2008

January 29, 2009
DVD
USA / UK / France
English
122 Minutes — December 5, 2008
Biography / Drama / History
Ron Howard [Grand Theft Auto; Nightshift; Splash; Cocoon; Gung Ho; Willow; Parenthood; Backdraft; Far And Away; The Paper; Apollo 13; Ransom; Edtv; A Beautiful Mind; The Missing; Cinderella Man]

400 Million People Were Waiting For The Truth.

I’m a huge fan of political films. I watch THE WEST WING continuously–often with tears in my eyes. I love the pageantry of the office of the President, the customs of the US Government–to the point of watching a particularly close Congressional vote on CSPAN. For god’s sake, I teach High School Government. So I should be the guy this film is trying to reach.

But I waited a long time to see it and now that I have, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. No matter how you slice it–how exciting you make the edits and music–you simply cannot make a sit-down interview as exciting as a boxing match, which is exactly what director Ron Howard is trying to do here.

I’m not old enough to remember Nixon or what he stood for or how much people hated him. And for people younger than I, whose only exposure has been through history classes, this film will probably cause them to have more sympathy for an old man who made a few mistakes, but was basically good. That fact must infuriate people who were in their politically aware 20s at the time Tricky Dick held office. There simply isn’t enough backstory in this film to tell the uninformed viewer the gravity of his crimes. I’m not saying that this film is the place for a complete review of the Watergate break-in, but depending on your age, this film will be a piece of negative nostalgia, or the story of people with funny haircuts sitting down for an interview back when you were allowed to smoke wherever you wanted. (The “aggressive” 70s product placement is one of the problems with this film–the famous Iron-Eyes Cody PSA is seen on the TV while people drink TAB).

As with most Ron Howard films, his one or two main themes are spelled out, heightened with music, repeated again, and then paused after for effect. One of these themes was something that actually was “achieved” by David Frost during these interviews, when Nixon admitted that no matter what he did as president, it wasn’t illegal because it’s impossible for the president to do anything illegal. This statement obviously has more weight in a post-Bush United States where the former president never met a signing statement he wouldn’t make or found a way to put the office of the President above the law in the name of “The War On Terror.”

The parallels between 1974 and 2008 are not lost on us (and with Howard at the helm, we have no choice but to think about them).

The other theme is that Nixon was a lonely man who wasn’t good with people. Boo hoo.

Setting aside the facts of the case, the film tries to make the high-pressure world of presidential interviews something of a sporting event. In this corner, David Frost, a man who drinks, smokes, bangs models, and hosts the 1970s equivalent of America’s Got Talent. In this corner, a disgraced president, who somehow thinks that if he says just the right thing during a one-on-one interview that he’ll be invited back to DC and receive a hero’s welcome. In 30 years, we might see David Hasselhoff v. Bush II.

Nixon thought he’d wipe the floor with Frost. How could a limey from across the pond hope to match his intellect? Frost thought he’d show all those naysayers by finally getting the secretive Nixon to admit to the whole business.

The performances are good. Unfortunately for Oscar-nominee Frank Langella, Nixon has been played by so many people by now that we scarcely remember the real man. The supporting cast is good: Rockwell, Oliver Platt, Kevin Bacon, and Rebecca Hall is a very sexy woman who’s only purpose in the screenplay is to stop the sausage-fest.

Here’s your one-sentence review: A film about an interview. Really, how exciting can that be?

Oscar Nominations: Picture, Director Ron Howard, Actor Frank Langella, Screenplay, Editing

8.0 Metacritic
7.9 Critical Consensus
8.1 IMDB #242 All Time

Frost/Nixon [Theatrical Release] @ Amazon

FROST/NIXON

Tags: 2008, 8.0, AAN Actor, AAN Director, AAN Editor, AAN Picture, AAN Screenplay, Biography, Drama, History, Ron Howard

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

~~
~~

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: 2008, 8.1, AAN Actor, Aronofsky, Cinebanter, Drama, Sport

2008

January 2, 2009
DVD
USA
English
109 Minutes — January 9, 2009
Drama / Sport
Darren Aronofsky [Pi; Requiem For A Dream]

This film award season has been much worse than past years in terms of release schedules of quality films. I live in the 10th largest city in the country, but in order to have access to the films with all the buzz, I need to drive myself an hour north to San Francisco, which is typically just after New York City and Los Angeles on the release schedule. THE WRESTLER won’t open in a local theater until the 9th, but I couldn’t stand waiting. This is all a long way of saying that I will withhold a more in-depth review until I see it on the big screen, the way nature intended.

But before that happens I need to say that this film will absolutely be somewhere on my top ten of 2008 list, and I’m not sure that any of the other slow-to-open films being hyped will land above this one. This film says things about mortality and the briefness of life that Benjamin Button was trying to say, but failed under the sheen of fairytale warmth.

I can’t wait to see it again.

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.

~~
~~

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

~~
~~

8.1 Metacritic
8.7 IMDB #72 All Time

The Wrestler @ Amazon

THE WRESTLER

Tags: 2008, 8.1, AAN Actor, Aronofsky, Drama, English, Sport

LAST TANGO IN PARIS
1972

August 4, 2008
Netflix DVD
Italy / France
French / English
129 Minutes — February 7, 1973
Drama / Romance
Bernardo Bertolucci [The Last Emperor; The Sheltering Sky; Little Buddha; Stealing Beauty; The Dreamers]
#222 They Shoot Pictures Don’t They Top 1000 Films Of All Time

Marlon Brando [A Streetcar Named Desire; The Wild One; On The Waterfront; Guys And Dolls; Mutiny On The Bounty; The Godfather; Superman; Apocalypse Now; A Dry White Season; The Freshman; Don Juan DeMarco]

A middle-aged man and a young French girl have a doomed love affair.

ON: Brando, Bertolucci

7.7 Metacritic
7.0 IMDB
*** Halliwell’s
**** Ebert
***^ Maltin

Tags: 1972, 7.7, AAN Actor, AAN Director, Bernardo Bertolucci, Drama, French, Marlon Brando, Romance, Top 1000

1953

July 24, 2008
TCM
USA
English
118 Minutes — August 5, 1953
Drama / Romance / War
Fred Zinnemann [Oklahoma!]
#878 They Shoot Pictures Don’t They Top 1000 Films Of All Time

Burt Lancaster [The Swimmer; Atlantic City; Local Hero; Field Of Dreams]

Montgomery Clift [A Place In The Sun]

Deborah Kerr [An Affair To Remember]

Donna Reed [It's A Wonderful Life; The Benny Goodman Story]

Frank Sinatra [Guys And Dolls; The Manchurian Candidate]

Life in a Honolulu barracks at the time of Pearl Harbor.

OW: Picture, Director Fred Zinnemann, Screenplay, Supporting Actor Frank Sinatra, Supporting Actress Donna Reed, Cinematography, Editor
ON: Actor Burt Lancaster, Actor Montgomery Clift, Actress Deborah Kerr

*** Halliwell’s
7.9 IMDB

Tags: 1953, 7.9, AA Cinematography, AA Director, AA Editor, AA Picture, AA Screenplay, AA Supporting Actor, AA Supporting Actress, AAN Actor, AAN Actress, Burt Lancaster, Donna Reed, Drama, Romance, Top 1000, War

1960

July 19, 2008
TCM
USA
English
125 Minutes
Romance / Comedy / Drama
Billy Wilder [The Lost Weekend; Sunset Blvd.; Sabrina; The Spirit Of St. Louis; Some Like It Hot]
#55 They Shoot Pictures Don’t They Top 1000 Films Of All Time

A lonely, ambitious clerk rents out his apartment to philandering executives and finds that one of them is after his own girl.

OW: Picture, Director, Writer
ON: Cinematography, AC Jack Lemmon, AC Shirley MacLaine, SAC Jack Kruschen, Art, Editing

*** Halliwell’s
8.4 IMDB #96

Tags: 1960, 8.4, AA Director, AA Picture, AA Screenplay, AAN Actor, AAN Actress, AAN Cinematography, AAN Editor, AAN Supporting Actor, Billy Wilder, Comedy, Drama, Romance, Top 1000