman stares out of a window; a beautiful woman (Jennifer Lopez). Several nights later John decides to investigate the dance studio. Before he knows it he has signed up for Ballroom Dance lessons, and his life is now forever changed. Happy ending? Not exactly, for the one thing John doesn’t do is tell his wife that he has enrolled in dance lessons. Soon he is dancing in secret; around the house, in his office, at the studio, after work. Well, what’s a woman to think when all of a sudden her mundane, rather placid husband begins to smile and appear as if he’s happier than he’s ever been?
The movie takes a short detour to a private investigator where Sarandon is told her husband is not having an affair of the heart but of the feet. This in place, the film moves on to dance and the spine of the film, the discovery that John is making about himself; he loves to dance. Initially, John signs up for the lessons to meet Lopez, but she soon makes it clear that her love – first and last – is dance.
Movie purist are already knocking this film because it doesn’t meet the mark of its Japanese counterpart. I saw the original and in a sense they’re right, but this isn’t a competition and Shall We Dance was made for the American Market. The original was interesting because it brought to light the desperate lives of men who endure the rigid social/business order of Japan. But, our own culture can be no less mind numbing, and Gere does a wonderful job carrying out this sense social/business dehumanization. While Gere and Sarandon don’t generate enormous chemistry, what they have is more organic; the ability of fine actors to portray their characters well. As a whole piece this film will never rank an Oscar, but with great choreography, some fall-outa-yer-seat comedy and a fine cast (Stanley Tucci, Lisa Ann Walter) this is a film worth seeing. PS - For the one dance scene between Gere and Lopez .... make sure you have plenty of ice in your drink.
I’m not a great fan of baseball or dance movies. Baseball films are generally about as exhilarating as a round of mid-day golf in Phoenix in the summer. And dance? Well, I can’t dance so why would I pay good money to sit in a dark theater and watch other people dance? Those were my thoughts before walking into the Starport, early Friday afternoon, to watch Shall We Dance. Later, on my way out of the theater, I shuffled to the left, shuffled to the right, threw my hands in the air and shook my booty. Not a scene you want to contemplate.
Originally produced in Japan and released 1996 under the title of Shall We Dansu? this American remake is the story of a man who lives a life of quiet desperation. Happily married John Clark (Richard Gere) won’t admit that his life has become a vast plain of sameness; a place where nothing much happens. Each morning he goes to his job, each evening he returns to his lovely wife (Susan Sarandon) and his two great kids. A life to be envied, but is that it then? Is that all there is?
One evening, on the commuter train home John looks up at a passing building and sees a sign advertising a dance studio, above the sign a woman stares out of a window; a beautiful woman (Jennifer Lopez). Several nights later John decides to investigate the dance studio. Before he knows it he has signed up for Ballroom Dance lessons, and his life is now forever changed. Happy ending? Not exactly, for the one thing John doesn’t do is tell his wife that he has enrolled in dance lessons. Soon he is dancing in secret; around the house, in his office, at the studio, after work. Well, what’s a woman to think when all of a sudden her mundane, rather placid husband begins to smile and appear as if he’s happier than he’s ever been?
The movie takes a short detour to a private investigator where Sarandon is told her husband is not having an affair of the heart but of the feet. This in place, the film moves on to dance and the spine of the film, the discovery that John is making about himself; he loves to dance. Initially, John signs up for the lessons to meet Lopez, but she soon makes it clear that her love – first and last – is dance.
Movie purist are already knocking this film because it doesn’t meet the mark of its Japanese counterpart. I saw the original and in a sense they’re right, but this isn’t a competition and Shall We Dance was made for the American Market. The original was interesting because it brought to light the desperate lives of men who endure the rigid social/business order of Japan. But, our own culture can be no less mind numbing, and Gere does a wonderful job carrying out this sense social/business dehumanization. While Gere and Sarandon don’t generate enormous chemistry, what they have is more organic; the ability of fine actors to portray their characters well. As a whole piece this film will never rank an Oscar, but with great choreography, some fall-outa-yer-seat comedy and a fine cast (Stanley Tucci, Lisa Ann Walter) this is a film worth seeing. PS - For the one dance scene between Gere and Lopez .... make sure you have plenty of ice in your drink.
Once
* * * *
Upon A Time … a big movie company spent $175 million dollars to make a movie called Evan Almighty. An earlier film, Bruce Almighty, was made for only $81 million. Bruce grossed $459 million dollars, worldwide, while Evan, a crass attempt to cash in on the God-visits-earth premise has brought in a little more than half of it’s budget and is sinking fast. What does all of this have to do with this weeks movie review? Well, I’d like you to go see a little film that cost only one-hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars to make, and see what Hollywood continues to miss out on … good stories. Once,
Carney, a musician/filmmaker had always wanted to make a film that, while not a traditional musical, would still use a number of songs to tell a very modern, very simple, love story. Once succeeds wildly in this with music that speaks everything about the characters without overwhelming the film with dialogue or inane action.
While the film’s musical score credits the great tradition of Irish music, just as enjoyable are the performances by Hansard and Irglova. Hansard’s sole previous acting gig was a part in The Commitments, an Irish music import from 1991. Marketa Irglova was only seventeen at the time of filming and had no previous acting experience. Both of these people are so relaxed and real on the screen you begin to feel like you’re in your home and these two have stopped by for the evening to entertain you.
Most apparent is the immediate sense that these folks had no production budget at all. The camera shakes a bit because it‘s probably hand-held through most of the film. There are no grand scenic moments or car chases. The lighting tends to be a bit off and much of it is natural. There is really only one difficult shot, and it’s the very last shot in the film; like they saved their Euros for one great last moment. All of this leaves you with a sense that none of the Hollywood production stuff is needed to tell a good story. To date this inexpensive little film has grossed over $5 million dollars in the United States an Irish import written/directed by John Carney, is the love story of two kindred spirits who cross paths on the busy streets of Dublin. Glen Hansard (who in real life is lead singer of The Frames) is a street musician who lacks the confidence to perform his own songs. Marketa Irglova (a Czechoslovakian pianist) plays a young immigrant mother. As their lives intertwine as they discover each other's talents and push one another to realize what each had only dreamt about.
Upon A Time … a big movie company spent $175 million dollars to make a movie called Evan Almighty. An earlier film, Bruce Almighty, was made for only $81 million. Bruce grossed $459 million dollars, worldwide, while Evan, a crass attempt to cash in on the God-visits-earth premise has brought in a little more than half of it’s budget and is sinking fast. What does all of this have to do with this weeks movie review? Well, I’d like you to go see a little film that cost only one-hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars to make, and see what Hollywood continues to miss out on … good stories. Once,
Carney, a musician/filmmaker had always wanted to make a film that, while not a traditional musical, would still use a number of songs to tell a very modern, very simple, love story. Once succeeds wildly in this with music that speaks everything about the characters without overwhelming the film with dialogue or inane action.
While the film’s musical score credits the great tradition of Irish music, just as enjoyable are the performances by Hansard and Irglova. Hansard’s sole previous acting gig was a part in The Commitments, an Irish music import from 1991. Marketa Irglova was only seventeen at the time of filming and had no previous acting experience. Both of these people are so relaxed and real on the screen you begin to feel like you’re in your home and these two have stopped by for the evening to entertain you.
Most apparent is the immediate sense that these folks had no production budget at all. The camera shakes a bit because it‘s probably hand-held through most of the film. There are no grand scenic moments or car chases. The lighting tends to be a bit off and much of it is natural. There is really only one difficult shot, and it’s the very last shot in the film; like they saved their Euros for one great last moment. All of this leaves you with a sense that none of the Hollywood production stuff is needed to tell a good story. To date this inexpensive little film has grossed over $5 million dollars in the United States an Irish import written/directed by John Carney, is the love story of two kindred spirits who cross paths on the busy streets of Dublin. Glen Hansard (who in real life is lead singer of The Frames) is a street musician who lacks the confidence to perform his own songs. Marketa Irglova (a Czechoslovakian pianist) plays a young immigrant mother. As their lives intertwine as they discover each other's talents and push one another to realize what each had only dreamt about.
Nowhere In Africa
* * *
I like films best when I become quickly ensnared in the rhythm of their story. Nowhere In Africa promptly becomes somewhere in your heart. The story of German-Jewish immigrants escaping the horrors of the impending holocaust, to a remote part of Kenya, is told in soft beats of memory by the one person who loves this adventure from beginning to end.
Regina Redlich (played deftly by both Lea Kurka and later by Karoline Eckertz) finds herself transported to a strange land but refuses to be a stranger for long in her new home. While her parents struggle to adapt to their new station in life, Regina takes to Africa and it’s people with the determined energy a five-year-old would have entering the gates of Disneyland. The memories of Regina’s Africa are beautifully displayed in both photography and story, and if I wanted anything more from this film it would have been more of this child’s Tom Sawyer lifestyle.
As prominent as their hard-scrabble lifestyle is, there is also constant tension between Jettel (Juliane Kohler) her mother and Walter (Merab Ninidze) her father. The enormous lifestyle change displays well the fact that as one gets older it’s not just one’s toes that become harder to touch. The inability of her parents to be as flexible as their daughter strains the family almost beyond it’s limits.
Running time: 138 minutes. No MPAA rating. In German with English subtitles. Written and directed by Caroline Link. Based on a novel by Stefanie Zweig.
I like films best when I become quickly ensnared in the rhythm of their story. Nowhere In Africa promptly becomes somewhere in your heart. The story of German-Jewish immigrants escaping the horrors of the impending holocaust, to a remote part of Kenya, is told in soft beats of memory by the one person who loves this adventure from beginning to end.
Regina Redlich (played deftly by both Lea Kurka and later by Karoline Eckertz) finds herself transported to a strange land but refuses to be a stranger for long in her new home. While her parents struggle to adapt to their new station in life, Regina takes to Africa and it’s people with the determined energy a five-year-old would have entering the gates of Disneyland. The memories of Regina’s Africa are beautifully displayed in both photography and story, and if I wanted anything more from this film it would have been more of this child’s Tom Sawyer lifestyle.
As prominent as their hard-scrabble lifestyle is, there is also constant tension between Jettel (Juliane Kohler) her mother and Walter (Merab Ninidze) her father. The enormous lifestyle change displays well the fact that as one gets older it’s not just one’s toes that become harder to touch. The inability of her parents to be as flexible as their daughter strains the family almost beyond it’s limits.
Running time: 138 minutes. No MPAA rating. In German with English subtitles. Written and directed by Caroline Link. Based on a novel by Stefanie Zweig.
Monster-In-Law
* * *
Brendan Behan once wrote “Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re unable to do it themselves.” Now, you’re probably wondering why I’m bringing up a dead, Irish playwright in a column about the romantic comedy starring Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez, Monster-In-Law. Barely out of the gate, this film is receiving lots of coverage, but sadly most of it is negative. Of course the reviews are from professional critics, and many of these people know less about the movie industry than the kids taking tickets at the local theater. Over the past year I’ve made note of several films that critic’s around the country have slashed-n-bashed because they were just fun films. Two that come to mind, Shall We Dance and Hitch, were thrashed soundly by critic’s but produced large Box Office -- not huge – but respectable enough to make a statement. All you critic’s out there, listen-up. We like fun movies! And that’s all Monster-In-Law is; fun.
She met the perfect man. Then she met his mother. This easy set-up moves us to a plot where the monster of a mother-in-law to be, Viola (Jane Fonda), tries to destroy the relationship her son, Kevin (Michael Vartan), has with Charlie (Jennifer Lopez), a self-sufficient, young woman who doesn’t quite measure-up. The girl so rankles Viola that she can’t even call her Charlie and insists on renaming her Charlotte, a name that sticks through nearly the whole movie.
While the film stands mostly on slap-stick it builds from a hearty foundation of the vitriol that can exist between mother-in-laws and the women their sons marry. Fonda, after 15 years away, is a welcome sight on the screen. She’s never had a big comedy role, yet she plays Viola without missing a beat. Lopez, not nearly the actress Fonda is, holds her own as a simple, less complex, less scheming woman who is simply in love. And to those who grumble about how bad she is I would remind them of an early Fonda film, Barbarella. Lopez is getting better all the time, and I expect she will maneuver her way into more appropriate roles as she grows into her talent. Michael Vartan has a little more on-screen time than the dogs that Lopez walks for one of her jobs, but he smiles nicely and allows the ladies all the room they need. Two stand-out roles are Ruby (Wanda Sykes), who nearly steals the show and Gertrude (Elaine Stritch) who nearly steals the end the show.
The real problem with this movie is the set-up; it’s way too long. Director Robert Luketic (Charmed) gives us far too much on the front end that is unnecessary and unfun. I found myself squirming in my seat thinking “Okay, enough of the boy-meets-girl stuff, lets get down to the slap-fight.” I had seen the previews several dozen times, and I wanted to see it in real-time, movie-time. When it finally came it was just as funny but I wanted more. My advice - don’t pay evening prices to see this, but take-off during the heat of the afternoon when you desperately need a laugh. And, don’t measure this film, just watch it ... just have fun.
Brendan Behan once wrote “Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re unable to do it themselves.” Now, you’re probably wondering why I’m bringing up a dead, Irish playwright in a column about the romantic comedy starring Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez, Monster-In-Law. Barely out of the gate, this film is receiving lots of coverage, but sadly most of it is negative. Of course the reviews are from professional critics, and many of these people know less about the movie industry than the kids taking tickets at the local theater. Over the past year I’ve made note of several films that critic’s around the country have slashed-n-bashed because they were just fun films. Two that come to mind, Shall We Dance and Hitch, were thrashed soundly by critic’s but produced large Box Office -- not huge – but respectable enough to make a statement. All you critic’s out there, listen-up. We like fun movies! And that’s all Monster-In-Law is; fun.
She met the perfect man. Then she met his mother. This easy set-up moves us to a plot where the monster of a mother-in-law to be, Viola (Jane Fonda), tries to destroy the relationship her son, Kevin (Michael Vartan), has with Charlie (Jennifer Lopez), a self-sufficient, young woman who doesn’t quite measure-up. The girl so rankles Viola that she can’t even call her Charlie and insists on renaming her Charlotte, a name that sticks through nearly the whole movie.
While the film stands mostly on slap-stick it builds from a hearty foundation of the vitriol that can exist between mother-in-laws and the women their sons marry. Fonda, after 15 years away, is a welcome sight on the screen. She’s never had a big comedy role, yet she plays Viola without missing a beat. Lopez, not nearly the actress Fonda is, holds her own as a simple, less complex, less scheming woman who is simply in love. And to those who grumble about how bad she is I would remind them of an early Fonda film, Barbarella. Lopez is getting better all the time, and I expect she will maneuver her way into more appropriate roles as she grows into her talent. Michael Vartan has a little more on-screen time than the dogs that Lopez walks for one of her jobs, but he smiles nicely and allows the ladies all the room they need. Two stand-out roles are Ruby (Wanda Sykes), who nearly steals the show and Gertrude (Elaine Stritch) who nearly steals the end the show.
The real problem with this movie is the set-up; it’s way too long. Director Robert Luketic (Charmed) gives us far too much on the front end that is unnecessary and unfun. I found myself squirming in my seat thinking “Okay, enough of the boy-meets-girl stuff, lets get down to the slap-fight.” I had seen the previews several dozen times, and I wanted to see it in real-time, movie-time. When it finally came it was just as funny but I wanted more. My advice - don’t pay evening prices to see this, but take-off during the heat of the afternoon when you desperately need a laugh. And, don’t measure this film, just watch it ... just have fun.
The Matador
* * *
So, two strangers walk into a bar and order margaritas. The first stranger downs his margarita and says, “I’m a mild-mannered sales guy. I live in the first phase of a nice track development, in the heart of the country. My wife is a petite dish-water blond, and though most people wouldn’t give her a second glance, I think she’s hot. I sell integrated multi-functional non- descriptional units. It’s fascinating- really. My career? I’ve had my ups and downs, but right now I’m bouncing back . . . I think. He turns and asks the other stranger, “So, what do you do?” The other stranger downs his margarita, turns suavely on his stool and says, “I’m a hitman.”
I imagine the pitch for The Matador went something like the above when writer/director Richard Shepard shopped this story around to various production companies. Mild mannered sales guy, Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear), meets broke-down, on-his-last leg killer guy, Julian Noble (Pierce Brosnan), and the two support each other through their particular career dilemmas. The movie set-up is a bit Hollywood, as this initial ground-work takes place well away from Wright’s home base, Denver, where, it just so happens, Noble recently completed his last assignment. Then, it just so happens, that the two end up meeting at a hotel bar in Mexico, both on business and both coming to terms with the possibility that they have somehow slipped past the nadir of their careers. Eventually they part only to meet again when Noble shows up at Wright’s home, in the middle of a snowy Denver night. He has come to beg for Wright’s help with one, last hit.
In my past I spent enough time in bars to know that one really does meet an odd variety of characters whiling away hours on the bar stool. My particular one was a Seminole dancer who’s dance attire was lost in transport, that’s another movie. But, there are two other reasons the suspension of disbelief works in this story. The first is the manner in which the script builds key elements right at the outset and makes this a funny, believable premise. While it’s not a laugh-out-loud piece, it is dark and wickedly fun, kind of like the Cohen Brothers meet Quintine Tarantino. Secondly the actors develop complex characters we can accept as regular people. In the real world there are sales guys and there are people who are hitmen, and of course any one of us sales guys could meet a killer, at a bar, and be somewhat okay with it under the right circumstances. Brosnan has been searching for years, for a role that would take him past his Bond image and in this story he takes un-suave, distasteful, obnoxious to new heights. Kinnear nails his role with little moments that you can imagine as your moments, and Hope Davis as Bean, Danny’s wife, shines as the introvert who can barely contain herself when she learns that her late night visitor is a hitman.
It’s difficult for films of this kind to have any heart. Mostly because films like this have a strong drive to be weird and that overwhelms everything else. This film drifts into some moments of sentimentality that are vague but right at the end one small fact is revealed that allows us to see the heart of the piece …. so it fails at being funny but succeeds at being quirky with heart. Olé.
So, two strangers walk into a bar and order margaritas. The first stranger downs his margarita and says, “I’m a mild-mannered sales guy. I live in the first phase of a nice track development, in the heart of the country. My wife is a petite dish-water blond, and though most people wouldn’t give her a second glance, I think she’s hot. I sell integrated multi-functional non- descriptional units. It’s fascinating- really. My career? I’ve had my ups and downs, but right now I’m bouncing back . . . I think. He turns and asks the other stranger, “So, what do you do?” The other stranger downs his margarita, turns suavely on his stool and says, “I’m a hitman.”
I imagine the pitch for The Matador went something like the above when writer/director Richard Shepard shopped this story around to various production companies. Mild mannered sales guy, Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear), meets broke-down, on-his-last leg killer guy, Julian Noble (Pierce Brosnan), and the two support each other through their particular career dilemmas. The movie set-up is a bit Hollywood, as this initial ground-work takes place well away from Wright’s home base, Denver, where, it just so happens, Noble recently completed his last assignment. Then, it just so happens, that the two end up meeting at a hotel bar in Mexico, both on business and both coming to terms with the possibility that they have somehow slipped past the nadir of their careers. Eventually they part only to meet again when Noble shows up at Wright’s home, in the middle of a snowy Denver night. He has come to beg for Wright’s help with one, last hit.
In my past I spent enough time in bars to know that one really does meet an odd variety of characters whiling away hours on the bar stool. My particular one was a Seminole dancer who’s dance attire was lost in transport, that’s another movie. But, there are two other reasons the suspension of disbelief works in this story. The first is the manner in which the script builds key elements right at the outset and makes this a funny, believable premise. While it’s not a laugh-out-loud piece, it is dark and wickedly fun, kind of like the Cohen Brothers meet Quintine Tarantino. Secondly the actors develop complex characters we can accept as regular people. In the real world there are sales guys and there are people who are hitmen, and of course any one of us sales guys could meet a killer, at a bar, and be somewhat okay with it under the right circumstances. Brosnan has been searching for years, for a role that would take him past his Bond image and in this story he takes un-suave, distasteful, obnoxious to new heights. Kinnear nails his role with little moments that you can imagine as your moments, and Hope Davis as Bean, Danny’s wife, shines as the introvert who can barely contain herself when she learns that her late night visitor is a hitman.
It’s difficult for films of this kind to have any heart. Mostly because films like this have a strong drive to be weird and that overwhelms everything else. This film drifts into some moments of sentimentality that are vague but right at the end one small fact is revealed that allows us to see the heart of the piece …. so it fails at being funny but succeeds at being quirky with heart. Olé.
Mad Hot Ballroom
* * *
There was a time in this country, shortly after the disappearance of the one-room schoolhouse, when dance remained a part of school curriculum; I was in the fifth-grade. It was a time when the word “cootie” was in style, and the mere thought of the word “bitch” could bring to ones taste buds the savory opulence of a variety of soaps flavors: Ivory was my personal favorite. It was the late ‘50's, and kids my age had at least one or two classes in dance. Today, a time when most school systems have placed a financial moratorium on the arts, Mad Hot Ballroom is a refreshing, though somewhat poorly defined, film about teaching ballroom dance to inner-city kids.
In 2003 writer/producer Amy Sewell contacted independent film maker Marilyn Agrelo to work on a documentary about 60 schools in the NYC school system that require students to take a 10-week ballroom dance course. Sewell had written an article for the Tribeca Trib on the subject earlier and had felt: limited by the space she was allowed, and encouraged to expand the subject by what she witnessed.
The documentary tracks three of the 60 schools in the program with up-close interviews and unobtrusive camera work creating a riotous parade of kids in ballroom dance competition. There are numerous moments: amusing, interesting and touching, with the adults while the main characters, the students, are left mostly to “kids say the darndest things” chatter. The overall feel is fun and funny, but it is also a poignant illustration of how far we’ve traveled yet still remain the same. At one point Tara, all of 11 years-old, speaks quite frankly about her future and how she’s got the “right stuff” to make it in show business. This conversation is closely followed by a group of pre- pubescent boys whose primary struggle in life is to make eye-contact with their dance partners but debate knowingly the differences between the sexes and whose the “hottest” girl in the dance program.
There are so many hilarious and heartwarming moments in this film that it’s easy to forgive the lack of direction and structural elements that could have made it the “Spellbound,” of this year. To Sewell’s credit this is truly an interesting topic, and despite the fact that the pacing becomes corrupted by the inability of the director to draw certain elements tightly around the core of this unusual experiment, it still maintains enough forward momentum to get us to the end; the city-wide dance contest. There is discussion throughout the film about how this program has changed the lives of many at-risk kids, and here, at the end of the film, one can’t help but feel what the loss of art in our school programs has cost us.
We have followed three schools and only one has made it to the finals–PS 115 (Washington Heights)–the most problematic of the three. A school dominated by underprivileged Dominican immigrants in one of the poorest sections of the city, a place where anything good is welcome respite from what goes in the real world. And here, at the end, the place of recognition, we watch as “our kids” compete. This is the real success of the film. At some point we have adopted these poor kids and this revived program. And, as we hold our breaths for the judges decision, we can’t help but wonder why we no longer teach our children to dance.
There was a time in this country, shortly after the disappearance of the one-room schoolhouse, when dance remained a part of school curriculum; I was in the fifth-grade. It was a time when the word “cootie” was in style, and the mere thought of the word “bitch” could bring to ones taste buds the savory opulence of a variety of soaps flavors: Ivory was my personal favorite. It was the late ‘50's, and kids my age had at least one or two classes in dance. Today, a time when most school systems have placed a financial moratorium on the arts, Mad Hot Ballroom is a refreshing, though somewhat poorly defined, film about teaching ballroom dance to inner-city kids.
In 2003 writer/producer Amy Sewell contacted independent film maker Marilyn Agrelo to work on a documentary about 60 schools in the NYC school system that require students to take a 10-week ballroom dance course. Sewell had written an article for the Tribeca Trib on the subject earlier and had felt: limited by the space she was allowed, and encouraged to expand the subject by what she witnessed.
The documentary tracks three of the 60 schools in the program with up-close interviews and unobtrusive camera work creating a riotous parade of kids in ballroom dance competition. There are numerous moments: amusing, interesting and touching, with the adults while the main characters, the students, are left mostly to “kids say the darndest things” chatter. The overall feel is fun and funny, but it is also a poignant illustration of how far we’ve traveled yet still remain the same. At one point Tara, all of 11 years-old, speaks quite frankly about her future and how she’s got the “right stuff” to make it in show business. This conversation is closely followed by a group of pre- pubescent boys whose primary struggle in life is to make eye-contact with their dance partners but debate knowingly the differences between the sexes and whose the “hottest” girl in the dance program.
There are so many hilarious and heartwarming moments in this film that it’s easy to forgive the lack of direction and structural elements that could have made it the “Spellbound,” of this year. To Sewell’s credit this is truly an interesting topic, and despite the fact that the pacing becomes corrupted by the inability of the director to draw certain elements tightly around the core of this unusual experiment, it still maintains enough forward momentum to get us to the end; the city-wide dance contest. There is discussion throughout the film about how this program has changed the lives of many at-risk kids, and here, at the end of the film, one can’t help but feel what the loss of art in our school programs has cost us.
We have followed three schools and only one has made it to the finals–PS 115 (Washington Heights)–the most problematic of the three. A school dominated by underprivileged Dominican immigrants in one of the poorest sections of the city, a place where anything good is welcome respite from what goes in the real world. And here, at the end, the place of recognition, we watch as “our kids” compete. This is the real success of the film. At some point we have adopted these poor kids and this revived program. And, as we hold our breaths for the judges decision, we can’t help but wonder why we no longer teach our children to dance.
Lost In Translation
*
I have taken out my compass, tried to realign myself, and I’m still lost as to why this film is receiving the big buzz and 4 Academy Award nominations. Lost In Translation is not a bad film. It is a fairly good showcase for Scarlett Johansson, and as an early work of Sofia Coppola it has the earmarks of someone who is going to make significant contributions to the art of cinema. But, it is not one of the better pieces from last year and in the rearview of time will not be considered as a seminal first, a great love story or much more than a sweet travel-log.
What is most appealing to many that I’ve talked to about the film is the setting. The fast paced, exotic world of Tokyo and the custom wielding Japanese are host to Bob Harris (Bill Murray), an over the hill actor who has been contracted to a Japanese company to hawk their whisky. While his face becomes plastered across the city he sits every night, alone in the hotel bar, getting soused. Eventually, he meets the young, beautiful and married Charlotte (Scarlet Johansson).
Charlotte is an along-for-the-ride wife whose husband works away the days and snores away the nights. Through their common disenchantment with their situations Bob and Charlotte, who keep meeting in the hotel public areas, develop a friendship. At first it’s only that, but as the story progresses and the hollowness of their marital situations becomes apparent we see that these two are on the edge of making things right by doing the wrong thing. A night together in bed takes place, but they remain fully clothed and simply fall asleep together, as friends would. This is the sweet edge to the story and it remains that way throughout.
Bill Murray plays his part well but is pretty much just a low keyed Bill Murray. Every move he makes, if geared up higher is .... Bill Murray. The real acting here is done by Ms. Johansson who is currently starring in The Girl With The Pearl Earring.
While still at local theaters, this piece is also now available on video and DVD. It was released in this manner because once the Academy Awards is over the buzz will disappear faster than the monsoon season in Albuquerque. My suggestion is to find a night when; you want to travel to Japan, want to watch Murray subdued, want to see the very sexy Scarlett Johansson, and go rent it. This is also the best way to determine what, if anything, Bill says to Scarlet at the very end of the movie. I won’t spoil it here by telling you
I have taken out my compass, tried to realign myself, and I’m still lost as to why this film is receiving the big buzz and 4 Academy Award nominations. Lost In Translation is not a bad film. It is a fairly good showcase for Scarlett Johansson, and as an early work of Sofia Coppola it has the earmarks of someone who is going to make significant contributions to the art of cinema. But, it is not one of the better pieces from last year and in the rearview of time will not be considered as a seminal first, a great love story or much more than a sweet travel-log.
What is most appealing to many that I’ve talked to about the film is the setting. The fast paced, exotic world of Tokyo and the custom wielding Japanese are host to Bob Harris (Bill Murray), an over the hill actor who has been contracted to a Japanese company to hawk their whisky. While his face becomes plastered across the city he sits every night, alone in the hotel bar, getting soused. Eventually, he meets the young, beautiful and married Charlotte (Scarlet Johansson).
Charlotte is an along-for-the-ride wife whose husband works away the days and snores away the nights. Through their common disenchantment with their situations Bob and Charlotte, who keep meeting in the hotel public areas, develop a friendship. At first it’s only that, but as the story progresses and the hollowness of their marital situations becomes apparent we see that these two are on the edge of making things right by doing the wrong thing. A night together in bed takes place, but they remain fully clothed and simply fall asleep together, as friends would. This is the sweet edge to the story and it remains that way throughout.
Bill Murray plays his part well but is pretty much just a low keyed Bill Murray. Every move he makes, if geared up higher is .... Bill Murray. The real acting here is done by Ms. Johansson who is currently starring in The Girl With The Pearl Earring.
While still at local theaters, this piece is also now available on video and DVD. It was released in this manner because once the Academy Awards is over the buzz will disappear faster than the monsoon season in Albuquerque. My suggestion is to find a night when; you want to travel to Japan, want to watch Murray subdued, want to see the very sexy Scarlett Johansson, and go rent it. This is also the best way to determine what, if anything, Bill says to Scarlet at the very end of the movie. I won’t spoil it here by telling you
Lord of War
* * * *
A flash of icky fascination creeps up my spine when watching films about characters whose code of ethics have no moral foundation or fabric. Films like Scarface and Goodfellas come to mind, and I suppose I feel that way because I realize these people–or people like them–really exist. People with little moral aptitude fill the screen in the intriguing Lord Of War as Director/Writer Andrew Niccol (The Truman Show, Gattica) lays out the world of the professional arms dealer in a darkly humorous tale based on true events.
When Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage), a young, first generation Ukranian from New York City decides that serving hash in the family restaurant doesn’t provide nearly the earning power that selling guns does he convinces his younger brother, Vitaly (Jared Leto), to join him in the lucrative gun trade. Yuri has his sights set on more than a store-front on Fifth Avenue and soon the two brothers are in attendance at the West Berlin arms fair of 1983 where Yuri meets his hero and future nemesis, master arms dealer Simon Weisz (Ian Holm). When approached by the bubbling younger man Weisz quickly dismisses Yuri with one sentence: “I’m in the business to change governments.” A critical difference between the two men is that Yuri is in the business to do business, just like he would be if he were selling refrigerators or television sets, and his character plays true to this theme throughout.
The brother’s first big break comes after the U.S. pull-out from Lebanon when they contract with shady military types to sell huge stockpiles of arms left behind; more costly to ship than replace. As their business grows, Vitaly, tortured by his conscience, becomes a casualty of another weapon; cocain. Later,Yuri marry’s the woman of his dreams, Eva (Bridget Moynahan) and they live an affluent don’t-ask-don’t-tell lifestyle. The second big break, and in fact a break in all arms sales world-wide, comes with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Yuri contacts his uncle, a Russian general, on the fringe of the collapse and is the first one to begin making deals, but it’s no longer simple arms, now it’s tanks, transports, helicopters . . . anything and everything that can be used to kill and destroy.
In un-PC fashion Niccol plays out most of his war scenario’s in strife torn Africa. Here Yuri makes the big-time with massive sales of AK-47's, the weapon of choice for everybody from psychopathic despots to twelve-year olds. His best customer, bloodthirsty Liberian dictator Baptiste Senior (Eamonn Walker) plays an interesting foil for the casually blithe arms dealer, and in fact he views Yuri’s nearly callous business approach to selling arms with both interest and contempt.
Throughout the two decades of the story Yuri is pursued unsuccessfully by Interpol agent Valentine (Ethan Hawke). Finally, he is betrayed by Eva when she is confronted with the truth of her husbands business. Captured and taken to a private cell Yuri explains the facts of life to Valentine. He, Yuri, will be set free in mere moments, because the world needs arms dealers in order to keep the hands of people in higher places clean from the blood and destruction caused by the massively lucrative arms trade.
Told with liberal use of voice-over and dark humor the film ends by listing the names of the top five arms producing country’s in the world: Russia, China, France, Britain and the United States; who, incidently also happen to be the only permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
A flash of icky fascination creeps up my spine when watching films about characters whose code of ethics have no moral foundation or fabric. Films like Scarface and Goodfellas come to mind, and I suppose I feel that way because I realize these people–or people like them–really exist. People with little moral aptitude fill the screen in the intriguing Lord Of War as Director/Writer Andrew Niccol (The Truman Show, Gattica) lays out the world of the professional arms dealer in a darkly humorous tale based on true events.
When Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage), a young, first generation Ukranian from New York City decides that serving hash in the family restaurant doesn’t provide nearly the earning power that selling guns does he convinces his younger brother, Vitaly (Jared Leto), to join him in the lucrative gun trade. Yuri has his sights set on more than a store-front on Fifth Avenue and soon the two brothers are in attendance at the West Berlin arms fair of 1983 where Yuri meets his hero and future nemesis, master arms dealer Simon Weisz (Ian Holm). When approached by the bubbling younger man Weisz quickly dismisses Yuri with one sentence: “I’m in the business to change governments.” A critical difference between the two men is that Yuri is in the business to do business, just like he would be if he were selling refrigerators or television sets, and his character plays true to this theme throughout.
The brother’s first big break comes after the U.S. pull-out from Lebanon when they contract with shady military types to sell huge stockpiles of arms left behind; more costly to ship than replace. As their business grows, Vitaly, tortured by his conscience, becomes a casualty of another weapon; cocain. Later,Yuri marry’s the woman of his dreams, Eva (Bridget Moynahan) and they live an affluent don’t-ask-don’t-tell lifestyle. The second big break, and in fact a break in all arms sales world-wide, comes with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Yuri contacts his uncle, a Russian general, on the fringe of the collapse and is the first one to begin making deals, but it’s no longer simple arms, now it’s tanks, transports, helicopters . . . anything and everything that can be used to kill and destroy.
In un-PC fashion Niccol plays out most of his war scenario’s in strife torn Africa. Here Yuri makes the big-time with massive sales of AK-47's, the weapon of choice for everybody from psychopathic despots to twelve-year olds. His best customer, bloodthirsty Liberian dictator Baptiste Senior (Eamonn Walker) plays an interesting foil for the casually blithe arms dealer, and in fact he views Yuri’s nearly callous business approach to selling arms with both interest and contempt.
Throughout the two decades of the story Yuri is pursued unsuccessfully by Interpol agent Valentine (Ethan Hawke). Finally, he is betrayed by Eva when she is confronted with the truth of her husbands business. Captured and taken to a private cell Yuri explains the facts of life to Valentine. He, Yuri, will be set free in mere moments, because the world needs arms dealers in order to keep the hands of people in higher places clean from the blood and destruction caused by the massively lucrative arms trade.
Told with liberal use of voice-over and dark humor the film ends by listing the names of the top five arms producing country’s in the world: Russia, China, France, Britain and the United States; who, incidently also happen to be the only permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
Little Miss Sunshine
* * * *
We all have quirky family member’s, heck, I’m one. And in far reaching, extended families we may have several two-headed, gun-totting cousins, uncles and/or aunts, but rarely could we imagine a road trip where most everyone in the car is a complete social, financial, physical, kooky failure. These are the personalities that fill every minute of Little Ms. Sunshine.
The struggling Hoovers, an entire household of geeks and losers, reluctantly get behind their one shred of hope--and the only real winner in the family, 7-year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin)--when good news arrives. By default, Olive has been chosen to participate in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in Redondo Beach, Calif. While she goes crazy with her preparations, the losers figure out how in world they are going to arrange their lives to get Olive from Albuquerque to California. Road trip!
Much like the Ship of Fools the Hoover family sets out, only this is the Vehicle of Dysfunction. Olive’s father, Richard (Greg Kinnear), is a driven mess of a motivational speaker who’s spoken professional dialogue is constantly internalized. In his heart-of-hearts Richard feels like the loser he constantly rants against. Olive’s mother, Sheryl (Toni Collette), serves dinner, chicken in a bucket on paper plates and we get the idea real quick that this is not a pleasant departure from regular nutrition, but nightly fare. Sheryl is done with her husband’s rah-rah attitude and constant get rich quick business failures. Brother Dwayne (Paul Dano), hates everyone in his loser family, except Olive, and has taken a Nietzschean vow of silence until he graduates high-school and can attend the Air Force Academy. Frank (Steve Carell), Sheryl’s brother and world renowned Proust scholar, has just been picked up from the hospital after his failed suicide attempt. He learned that his boyfriend had dumped him for another, much older Proust scholar. Rounding out this mess is Grandpa (Alan Arkin), who lives with the kids because he got kicked out of his retirement facility when they discovered he was snorting heroin.
During the journey there is continued failure by this group of losers. There is also great success, but in those areas that are not often considered when victory is only related to in terms of dollars in the bank or what kind of car is in the garage. While Little Miss Sunshine could have easily wandered into Griswold family vacation territory, the character’s surprise us with moments of sincere humanity and smart humor that keeps the film from falling down for cheap laughs. There is nothing sappy about any of it, instead the carefully balanced approach by the husband-and-wife team of co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, is so winning that it’s dark-edged bite comes off as totally human and enjoyable for even the most demanding film aficionado. Add to that an absolutely superb, but understated cast and the overall effect is heartfelt, real and hysterically funny. We know these people, and riding with them is like riding across country with our own family. We may want to shoot ourselves at various stages in the journey but by the end of the trip we have grown to love the people we started out with.
We all have quirky family member’s, heck, I’m one. And in far reaching, extended families we may have several two-headed, gun-totting cousins, uncles and/or aunts, but rarely could we imagine a road trip where most everyone in the car is a complete social, financial, physical, kooky failure. These are the personalities that fill every minute of Little Ms. Sunshine.
The struggling Hoovers, an entire household of geeks and losers, reluctantly get behind their one shred of hope--and the only real winner in the family, 7-year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin)--when good news arrives. By default, Olive has been chosen to participate in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in Redondo Beach, Calif. While she goes crazy with her preparations, the losers figure out how in world they are going to arrange their lives to get Olive from Albuquerque to California. Road trip!
Much like the Ship of Fools the Hoover family sets out, only this is the Vehicle of Dysfunction. Olive’s father, Richard (Greg Kinnear), is a driven mess of a motivational speaker who’s spoken professional dialogue is constantly internalized. In his heart-of-hearts Richard feels like the loser he constantly rants against. Olive’s mother, Sheryl (Toni Collette), serves dinner, chicken in a bucket on paper plates and we get the idea real quick that this is not a pleasant departure from regular nutrition, but nightly fare. Sheryl is done with her husband’s rah-rah attitude and constant get rich quick business failures. Brother Dwayne (Paul Dano), hates everyone in his loser family, except Olive, and has taken a Nietzschean vow of silence until he graduates high-school and can attend the Air Force Academy. Frank (Steve Carell), Sheryl’s brother and world renowned Proust scholar, has just been picked up from the hospital after his failed suicide attempt. He learned that his boyfriend had dumped him for another, much older Proust scholar. Rounding out this mess is Grandpa (Alan Arkin), who lives with the kids because he got kicked out of his retirement facility when they discovered he was snorting heroin.
During the journey there is continued failure by this group of losers. There is also great success, but in those areas that are not often considered when victory is only related to in terms of dollars in the bank or what kind of car is in the garage. While Little Miss Sunshine could have easily wandered into Griswold family vacation territory, the character’s surprise us with moments of sincere humanity and smart humor that keeps the film from falling down for cheap laughs. There is nothing sappy about any of it, instead the carefully balanced approach by the husband-and-wife team of co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, is so winning that it’s dark-edged bite comes off as totally human and enjoyable for even the most demanding film aficionado. Add to that an absolutely superb, but understated cast and the overall effect is heartfelt, real and hysterically funny. We know these people, and riding with them is like riding across country with our own family. We may want to shoot ourselves at various stages in the journey but by the end of the trip we have grown to love the people we started out with.
King Kong
KING KONG * * *
This new Peter Jackson film, King Kong, is a really big story. Okay, okay no more puns . . . promise, I won’t monkey around anymore. Now, you wouldn’t think there would be much need to write a review about one of the major classic films of all time (so far), but what I’ve discovered in the past few weeks is that there are any number of folks out there that haven’t experienced this story before. So here it is in a nutshell: boy meets girl; boy falls in love with girl; girl dumps boy for a dashingly gallant 25-foot Silverback Gorilla; boy leaves and joins The New Amour Propre, a men’s only self-help farm located off the coast of Greenland, where each day is spent in the planting of turnips and examining one’s self-worth.
Of course none of your time is wasted on the young man, after all who wants to see that? What we want to see is just how and why any self-respecting girl would fall for a big monkey, and we do. Giovan Straparalo wrote the original Beauty and the Beast story in the 1550’s, and ever since story-tellers have been intrigued with this format. This tale really hits home in early adolescence, when nearly every young man- pounding his testosterone filled chests, croaking and bellowing gibberish and stomping through his own danger filled jungle- is trying to figure out what’s going to make that special girl consider him . . . for even a moment . . . less animal and more man.
The true test of making it as a King Kong remake is whether or not the director can pull emotion from a crowd of skeptical spectators who may be more interested in action than love. This remake makes it and unlike the past Kong’s it has less to do with the humans and more to do with the directing and Kong himself. While Naomi Watts, as Ann Darrow, plays a stable foil for Kong’s considerable talents she’s no gorilla-my-dreams (sorry, just can’t help myself), and I have to return to the venerable Fay Ray or even Jessica Lange for the best of the Kong Girls. Adrian Brody (Jack Driscoll) is palatable though there should be laws passed against any profile shots of this man. The most notable human on-board here is Jack Black (Carl Denham) as the rascally showman who causes Kong’s eventual fall (sorry).
This is a great movie to attend while it’s at the big screen. It is a family film and keeps it that way but with lots of action moments and fun. There are some scary/creepy parts, but those will probably do more to rattle adults than kids. In the end you’ll find that this story strikes deeper than you would think; it’s more than simple science fiction or sci-fi adventure, it’s a real love story, one that has nothing to do with gender intimacy, just the connection between two living beings; one who needs protection from the dangers of a savage world, and one who needs love in a world where there is none.
This new Peter Jackson film, King Kong, is a really big story. Okay, okay no more puns . . . promise, I won’t monkey around anymore. Now, you wouldn’t think there would be much need to write a review about one of the major classic films of all time (so far), but what I’ve discovered in the past few weeks is that there are any number of folks out there that haven’t experienced this story before. So here it is in a nutshell: boy meets girl; boy falls in love with girl; girl dumps boy for a dashingly gallant 25-foot Silverback Gorilla; boy leaves and joins The New Amour Propre, a men’s only self-help farm located off the coast of Greenland, where each day is spent in the planting of turnips and examining one’s self-worth.
Of course none of your time is wasted on the young man, after all who wants to see that? What we want to see is just how and why any self-respecting girl would fall for a big monkey, and we do. Giovan Straparalo wrote the original Beauty and the Beast story in the 1550’s, and ever since story-tellers have been intrigued with this format. This tale really hits home in early adolescence, when nearly every young man- pounding his testosterone filled chests, croaking and bellowing gibberish and stomping through his own danger filled jungle- is trying to figure out what’s going to make that special girl consider him . . . for even a moment . . . less animal and more man.
The true test of making it as a King Kong remake is whether or not the director can pull emotion from a crowd of skeptical spectators who may be more interested in action than love. This remake makes it and unlike the past Kong’s it has less to do with the humans and more to do with the directing and Kong himself. While Naomi Watts, as Ann Darrow, plays a stable foil for Kong’s considerable talents she’s no gorilla-my-dreams (sorry, just can’t help myself), and I have to return to the venerable Fay Ray or even Jessica Lange for the best of the Kong Girls. Adrian Brody (Jack Driscoll) is palatable though there should be laws passed against any profile shots of this man. The most notable human on-board here is Jack Black (Carl Denham) as the rascally showman who causes Kong’s eventual fall (sorry).
This is a great movie to attend while it’s at the big screen. It is a family film and keeps it that way but with lots of action moments and fun. There are some scary/creepy parts, but those will probably do more to rattle adults than kids. In the end you’ll find that this story strikes deeper than you would think; it’s more than simple science fiction or sci-fi adventure, it’s a real love story, one that has nothing to do with gender intimacy, just the connection between two living beings; one who needs protection from the dangers of a savage world, and one who needs love in a world where there is none.
Jarhead
* * *
Someone said that “Jarhead” is like “Waiting for Godot” with sunscreen, and if you’re inclined to see this film then be prepared for exactly that. But, that’s the point of this story; here war isn’t hell, it’s the waiting that’s hell.
Based on the book of real-life Marine sniper, Anthony "Swoff" Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal), “Jarhead” is a course, funny and sobering portrait of one scout/sniper platoon and their journey to and through Desert Storm. The film opens at the appropriate moment; that point of reality when a young Swoff comes to grips with the fact that his rush to join the elite combatants of the world, his hastily formed reasoning based as much on a lack of direction as on personal family history . . . may have been a bit shortsighted.
What follows is the build-up to war, but it’s more meaty in a manner that most war films are not. The genre of war films is usually about . . .war. Jarhead goes to war but the film’s thesis is more about the process and results of robotizing men who will go to war than the actual involvement in the act itself. We’re guided through the boot-camp process without all the glitz, and the actual moment when these young men have secured their places within the ranks of the select few comes and goes with little in the way of hoo-rah. Instead, what’s revealed is the real impact of what they have achieved, what they have become, what they have been made into and what they will never un-become. This is apparent when the platoon’s evening entertainment is a viewing of “Apocalypse Now‘s,” helicopter/beach scene, conveniently provided the night before they depart for war with Saddam.
Swifted off to face the enemy Swoff, along with the other young men in his platoon find that the real enemy is a faceless land of heat and sand and inexorable, inexhaustible time. They fill the void and address their enemy with MASH-like moments that are made grittier with the tension of trained killers who are in limbo; waiting to kill; waiting to fulfill their goal. Staff Sgt. Sykes (Jamie Foxx) is in charge here and he makes well known that he loves the life of a Marine and expects these men to do nothing less. The role fits Foxx well and in fact the three leads Gyllenhall, Foxx and Peter Sarsguard (Swoff’s Jarhead buddy) are all worthy of high praise.
There are complaints the film lacks a plot or point or political meaning but that’s what makes this film. As if war could have a reasonable point “Jarhead’s” lack of a political or satirical point of view is frustrating, but pointlessness and frustration are two of the major themes of all war, so complaining about them is, you know, pointless. This film is worth seeing for the acting and the cinematography and messages be damned . . .Hoo-rah!
Someone said that “Jarhead” is like “Waiting for Godot” with sunscreen, and if you’re inclined to see this film then be prepared for exactly that. But, that’s the point of this story; here war isn’t hell, it’s the waiting that’s hell.
Based on the book of real-life Marine sniper, Anthony "Swoff" Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal), “Jarhead” is a course, funny and sobering portrait of one scout/sniper platoon and their journey to and through Desert Storm. The film opens at the appropriate moment; that point of reality when a young Swoff comes to grips with the fact that his rush to join the elite combatants of the world, his hastily formed reasoning based as much on a lack of direction as on personal family history . . . may have been a bit shortsighted.
What follows is the build-up to war, but it’s more meaty in a manner that most war films are not. The genre of war films is usually about . . .war. Jarhead goes to war but the film’s thesis is more about the process and results of robotizing men who will go to war than the actual involvement in the act itself. We’re guided through the boot-camp process without all the glitz, and the actual moment when these young men have secured their places within the ranks of the select few comes and goes with little in the way of hoo-rah. Instead, what’s revealed is the real impact of what they have achieved, what they have become, what they have been made into and what they will never un-become. This is apparent when the platoon’s evening entertainment is a viewing of “Apocalypse Now‘s,” helicopter/beach scene, conveniently provided the night before they depart for war with Saddam.
Swifted off to face the enemy Swoff, along with the other young men in his platoon find that the real enemy is a faceless land of heat and sand and inexorable, inexhaustible time. They fill the void and address their enemy with MASH-like moments that are made grittier with the tension of trained killers who are in limbo; waiting to kill; waiting to fulfill their goal. Staff Sgt. Sykes (Jamie Foxx) is in charge here and he makes well known that he loves the life of a Marine and expects these men to do nothing less. The role fits Foxx well and in fact the three leads Gyllenhall, Foxx and Peter Sarsguard (Swoff’s Jarhead buddy) are all worthy of high praise.
There are complaints the film lacks a plot or point or political meaning but that’s what makes this film. As if war could have a reasonable point “Jarhead’s” lack of a political or satirical point of view is frustrating, but pointlessness and frustration are two of the major themes of all war, so complaining about them is, you know, pointless. This film is worth seeing for the acting and the cinematography and messages be damned . . .Hoo-rah!
Intolerable Cruelty
*
If Katherine Zeta-Jones isn’t one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, tie me up and call me Jed. And if George Clooney isn’t one of the most viral, to be envied men in Hollywood tie me up and call me Betty. So, with all of this incredible star power how is it that this movie just makes me want to be tied-up, bound and gagged and dropped off at the nearest video outlet to await it’s release?
I’m not saying that Intolerable Cruelty is intolerable, it has it’s moments. There are times in this kitchen-sink flick when Marylin Rexroth (Zeta-Jones) and Miles Massey (Clooney) clinch great, red-hot moments, but overall the story doesn’t hit the mark, and at current movie prices these two should be hitting the bulls-eye.
I was genuinely excited about this film prior to viewing it. It isn’t often these days that a Romantic Comedy stars people old enough to shave, let alone deliver comic, sexually charged dialogue. The added punch, of the often brilliant direction of Joel Coen (Fargo, Raising Arizona, O’Brother) and a major budget should have birthed an enduring piece to be viewed with a lover while cozied-up on the couch. Delivered was a 100 minute problem film that struggles because the stakes are never high enough, and the two main characters never fall far enough to come back, redeemed and fighting insanely for love ... they just kind of paw at it. What I expected was the hostility of War of The Roses with An Affair to Remember ending, and what was presented was a watered-down What Women Want with a Bob Barker ending.
A story about two people who have reached that point in their lives where they desire someone to love, Intolerable moves fairly well through it’s allotted time. Strange Coen brother’s characters portrayed by the likes of Billy Bob Thornton, Geoffrey Rush and Cedric the Entertainer provide the movie with it’s primary forward momentum, but these odd little sidebars seem contrived and become a bit tiresome. The most successful divorce attorney in Los Angeles, Massey, falls in love with Rexroth, the queen of the gold-diggers and this is almost as far as the plot goes. Most of this has been in trailers for months, so it’s easy to get into the story. From start to finish, not one surprise comes to the surface until the end ... that’s right you’re the one that’s surprised when you’re looking around, the lights are on and you’re saying to yourself, “Is that all there is, is that all there is?” like some empty Peggy Lee echo.
See this movie only as a video or ... if you really have to see Kathy and George kiss on the big-screen (the only really good moments), then go to an early movie, sit in the cheap seats with a portable DVD player and in between the kissing stuff watch ... what else, An Affair to Remember.
If Katherine Zeta-Jones isn’t one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, tie me up and call me Jed. And if George Clooney isn’t one of the most viral, to be envied men in Hollywood tie me up and call me Betty. So, with all of this incredible star power how is it that this movie just makes me want to be tied-up, bound and gagged and dropped off at the nearest video outlet to await it’s release?
I’m not saying that Intolerable Cruelty is intolerable, it has it’s moments. There are times in this kitchen-sink flick when Marylin Rexroth (Zeta-Jones) and Miles Massey (Clooney) clinch great, red-hot moments, but overall the story doesn’t hit the mark, and at current movie prices these two should be hitting the bulls-eye.
I was genuinely excited about this film prior to viewing it. It isn’t often these days that a Romantic Comedy stars people old enough to shave, let alone deliver comic, sexually charged dialogue. The added punch, of the often brilliant direction of Joel Coen (Fargo, Raising Arizona, O’Brother) and a major budget should have birthed an enduring piece to be viewed with a lover while cozied-up on the couch. Delivered was a 100 minute problem film that struggles because the stakes are never high enough, and the two main characters never fall far enough to come back, redeemed and fighting insanely for love ... they just kind of paw at it. What I expected was the hostility of War of The Roses with An Affair to Remember ending, and what was presented was a watered-down What Women Want with a Bob Barker ending.
A story about two people who have reached that point in their lives where they desire someone to love, Intolerable moves fairly well through it’s allotted time. Strange Coen brother’s characters portrayed by the likes of Billy Bob Thornton, Geoffrey Rush and Cedric the Entertainer provide the movie with it’s primary forward momentum, but these odd little sidebars seem contrived and become a bit tiresome. The most successful divorce attorney in Los Angeles, Massey, falls in love with Rexroth, the queen of the gold-diggers and this is almost as far as the plot goes. Most of this has been in trailers for months, so it’s easy to get into the story. From start to finish, not one surprise comes to the surface until the end ... that’s right you’re the one that’s surprised when you’re looking around, the lights are on and you’re saying to yourself, “Is that all there is, is that all there is?” like some empty Peggy Lee echo.
See this movie only as a video or ... if you really have to see Kathy and George kiss on the big-screen (the only really good moments), then go to an early movie, sit in the cheap seats with a portable DVD player and in between the kissing stuff watch ... what else, An Affair to Remember.
I, Robot
* *
As widely acclaimed as Isaac Asimov is, in the world of sci-fi literature, this singular title, I, Robot, did not originate from Isaac’s prolific pen. Asimov’s short story collection of nine tales about positronic robots was in search of a more synchronous, front cover identity, when his publisher “appropriated” the title from a short story by Eando Binder that had been published in 1939. Oddly enough, the original title of this movie was “Hardwired.” So, what did not belong to Asimov belongs not to director Alex Proyas, as is proven by the failings of the last of the summer blockbusters.
This rattling title, two words, six letters and a comma prove that less can be better. In it’s simplicity it evokes a cathartic image of machine become human. With this state would come an experience: of being, of awareness, of questioning, of dreaming. These are all the things that one might expect from this movie ... but dream on. From the opening, the film tracks well with its genre and both the special effects and action sequences are top’o the mark, but not beyond. What’s missing throughout is that eerie depth when man and machine face-off in a world where creator and created scramble to define their place. There are moments when this is touched on, but it remains an action movie to the end.
Will Smith’s delivery as Detective Del Spooner is better than classic Smith, and this is the second reason (the first is on its way) why this movie floats when it should drop like Martha Stewarts pre-trial stock. Spoon, as you will come to know him, searches for the killer of robotic’s genius, Dr. Lanning. The writers, Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman, author-in plenty of motivation and character for Smith but we still end up with a wise-cracking cop who eventually has to turn in his badge ... how many times do we have to see this? To his credit, Smith delivers a performance that indicates he is becoming an actor that can deliver his own, unique style, with less of himself.
The first reason that this film makes it is because it has resurrected the ghost of C3PO in the character of Sonny, played by Alan Tudyk. Sonny is a “special” robot and has been left by the late Doctor as a clue for Detective Spooner to unravel the upcoming insurrection of the robots. C3PO is one of the most beloved mechanical characters of the cinema, and though Sonny may not rank as high he demonstrates the ability to have heart and legs ... stay tunned for I-bot II.
Bridget Moynahan, as Dr. Susan Calvin, is a robot psychologist whose job is to make the robots seem more human. Her role is an interesting one, that unfortunately, will be remembered as “most forgettable.” The character’s role leaves her as cold as the robots she works with, all the way through the movie. While I enjoyed the irony of a person in charge of teaching others what she cannot come to grips with, her own humanity, the writers and/or the director fail to release her from this prison before the story ends.
It is regrettable that this film didn’t find more in itself than just another Robocop. Like Asimov’s classic, this could have had set a standard, as it is it should have kept it’s original name. There’s much amiss here, and I wouldn’t shell out the big bucks for an evening view, but it’s great matinee, getting outa-the-heat fare.
As widely acclaimed as Isaac Asimov is, in the world of sci-fi literature, this singular title, I, Robot, did not originate from Isaac’s prolific pen. Asimov’s short story collection of nine tales about positronic robots was in search of a more synchronous, front cover identity, when his publisher “appropriated” the title from a short story by Eando Binder that had been published in 1939. Oddly enough, the original title of this movie was “Hardwired.” So, what did not belong to Asimov belongs not to director Alex Proyas, as is proven by the failings of the last of the summer blockbusters.
This rattling title, two words, six letters and a comma prove that less can be better. In it’s simplicity it evokes a cathartic image of machine become human. With this state would come an experience: of being, of awareness, of questioning, of dreaming. These are all the things that one might expect from this movie ... but dream on. From the opening, the film tracks well with its genre and both the special effects and action sequences are top’o the mark, but not beyond. What’s missing throughout is that eerie depth when man and machine face-off in a world where creator and created scramble to define their place. There are moments when this is touched on, but it remains an action movie to the end.
Will Smith’s delivery as Detective Del Spooner is better than classic Smith, and this is the second reason (the first is on its way) why this movie floats when it should drop like Martha Stewarts pre-trial stock. Spoon, as you will come to know him, searches for the killer of robotic’s genius, Dr. Lanning. The writers, Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman, author-in plenty of motivation and character for Smith but we still end up with a wise-cracking cop who eventually has to turn in his badge ... how many times do we have to see this? To his credit, Smith delivers a performance that indicates he is becoming an actor that can deliver his own, unique style, with less of himself.
The first reason that this film makes it is because it has resurrected the ghost of C3PO in the character of Sonny, played by Alan Tudyk. Sonny is a “special” robot and has been left by the late Doctor as a clue for Detective Spooner to unravel the upcoming insurrection of the robots. C3PO is one of the most beloved mechanical characters of the cinema, and though Sonny may not rank as high he demonstrates the ability to have heart and legs ... stay tunned for I-bot II.
Bridget Moynahan, as Dr. Susan Calvin, is a robot psychologist whose job is to make the robots seem more human. Her role is an interesting one, that unfortunately, will be remembered as “most forgettable.” The character’s role leaves her as cold as the robots she works with, all the way through the movie. While I enjoyed the irony of a person in charge of teaching others what she cannot come to grips with, her own humanity, the writers and/or the director fail to release her from this prison before the story ends.
It is regrettable that this film didn’t find more in itself than just another Robocop. Like Asimov’s classic, this could have had set a standard, as it is it should have kept it’s original name. There’s much amiss here, and I wouldn’t shell out the big bucks for an evening view, but it’s great matinee, getting outa-the-heat fare.
Hotel Rwanda
* * * *
How does one write about heroism and at the same moment describe genocide, and the murder of the defenseless? How is possible to attire the killing of a million people in some form of grace? It’s difficult, but Director/Writer Terry George accomplishes both with Hotel Rwanda by juxtaposing those comparisons of human character that shed light onto the darkest deeds imaginable? There will be those who will chose not to see this movie because they will have heard about the content and feel that it is not for them. However, I encourage everyone to see this film, to witness that bit of light that is revealed, those human qualities that exemplify the hero figure; light, compassion and concern in the face of, and regardless of absolute personal peril.
Hotel Rwanda is the true story of how hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) a Hutu, saved 1,228 people, mostly Tutsi, from certain, grisly death. This ethnically vivid film portrays the events of 1994, when the nations of the world chose a path of indifference while the Hutu majority of Rwanda took revenge on the Tutsi minority for years of suppression. In one scene at the hotel bar a Western journalist (Joaquin Phoenix) asks about the past and is told that the Belgians had picked the Tutsi to run the government and larger business’s because of their lighter skin and thinner noses. Although this is a simplification of a problem that preceded the Europeans by nearly 400 years, nearly one million Tutsi men, women and children were slaughtered in less than three months.
At the start of this human conflagration, the Hotel Rwanda, the finest hotel in the capital of Kigali, is an island in a sea of destruction. When U.N. troops, under the command of Canadian Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte) arrive with orders to supervise the evacuation of the hotel, spirits soar until it is clear that the only ones to be evacuated and escape the massacre are the whites. This scene is absolutely heart wrenching and the awful hopelessness of the situation becomes apparent when Oliver, upset with his orders, makes it clear to Paul that the rest of the world doesn’t care.
Rusesabagina has spent most of his life taking care of the guests of the Hotel Rwanda, and over the years he banked favors with the local police and military. This account he taps dry as the pressure mounts for him to turn over the all of Tutsi in the hotel. Those people include his Tutsi wife Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo) and half-Tutsi, half-Hutu children. The suspense hurtles forward as time and again the hotel comes under attack by machete wielding Hutus bent on killing all the “cockroaches.” Finally, with an agreement between the Hutu and Tutsi to exchange prisoners, Oliver returns to escort the Tutsi band to safety.
There is no surprise ending here, it’s history. There’s no walking out with a light step, this is deeper than simple drama. There is a walking away with recollection. We look at Africa today and ponder the complexity of its ethnic wars with a slight temptation to ignore them or to blame it all on tribalism, but this may be a time to remember Germany, Russia, Cambodia, Mexico, Bosnia ... the early history of our own country.
How does one write about heroism and at the same moment describe genocide, and the murder of the defenseless? How is possible to attire the killing of a million people in some form of grace? It’s difficult, but Director/Writer Terry George accomplishes both with Hotel Rwanda by juxtaposing those comparisons of human character that shed light onto the darkest deeds imaginable? There will be those who will chose not to see this movie because they will have heard about the content and feel that it is not for them. However, I encourage everyone to see this film, to witness that bit of light that is revealed, those human qualities that exemplify the hero figure; light, compassion and concern in the face of, and regardless of absolute personal peril.
Hotel Rwanda is the true story of how hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) a Hutu, saved 1,228 people, mostly Tutsi, from certain, grisly death. This ethnically vivid film portrays the events of 1994, when the nations of the world chose a path of indifference while the Hutu majority of Rwanda took revenge on the Tutsi minority for years of suppression. In one scene at the hotel bar a Western journalist (Joaquin Phoenix) asks about the past and is told that the Belgians had picked the Tutsi to run the government and larger business’s because of their lighter skin and thinner noses. Although this is a simplification of a problem that preceded the Europeans by nearly 400 years, nearly one million Tutsi men, women and children were slaughtered in less than three months.
At the start of this human conflagration, the Hotel Rwanda, the finest hotel in the capital of Kigali, is an island in a sea of destruction. When U.N. troops, under the command of Canadian Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte) arrive with orders to supervise the evacuation of the hotel, spirits soar until it is clear that the only ones to be evacuated and escape the massacre are the whites. This scene is absolutely heart wrenching and the awful hopelessness of the situation becomes apparent when Oliver, upset with his orders, makes it clear to Paul that the rest of the world doesn’t care.
Rusesabagina has spent most of his life taking care of the guests of the Hotel Rwanda, and over the years he banked favors with the local police and military. This account he taps dry as the pressure mounts for him to turn over the all of Tutsi in the hotel. Those people include his Tutsi wife Tatiana (Sophie Okonedo) and half-Tutsi, half-Hutu children. The suspense hurtles forward as time and again the hotel comes under attack by machete wielding Hutus bent on killing all the “cockroaches.” Finally, with an agreement between the Hutu and Tutsi to exchange prisoners, Oliver returns to escort the Tutsi band to safety.
There is no surprise ending here, it’s history. There’s no walking out with a light step, this is deeper than simple drama. There is a walking away with recollection. We look at Africa today and ponder the complexity of its ethnic wars with a slight temptation to ignore them or to blame it all on tribalism, but this may be a time to remember Germany, Russia, Cambodia, Mexico, Bosnia ... the early history of our own country.
Hitch
* * *
Kevin Bisch, screenwriter, and past resident of New York City describes the Big Apple dating scene as a contact sport. From his experience came the idea for Hitch, the newest fluff comedy from Hollywood. Now, I could slight this film by not even writing about it, or I could do a hatchet job and describe this latest marshmallow as meaningless drool in the pack of: Hotel Rwanda, Aviator, Million Dollar Baby and others. But, if you have been reading this column for long you know that I have a soft spot for good movies that just fill an afternoon or evening with laughs and good fun. Hitch is the ticket for this.
Hitch (Will Smith) plays the smooth “date doctor” who helps the nerds, geeks and well meaning nice-guys into relationships with the women of their dreams; women they feel way too insecure to approach. He is a love consultant and his success is based on turning wall-flowers into roses, a booming business that succeeds for everyone except himself. While he preaches true love, a past hurt keeps him from finding love for himself, leaving marriage and lasting relationships for his clients, not for him. His newest project Albert (Kevin James) is a bumbling accountant who is in love with one of his clients, the wealthy and beautiful heiress Allegra (Amber Valletta). Albert needs the help of the date doctor, Hitch, and in an absolutely hysterical scene Hitch directs him into Allegra’s view in a manner that leaves little doubt but that he will be noticed.
In the remainder of the plot Hitch finally meets the woman who will change the past for him. This is Sara (Eve Mendes), gossip columnist for a New York Post-ish tabloid. She’s a sour, dull, no-fun workaholic but for a “movie reason” Hitch finds her fascinating and begins a campaign of wooing her. Here he pulls out all the stops. The ensuing date scenes aren’t particularly interesting or warm, and except for two very funny moments that involve a past relative of Sara’s and a shell-fish allergy, they would be downright dull.
Predictably there has to be the near-end split that involves both Hitch and Sara as well as his latest client Albert and Allegra. A more deft film director would have finalized this event and left the audience with a sense of “Hey, pretty clever film.” but this film overstays it’s welcome and drags on for another thirty-minutes.
One reason to entertain being entertained by Hitch, is the chemistry between Smith and James. They are the new team to watch and funnier than many in the past. Secondly, writer Bisch maintains "The turning point for me (as a writer) was when I stopped looking at what's so unique about my experience and I started looking at what's universal." Most men will be able to relate to this; remembering those times we crossed a dance floor only to be turned away. Most women may get a glimpse at just how daunting it was for us to ask for that dance. That’s universal.
Kevin Bisch, screenwriter, and past resident of New York City describes the Big Apple dating scene as a contact sport. From his experience came the idea for Hitch, the newest fluff comedy from Hollywood. Now, I could slight this film by not even writing about it, or I could do a hatchet job and describe this latest marshmallow as meaningless drool in the pack of: Hotel Rwanda, Aviator, Million Dollar Baby and others. But, if you have been reading this column for long you know that I have a soft spot for good movies that just fill an afternoon or evening with laughs and good fun. Hitch is the ticket for this.
Hitch (Will Smith) plays the smooth “date doctor” who helps the nerds, geeks and well meaning nice-guys into relationships with the women of their dreams; women they feel way too insecure to approach. He is a love consultant and his success is based on turning wall-flowers into roses, a booming business that succeeds for everyone except himself. While he preaches true love, a past hurt keeps him from finding love for himself, leaving marriage and lasting relationships for his clients, not for him. His newest project Albert (Kevin James) is a bumbling accountant who is in love with one of his clients, the wealthy and beautiful heiress Allegra (Amber Valletta). Albert needs the help of the date doctor, Hitch, and in an absolutely hysterical scene Hitch directs him into Allegra’s view in a manner that leaves little doubt but that he will be noticed.
In the remainder of the plot Hitch finally meets the woman who will change the past for him. This is Sara (Eve Mendes), gossip columnist for a New York Post-ish tabloid. She’s a sour, dull, no-fun workaholic but for a “movie reason” Hitch finds her fascinating and begins a campaign of wooing her. Here he pulls out all the stops. The ensuing date scenes aren’t particularly interesting or warm, and except for two very funny moments that involve a past relative of Sara’s and a shell-fish allergy, they would be downright dull.
Predictably there has to be the near-end split that involves both Hitch and Sara as well as his latest client Albert and Allegra. A more deft film director would have finalized this event and left the audience with a sense of “Hey, pretty clever film.” but this film overstays it’s welcome and drags on for another thirty-minutes.
One reason to entertain being entertained by Hitch, is the chemistry between Smith and James. They are the new team to watch and funnier than many in the past. Secondly, writer Bisch maintains "The turning point for me (as a writer) was when I stopped looking at what's so unique about my experience and I started looking at what's universal." Most men will be able to relate to this; remembering those times we crossed a dance floor only to be turned away. Most women may get a glimpse at just how daunting it was for us to ask for that dance. That’s universal.
Flags of Our Fathers
* * *
While I have the greatest respect for the talent, determination and sheer audacity of both Clint Eastwood (Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby) and Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby) I speculate, as I leave the theater, about . . . why I’m speculating. Instead of marveling over the incredible action sequences, the gore, the moments when something touched my heart, or the history, I keep asking myself “Why did these guys make this movie this way?” Of all the questions that should or could be asked as one leaves the theater I don’t believe this is the best one.
Adaptation can be the trickiest of films to construct, and it’s success or failure is nearly always in the script. Though Haggis is one of the finest screenwriters working today, the best-selling book Flags of Our Fathers, by James Bradley, escapes his abilities to present a cohesive narrative of the flag raising of Iwo Jima. Heavy handed use of flashbacks and flash forwards is not the real problem. The story attempts to weave three contiguous timelines together. The first is the present, where Bradley finds his father’s war memorabilia and undertakes the job of writing the book. Then, two past timelines. In one the young marines of Easy Company are engaged in the battle of Iwo Jima, and in another we follow three of the six survivors of the flag raising through the marketing of the war to raise money for the war effort. Then there are threads of other time lines as well that poke out through the cloth of the film in an effort to tie down loose ends. There are the stories of “Doc” Bradley and Rene Gagnon, two of the three survivors, and what happened to them later in life. Then, there is a continuous effort to remind us of the sad end of Ira Hayes, the quiet Pima Indian who insisted on being sent back to the Pacific to join his company, and died alone and desolate years later. This story alone could have been a brilliant movie.
I did find myself getting past the clunky stops and starts to enjoy numerous moments in the film. Adam Beach (Smoke Signals, Skinwalkers) gives an absolutely heart-wrench performance as Ira Hayes. And both Ryan Phillippe (Doc Bradley) and Jesse Bradford (Rene Gagnon) give solid accounts as the three are whisked from the terror of war into national attention and dizzying hero worship. Here is the real core of the story as each of the three struggles with their own reservations about being called hero’s.
The battle sequences are as real as Saving Private Ryan, and Eastwood’s use of desaturated colors during these scenes, gives us a palette nearer to our memory of that conflict. Thankfully, he doesn’t use the erratic motion of handheld cameras or fast-cuts in the editing to move the action, but relies on the impact of what we are seeing to force us through the tense moments.
Muddled as it may be, Flags accomplishes two of the filmmakers objects. First it deconstructs the process of making hero’s out of young men who kill other young men in nationalistic conflict. Second, it demystifies the question that has plagued the most famous photograph in history. Even during the war there were those who claimed that the photograph was posed. This is clearly debunked, but there is more to the story, and though I have spent a great deal of this column thrashing the film, I encourage those with a strong stomach to see this for the history and the real story of the photograph.
While I have the greatest respect for the talent, determination and sheer audacity of both Clint Eastwood (Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby) and Paul Haggis (Crash, Million Dollar Baby) I speculate, as I leave the theater, about . . . why I’m speculating. Instead of marveling over the incredible action sequences, the gore, the moments when something touched my heart, or the history, I keep asking myself “Why did these guys make this movie this way?” Of all the questions that should or could be asked as one leaves the theater I don’t believe this is the best one.
Adaptation can be the trickiest of films to construct, and it’s success or failure is nearly always in the script. Though Haggis is one of the finest screenwriters working today, the best-selling book Flags of Our Fathers, by James Bradley, escapes his abilities to present a cohesive narrative of the flag raising of Iwo Jima. Heavy handed use of flashbacks and flash forwards is not the real problem. The story attempts to weave three contiguous timelines together. The first is the present, where Bradley finds his father’s war memorabilia and undertakes the job of writing the book. Then, two past timelines. In one the young marines of Easy Company are engaged in the battle of Iwo Jima, and in another we follow three of the six survivors of the flag raising through the marketing of the war to raise money for the war effort. Then there are threads of other time lines as well that poke out through the cloth of the film in an effort to tie down loose ends. There are the stories of “Doc” Bradley and Rene Gagnon, two of the three survivors, and what happened to them later in life. Then, there is a continuous effort to remind us of the sad end of Ira Hayes, the quiet Pima Indian who insisted on being sent back to the Pacific to join his company, and died alone and desolate years later. This story alone could have been a brilliant movie.
I did find myself getting past the clunky stops and starts to enjoy numerous moments in the film. Adam Beach (Smoke Signals, Skinwalkers) gives an absolutely heart-wrench performance as Ira Hayes. And both Ryan Phillippe (Doc Bradley) and Jesse Bradford (Rene Gagnon) give solid accounts as the three are whisked from the terror of war into national attention and dizzying hero worship. Here is the real core of the story as each of the three struggles with their own reservations about being called hero’s.
The battle sequences are as real as Saving Private Ryan, and Eastwood’s use of desaturated colors during these scenes, gives us a palette nearer to our memory of that conflict. Thankfully, he doesn’t use the erratic motion of handheld cameras or fast-cuts in the editing to move the action, but relies on the impact of what we are seeing to force us through the tense moments.
Muddled as it may be, Flags accomplishes two of the filmmakers objects. First it deconstructs the process of making hero’s out of young men who kill other young men in nationalistic conflict. Second, it demystifies the question that has plagued the most famous photograph in history. Even during the war there were those who claimed that the photograph was posed. This is clearly debunked, but there is more to the story, and though I have spent a great deal of this column thrashing the film, I encourage those with a strong stomach to see this for the history and the real story of the photograph.
Far From Heaven
* * *
In the fall of 1957 I was six years old, and forty-six years later this movie took me by the hand and led me back to that time in an almost imperceptible flash. Within seconds of opening scene I was returned back to that time of peace and plenty. That time when everyone seemed the same. That time when your father worked and your mother stayed home. Your friends were all white or they were all black but none of them were gay
The Whitakers live in Hartford, Connecticut where they observe the social etiquettes of the day. Their family life and social environment is a quiet pursuit for status and the constant race to keep up with the Joneses. Cathy Whitaker (Moore) spends her time in that constant motion of homemaker, mother, wife as Frank (Quaid) is a man on his way to the top.
This almost perfect world begins to shatter when Frank is picked-up by the police while soliciting another man for sex. At first Frank tells her that it was only a mistake but as the film progress’s he cannot deny his deeper feelings. It’s during this time that Cathy meets Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) her new gardener. This well spoken and gentle black man becomes the person that draws Cathy out of her experience and her pain.
This movie harks back to Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, in which Jane Wyman loses her heart to gardener Rock Hudson, but with the difference of perspective. If you are a Julianne Moore fan this is a must see and if you’re a Quaid fan this is a movie roll unlike any he has ever played. These performances are so electric, alive and sensitive that you begin to feel almost voyeuristic.
In the fall of 1957 I was six years old, and forty-six years later this movie took me by the hand and led me back to that time in an almost imperceptible flash. Within seconds of opening scene I was returned back to that time of peace and plenty. That time when everyone seemed the same. That time when your father worked and your mother stayed home. Your friends were all white or they were all black but none of them were gay
The Whitakers live in Hartford, Connecticut where they observe the social etiquettes of the day. Their family life and social environment is a quiet pursuit for status and the constant race to keep up with the Joneses. Cathy Whitaker (Moore) spends her time in that constant motion of homemaker, mother, wife as Frank (Quaid) is a man on his way to the top.
This almost perfect world begins to shatter when Frank is picked-up by the police while soliciting another man for sex. At first Frank tells her that it was only a mistake but as the film progress’s he cannot deny his deeper feelings. It’s during this time that Cathy meets Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) her new gardener. This well spoken and gentle black man becomes the person that draws Cathy out of her experience and her pain.
This movie harks back to Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, in which Jane Wyman loses her heart to gardener Rock Hudson, but with the difference of perspective. If you are a Julianne Moore fan this is a must see and if you’re a Quaid fan this is a movie roll unlike any he has ever played. These performances are so electric, alive and sensitive that you begin to feel almost voyeuristic.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
* * * *
“God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in winter.”J.M. Barrie
The word chosen for the quote above is “roses” not lily’s or carnations, and this is to remind us that life’s attractions always come with a prickly price, even as mere memories. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind explores this by taking the viewer through the agonizing pain of love, to hate, and then back to love again.
The quality of this film is not what the players do as much as what they don’t do. Jim Carrey, as Joel, doesn’t use talking-butt gags, not once. Kate Winslet, as Clementine, doesn’t do wide-eyed gorgeous. And Charlie Kaufman, the writer, doesn’t pen past the heart and soul of the story but fills this strange thesis with careful moments that bring it full circle, something his past films have not accomplished. Kaufman is something of an aberration, being just about the only writer in Hollywood whose name can brand a film in the general public’s mind. With past hits such as Human Nature, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation Kaufman has garnered a name for complex, thought provoking fare but often a bit twisted in the telling. This tale is torqued right from the start when, after fifteen minutes into the film, the credits roll and suddenly you realize the ride has just taken its first turn.
Joel and Clementine are two lonely people searching for love. From the start it seems that they will find what they seek in each other, but as this is a Kaufman story, that is really the end of the film and the warped journey to come, nearly costs them the love they desire. Soon, after meeting, these two discover what everyone discovers about romantic involvement ... it’s hard work and there are bad moments which we would all wish away, but these are the moments that define the solidarity of a couples true intent and they will never simply go away. Clementine is a total ditz, whose hair color changes with her moods. In one particular moment of ditzyness she decides that she has had enough of Joel and has the memory of him erased. This is only a little bit of science fiction but it’s done well enough to stand up within the story. Joel learns of this erasure and in a period of love-lorn choler finds Dr. Howard Merzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) of Lacuana, Inc. and asks for the same, the removal of the memories of Clementine. What neither one understands is that love is not a memory, love cannot be erased and before the end of the story they find each other again as if they had never met. At this point it seems that they might just make it as a totally new couple or a couple caught in a loop but they soon discover what they each have done and that has it’s own consequences. This too is resolved in a tenuous moment of clarity and understanding between the two searchers.
If you are a Kaufman fan this movie is a must, it is simply his best to date. If you’re not a Kaufman fan this film is still worth seeing. It has moments that seem a bit too long, a little overdone but the story is one that provokes thought past the exit doors. The other bit here, worth notice, is the performance by Jim Carrey. Like Nicholson in About Schmidt and Sandler in Punch Drunk Love, Carrey expands his range past the goofiness of Dumb and Dumber and the melodramatic nonsense of The Majestic and rolls out a truly meaty performance.
“God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in winter.”J.M. Barrie
The word chosen for the quote above is “roses” not lily’s or carnations, and this is to remind us that life’s attractions always come with a prickly price, even as mere memories. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind explores this by taking the viewer through the agonizing pain of love, to hate, and then back to love again.
The quality of this film is not what the players do as much as what they don’t do. Jim Carrey, as Joel, doesn’t use talking-butt gags, not once. Kate Winslet, as Clementine, doesn’t do wide-eyed gorgeous. And Charlie Kaufman, the writer, doesn’t pen past the heart and soul of the story but fills this strange thesis with careful moments that bring it full circle, something his past films have not accomplished. Kaufman is something of an aberration, being just about the only writer in Hollywood whose name can brand a film in the general public’s mind. With past hits such as Human Nature, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation Kaufman has garnered a name for complex, thought provoking fare but often a bit twisted in the telling. This tale is torqued right from the start when, after fifteen minutes into the film, the credits roll and suddenly you realize the ride has just taken its first turn.
Joel and Clementine are two lonely people searching for love. From the start it seems that they will find what they seek in each other, but as this is a Kaufman story, that is really the end of the film and the warped journey to come, nearly costs them the love they desire. Soon, after meeting, these two discover what everyone discovers about romantic involvement ... it’s hard work and there are bad moments which we would all wish away, but these are the moments that define the solidarity of a couples true intent and they will never simply go away. Clementine is a total ditz, whose hair color changes with her moods. In one particular moment of ditzyness she decides that she has had enough of Joel and has the memory of him erased. This is only a little bit of science fiction but it’s done well enough to stand up within the story. Joel learns of this erasure and in a period of love-lorn choler finds Dr. Howard Merzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) of Lacuana, Inc. and asks for the same, the removal of the memories of Clementine. What neither one understands is that love is not a memory, love cannot be erased and before the end of the story they find each other again as if they had never met. At this point it seems that they might just make it as a totally new couple or a couple caught in a loop but they soon discover what they each have done and that has it’s own consequences. This too is resolved in a tenuous moment of clarity and understanding between the two searchers.
If you are a Kaufman fan this movie is a must, it is simply his best to date. If you’re not a Kaufman fan this film is still worth seeing. It has moments that seem a bit too long, a little overdone but the story is one that provokes thought past the exit doors. The other bit here, worth notice, is the performance by Jim Carrey. Like Nicholson in About Schmidt and Sandler in Punch Drunk Love, Carrey expands his range past the goofiness of Dumb and Dumber and the melodramatic nonsense of The Majestic and rolls out a truly meaty performance.
Da Good, Da Bad, Da Vinci Code
* * *
Just because you kiss a toad doesn’t mean you’re going to get a prince. Likewise, just because you take one of the best selling books of all time, load it up with star-power and pitch-it on the Today Show doesn’t mean you’re going to get . . . a prince. Maybe all you’ll get is a scruffy guy who’s a bit of fun, but that’s better than a toad.
I read The Da Vinci Code a couple of years ago, while in Paris. At one point I stood in the courtyard at the Louvre and counted all the panes of glass in the I.M. Pae Pyramid (those of you who‘ve read the book will understand). There are not 666 panes of glass, but that incorrect fact didn’t ruin the spell of the book. Dan Brown’s fictional work is a fast and clearly compelling tale: published in 2003, it’s sold over 60 million copies.
Alas, a good book does not always a good movie make, and when National Treasure, with Nicholas Cage, was released in 2004 I became suspicious that there were certainly film movements that were not going to work well. Treasure was a fast, furious follow-the-clue’s mystery that whittled itself down to boring and forecast the possible fate of The Da Vinci Code. So, as I sat in the theater watching “Code” I looked around and noticed one thing- no boredom. There may have been scoffing from the religious right and nodding heads from feminist, but- critic’s be damned- this movie seems to have enough power to get people to remove their popcorn feedbags and pay attention.
When the curator of the Louvre Museum is found murdered, visiting professor of religious symbology Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), gets caught up in the investigation. The curator's granddaughter, Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), joins Langdon and the two set off on an all-night race into the French countryside, where Langdon's friend and colleague, Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), helps solve the riddle of the murder and more.
The real controversy begins here with Teabing's theories about Da Vinci's portrait of "The Last Supper" and the Catholic Church's supposed smearing of Mary Magdalene. The film attempts to soften some of the books more radical approach to the subject, but the message is clear and can’t be avoided. A small chorus of jeers, and uncomfortable coughs took place during this particular scene. A little controversy is okay, but Sony Pictures isn't about to release a film that directly attacks the principles of Christianity. So, Langdon acts as the foil to cushion Teabing‘s assault on the church. This doesn’t work, however, since Teabing turns out to be a brighter screen personality than Langdon, the movie's voice of reason.
Pursued by a crazed albino monk, the police and a fanatic fringe of the church, Hanks and Tautou can do no more than run, grab a clue and run some more. This keeps the pace of the film rapid and sometimes unreasonably muddled, but that’s how the director, Ron Howard, packs as much of the novel's plotting into the screenplay as possible.
The primary problem stems from the fact that the book is filled with so much that it is difficult to transfer every important clue to the screen. Even with a lengthy run time and some of the most original and interesting flashbacks ever produced, the film is sometimes a difficult jumble of a story. The film has it’s obvious problems but it’s good enough to take in on a hot summer afternoon and feel like you haven’t been totally ripped off. That’s more than I can say for a lot of films these days.
Just because you kiss a toad doesn’t mean you’re going to get a prince. Likewise, just because you take one of the best selling books of all time, load it up with star-power and pitch-it on the Today Show doesn’t mean you’re going to get . . . a prince. Maybe all you’ll get is a scruffy guy who’s a bit of fun, but that’s better than a toad.
I read The Da Vinci Code a couple of years ago, while in Paris. At one point I stood in the courtyard at the Louvre and counted all the panes of glass in the I.M. Pae Pyramid (those of you who‘ve read the book will understand). There are not 666 panes of glass, but that incorrect fact didn’t ruin the spell of the book. Dan Brown’s fictional work is a fast and clearly compelling tale: published in 2003, it’s sold over 60 million copies.
Alas, a good book does not always a good movie make, and when National Treasure, with Nicholas Cage, was released in 2004 I became suspicious that there were certainly film movements that were not going to work well. Treasure was a fast, furious follow-the-clue’s mystery that whittled itself down to boring and forecast the possible fate of The Da Vinci Code. So, as I sat in the theater watching “Code” I looked around and noticed one thing- no boredom. There may have been scoffing from the religious right and nodding heads from feminist, but- critic’s be damned- this movie seems to have enough power to get people to remove their popcorn feedbags and pay attention.
When the curator of the Louvre Museum is found murdered, visiting professor of religious symbology Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), gets caught up in the investigation. The curator's granddaughter, Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou), joins Langdon and the two set off on an all-night race into the French countryside, where Langdon's friend and colleague, Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), helps solve the riddle of the murder and more.
The real controversy begins here with Teabing's theories about Da Vinci's portrait of "The Last Supper" and the Catholic Church's supposed smearing of Mary Magdalene. The film attempts to soften some of the books more radical approach to the subject, but the message is clear and can’t be avoided. A small chorus of jeers, and uncomfortable coughs took place during this particular scene. A little controversy is okay, but Sony Pictures isn't about to release a film that directly attacks the principles of Christianity. So, Langdon acts as the foil to cushion Teabing‘s assault on the church. This doesn’t work, however, since Teabing turns out to be a brighter screen personality than Langdon, the movie's voice of reason.
Pursued by a crazed albino monk, the police and a fanatic fringe of the church, Hanks and Tautou can do no more than run, grab a clue and run some more. This keeps the pace of the film rapid and sometimes unreasonably muddled, but that’s how the director, Ron Howard, packs as much of the novel's plotting into the screenplay as possible.
The primary problem stems from the fact that the book is filled with so much that it is difficult to transfer every important clue to the screen. Even with a lengthy run time and some of the most original and interesting flashbacks ever produced, the film is sometimes a difficult jumble of a story. The film has it’s obvious problems but it’s good enough to take in on a hot summer afternoon and feel like you haven’t been totally ripped off. That’s more than I can say for a lot of films these days.
The Cooler
* * * *
There have been many movies filmed in Vegas, and they normally use the capital of glitz as either a backdrop or as an unsullied handmaiden to the story. Few, that I can recall scrub away the rouge revealing the old-time, gangster-run, bar sow once called Tensile Town, as satisfactorily as “The Cooler.”
Bernie Lootz (William H. Macy) is a gifted man, and like some talented painter or dancer he strolls through the Shagri-La Casino spreading his own brand of lackluster joy. With a pat on the back here, a special look there, Bernie “The Cooler” Lootz puts the whammy on any would be winner. Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin) as the Casino’s Director of Operations is the real recipient of Bernie’s talent and he has held Bernie for years as an indentured bad luck charm.
With only days to go until his marker with Shelly is paid in full, Lootz expects that things will continue on their downward trend, even when he’s free of his debt. This is exactly when the unexpected happens, he falls in love. Natalie (Maria Bello), a casino cocktail waitress, finds a charming side to Bernie, and like the other changes budding around them, this dynamic swiftly hustles the marvelous and the terrible into their lives. The spine of the story revolves around Bernie’s bad fortune, and it is used effectively as comic relief and cheerless centerpiece but it becomes even more comical when lady bad luck meets lady love.
Like Hilton’s Shangri La in Lost Horizon, the Shangri La Casino has remained untouched by the world around it. Replete with; hookers at the bar, red-velvet wallpaper, looming thugs and a show room where the headline act (Paul Sorvino) still sings Sinatra and Martin, the world seems to have passed this place by. This is a parallel universe to the new Vegas, the family vacation spot, shinny new hotels, corporate thugs and where you find the hearty meat of the film. Written and directed as his feature debut, Wayne Kramer tells us of the lost Las Vegas. A fresh view of an old story about the violence of change, this is a perfect setting for actor Baldwin to give a great performance as the old guard, fighting against the tide. The role played by veteran Sorvino, is short, but encapsulates the emotional theme of the story, and his death at the hands of Baldwin is just another analogy to the place and time.
There are reasons to find fault with this film. Opportunities are constructed out of thin air to move the story forward, like the introduction of Bernie’s long lost son, but these are paltry issues and don’t stop the forward progress of fine performances and solid premise. This is not the best movie of the year, but it’s the kind of movie that takes you back to a Vegas that has died. It’s the kind of movie that fills your heart and head and then compels you to venture back to the Shangri La a long time after you’ve left the theater.
There have been many movies filmed in Vegas, and they normally use the capital of glitz as either a backdrop or as an unsullied handmaiden to the story. Few, that I can recall scrub away the rouge revealing the old-time, gangster-run, bar sow once called Tensile Town, as satisfactorily as “The Cooler.”
Bernie Lootz (William H. Macy) is a gifted man, and like some talented painter or dancer he strolls through the Shagri-La Casino spreading his own brand of lackluster joy. With a pat on the back here, a special look there, Bernie “The Cooler” Lootz puts the whammy on any would be winner. Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin) as the Casino’s Director of Operations is the real recipient of Bernie’s talent and he has held Bernie for years as an indentured bad luck charm.
With only days to go until his marker with Shelly is paid in full, Lootz expects that things will continue on their downward trend, even when he’s free of his debt. This is exactly when the unexpected happens, he falls in love. Natalie (Maria Bello), a casino cocktail waitress, finds a charming side to Bernie, and like the other changes budding around them, this dynamic swiftly hustles the marvelous and the terrible into their lives. The spine of the story revolves around Bernie’s bad fortune, and it is used effectively as comic relief and cheerless centerpiece but it becomes even more comical when lady bad luck meets lady love.
Like Hilton’s Shangri La in Lost Horizon, the Shangri La Casino has remained untouched by the world around it. Replete with; hookers at the bar, red-velvet wallpaper, looming thugs and a show room where the headline act (Paul Sorvino) still sings Sinatra and Martin, the world seems to have passed this place by. This is a parallel universe to the new Vegas, the family vacation spot, shinny new hotels, corporate thugs and where you find the hearty meat of the film. Written and directed as his feature debut, Wayne Kramer tells us of the lost Las Vegas. A fresh view of an old story about the violence of change, this is a perfect setting for actor Baldwin to give a great performance as the old guard, fighting against the tide. The role played by veteran Sorvino, is short, but encapsulates the emotional theme of the story, and his death at the hands of Baldwin is just another analogy to the place and time.
There are reasons to find fault with this film. Opportunities are constructed out of thin air to move the story forward, like the introduction of Bernie’s long lost son, but these are paltry issues and don’t stop the forward progress of fine performances and solid premise. This is not the best movie of the year, but it’s the kind of movie that takes you back to a Vegas that has died. It’s the kind of movie that fills your heart and head and then compels you to venture back to the Shangri La a long time after you’ve left the theater.
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