The MichaelVox Movie Review Weblog

ESTHER’S INHERITANCE
2008

February 28, 2009
Cinequest 19
Hungary
Hungarian
90 Minutes
Drama
Jozsef Sipos

Notes:
The photography is milky–like a 1970s porno from France or Sweden. The location is a vineyard house kept in the family and wanted by an unmarried daughter and son-in-law Lajos who everyone agrees is a scoundrel. In fact, words like “scoundrel” come up often in this film. There is a lot of angsty conversations between characters. All centered around the pure or impure heart of Lajos. Did he marry who he loved? Did our heroine, Eszter, commit the sin of not following her heart truthfully or did the late sister really steal the love letters without Eszter or Lajos’ knowledge?

Before Lajos shows up, no one has a kind word to say about him. He preys on women’s hearts and men’s wallets. He owes the whole town money, it seems. He “borrowed” one man’s watch for five years. He switched a family heirloom ring with a cheap immitation. By the time we see him, he’d better be charming. Once he arrives, we see him fall into old patterns, but he in now way deserves the kind of worship that he’s been given. No way.

Lajos will cross a room to stand by Eszter as she gazes out the window in contemplation of her life. She’ll emote and then move to a different window while Lajos tries to woo her all these years later. Beautifully shot, but doesn’t amount to much.

6.9 IMDB (69 Votes)

ESTHER’S INHERITANCE

Tags: Drama, Hungarian, Jozsef Sipos

FOR MY FATHER
2008

February 28, 2009
Cinequest 19
Germany / Israel
Hebrew
98 Minutes
Drama
Dror Zahavi

Notes:
Wow. Powerful and hopeful and about Israeli-Palestinian relations. It doesn’t solve anything, but it does personalize the conflict, right down to one young man. Tarek straps on a bomb belt in the first scene. He is asked questions by his conspirators. Are you ready? Yes. Eight o’clock in the morning in a crowded market. Then, since they don’t completely trust him, they attach a cellphone so they can remotely blow him up if he loses his nerve. He is young, good-looking, well-spoken, and a soccer prospect of some note. But his father is in a jam with an extremist gang.

Meanwhile, over on the Jewish side, things aren’t so great either. A gorgeous young woman with pink hair and tattoos and a short skirt runs a shopping kiosk. Keren and Tarek strike up a tenuous friendship. She is estranged from her father–Tarek is far from his father. She is threatened by a group of ultra-traditional Jews who don’t approve of her lifestyle. Meanwhile, an old man named Katz runs the local hardware store and when Tarek’s bomb switch doesn’t work, he goes there to get a new one. In exchange, he’ll fix the leak in the roof that Katz has neglected. Tarek is invited to stay for dinner at his home. Everyone is connected. Tarek is the only Arab in the story, but he begins to see the vast cornucopia of Jews as he comes into contact with them. The sad girl, the bitter old man, the orthodox gang, the community safety inspector.

The relationship doesn’t go where you think it will. The tension of the bomb belt is constantly felt. I was most impressed and when the two young people share headphones on the beach, your heart will break into a million pieces.

7.4 IMDB (43 Votes)

FOR MY FATHER

Tags: Drama, Dror Zahavi, Hebrew

A POLICE ROMANCE
2008

February 28, 2009
Cinequest 19
France
French
95 Minutes
Stephanie Duvivier

Notes:
Female police chief of average at best looks falls for young trainee and confuses her work life with her personal life. After a particularly harrowing gunpoint situation, a messy hookup takes place. The chief is married. The recruit is highly sought after by women. Drug dealer plot isn’t really clear. Bad cops and bumbling cocky head of narcotics unit. Teenager is afraid to talk to cops. His mother is attractive lover of narcotics head. Grandma tries to get cops to stop the drug trafficking in the projects where they live. The film tries to do too many things at once.
Chief’s home life isn’t great. Her husband doesn’t find her attractive. The young recruit reignites a passion in her. The drug story is hard to follow. At first no one cares about the projects being overrun by dealers until, suddenly, they do care. They shoot a guy at the public pool and piss everyone off, but later they shoot a different guy at the public pool and everyone’s a hero. Narcotics guy is bad, then he’s good. Well-acted and nice use of Arab-French relationships. The entire film takes place during the night shift. We never see the town in the daytime.

7.4 IMDB (15 Votes)

A POLICE ROMANCE

Tags: French, Stephanie Duvivier

2008

February 28, 2009
Cinequest 19
Argentina
Spanish / English
252 Minutes
Miriano Llinas

252 Minutes long. Get your head around that. What would you expect from a more-than-4 hour film in Spanish which takes place mostly in Argentina? Here’s the thing: there isn’t a single moment that drags. It’s the most amazing thing. We basically follow three different stories. The characters’ names are H, Y, Z. The fact that we don’t know their full names is just one of the charms. But what makes this film a particularly fulfilling experience is an almost perfect use of narration. And the use of time. Which is hard to explain. We’ve all seen films that use length of shots to their advantage. We’ve all been programmed to expect shots of a certain length. We notice when a filmmaker holds a shot longer than expected. Wong Kar Wai and Gus Van Sant to name a few. But director Miriano Llinas goes us one better. He holds a static shot for a long period of time, but he also films the shot from way, way back. So far away in fact that we can’t really tell who’s who. So in comes the narrator to tell us. “The farmer’s name is Rey.” [pause]. “He will hide a briefcase in a hay-bale” [pause where nothing happens and Rey doesn’t do anything]. “Here he goes.” [finally, Rey moves towards the hay bale]. This happens over and over. The narrator tells us what’s about to happen, nothing does, then the narrator says, okay now it’s going to happen. It’s a type of narration whereby the person could be sitting next to us and showing us a story that he filmed. This is hard to explain but a pleasure to experience. “The fat one will go to the truck and get a shotgun”. We wait from far away for what seems like five minutes “There he goes.” Then we see the fat guy go to the truck to get the gun. The narrator tells us what’s happening, sometimes WHILE it’s happening. This could seem simplistic, but for some reason it works pretty well. He also will explain a huge story about a minor character, with backstory, dreams, dark and happy experiences. We’ll spend ten or 15 minutes on these characters and at the end of the vignette, the narrator will say “this had nothing to do with what we’ve just seen” or, in a particularly funny scene, after a man has gone on and on about his theory of a crime, the narrator comes on to say “Every word he just said was wrong, he was correct about this crime in no way whatsoever.” So the narrator (and there are a half dozen) is there to correct wrongs, clarify plot moves, and explain what we’re seeing. The script for this film (setting aside it’s length, even) must have been much longer than usual. There is so much voiceover. Plot-wise, H is on a boat going up a river to settle another man’s bet. X witnessed a farmer’s murder, and is holding a stolen briefcase while holed up in a motel. Z is new in a management position and begins investigating the man who held his position for the previous 20 years. But those plot points in no way go far enough in explaining what’s going on, because with all the time we’re given to get to know these people, we can watch them do things slowly, in real time. A man watching the world outside his window; a man explaining the personalities of his co-workers; a man who is ridiculed by his colleagues but sets out for revenge; a woman who can easily manipulate the men in her life; the story of a gold heist gone wrong—each of these is given the time and energy they deserve. There are few loose ends.

Notes:
Perhaps the find of the festival. Nothing dull. I needed to see what happens next. Fantastic storytelling. Never dragging. Narration is perfect storytelling. “Nothing much happens”…long scene…”then it does”…long scene. Or “The fat man will go to his truck.” But on the screen nothing changes for a long 45 seconds. Then we see the man go to the truck. Narrator: “there he goes.” The scene is five minutes long with the narrator telling us what is about to happen just before it does, sometimes way before it does. The director tells us through narration and shows us through action. Hard to explain how well this works. Action sequences are done with a series of still photos. This is probably to save money. Rumors of a $50,000 budget were thrown around before the show started. It was more than four hours long. We got a break near the middle. Will the stories come together at the end? Will they go off in tangents that don’t mean anything? Which character should we most care about? This film has perhaps the best use of a narrator in movie history. It was like sitting next to someone late at night while they spin a yarn.

If you get a chance to see it, do.

8.5 IMDB (66 Votes)

HISTORIAS EXTRAORDINARIAS

Tags: Argentina, Miriano Llinas, Spanish

NIGHT TRAIN
2007

February 27, 2009
Cinequest 19
China / France
Mandarin
94 Minutes
Drama
Yi’nan Diao

Washed out colors. Darkness. Executions. Abusive relationship. I was exhausted. I dozed. I was told later it was great.

6.5 IMDB (126 votes)

NIGHT TRAIN

Tags: Drama, Mandarin, Yi'nan Diao

2009

February 15, 2009
Camera Cinema Club
USA
English
90 Minutes — April 3, 2009
Comedy / Horror / Sci-Fi / Thriller
R.W. Goodwin

She Was A Waitress. He Was A Space Alien.

Well-done, but extremely light story of a flying saucer that crash lands in a California desert town. Filmed as if it were a monster movie from the 1950s. Everyone is playing it straight. Much like FAR FROM HEAVEN looked and felt as if it could have taken place in the early 1960s, everyone in ALIEN TRESPASS is taking their job seriously. There is slang from the time period, everyone smokes, no one believes the first guy to see the crash site, a teenage couple watches the crash from inspiration point. There are some fairly well-known actors involved. Eric McCormack, Robert Patrick, etc. It is literally a one joke film, but that joke (this film was lost in the vaults of a major studio only to be unearthed in 2009) is done very well.

No one winks at the camera. Everyone is horrified at the ridiculous looking space alien.

IMDB

ALIEN TRESPASS

Tags: Comedy, Horror, R.W. Goodwin, Sci-Fi, Thriller

2008

January 21, 2009
Campbell CA — Camera 7
USA
English
104 Minutes — December 12, 2008
Drama / Mystery
John Patrick Shanley [Moonstruck; The January Man; Joe Versus The Volcano; Alive]

My overriding impression of DOUBT? Boring.

Streep, Hoffman, Adams. Great cast. But it’s just so slow moving and ponderous. And every time something important is about to happen, the wind blows or rain hits a windowpane or a tree branch crashes down in the courtyard. And then the music swells.

It’s 1964 in Brooklyn. Hoffman is a Catholic Priest (hazard alert). Streep is the principal of the attached school. Amy Adams is the naive, wide-eyed character that we’re supposed to chuckle at and then feel for. Adams thinks she sees Hoffman put a boy’s shirt back into his locker. This boy is the only black kid in a sea of white, which is the excuse Hoffman uses when confronted with the suspicion that he plied the boy with alcohol. But not just any alcohol, mind you; the holy communion wine, the very blood of Christ. Viola Davis plays the boy’s mother who is remarkably nonchalant about the accusation, preferring to hide her head in the sand until summer when her boy graduates.

Streep is on the warpath against Hoffman and the two play several loud, spittle-rattling scenes where they try to scare the other one into backing off. We know Streep is the humorless disciplinarian because we see her walking the aisles of the church scolding anyone slouching or whispering while the sermon is taking place. She strikes fear in the children and other nuns alike. She is a cartoon movie archetype along the lines of the guy in Lean On Me (I’m the HNIC, now), and every other film about school and an evil paddling headmaster.

Hoffman appears to be kind, he connects with the kids, he write sermons that don’t immediately cause his congregation to sleep. But what earthly reason does he have for taking such a shine to the young black boy? We have two choices: 1) he’s a closeted homosexual predator who can’t wait to add another notch on his priestly bedpost; OR 2) he’s a caring priest who ministers to his congregation. Which one do you think the film favors?

We aren’t given any reasons for the actions that the characters take. Except maybe Amy Adams. She sees something and she goes to her superior to discuss it. Fine. Streep makes it her mission to kick Hoffman out of the parish. We are only given hints about the characters’ pasts. Hoffman is apparently at his third church in a short period of time. With 2008 eyes, this is a warning sign. Not so much back in 1964. Streep’s character is a widow who has known life outside the convent, but now finds herself ruling one. She is probably the only non-virgin on the campus.

If there’s a well-rounded and nuanced character, it’s Viola Davis as the mother. The boy has an abusive father, the mother thinks that the boy is gay (although you can bet that word is never used by anyone in this film), and if the priest needs a little loving while he protects the boy from the racist bullies in the hallway, well then, that’s a small price to pay. Davis hits a “if my nose runs and I don’t wipe it during a crying scene I’ll get an Oscar just like Jane Fonda in Klute” move perfectly. Then when we’ve been sufficiently mezmerized by her dripping nose, she miraculously finds a kleenex, wipes herself, and heads off to work like nothing happened. The words that the two women say to each other in the Davis v. Streep walk-and-talk are pretty good. But then the whole scene is ruined by the “foreboding wind of doom” that causes several dozen leaves to press up against Streeps legs. God help us.

So let’s see, Streep thinks that the priest is guilty, Hoffman maintains his innocense, Adams is first sure one way, then the other, and Davis doesn’t really see the big deal either way. You see, they all have DOUBT about what happened. Adams’ doubt puts her on Hoffman’s side and Streep finds a way to keep her doubt at bay. So we all know what the dilema is.

Wait a second, I have an idea. Why doesn’t someone ask the kid what happened? He’s not five years old, he’s in 8th grade! Wouldn’t he be able to at least give an impression about what happened or didn’t happen in the vestry? Is he so in love with the Father that he’d lie under questioning? He’s the only other witness.

I just don’t get it. Any verbal fireworks this film had were more than countered by the clumsy staging, and hit-me-over-the-head symbolism. It saddens me to report that my favorite part of the film, the only point when I wasn’t near dozing, was the spectacular church choir and organ song played loudly over the credits. What a shame.

Oscar Nominations: Meryl Streep Actress; Philip Seymour Hoffman Supporting Actor;Amy Adams Supporting Actress; Viola Davis Supporting Actress; Adapted Screenplay John Patrick Shanley;

7.0 Metacritic
7.1 Critical Consensus
8.2 IMDB

Doubt (book) @ Amazon

DOUBT

Tags: 7.0, Amy Adams, Drama, John Patrick Shanley, Meryl Streep, Mystery, Oscars, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Viola Davis

2007

January 18, 2009
San Jose Camera Cinema Club
Vietnam / USA
Vietnamese
97 Minutes
Drama / Romance
Stephane Gauger

10-year-old Thuy runs away from her mean (but not too mean) uncle’s bamboo blind factory and heads for Saigon after he yells at her when she makes a production mistake. She breaks open her piggy bank, gives away some items to friends, and is on her way. She shows up in the bustling city with one outfit and a pink princess backpack containing her two beloved dolls. She falls in with the other kids who try to make a living on the street, selling postcards, food, or roses. No one she comes into contact with is particularly sinister and all have advice for the new girl in town: “customers can’t say no if you have a good story.”

Meanwhile, a flight attendant checks into her regular room at a rather-nice hotel. She is 26 and attractive, with a good job. But she finds herself meeting a married pilot for an afternoon of non-feeling sex. Of course, he’ll never leave his wife. Lan knows this, but she falls back into easy patterns of behavior. “I’m not good at dating” she tells a setup over dinner after she sneaks out the back way. The people she comes into contact with can’t seem to figure out why she’s single.

Across town, at the Saigon City Zoo, Hai tends to the animals, especially his favorite young elephant who has been sold to a zoo in India. Hai was recently dumped by his beautiful, high-maintenance fiance. “She just changed her mind” he says. When asked why he’s single, he replies that he’s not the type of man women like. Hai gets more enjoyment from the animals, having grown up living at the zoo while his father worked as a zookeeper.

We know that somehow these three intricately drawn characters will cross each other’s paths. But before they do, we already care what happens to them. It’s the weirdest thing. We fear for the young girl’s safety in the big city, of course, but we also want Hai and Lan to be happy almost from the moment we meet them. Their loneliness is written all over their faces. In fact, the runaway little girl seems to be happier than the two adults.

The film is shot with hand-held cameras which take us right into the crowded alleyways and shops of the city. We’re in traffic with the characters, we experience what they experience. The city is every bit as big a part of this film as Mumbai was for SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.

The anchor of the story is young Thuy. A non-professional actor chosen for the part with just two days to learn the lines before shooting, it can’t be overstated what a screen presence she is. Her open, trusting face and her ability to carry us along with her as she meets every challenge with calm thoughtfulness. She is given a crash course in sales by the other children. She never complains about her fate; “I’m used to sleeping on the floor–it’s good for the back.” She seems genuinely touched when someone shows her a kindness. And the first adult to do so is zookeeper Hai. He lets her feed the elephants sugarcane, he explains the hidden dangers of some of the animals. She follows him around as he does his duties, he offers her lunch (which she needs to protect from his pet Orangutan). She doesn’t talk in the way of wise-beyond-their-years child actors that we’re used to. She seems to suck everything in and digest it before speaking. By the same token, she isn’t afraid to ask questions of her adult friends. A favorite is “why are you alone?” which is typically answered with “you ask too many questions, sometimes.”

Thuy meets Lan while trying to sell her a rose as she eats alone after another miserable date. Lan sees something in the young girl. An honesty, perhaps. A girl who isn’t so different from Lan when she was 10. Or maybe Lan just needs something to live for; something to protect. Whatever the cause, a simple sharing of some Pho turns into an offer of a roof over her head. Thuy is beside herself with appreciation. Lan is happy for the company, even when Thuy applies Lan’s makeup while she sleeps to see what it’s like to be a grown-up.

Young Han Thi Pham inhabits the role of Thuy as if she’s living her life in front of our eyes. Part of that is probably due to the hand-held cameras which captured what was happening without lengthy setups or too large a crew. Thuy sees that what both of her adult protectors are missing is each other. She mentions them to each other and finally tries to arrange a meeting at a restaurant. The scenes of the three of them, each adult holding one of Thuy’s hands, is nothing short of magical.

There are something we know while watching OWL AND THE SPARROW. The uncle will search, the authorities will find out she’s a runaway, there will be a scene in a (pleasant) orphanage, tears will flow, children will be ripped out of arms. But the ending is never in doubt. The zookeeper’s lower status, the flight attendant’s far-away job, and the girl’s relatives are all merely speedbumps on the way to the inevitable. And I loved every minute of it.

OWL AND THE SPARROW is being self-released and is playing in pockets of California now.

8.5 IMDB

OWL AND THE SPARROW

Tags: 8.5, Drama, Romance, Vietnamese

2008

Campbell CA — Camera 7
USA / UK
English
119 Minutes — December 26, 2008
Drama / Romance
Sam Mendes [American Beauty; Road To Perdition; Jarhead]

How Do You Break Free Without Breaking Apart?

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REVOLUTIONARY ROAD is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 66. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 THE WRESTLER Discussion
• Break
• 23:58 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 24:54 REVOLUTIONARY ROAD Discussion
• Break
• 45:06 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 45:35 The Last Five®
• 1:03:53 Credits and Outtakes

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~~

6.9 Metacritic
7.4 Critical Consensus
7.9 IMDB

Revolutionary Road @ Amazon

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

Tags: 6.9, Drama, Romance, Sam Mendes

2008

January 11, 2009
Campbell CA — Camera 7
USA
English / Hmong
116 Minutes — January 9, 2009
Crime / Drama / Thriller
Clint Eastwood [Per Qualche Dollaro In Piu; Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo; Play Misty For Me; Dirty Harry; High Plains Drifter; Magnum Force; Thunderbolt and Lightfoot; The Eiger Sanction; The Outlaw Josey Wales; The Enforcer; The Gauntlet; Every Which Way But Loose; Escape From Alcatraz; Bronco Billy; Firefox; Sudden Impact; Heartbreak Ridge; Bird; The Dead Pool; Pink Cadillac; White Hunter Black Heart; The Rookie; Unforgiven; In The Line Of Fire; A Perfect World; The Bridges Of Madison County; Absolute Power; Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil; Mystic River; Million Dollar Baby; Flags Of Our Fathers; Letters From Iwo Jima; Changeling]

MichaelVox Twitter Review in 160:
Gran Torino (08 Eastwood C) Clint as Catskills comic–A Don Rickles Capt. Amer–inhabited by stereotypes, not characters–Get Off My Lawn!

I’ve listed all 33 movies that I’ve seen where Clint Eastwood appeared as an actor or as director. That is a lot of baggage and Hollywood history to overcome when you need to take on a new film role. Which is the fatal flaw of GRAN TORINO. We’ve seen Mr. Eastwood for too many years. While watching GRAN TORINO, it borders on the impossible to “forget” Dirty Harry or The Man With No Name, or more specifically for this story, the hot-headed drill sergeant he played in Heartbreak Ridge.

Eastwood plays a grumpy widower who has just buried his wife and is now free to complain about how his Michigan neighborhood and the country at large has changed for the worse. We are hit over the head with this belief of his when, at the very funeral itself, the first scene, one of his grandkids shows up in a Lions jersey and another in a belly shirt, navel ring glinting. Then we see a woman in the back text someone something. At this point, it’s okay to agree with him. We really have become a nation of ugly Americans. But that agreement will end shortly. Eastwood will turn into a jokester Archie Bunker–one who carries a gun and uses language that Television doesn’t allow.

His next-door-neighbors are Hmong. Grandma, mother, daughter, and weak teenage son. We know that every time we hear Eastwood use another all-asians-are-the-same racist remark, he’ll make up for it at the end by respecting and helping and realizing that the world is one great big melting pot. Or something. There are the scenes where he is indoctrinated into the customs of the Hmong; where he tells his drinking buddy the one about the jew, the mexican, and the colored fellow who walk into a bar (punchline: The bartender says “get the hell out of my bar”); where he will flashback to his days during the Korean War, where he’ll have a racist-off with his buddy the barber. Many of these scenes work. None of these scenes are unique or surprising.

The first hour of the film is like watching Eastwood the Catskills comedian. He even narrates his own life. “Why does that grandma hate me so much?” he says to his trusty golden retriever. Eastwood is playing a stereotype, not a character. And unfortunately, so do the other characters. We have the wigger, the three tough black guys, the sassy asian girl, the Hmong gang who sound like they’ve listened to too much T.I., the veterans, the construction supervisor, the shaman, the catholic priest who even has red hair, the money-grubbing daughter-in-law, the selfish grandkids. Everyone who comes on screen is playing a genre, not a person.

But can I say something here? The crowd I was with loved it. They wanted to hear Eastwood say “Get Off My Lawn!” while holding a rifle. They wanted to see him squint and say with his gravely 79-year-old voice “I’m the guy you don’t want to f**k with.” They laughed when he called his neighbors zipperheads and slopes, his barber a dago half-jew, and the young man next-door a pussy. He was like Don Rickles trying to be Captain America. It didn’t work. Eastwood is supposed to be so taken with the son-next-door that he teaches him a trade, gets him a job, protects his honor and even gets him a date. And this was after the boy tried to steal his beloved car.

I’m under the impression that the Hmong cast was non-professional and while it made it a bit more realistic, it also made the film a bit harder to decipher. With Eastwood grumbling and the Hmong speaking too quickly and with inconsistent accents, I’m not entirely sure about half of the dialogue. Sometimes you want realism and sometimes you want people to be able to act. I wanted actors this time. The ending is exactly what you’d expect, but what will stay with you is the dumbed-down script. Way overrated.

7.2 Metacritic
8.4 IMDB #125 All Time
7.1 Critical Consensus

Gran Torino @ Amazon

GRAN TORINO

Tags: 7.2, Clint Eastwood, Crime, Drama, Thriller

2008

January 11, 2009
January 2, 2009
Campbell CA — Camera 7
USA
English
115 Minutes — January 9, 2009
Drama / Sport
Darren Aronofsky [Pi; Requiem For A Dream]

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THE WRESTLER is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 66. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 THE WRESTLER Discussion
• Break
• 23:58 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 24:54 REVOLUTIONARY ROAD Discussion
• Break
• 45:06 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 45:35 The Last Five®
• 1:03:53 Credits and Outtakes

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~~

MichaelVox Twitter Review In 160:
The Wrestler (08 Aronofsky A-) much better mortality tale than BButton, Rourke as good as advertised, Tomei deserves more praise.

Some of my bullet points referred to in the podcast:
–The music is perfect—opening Metal Health Quiet Riot, Cinderella, Round and Round, Sweet Child O’Mine, Balls To the Wall by Accept
–Set design perfect—trailer, backstage, we could probably navigate the grocery store, VFW halls
–glasses/hearing aid/boots, jeans, duct tape on jacket
–tanning/hair/shaving/roids
–bar scene (“just one beer”) among the most romantically perfect I’ve ever seen. An old song, even a terrible one, brings people together. They are happy for five minutes. What Rourke does is amazing, singing terribly, dancing ridiculously, all in front of a woman he’s trying to impress.
–Sweet Child is a perfect song. It is now 22 years old, isn’t it? It’s not just perfect for the film, it’s just perfect.
–Every word of regret that Rourke says can be seen on his pounded up face
–Tomei has the harder role—her femininity is on display, her sexuality is being questioned, her only power (as she sees it) is slipping away from her—drunken customers tell her to her face that she’s too old to be seductive—no one will remember a particularly fabulous pole dance she did once—she was a star in an even less highly-thought-of profession than Ram
–Wrestlers are friends, Ram is supportive, doesn’t have any self-pity that I can see. If he doesn’t pay rent, he sleeps in his van; he doesn’t whine when staples are taken out of his body; he quietly works the deli counter, and then becomes an expert who is comfortable with customer contact.
–The run at the end to make it to the big match was too Hollywood. The speech, while also a movie convention, made sense in this context.
–Aronofsky doesn’t show us Rourke’s face for several minutes at the start. We are always following him at shoulder level, like his sheer size can protect us. That backstage room is full of huge wrestlers, but Ram is their leader.
–Little things: Ram can’t get out of his jeans at the tanning place, the shopping trip to the dollar store, the video game with the kid, the payphone, the autograph session, the kid playing with the action figure, the way Tomei knew how to get money out of Ram but didn’t feel exactly great about it, the way Ram goes through curtains to the cheers of the crowd or the silence of the deli counter.
–Not sure about the fireman girl. She has posters of fireman he of Angus Young
–Daughter stuff didn’t work. Evan Rachel Wood, who I’ve loved since Once and Again, is too angry without explanation. A mad face and brief “not again” are not enough for me. His scene at the beach with her worked in spite of itself.

8.1 Metacritic
8.7 IMDB #59 All Time
8.7 Critical Consensus

The Wrestler @ Amazon

THE WRESTLER

Tags: 8.1, AAN Actor, Darren Aronofsky, Drama, Sport

2008

December 30, 2008
Campbell CA — Camera 7
USA
English
159 Minutes — December 25, 2008
Drama / Fantasy / Mystery / Romance
David Fincher [Se7en; The Game; Fight Club; Zodiac]
Brad Pitt [Less Than Zero; Thelma & Louise; A River Runs Through It; Kalifornia; True Romance; Interview With The Vampire; Legends Of The Fall; Se7en; Twelve Monkeys; Sleepers; Seven Years In Tibet; Fight Club; Spy Game; Ocean's Eleven; Troy; Ocean's Twelve; Mr. & Mrs. Smith; Babel; The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford; Burn After Reading]

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THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 65. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON Discussion – Part 1
• Break
• 17:17 THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON Discussion – Part 2
• Break
• 33:20 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 34:18 The Last Five®
• Break
• 49:02 Listener Last Five (Aaron in Washington, DC)
• 1:03:07 Credits and Outtakes

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7.0 Metacritic
8.6 IMDB #74 All Time

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button @ Amazon

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

Tags: 7.0, David Fincher, Drama, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance

2008

December 9, 2008
Campbell CA — Camera 7
USA
English
128 Minutes — November 26, 2008
Biography / Drama
Gus Van Sant [Drugstore Cowboy; My Own Private Idaho; To Die For; Good Will Hunting; Psycho; Finding Forrester; Elephant; Last Days; Paris Je T'aime]
Sean Penn [Taps; Fast Times At Ridgemont High; Bad Boys; The Falcon And The Snowman; At Close Range; Colors; Casualties Of War; We're No Angels; State Of Grace; Carlito's Way; Dead Man Walking; She's So Lovely; U Turn; The Game; The Thin Red Line; Before Night Falls; Mystic River; 21 Grams; Into The Wild]

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MILK is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 64. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 MILK Discussion – Part 1
• Break
• 18:04 MILK Discussion – Part 2
• Break
• 32:58 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 33:34 The Last Five®
• 1:02:52 Credits and Outtakes

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8.4 Metacritic
8.5 Critical Consensus
8.3 IMDB

Milk @ Amazon

MILK

Tags: 8.4, Biography, Drama, Gus Van Sant, Sean Penn

2008

December 3, 2008
San Jose CA — Cinearts Santana Row
UK / USA
English / Hindi
120 Minutes — November 12, 2008
Comedy / Crime / Drama / Romance
Danny Boyle [Shallow Grave; Trainspotting; The Beach; 28 Days Later; Millions] & Loveleen Tandan

It’s hard to describe just how “cool” this movie is. Which is a terrible way to refer to any kind of film. “Cool”.

A young man from the slums of Mumbai is a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The host can barely contain his contempt. Everyone expects him to exit the game early. But he continues to answer questions correctly, captivating all of India in the process. Most of the film is told in flashback as each question he is asked on the show reminds him of a part of his life. If the question is about US currency, he flashes back to a time when he was a hundred dollar bill. This is clearly unrealistic but sometimes, as the screen shows us early “It is written”. These flashbacks provide and opportunity for us to watch the visual styling of Danny Boyle, who is working out of his European element here. Jamal and his brother are first played by tiny Indian boys who live in an enormous slum just outside the gates of an airport. They spend their time playing cricket, trying their luck at money-making schemes, and outrunning the corrupt police.

There is thumping music, colorful fabrics, slow motion and shaky camera work. It is incredibly exciting.

The boys are compelling and respond to heartbreak with a seen-it-all attitude. They become orphaned and pick up a “third musketeer” along the way.

The film continually moves between the present-day quiz show and the incidents in Jamal’s life that led him to know answers that he has no right knowing.

It is loud and exciting and is a great mixture of western and Indian filmmaking. I loved it.

8.5 Metacritic
8.6 Critical Consensus
8.6 IMDB

Slumdog Millionaire @ Amazon

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Tags: 8.5, Comedy, Crime, Danny Boyle, Drama, Hindi, Romance

2008

November 23, 2008
San Jose Camera Cinema Club
USA
English
75 Minutes
Drama
Rowan Joseph

The Body Of War. The Heart Of A Man.

4.1 Metacritic
6.3 IMDB

Johnny Got His Gun @ Amazon

JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN

Tags: 4.1, Drama, Rowan Joseph

2008

November 5, 2008
Campbell CA — Camera 7
USA
English
141 Minutes — October 31, 2008
Crime / Drama / Mystery
Clint Eastwood [Play Misty For Me; Dirty Harry; Magnum Force; The Outlaw Josey Wales; The Enforcer; Escape From Alcatraz; Sudden Impact; Heartbreak Ridge; Bird; The Rookie; Unforgiven; In The Line Of Fire; The Bridges Of Madison County; Absolute Power; Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil; Mystic River; Million Dollar Baby; Flags Of Our Fathers; Letters From Iwo Jima]
Angelina Jolie [Gia; Pushing Tin; The Bone Collector; Girl, Interrupted; Gone In Sixty Seconds; Mr. & Mrs. Smith]

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CHANGELING is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 63. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 CHANGELING Discussion – Part 1
• Break
• 16:12 CHANGELING Discussion – Part 2
• Break
• 33:12 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 33:58 The Last Five®
• 1:03:16 Credits and Outtake

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6.3 Metacritic
6.3 40 Critical Consensus
8.1 IMDB

Changeling @ Amazon

CHANGELING

Tags: 6.3, Angelina Jolie, Clint Eastwood, Crime, Drama, Mystery

2008

October 19, 2008
San Jose Camera Cinema Club
USA
English
80 Minutes — December 10, 2008 (limited)
Drama
Kelly Reichardt [Old Joy]
Michelle Williams [Dawson's Creek; Dick; If These Walls Could Talk 2; The Station Agent; Brokeback Mountain; I'm Not There]

Another incredibly slow-moving (in the best possible way) story from Kelly Reichardt who also directed the quiet and beautiful OLD JOY, which was about two ex-hippies in search of an Oregon hot springs. This one is about Wendy, played with steadiness by Michelle Williams, a woman “just passing through” a tiny Oregon town when her car breaks down. She is on her way to the fisheries of Alaska in order to make some money. Her partner on this journey is Lucy, her loyal dog. We meet Wendy as she’s woken up by a security guard as she sleeps in her car. He wants to be kind to her, but rules are rules, and he helps her push the car off the Walgreen’s property.

Wendy keeps a log of money spent on her way to find fortune in the Klondike and her funds have dwindled lower than she’s comfortable with. She needs her car fixed and she needs some new dog food so she heads to a store where her urge to save a few more dollars results in a shoplifting charge which results in her dog being lost, which results in her world being turned upside down.

The plot isn’t much. Woman and dog break down on their way to Alaska. But to paraphrase Gene Siskel, it’s not what the film is about, but how it’s about what it’s about. Michelle Williams drops all of her glamor in order to play a woman who does all of her bathing in a Shell Station bathroom. She is distrustful of everyone but her dog. She is estranged in some way from her family, although we are never told what happened. Her license plates are from Indiana and she’s made it as far as Oregon. She doesn’t really hesitate to shoplift, she is comfortable around the homeless who join her in line to recycle cans. She also constantly hums the same tune as she walks from place to place. The time frame of the film is probably three days. And some of the scenes are made up of the mundane things one does while waiting for a car to be fixed, or in Wendy’s case, the auto repair shop to open.

Strangers help her and she helps strangers. The film can be seen as an example of the hidden underclass whereby one financial emergency (or simply a larger-than-expected bill) can devastate a person. She has just about enough money to make it to Alaska–until her car breaks down. She moves in a working class circle. She laments the job market with the Walgreen’s guard. She has no address nor phone number to offer people if they ask. The slide into homelessness could not be more slippery. It’s been reported that the director began thinking of this story after hearing right-wing blowhards blame the victims of Katrina for not leaving New Orleans before the storm hit. Why didn’t they just hop in their SUVs and head north? There is a sizeable group of people for whom a tiny car repair, or a massive hurricane would alter their existence completely. As each new expense pops up for Wendy to deal with, Williams’ eyes reflect a barely-hanging-in-there sensibility. It’s no wonder the homeless guy she meets in the woods is talking to himself. Life is hard. You try your best to get by.

Williams is spectacular in the role. Her wide expressive eyes tell us that she can’t possibly accept another setback. She stays mostly silent, except when speaking with her dog. The unconditional love of a pet might just be keeping her alive. There are scenes of Williams’ face when speaking to a store manager, a cop, a dog pound employee, where she hits it just perfectly. She has realistic breakdowns and seems to bring out the best in people with her open, available face.

And I probably won’t forget the scene involving a tiny kindness by the security guard. I may have teared up.

This film isn’t for everyone. You will feel every one of its 80 minutes. There are long passages where nothing happens and nothing is said. A substantial part of my enjoyment was probably based upon my own life. I have slept in my car (an Acura, not an Accord) in chain store parking lots in Oregon. I’ve been awoken by cops in the morning and told to move on. I’ve taken a train through the Pacific Northwest surrounded by other young people on their way to the canneries. I’ve had cross-country trips stalled because my VW couldn’t go another mile. I’ve “just passed through” most of the towns in Oregon and Washington and Northern California.

My love of the vibe and pacing of this film may be because I’ve been in Wendy’s exact situation, and it certainly rang true for me watching it unfold on the screen.

Like OLD JOY, give WENDY AND LUCY a chance to wash over you. Don’t watch it if you’re already tired. Just observe and you’ll be rewarded.

7.9 IMDB

WENDY AND LUCY

Tags: 7.9, Drama, Kelly Reichardt, Michelle Williams

2008

October 15, 2008
Campbell CA — Camera 7
USA
English
113 Minutes — October 3, 2008
Drama / Romance
Jonathan Demme [Melvin And Howard; Swing Shift; Stop Making Sense; Something Wild; Married To The Mob; The Silence Of The Lambs; Philadelphia]

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RACHEL GETTING MARRIED is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 62. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 RACHEL GETTING MARRIED Discussion – Part 1
• Break
• 18:17 RACHEL GETTING MARRIED Discussion – Part 2
• Break
• 33:07 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 33:37 The Last Five®
• 48:56 Credits and Outtakes

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~~

8.2 Metacritic
6.8 IMDB

Rachel Getting Married @ Amazon

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED

Tags: 8.2, Drama, Jonathan Demme, Romance

2008

Campbell CA — Camera 7
USA
English / Hebrew / Arabic / Persian / Spanish
101 Minutes — October 3, 2008
Documentary
Larry Charles [Borat; Curb Your Enthusiasm]

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RELIGULOUS is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 61. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 RELIGULOUS Discussion
• Break
• 27:42 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 28:24 The Last Five®
• Break
• 46:51 Listener Last Five® (12-year-old Charlie)
• 54:28 Credits and Outtakes

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5.5 Metacritic
7.4 IMDB

Religulous @ Amazon

RELIGULOUS

Tags: 5.5, Bill Maher, Documentary, Larry Charles

2008

September 24, 2008
San Jose CA — Camera 12
USA
English
115 Minutes — September 26, 2008
Comedy / Drama
Neil Burger [The Illusionist]

Sometimes Losing Your Way Home Means Finding Yourself

There isn’t much to this film. Three soldiers, injured in combat, take the same flight from Germany to New York City. They fall into easy conversation on the flight, discussing where they were stationed, why they’re going home, and for how long. Colee (Rachel McAdams) is naive and open and trusting, and does most of the talking. Cheever is played by Tim Robbins as a man whose career in the reserves has come to an end. He can’t wait to get home, see his family, and get reacquainted with the civilian world. TK (Michael Pena) is a macho soldier coming to grips with an injury to his manhood (literally), though he describes his wound as “upper thigh”.

A power outage means that each of their connecting flights has been canceled. The kindness of the guy at the Dollar Car Rental counter (You guys Army? I have one car left) means they are soon on their way in a rented minivan to see the country and to drive non-stop to St. Louis where Cheever will be home and the other two will catch flights to their final destinations.

There is nothing new or unique in this film, whatsoever. Cheever’s wife will chose his arrival to announce their divorce, his son will be proud of his acceptance to Stanford and in the next breath will say “they need $20,000 by next Saturday.” There will be a bar fight, car trouble, people blaming them for the conduct of the war, tears, hugs, romance, jail, and humor. They will all end up in Vegas because that’s where road trip movies end up these days.

I have nothing against road movies. In fact, I rather like the idea of being forced by circumstance to get to know other people while experiencing (or at least driving quickly past) the vastness of the US of A. But, even for a road trip film, this thing meanders all over the place. It aspires to be something bigger–the story of three people learning about the country they’re fighting and being wounded for. They don’t know about American Idol, or the way cocktail chatter often revolves around how bad a mistake Iraq was. They are told “thank you” on a half-dozen occasions, by people they come into contact with, though it seems people say it more out of a sense of duty or relief that it isn’t them in the fatigues, than any actual feelings of gratitude.

The three leads are more than up to the task. McAdams is fiery and beautiful and isn’t as unbelievable as you might imagine as a combat veteran. Robbins is normal and puts aside his usual smarter-than-thou persona to good use–although his marital meltdown seems out of place for his level-headed character. Pena is becoming a very good actor–he’s charismatic, bull-headed, and afraid his fiance will leave him when she learns of his “infirmity”.

But the script is a mess. There are situations that don’t really happen and then there are situations that everyone in the audience sees coming long before the characters do. Robbins hooks up at a BBQ for no other reason than comic effect. There is a preposterous scene involving a tornado (in New Mexico or Colorado, I think) when TK and Colee head off to the store for some powerbars, encounter ominous clouds, then rain, then hail, then they pull over to the side of the road. A tornado appears (ILM has nothing to worry here about effects-wise) but they still have time to have a discussion about getting out of the car and running to a conveniently located drainage pipe under the freeway where the two attractive leads can hold each other while the scary storm blows past. They then get in their car, which shows no proof of the near-fatal twister, and head back to a campground to pick up Cheever, never mentioning it again.

There’s a plot about a guitar handed down from Elvis Presley to Colee’s late boyfriend. Will she return it to his family or give it to Cheever for his son’s tuition? How will Cheever find the money? Will TK really run to Canada to avoid his third tour of duty? Why is there a scene in a Nevada jail?

None of this adds up to much. These three actors deserve much better.

5.2 Metacritic
8.0 IMDB
*** Ebert
** Phillips
**^ Berardinelli

The Lucky Ones @ Amazon

THE LUCKY ONES

Tags: 5.2, Comedy, Drama, Michael Pena, Neil Burger, Rachel McAdams, Tim Robbins

2008

September 23, 2008
San Jose CA — Camera 12
USA / Italy
English / German / Italian
160 Minutes — September 26, 2008
Action / Crime / Drama / Thriller / War
Spike Lee [Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads; She's Gotta Have It; School Daze; Do The Right Thing; Mo' Better Blues; Jungle Fever; Malcolm X; Crooklyn; Girl 6; Get On The Bus; 4 Little Girls; He Got Game; Inside Man; When The Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts]

World War II Has Its Heroes And Its Miracles

This mess of a film was good for the first ten of its excruciatingly long 160-minute running time. Then it went downhill fast. And rather than redeem itself with the second half of its modern-day bookend, it just grew more preposterous, more preachy, more loud, and worst of all, more disjointed. It’s like ten films in one, none of which is related to any of the other nine. Comedy? History lesson? Romance? Film about honor? Is it about a long-held grudge? American Imperialism? 1940s lunch counter politics? I have no idea. But none of these different ideas are close to being clearly depicted on the screen. To say this film is disappointing is far too weak an analysis of its failures.

I need to preface a couple of things. You’ll see by the list of films of Lee’s that I’ve seen that I am a loyal and rabid fan of his. Malcolm X was an almost completely successful sweeping epic that captured 40 years of American history. Do The Right Thing expertly captured New York City race relations in 1989. His documentaries, 4 Little Girls and When The Levees Broke are proof that he can master the non-fiction realm as well. I didn’t mind School Daze or She’s Gotta Have It. Inside Man showed that he could do big budget as well as small. Crooklyn didn’t work for me so much. But Jungle Fever and it’s portrayal of both taboo love and Sam Jackson and Halle Berry as crackheads was pretty spectacular.

So I come from a position of wanting Lee to succeed, even when he plays outside his comfort zone in this case by trying to construct a film in three languages, with modern and 1940s elements, and bombastic war movie special effects. You want to give him props for trying. But then it gets worse and worse.

A gray-haired black man is watching a John Wayne WWII film on his television and says to no one in particular, “We fought for this country, too.” That’s how the film starts and it is typical Spike Lee. It’s almost like you have to go into this film never having read, heard, or seen any depictions of the African American experience in the 20th century. Of course black men fought in World War II (and every other war afterward), but would a man watching a late-night movie alone actually talk back to the screen? When he listens to old Benny Goodman records, does he say “We made music too”. Yes, I understand that portrayals of the brave black fighting men of the war are few and far between, but he starts the film by treating the audience as idiots.

The man works in a post office (which is confusing because during the war scenes there’s a guy named “Stamps”) and he goes through his assigned window tasks with little happiness or human interaction. A customer with an accent asks to mail something, the worker pulls out a German pistol, shoots the man point blank in front of horrified witnesses and then calmly closes his window and awaits arrest.

Enter John Turturro as a cop and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a cub reporter. They will have a conversation scene shot as only Lee can, with fast-moving circling camera angles. A search of the man’s apartment turns up the head of a statue and we know it’s important because the cynical academic expert is rendered speechless when the head is unwrapped in front of him. We are hammered on the head over and over while watching this film. We get it: it’s a priceless artifact that was in a shopping bag in this guy’s closet. We will never see Turturro again and Levitt won’t return for more than two hours. A newspaper story ends up in Rome on the desk of John Leguizamo, who here plays some sort of Nazi-art collector who has a girlfriend who can’t get enough loving from him and before he can read the story he is jumped on by his hottie who causes the newspaper to fly out the window onto the table of a man enjoying a coffee at a street cafe. If that isn’t ridiculous enough, just wait 45 seconds because that’s how long it takes this man to stand up, read the article, and then–I’m not joking here–be so shocked by it that he pours his cup of coffee out in extra-slow-motion followed by the cup and then the saucer smashing on the cobblestone. Please re-read that scene. Man attacked by girlfriend throws paper out of window it lands on the one guy in all of Italy who knows the story of the statue, he stands up, spills his coffee, breaks the cup, and runs out of frame. What in the world is going on here?

We then flashback to the “Buffalo Soldiers” platoon as they bumble their way across a field. To say that they aren’t a tip-top fighting corps is an understatement. We see the same statue in a bag attached to an overweight, and seemingly borderline-retarded soldier named “Train”. But he’s the least of their problems. There are sobbing soldiers, loud soldiers, absent-minded soldiers–this is the gang that can’t shoot straight. They are being sent to cross a river in a suicide mission drawn up by their racist superior. (There are only a handful of white Americans in the film and just about all of them are virulent racists).

Fans of the late, great WIRE on HBO will want to know that not only is Omar Back! but Omar Scared! and then Omar Dead!

This scene has all of the problems of the film in one place. 1) the music is appallingly loud. Not just a bit loud, but loud enough to not be able to hear what the characters are saying; It swells up for no reason as if the composer had no idea what scene he was writing for. This happens more than I’d like in all Spike Lee films, but in this case it took me right out of what was happening. It’s loud, then soft, with no corresponding reason depicted on the screen. 2) The man in charge of them is played by Detective Shane on The Shield, so we know he’ll be an incredible racist who will endanger his men, not believe they could succeed, and then court-marshal them on a trumped up charge. 3) Limbs are blown off and mortars explode in bloody slow-motion as if Lee is saying “look what I can do with a big budget and military advisers.” 4) But most artificially, is the fact that a loudspeaker truck is moved into position and we cut to a radio studio where an attractive, blonde German woman begins her propaganda war. Instead of Tokyo Rose, we get Axis Sally. I have no doubt that this was part of Germany’s strategy to have troops second-guess themselves. But it’s not that she’s speaking, it’s what she’s saying. She begins to give the soldiers (and viewers) a lesson in the African-American assimilation experience. She brings up lunch counters and job opportunities. She says that America will never treat black people equally, she encourages them to put down their weapons and change teams over to Germany. As if no one knew of the Final Solution or Hitler’s views on non-white people. She then switches to speaking more sexually–if you put down your weapons, German women will worship you because deep down they all want to sleep with a strong, black man. Not to mention, we have fried chicken and biscuits just like momma used to make. The words she says are absolutely ridiculous.

Some of the men succeed in crossing the river, radio back to base where the superior assumes that they’re mistaken or are lying, and orders an artillery strike on their very position, killing several of his own men. The ones that make it do so by sheer luck.

At an abandoned farm house they come into contact with an Italian boy who is injured and who may have special mystical powers. The big soldier says that the boy is the first white person he’s ever touched. The Italian boy calls him “Chocolate Giant” in Italian. They end up communicating with taps on each other’s shoulders. The Chocolate Giant, Train, is played in what appears to be an homage to Lenny from Of Mice And Men. The boy won’t let anyone else carry him, Train doesn’t let any harm come to him, and whoever stays close by the child somehow stays out of harm’s way.

The small group bumbles their way to an Italian village where they’re told they’re surrounded by the German army by the one person in the village fluent in English (she claims to have been a nanny) who also happens to be the one model-quality female for miles. Both leaders have their eyes on her, one is tacky and forward, the other is polite and respectful. Guess which one she sleeps with first.

Most will die, there will be honor and betrayal. The movie is all over the place. It’s the kind of film where one soldier says to the other “It’s a SNAFU–situation normal all fucked up.” So he says the acronym and then explains the acronym thereby setting aside the point of an acronym. Lee wants to give us a lesson at every turn, not a story. The woman will take off her shirt at the clothesline, pause as she sees the polite soldier is watching, taunt him with a “haven’t you seen a naked woman before?”, and then change her mind and bang the more aggressive soldier. But that’s not all. The guy comes out of the house pulling up his pants, the woman comes out wearing his helmet, smoking a cigarette, and holding his rifle. Then the two men have a fight over her honor. Yikes.

But wait, there’s more. An entire church full of people is led to a courtyard and told they have one minute to turn over an Italian freedom fighter, even though he’s not there. The priest begs the men to kill him and let the others go. He begins to lead his congregation in prayer. When it looks like the Germans are about to open fire, they hold a pistol up to the priests head. But before they kill him, he has time for a quick prayer about forgiveness which ends exactly when the slow motion bullet goes through his brain. Every character has time for a death-bed declaration or another story about racism or the futility of war.

Everything is obvious. The good guys, the bad guys, the good women, the bad women. Who’s a good soldier, who’s a racist, who’s a caring German, who’s a turncoat Italian.

There is at least one striking and perfect scene in the 160-minute running time. There is a flashback to a time before the soldiers are shipped out from America which takes place in the south. The men want ice cream and stop at a lunch counter where German prisoners are being fed lunch on their way to prison. The cracker owner threatens them with a gun and tells them to go around back if they want any food. The soldiers point out that the Germans are served inside and they’re the enemy. The racist says to his son “That’s how they need to be treated” or something. The soldiers drive away pissed. This incident is one of many that I’ve read about up through the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 60s where soldiers who are literally on their way to die for their country can’t even get a meal in the south. This is one instance of historical instruction that I’m glad Lee handled. Even though the owner is just this side of a characature, the scene rings true. As does a wordless scene when the jeep pulls a U-turn, heads back into the town, and the soldiers come charging in–rifles aimed–and demand their ice cream. The man can’t serve them quickly enough. We cut back to Italy and the four surviving men and the child are staring at the camera for a long, long time with a look of disgust on their faces as if they’re collectively remembering the ice cream incident at exactly the same time.

The shot is framed as if it were a snapshot of the common black soldier experience in WWII Europe. That experience, rather than just being shown to us by Lee, is then unfortunately hammered down on us when a character has to explain how torn up he is about fighting for a country in which he can’t even vote, while experiencing Europe where he feels more welcome than he does in his own country. The scene ends with the men moving out of frame one at a time. It’s pretty striking.

We know we’ll see the man who spilled the coffee, we know we have to be book-ended back to NYC in the 1980s to see what happens to our hero. But what we don’t expect, and what has no real purpose that I can tell, is a meeting on a Bahama beach. “Where Am I?” the character asks, seeming to forget that he just got off a plane whose ticket probably had the destination on it. “Someone wants to meet you.”

I want to commend Lee for trying such a sweeping story, with flashbacks, history, and three languages. But it fails on just about every level. A complete disappointment.

For a much better take on soldiers fighting and dying for a country that doesn’t think of them as equals, please see DAYS OF GLORY.

3.7 Metacritic
5.0 IMDB
*** Ebert
** Phillips
**^ Berardinelli
C- Gleiberman
C- Murray

Miracle at St. Anna @ Amazon

MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA

Tags: 3.6, Action, Crime, Drama, John Turturro, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Spike Lee, Thriller, War

TELL NO ONE
2006

July 23, 2008
September 17, 2008
Campbell CA — Camera 7
France
French
125 Minutes — July 2, 2008
Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller
Guillaume Canet

Eight Years Ago, Alex’s Wife Was Murdered. Today…She E-mailed Him.

Can a murder-mystery be as spell-binding the second time? In this case, yes. Though there was a single plot point that I didn’t notice the first time, which I found to be illogical and impossible the second time. I promise you won’t notice it on the first viewing. Still one of my favorites of the year.

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TELL NO ONE is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 56. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:
• 00:00 Intro
• 00:26 TELL NO ONE Discussion, Part 1
• Break
• 17:00 TELL NO ONE Discussion, Part 2
• Break
• 30:15 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 31:10 The Last Five®
• Break
• 53:45 Listener Feedback
• 1:01:30 Credits and Outtakes

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8.2 Metacritic
8.0 40 Critic Consensus
7.5 IMDB

Tell No One @ Amazon

TELL NO ONE

Tags: 8.2, Crime, Drama, French, Guillaume Canet, Mystery, Thriller

2008

September 17, 2008
Campbell CA — Camera 7
USA / UK / France
English
96 Minutes — September 12, 2008
Comedy / Crime
Ethan Coen and Joel Coen

Intelligence is relative.

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BURN AFTER READING is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 60. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 BURN AFTER READING Discussion
• Break
• 22:19 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 22:44 The Last Five®
• Break
• 49:15 Fall TV Update/Show Notes
• 1:02:40 Credits and Outtake

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*** Ebert
*** Berardinelli
** Phillips
C Schwarzbaum
6.2 Metacritic
7.9 IMDB

BURN AFTER READING

Tags: 6.2, Coen Brothers, Comedy, Crime

2008

September 3, 2008
San Jose CA — Camera 3
USA
English / French
97 Minutes — August 1, 2008
Drama
Courtney Hunt

Hardly a false note. Very well done story of two mothers and what they have to do to provide for their families.

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FROZEN RIVER is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 59. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 FROZEN RIVER DISCUSSION
• Break
• 26:10 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 26:48 The Last Five®
• Break
• 41:31 Listener Last Fives® (Jordan and Branden)
• Break
• 1:02:36 Show Notes
• 1:03:10 Credits and Outtakes

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**** Ebert
B Tobias
8.2 Metacritic
7.2 40 Critic Consensus
7.0 IMDB

FROZEN RIVER

Tags: 8.2, Courtney Hunt, Drama, Melissa Leo

2008

August 13, 2008
Reno NV — Century Riverside
USA / Germany
English
107 Minutes — August 13, 2008
Action / Comedy
Ben Stiller [Empire Of The Sun; Fresh Horses; Next Of Kin; The Ben Stiller Show; Reality Bites; If Lucy Fell; Flirting With Disaster; The Cable Guy; There's Something About Mary; Your Friends & Neighbors; Permanent Midnight; Keeping The Faith; Meet The Parents; Zoolander; The Royal Tenenbaums; Along Came Polly; Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story; Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy; Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny]

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TROPIC THUNDER is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 58. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 TROPIC THUNDER DISCUSSION
• Break
• 14:21 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 14:46 The Last Five®
• Break
• 24:20 Listener Last Five® (Michelle in Sydney)
• Break
• 30:48 From the Queue: TOKYO STORY
• Break
• 36:11 Tassoula’s interview with ALAN BALL
• 55:33 Credits and Outtakes

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”

Robert Downey, Jr., Jack Black.

Not as good as the non-stop hype would suggest. The trailers at the beginning are by far the funniest moments. Nothing satirized here hasn’t been the target of a better film or skit before. Downey better than the rest.

7.1 Metacritic
7.7 40 Critic Consensus
8.2 IMDB

TROPIC THUNDER

Tags: 7.1, Action, Ben Stiller, Comedy, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr.

2008

August 7, 2008
San Jose CA — Camera 12
USA
English / Cantonese
111 Minutes — August 6, 2008
Comedy / Crime / Thriller
David Gordon Green [George Washington; All The Real Girls; Snow Angels]

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PINEAPPLE EXPRESS is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 57. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:
• 00:00 Intro
• 00:30 THE LAST MISTRESS Discussion
• Break
• 14:35 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 15:20 PINEAPPLE EXPRESS Discussion
• Break
• 34:35 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 35:15 The Last Five®
• Break
• 1:01:10 Show Notes/Credits and Outtakes

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Put This In Your Pipe And Smoke It.

Absolutely hilarious. The pop culture non-sequitors that the great James Franco throws out, almost like he’s whispering, are spot-on. The Seth Rogen character gets a bit tiring, and the ending with the seemingly endless shootout belongs in another movie, but whenever the two bro’s are together, everything clicks. And the ending at the diner has dialogue that is exactly what those characters would say. Exactly. Very funny.

6.4 Metacritic
8.3 IMDB
*** Berardinelli

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS

Tags: 6.4, Comedy, Crime, David Gordon Green, James Franco, Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, Thriller

THE LAST MISTRESS
2007

July 31, 2008
San Jose CA — Camera 12
France / Italy
French
104 Minutes — June 27, 2008
Drama
Catherine Breillat [Last Tango In Paris; Romance; Fat Girl]

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THE LAST MISTRESS is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 57. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:
• 00:00 Intro
• 00:30 THE LAST MISTRESS Discussion
• Break
• 14:35 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 15:20 PINEAPPLE EXPRESS Discussion
• Break
• 34:35 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 35:15 The Last Five®
• Break
• 1:01:10 Show Notes/Credits and Outtakes

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Asia Argento [Queen Margot; Last Days; Marie Antoinette]

8.0 Metacritic
6.6 IMDB

THE LAST MISTRESS

Tags: 8.0, Asia Argento, Catherine Breillat, Drama, French

TELL NO ONE
2006

July 23, 2008
San Jose CA — Camera 3
France
French
125 Minutes — July 2, 2008
Drama / Thriller
Guillaume Canet [The Beach]

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TELL NO ONE is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 56. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:
• 00:00 Intro
• 00:26 TELL NO ONE Discussion, Part 1
• Break
• 17:00 TELL NO ONE Discussion, Part 2
• Break
• 30:15 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 31:10 The Last Five®
• Break
• 53:45 Listener Feedback
• 1:01:30 Credits and Outtakes

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8 Years Ago, Alex’s Wife Was Murdered. Today She E-mailed Him.

8.0 Metacritic
7.5 IMDB

TELL NO ONE

Tags: 8.0, Cinebanter, Drama, French, Guillaume Canet, Thriller

2008

July 19, 2008
Campbell CA — Camera 7
USA
English / Cantonese
152 Minutes — July 18, 2008
Action / Crime / Drama / Mystery / Thriller
Christopher Nolan [Following; Memento; Batman Begins; The Prestige]

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The Dark Knight is the subject of Cinebanter Podcast Number 55. After you’ve seen the movie, listen to the spoiler-filled review by Tassoula and I by clicking the play button right here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Show Description:
• 00:00 Intro
• 00:32 THE DARK KNIGHT Discussion
• Break
• 25:22 To Sum It Up
• Break
• 25:48 The Last Five®
• Break
• 51:28 Listener Last Fives (Len in PA and Kate in VA)/Show Notes
• 1:05:46 Credits and Outtake

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Christian Bale [Empire Of The Sun; Henry V; Little Women; American Psycho; Captain Corelli's Mandolin; Laurel Canyon; Batman Begins; The New World; The Prestige; I'm Not There]

Heath Ledger [10 Things I Hate About You; The Patriot; Monster's Ball; Brokeback Mountain; Candy; I'm Not There]

Aaron Eckhart [In The Company Of Men; Your Friends & Neighbors; Any Given Sunday; Erin Brockovich; Nurse Betty; Thank You For Smoking]

Why So Serious?

8.2 Metacritic
9.2 IMDB #1

THE DARK KNIGHT

Tags: 8.2, Action, Christopher Nolan, Cinebanter, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

2007

July 9, 2008
Campbell CA — Camera 7
Germany / Kazakhstan / Russia
Mongolian
126 Minutes — June 6, 2008
Biography / Drama / History / Romance
Sergei Bodrov

Greatness Comes To Those Who Take It

AAN: Foreign Language

7.4 Metacritic
7.5 IMDB

Tags: 7.4, AAN Foreign, Biography, Drama, History, Mongolian, Romance, Sergei Bodrov