See This Film: Save The Tiger

Jack Lemmon’s Oscar-winning role in a landmark of 70s American cinema.

“Quarterbacks get knocked down, nurses get knocked up, somebody invented the Edsel. Everybody misses.” - Harry Stoner

Character-driven studies of men and women in crisis are commonplace in modern cinema, especially featuring movie stars eager to expand their acting chops and resumes with a project that might get them respect or – even better – awards. To a greater or lesser extent, modern films like Michael Clayton, Sideways,  American Beauty and even The Wrestler all owe a debt to 1973′s Save The Tiger, the pater familias of American men-in-meltdown character pieces and probably the apex of Jack Lemmon’s formidable screen career.

Lemmon plays Harry Stoner, a World War II veteran and dress merchant experiencing simultaneous career and personal meltdowns as both his business and personal lives take a turn for the worse. As he explains first to his wife and then his business partner Phil (Jack Gilford), Harry feels the world has passed him by. A veteran of the battle at Anzio, he feels deep survivor’s guilt that’s been complicated by years of ethical and personal compromises in his dress-making company. He expresses his guilt and nostalgia by reminiscing about the baseball of his childhood, reconstructing team lineups and explaining how pitchers wound up before throwing. In less capable hands such weariness would come across as heavy-handed and self-pitying, but Lemmon’s tightly controlled performance communicates such emotions as  fatigue rather than self-indulgence.

Meanwhile Harry has some difficult decisions to make. The previous year, it seems, he and Phil performed some creative accounting to keep their business solvent. With a government audit looming, Harry considers hiring an arsonist to burn down their warehouse for the insurance money. Then, with a fashion line debut happening just downstairs, an important client has a heart attack while enjoying two prostitutes Harry arranged to visit him. Enraged at the client, the prostitutes and at himself, but reacting to the injury as if back on the Italian front, Harry nearly snaps. “This isn’t a man, it’s a casualty,” he tells Phil. Obliged to make a speech to his buyers, he visualizes the men he saw die in battle staring at him from the seats. The screen trick of putting the wounded on camera, visible only to Harry, will likely seem overly familiar to modern audiences, thanks to its legions of imitators. Director John G. Avildsen (Rocky) keeps the camera going back in forth in rhythm, making one of a series of clever camera movements that keeps the story’s momentum brisk.

Perhaps unfortunately Harry and Phil’s new line is a success, increasing the pressure to get themselves out of their financial hole. A mob Shylock breezes through, offering them money the banks won’t. Harry drags Jack to consult the arsonist (Thayer David) instead, a Sydney Greenstreet-esque professional who explains what he does as a faux-documentary porno plays on the movie theatre screen before them. Phil wants out, but Harry recognizes the grim necessity of the move. 

“I want another season,” he explains later, to his senior tailor (William Hansen.) The rest of the film becomes increasingly loose in structure, as Harry spends the night stoned with a hitchhiker he’d met that morning. Aching and weary, he rambles a long monologue about 20th Century America while the girl (Laurie Heineman) looks on in helpless pity. “I want… to walk in that rain that never washes perfume away,” he tells her. “I wanna be in love with something. Anything. Just the idea. A dog, a cat. Anything. Just something.”  The next morning, he agrees to the arsonist’s stipulations but begs him to keep Phil out of the deal.

The final scene is one of those symbolic 70s endings that people discuss and argue about until the meaning becomes clearer but always up for debate. Wandering the streets, Harry finds a group of children playing baseball in a park. Given the opportunity to throw the ball, he winds up and sends it soaring into the trees behind the dugouts. “Why’d you do that, mister?” one of the kids asks. “I wanted you to see it once,” Harry tells them. The children are unforgiving – “You can’t play with us!” one of them shouts – and the final image is of Harry watching the game go on from behind a fence, a short but crucial distance separating him from the events.

- Michael Kabel

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Review: The International

A good idea about a bad bank goes terribly wrong in the new film by director Tom Tykwer.

Two of director Tom Tykwer’s previous films – Run Lola Run and The Princess and the Warrior – feature their respective heroes robbing banks, so it’s probably no surprise that The International, his latest effort, centers around a pair of noble lawmen trying to bring down a corrupt banking institution. But unlike those earlier exceptional works the film fails hard, thanks in large part to first time screenwriter Eric Singer’s disrespect for mundane details.

The hero this time around is Louis Salinger (Clive Owen), an Interpol agent with a deeply personal vendetta against the International Bank of Business and Credit, a corrupt multinational behemoth that, beneath its legit activities, caters to money launderers, gangsters, political revolutionaries, and other criminals.  With the help of New York Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts), Salinger pursues his crusade around the world, inevitably finding his integrity and his morals compromised along the way.

Aiming for a more cerebral touch than the legion of Bourne imitators, Singer’s complicated script routinely gets lost in its own complexities. The Bank’s elaborate scheme – controlling the sale of Chinese missile launchers to conflict zones around the world, thereby positioning the Bank to have unfettered manipulation of global debt – demands the viewer’s attention, but eventually collapses under a tangle of narrative shortcuts and obfuscations. As a Bank employee (Armin Mueller-Stahl) explains at one point, the difference between truth and fiction is that “Fiction has to make sense.” But Singer ignores his own logic, as the story grows littered with paradoxes and conundrums that fly in the face of real world, “truthful” logic. It’s never fully explained why Whitman, a New York ADA, is allowed or even able to gallivant around Europe on the trail of European criminal activity. For that matter, what kind of villains would employ a hitman with an obvious, easily discernible disability? And how is Whitman able to get a hold of a top secret CIA dossier when the agency is supposed to be heavily involved with the Bank’s activities? 

Perhaps the most egregious jettisoning of logic is the film’s central set piece, staged in a life-size scale replica of the Guggenheim museum.  Salinger engages in open warfare with a slew of Bank-employed hitmen brandishing automatic weapons, even as clusters of innocent bystanders run and hide for their lives. The complete absence of first responders and security guards is so conspicuous and so completely out of tonal sync with the rest of the movie – loud, dumb and overly drawn out to the point of tedium – that the film’s momentum fully grounds to a halt. Like a daydream during a Poli Sci lecture, the entire sequence is a bit of fluff that ruins the impact of the heavier content taking place it. 

Admittedly, abstract displays of socioeconomic malevolence are nigh impossible to display within a two-hour movie.  But it’s disappointing all the same that Tykwer takes the easy way out and conveys the Bank’s evil through intermittent exhibitions of extreme violence. The murders of Salinger’s colleague and of a sympathetic political candidate are loaded with viscera, but the Guggenheim sequence contains more blood and gore than some low-budget horror films. By comparison, acts of violence against the Bank’s personnel either occur off camera or are downplayed with minimal detail. It’s a disingenuous, at this point clichéd trick: rather than explore any moral ambiguity, the filmmakers sanitize violence against evil men by isolating the audience from it (even as they are brutally subjected to garish displays of wrath against the innocent). Loaded with detail on one end and gore on the other, such issues never rise above the muddle.

Given such a situation, it’s sometimes possible for a film to become redeemed through its performances, but that’s not the case here. Wantonly violent, European settings, political intrigue – this thing could only star Clive Owen.  If you’ve seen Closer, or The Bourne Identity, or Shoot ‘Em Up, or Children of Men, or Sin City, then you know exactly what to expect – staring laser beams, gravelly voice, snarling, blah, blah, blah.  Watts’ presence serves as a reminder of the vastly superior Eastern Promises (in which she starred opposite Viggo Mortensen), and while she’s an incredibly beautiful and talented she’s also miscast here as a workaholic civil servant.  Still, the film’s most interesting idea is its villainy, and the villains dominate their screen time: Brian F. O’Byrne shines as the intense yet nondescript hitman, and Ulrich Thomsen exudes sinister, dispassionate charisma as the Bank’s mastermind.

Finally, something about the music The International marks the first film where Tykwer doesn’t share in screenwriting duties. He did once again compose his own musical score (along with frequent collaborators Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil), but here he disappoints as well. The theme to The Princess and the Warrior was a haunting, ethereal work, and the riveting score to Run Lola Run remains a masterpiece both among soundtracks and the techno genre as a whole. What a shame, then, that the score to The International generates no impressions one way or another. For any other director, such a venial flaw would not be noteworthy; but in light of his previous successes, Tykwer’s perfunctory musical effort only serves to dampen the film’s energy even further.

Clearly the most mainstream of his films, one can’t help but wonder if The International would have been a stronger picture if the director had assisted Singer with the screenplay or taken the time to tailor it to his signature filmmaking style. Instead, moviegoers are left with a fragmented, derivative genre picture that its own director couldn’t reconcile.  Considering the critical relevance of the subject matter, there’s still a good story in there somewhere – but if Tykwer can’t be bothered to find it, we shouldn’t be expected to look either.

- Stephen Kabel
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Preview: Crossing Over

Ensemble cast confronts illegal immigration in Lost Angeles.

Crossing Over, a multi-faceted collage of stories representing different sides of the ongoing illegal immigration problem in Los Angeles, arrives in limited release next Friday. Boasting a constellation of stars and depicting a tangle of several interconnected stories, the film apparently aims if nothing else to tell both sides of the story – actually, many sides of the impossibly complicated issue. It’s an ambitious goal, and writer-director Wayne Kramer (The Cooler) has the immigrant background to bring real veracity to the story, even if the film’s journey to theatres has been rocky at best.

Among the varied storylines circling around and through one another: an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent (Harrison Ford) becomes engulfed in protecting the child of an illegal immigrant he’s arrested; a young couple looking to break into the entertainment industry (Jim Sturgess, Alice Eve) find their future together may hinge on the indecent proposal proffered by an immigration bureaucrat (Ray Liotta); a 15 year-old Muslim student (Summer Bishil) born in Bangladesh but raised in America faces deportation after writing an essay questioning the events of September 11th. Ashley Judd plays an immigration defense attorney arranging the adoption of a Nigerian child, while Cliff Curtis portrays Ford’s partner, a veteran agent struggling with familial connections that tear at his loyalty.

Drawing comparisons to Crash and Traffic virtually from the moment of its announcement,  the film so far has received as much controversy for what won’t be included as what’s survived numerous recuts: a plotline involving the “honor killing” of an Irani woman by her brother was removed following protests from the National Iranian American Council. Sean Penn, who filmed several scenes as a U.S. Border Patrol guard, requested his part be removed from the film’s final cut, reportedly over similar issues. Furthering its bad fortune, early reviews have called the film to task to for its heavy tone and for the forced contrivances linking the assorted characters to one another. Like Crash, the connections are apparently sometimes a bit too much to take.

All of which won’t necessarily matter if the film resonates with the wider public. Immigration has somewhat faded from the national spotlight as the recent economic troubles have deepened – it’s hard to think about jobs going to someone else when no jobs are available. Still, last fall’s prestige season was hardly one for the record books, and adult audiences might find the film a safe haven as the geek splendor of Watchmen and, to a much lesser extent, another Street Fighter movie takes over multiplexes. For our part we’ll never completely swear off Ford as a leading man, especially in a role that strangely echoes his leading man status-cementing turn in Witness twenty four years ago. Judd and Liotta are both overdue for career resurgences, while Curtis and Bishil are rising stars to watch.

Crossing Over debuts in limited release Feburary 27. Have a good weekend.

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We Handicap the Academy Awards

Just what the Internet needs: more speculation and second-guessing.

The 81st annual Academy Awards takes place this Sunday, oddly coming just after the movie industry’s biggest January to date. The ceremony is hosted by Hugh Jackman, who when considering some previous hosts (Billy Crystal, David Letterman, Bob Hope) is if nothing else probably the best-looking emcee since Douglas Fairbanks had the honor back in 1929.

Oscar speculation is something of an irresistable sport for us, sort of like armchair quarterbacking if we gave a rat’s ass about football. That’s true this year especially, when there’s a broad spectrum of talent and nominations competing against one another. Some of the nominees, in fact, transcend even the idea of a yearly award: one nominee has already achieved almost mythic status just six months after its film’s debut. (Yep, that one.) And a few of the nominees, to be blunt, don’t actually deserve any positive recognition.

What follows is our list of who we think will win the award, who we think should win, and some random observations about why the tween won’t necessarily meet. As we haven’t seen everything in every category, remember this is all just healthy speculation mixed with research of critics we respect and what we know about Academy voting behavior in years past. We haven’t included all the categories for those same reasons, as well. A full ballot can be found at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ official website, which is found here.

Actress In A Supporting Role: Should win: Viola Davis, Doubt. Will win: Amy Adams, Doubt. Adams is a rising star with a previous nomination and leading lady good looks – a winner the Academy can feel good about coronating. Davis (Nights in Rodanthe) is a veteran character actress who disappears into parts, especially in the Steven Soderbergh films Out of Sight and Solaris.  Adams gives a fine performance, but Davis shines in her too-brief screen time. Dark horse: Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler. Tomei might pick up the award if enough voters want to bury the urban legend that she didn’t truly win for My Cousin Vinny.

Actor In A Supporting Role: Should win: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight. Will win: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight. The Academy would have to be blind not to recognize Ledger’s landmark performance, even as it snubs director Christopher Nolan and the film itself in their respective categories. Dark horse: Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road. Shannon’s performance was a single bright light in an otherwise dreary spectacle; any other year and he’d be a shoe-in.

Actress In A Lead Role: Should win: Melissa Leo, Frozen River. Will win: Kate Winslet, The Reader. Leo’s turn in the downer Frozen River brought her the attention she’s deserved at least since 21 Grams six years ago. All the same, The Reader marks Winslet’s sixth nomination without a win, and her turn as a Nazi cougar is the kind of showpiece performance that wins awards. Dark horse: Meryl Streep, Doubt. We imagine by now Streep’s name appears on the Academy’s ballot template.

Actor In A Lead Role: Should win: Richard Jenkins, The Visitor. Will win: Sean Penn, Milk. Jenkin’s perfect-pitch turn in the indie The Visitor was a study in fine acting, but it lacked the showiness of Penn’s turn or the topical edginess of Gus Van Sant’s biopic. Dark horse: Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon. Langella inhabited Tricky Dick’s persona with uncanny grace and skill. He also once played Skeletor opposite Dolph Lundgren. He’s a fine actor, but something like that casts a long, deep shadow and anyway Frost/Nixon isn’t the kind of film the Academy likes to celebrate. The Wrestler lost a lot of buzz once people actually saw it, which unfairly hurts Mickey Rourke’s chances.

Writer (Adapted Screenplay): Should win: Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon. Will win: David Hare, The Reader. Morgan adapted his own play to the screen without losing intensity or focus, but veteran playwright Hare (The Hours, Damage) and The Reader have the pedigrees and controversy. Dark horse: Eric Roth and Robin Swicord, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Roth and Swicord built a lot off of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story, even if most of it wasn’t particularly well-developed. Still, the Academy loves a romantic epic.

Writer (Original Screenplay): Should win: Courtney Hunt, Frozen River. Will win: Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, and Jim Reardon, WALL*E. Though both films deserve to win, WALL*E‘s conspicuous absence from the Best Picture nominations cries out for a consolation prize. On the other hand, if Leo doesn’t get the Best Actress nod then voters might choose to reward Hunt for writing and directing in one swoop. Dark horse: Martin McDonagh, In Bruges. First-time writer-director McDonagh’s offbeat story of assassins-in-crisis was a hip hit, and like Cody Diablo last year he’s an edgy new talent to watch.

Directing: Should win: Of the nominees, Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire. Will win: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire. Boyle’s film is conspicuously absent in the acting categories, and giving him the statue for his long career of work will offset the sting if voters opt not to give the mixed-reviewed Slumdog the Best Picture statue. Dark horse: Neglecting to recognize Nolan for The Dark Knight was a bit of stodginess that the Academy will likely regret in years to come. It’s a virtually flawless work that transcends its genre basis without compromising any of its elements.

Best Picture: Should win: Possibly Frost/Nixon, but they all stand in the shadows of non-nominees The Dark Knight and WALL*E. Will win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Lush, elaborate and non-confrontational but socially relevant thanks to its Hurrican Katrina subplot, Button is the kind of uplifting epic the Academy has liked in the past. Dark horses: both Slumdog Millionaire and The Reader might overcome slow-percolating backlashes if voters find Button too long and too lightweight.

The following video shows clips of every Best Picture winner, from 1928 to 2006. (So there’s no clip for No Country For Old Men.)

- Michael Kabel

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Preview: State of Play

The hit BBC mini-series comes to America as a brooding thriller.

Director Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland) brings the critically-acclaimed 2003 BBC One mini-series State of Play to American audiences this April with a top-notch cast, writers already expert in the genre, and a premise that probably couldn’t be more topical if it tried. The film could present something of a comeback for its two stars and a smart centerpiece to the spring movie season, but in any event considering the talent involved it’ll be something of a puzzle if the film is anything less than very good.

Russell Crowe plays Cal McCaffrey, an investigative reporter for the fictitious Washington Globe newspaper, an old school muckraker and rule-bender devoted, as film reporters sometimes are, to getting a story at all costs. He’s also a former campaign manager and friend to rising Democratic Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck). McCaffrey and his junior partner Della (Rachel McAdams) are assigned by their editor (Helen Mirren) to investigate the murder of Collins’ mistress. Plenty of people in Washington have a motive to see the Collin’s career collapse: he’s seen as the future of the political party and a potential presidential candidate, and his committee is investigating several large corporations, so the murder may be an act of political assassination. As the investigation unfurls McCaffrey begins an affair with Collins’ wife (Robin Wright Penn).

MacDonald has said he wanted the film to hearken to the politically conscious films of the 1970s, an era famous for its examination of the press and its relationship to its subject matter. Most notably, films such as Network and The Parallax View explored the press’ tumultuous standing within the workings of politics. Along with All The President’s Men and 1981′s Absence of Malice, the films and their directors (Alan J. Pakula, Sidney Lumet, Sydney Pollack) often made the point that true journalistic objectivity was often impossible in the face of human nature and desire, and it’s hard not see how such a perspective doesn’t fit into an evaluation of modern media and its ready spectrum of slant. If MacDonald wants to make a film about that for American audiences, more power to him.

The script boasts some of the best political screenwriters currently available, including script treatments both by Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) and Billy Ray (Breach) after an original adaptation by Matthew Michael Carnahan (Lions for Lambs). Such craftsmanship is almost certainly necessary given the task of condensing the original six-hour BBC mini-series into a two hour film. Gilroy and Ray are both adept at making points with their scripts that don’t become bombastic as their stories develop, which given the already-heady subject matter is probably a virtue. Stories about politics often reflect the density of their real-life counterparts, so expect a lot of exposition as well.

Though long reported to star Brad Pitt as McCaffrey and Edward Norton as Collins, the casting of Crowe and Affleck is probably more advantageous to the film as a whole. Crowe rose to fame playing maverick hard asses (Gladiator, The Insider) but in recent films has started to cruise on his effortless screen charm. In that sense he’s in good company with Affleck, but it’s worth noting that when given a worthy screen adversary (as in 2002′s underrated Changing Lanes, opposite Samuel L. Jackson), he can play suburban bluster and frat boy entitlement like no one else. Both men, for that matter, could use a commercial hit right now as well. Also appearing are Jason Bateman as a drug-addicted sex fetishist, Jeff Daniels, Harry Lennix, and Viola Davis (Doubt).

State of Play opens nationwide April 17th.

- Michael Kabel

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Five Recent Films You Shouldn’t Miss

Challenge your local Netflix distributor with these overlooked screen gems of recent years.

Have you seen this film?

Maybe the most difficult thing about following film is that new movies debut all the time. Several come out every week, and even keeping up with the ones most likely worth seeing takes a fair amount of time. Inevitably, good movies fall through the cracks, either from bad timing in their release or lack of marketing or some strange contingency of fate for which an explanation never really surfaces. Most of the film fans I know have at least one movie that they’re convinced only they have ever seen. (My own is a mid-80s neo-noir called Trouble In Mind, though IMDB assures me otherwise.)

It does seem that more and more some medium- and lower-budget films are either getting a very narrow release or coming and going so quickly through the nationwide markets that the public never really gets a chance to discover them. The rising supremacy of profits in the film industry is often cited as the cause for so many problems and shortcomings, but it’s especially true of smaller-scale efforts. If a film can’t make a lot of money in its first week or so of distribution, odds are it won’t remain in theatres for very long. Some do well on the festival and indie circuit, of course, and inevitably others find their audience on DVD. In the last decade both The Big Lebowski and Office Space disappointed in their theatrical runs, but have become (at the risk of using a horrible cliche) modern classics in recent years.

These five films all came and went pretty quickly, despite sinking pretty quickly into a crowd of bigger films with bigger performances and bigger special effects. They’re all from the last ten years or so, meaning they’re all readily available on DVD.

1. Breach (2007): A slower-paced, more intellectual spy movie than the Bourne films and their derivatives, Breach details the based-on-true story of Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper), an obscure FBI analyst eventually convicted of selling millions of dollars in secrets to the Soviet Union. Ryan Phillippe plays the junior operative assigned to win his trust before their superiors (Laura Linney and Dennis Haysbert) can move in for the arrest. Moody and melancholy thanks to Billy Ray’s (Shattered Glass, a film that could also appear on this list) deliberate direction, with memorable turns by everyone but especially Cooper and Linney as people who’ve given their lives to the same organization with nothing to show for their loyalty.

2. Freedomland (2006) Based on Richard Price’s grim novel about a recovering addict (Julianne Moore) and the desperate search for her missing daughter. Samuel L. Jackon plays the weary detective assigned to investigate the ostensible kidnapping, even while community protests push race relations in the family’s housing projects to the boiling point. Producer Joe Roth turned to directing with this heavy drama, and sharp performances by Jackson and Moore (who channels her tendency to overact into the mother’s simmering hysteria) lift the depressing story. Not an easy film to watch, but a rewarding expense of time nonetheless.

3. Auto-Focus (2002): Greg Kinnear gives arguably the best performance of his career as real-life TV star/sexual provocateur Bob Crane in Paul Shrader’s adaptation of Robert Greysmith’s biography. Crane championed – and most notably practiced – sexual liberation long before it became the cultural zeitgeist, initiating a career tailspin that ended in his still-unsolved murder. Willem DeFoe co-stars as his fellow voyeur and Maria Bello plays his understanding but neglected wife. Shrader and Greysmith make no apologies for Crane’s life and offer no explanation except what the man himself said, and Kinnear manipulates his nice guy personality to give the ultimately lonely Crane both depth and charm.

4. Thank You For Smoking (2005): Hollywood has largely lost the sense of making a good black comedy, a notable exception being Jason Reitman’s acid-etched satire of the cigarette industry. Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight) plays Big Tobacco wonk Nick Naylor, a silver-tongued, warm-smiling bastard who tries to get cigarette product placement into a Hollywood blockbuster while spending quality time with his tween son. The mighty J.K. Simmons is hysterical as his boss, and William H. Macy shines his befuddled best as a well-intentioned but overmatched senator. Not for the squeamish but a great film for everyone else.

5. The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) Having twisted Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep to their own ends with The Big Lebowski, the Coen Brothers turned their attention to the novels of Chandler contemporary James M. Cain with this stark neo-noir, possibly both their bleakest and most complicated film. Billy Bob Thornton plays Ed Crane, an emotionally inert barber whose wife (Frances McDormand) carries on a passionate love affair with her boss (James Gandolfini) in post-World War II California. The serpentine plot swells to include murder, blackmail, mistaken identity and cruel twists of fate, all delivered with the Coen Brothers’ by-now-legendary ruthless intelligence. Consider this excerpt, in which a quick-thinking attorney (Tony Shalhoub) bends Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle into a murder defense.

 - Michael Kabel

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In Case You’re Just Joining Us…

Links and recaps of our favorite and most popular posts.

Pictured: WordPress

WordPress, benevolent deity that it is, lets its bloggers monitor lots of features about their blogs, including their most popular blog entries. Lately we’ve been getting a lot more traffic than we used to, especially for some of our comic-book related articles. We can’t say that’s especially surprising – character speculation is often the bulk of the fun surrounding a comic book film. A few others are getting noticed around the Intertubes, too, and that’s also great with us.

These are our most popular and also some we think deserve more recognition so, please, pay attention. Presented in no particular order of importance:

1. Since we’re supposed to be an “online journal of dissent,” we should mention some reviews in which we diverge from popular critical response. We bashed Revolutionary Road for the overreaching mess that it was and loathed The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as a formless and largely pointless chick flick in epic film clothing. On the other hand, we liked The X-Files: I Want To Believe and continue to champion the work of writer-director James Gray.

2. We featured seven lesser known comic book adaptations last October. That post includes video of each goofy, inspired, or goofily inspired effort, some of which are cringe-inducing and some are charming in their own weird way. Trust us when we say that until you’ve seen Dr. Strange’s afro in his clip, you can’t truly appreciate the 1970s. We also have David Hasselhoff playing a part recently done by Samuel L. Jackson and Shaquille O’Neal as an ersatz Superman. And if that’s not quality blogging, what truly is?

3. For that matter, our piece in which we give Hollywood a plot, suggest a director, and even cast The Flash’s jump to the big screen is getting a lot of traffic the last couple of weeks. We’re glad for that, since we were  up many a night getting each casting choice just right. And while we’re hijacking story meetings, our picks for ten villains for the third Batman movie has also met with a pretty great response.

4. We did a post about why most films set in and around the Civil War absolutely suck. It’s not our most popular piece, but it’s been getting some attention lately and we’re glad for that. Including it here is a bald attempt to keep that going. Seriously, of all film genres and all of America’s wars, the Civil War seems to get the shortest shrift when it comes time to make a film, despite big budgets and big stars willing to tackle the material. Oh wait, that’s actually sometimes part of the problem.

5. One of the fringe benefits to thinking about movies all… the… damn… time is that you start to remember smaller or less-remembered films that you want to share with friends or, for that matter, anyone who comes to your blog looking for pictures of Hellboy or Leo DiCaprio. (Lots of people do.) Our list of five movies that deserve a DVD release was an effort to get at least a handful of those kinds of movies a little more attention. Last summer’s make Your Own Film Noir box set collection was another. We even made a list of movies for the holidays.

If this if your first visit to the blog, thanks for checking us out. If you’re an old fan, thank you very much and sorry for the delays we sometimes can’t manage to climb over. In either case, please watch more movies. That’s what we plan to do.

- Michael Kabel
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Preview: Two Lovers

Crime auteur James Gray shifts gears with new romantic drama.

Having previously worked exclusively in the New York crime film sub-genre, writer-director James Gray shifts creative gears with the new ensemble romantic drama Two Lovers. If that sounds like an unusual change of course, fans of his previous films – Little Odessa, The Yards, 2006′s under-appreciated We Own The Night- will recognize the budding auteur’s trademark color palette and visual vocabulary right away in the trailer below. And of course there’s also the presence of Joaquin Phoenix, Gray’s designated leading man.

Two Lovers, loosely based on among other sources the Dostoevsky novella “White Nights,” also reveals a growing ambition for the upstart filmmaker, as it’s potentially the most emotionally complex work of his career. Leonard Kraditor (Phoenix) returns to his Brooklyn home after getting diagnosed with bipolar disorder. His parents (Isabella Rossellini and Moni Monoshov) are preparing to sell their dry cleaning business to their neighbors the Cohens, and suggest to that end that Leonard begin a courtship with the family’s daughter (Vinessa Shaw). That budding romance, built on tenderness and compassion, is set against Leonard’s rising passion for his energetic neighbor Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), the kept woman of a businessman (Elias Koteas) who misuses her affections. Obviously, much of the dramatic tension turns on Leonard’s choice of women.

Gray’s films often frustrate film goers and critics alike. His bleak visual style, in which endless shades of grays, browns, and blacks surround the characters and only sometimes reveal bursts of color, is admittedly something of an acquired taste. His actors, Phoenix especially, give low-key performances, and combined with the dreary settings his films’ end results are routinely dismissed as leaden or ponderous. Nevertheless, his confidence and his proficiency in conveying emotional complexity have grown by leaps and bounds with each film, and there is a distinct, if not exactly welcoming, narrative voice taking shape throughout. Gray is primarily interested in the unspoken distance between his characters, and a recurring theme in his work suggests that freedom of choice is often only illusory because circumstances (like the monolithic cityscapes surrounding them) confine them past the point of any real hope of action. 

All of which makes him an apt fit to bring anything by famously miserable Russian literature patriarch Dostoevsky to the screen. Gray’s also assembled his best cast yet to tackle the material. Phoenix has grown impressively as an actor throughout his career (His best performance to date, not coincidentally, was in We Own The Night.) Paltrow has labored for years in projects unworthy of her screen presence, while Rossellini and Koteas improve any film in which they participate. Shaw was memorable in her brief turn in 2007′s 3:10 To Yuma; a standout performance could likely present a breakout.

Finally, depending on the accuracy of some reports Phoenix is quitting acting, part of a larger ongoing story that actually doesn’t merit elaboration. But some early reviews point to his turn here becoming a perfect career coda if those rumors are true. Two Lovers opens in limited release this Friday.

-Michael Kabel

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DVD Review: W.

Oliver Stone’s flawed biopic of the deeply flawed president debuts on DVD next week.

A maddeningly skittish and ultimately failed film biography, W. finds its development continually undermined by shifting tones and an oft-sagging pace. Worse, in trying to determine which events of the president’s life to depict, director Oliver Stone settles on what feels like a sampling of parts that never quite gel into a coherently articulated point. The end result is a film that’s more mix disc than album, more memory album than narrative.

W. begins, in what is probably intended as a symbolic prelude, with the young George’s (Josh Brolin) hazing into a Yale fraternity. Despite immersion in freezing water and severe intoxication, he’s able to remember an astounding number of his would-be frat brothers’ names. It’s a perfunctory scene, though it manages to establish Bush’s talent for winning over dubious audiences with great alacrity and charm.  When shortly thereafter his then-Congressman father (James Cromwell) is compelled to bail “Junior” out of a New Jersey prison, it sets in motion the film’s key narrative struggle between Bush’s freewheeling character and his barely-understood ache for his father’s approval. Stone uses that tug of war as a touchstone to show the passing of time, matching W’s misadventures in business and public office with the elder Bush’s political rise and fall.

The bulk of the rest of the film, also told in flashback and flash-forward structure, details the events leading up to the American invasion of Iraq. Bush works with but seems often content to take at face value the advice and research of Defense Scretary Donald Rumsfeld (Scott Glenn) and his Deputy Paul Wolfowitz (Dennis Boutsikaris), Vice President Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfus), successive Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice (Jeffrey Wright and Thandie Newtwon), and CIA chief John Tenet (Bruce McGill). Bush plays the role of manager to their appraisals and ends each meeting with a coach-like “good meeting” followed by a moment of prayer. Always in the background, like a true-life Grima Wormtongue, lurks adviser Karl Rove (Toby Jones), dispensing advice with false humility and fawning praise.

In the film (though no doubt the actual circumstances were more complicated) Bush finds religion following a cardiac arrest while jogging. He gives up his heavy drinking in favor of a purpose driven life under the guidance of Reverend Earle Hudd (Stacey Keach), a pastor Stone portrays in cherubic backlighting and affectionate soft-focus. Faith thereafter guides the cinematic Bush’s decisions, most notably his 1999 “call” to run for President; but darker drives compel him even more, especially the need for his father’s approval but also to compensate for the elder Bush’s 1991 decision to pull out of Iraq without deposing Saddam Hussein. Stone never offers a solution or theory explaining what effect two such diverse compulsions might have on the leader of the free world. In time – and at 131 minutes, the time is somehow long though not long enough – that lack of tension hollows out what might serve as the film’s center.  

If its performances weren’t so good, the film itself would be much less. Brolin inhabits Bush admirably, finding sympathy in his privileged life. Dreyfus’ Cheney is both arrogant and reptilian, while Cromwell brings perhaps undeserved stature to George H.W. Bush. Wright gives Powell a surprising vulnerability, whom Stanley Weiser’s script uses as the sole and diminishing voice of reason in the buildup to the Iraqi invasion. Unfortunately Thandie Newton’s turn as Rice is more impersonation than performance, and Jones (Notorious) seems to have not yet rinsed all the Truman Capote out of his acting technique. Elizabeth Banks isn’t given enough to do as First Lady Laura Bush, though she makes the most of her time in giving Laura the gravitas and affection that anchor her often-impulsive husband to Earth.

“The absence of evidence,” Rumsfeld exclaims in a crucial scene, “is not evidence of absence.” Such wisdom ironically thumbnails the film’s fatal flaw. Stone leaves out much of what’s made Bush’s presidency now officially the least popular in seventy years, including among other self-destructing moments the Hurricane Katrina debacle and the infamous My Pet Goat photo op the morning of September 11. Why the film avoids such moments is left unclear. Would their inclusion impair the tightrope objectivity Stone seems determined to put forward? Obviously detailing all the events and calamities of Bush’s monumentally controversial administration would require a series of films. But the omission of 9/11 and Katrina comes across as careening around cornerstone events. By way of comparison, would a biography of Franklin Roosevelt omit Pearl Harbor, or the Great Depression? Could a biography of Lincoln ignore the Emancipation Proclamation?

Stone rose to the top tier of American directors in the 1980s following a trio of very good films (Salvador, Platoon, Wall Street) that were ferocious in their attempts to spur public discourse of historically significant events. His track record since has been spotty, though no less ambitious. Platoon, his best film, benefited from historical perspective, and maybe that distance is what’s missing here. Or maybe not. Though missing the heavy-handed pathos of 1995′s Nixon, W. stills fails to make a compelling case either for sympathy or damnation. Better films than this will likely be made of America’s least popular president. It’s probably just going to take a while for them to arrive.

-Michael Kabel
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(Note: this review originally appeared for the film’s theatrical release.)

Review: The Wrestler

A powerful performance by Rourke gets pinned to the mat by heavy-handed script and direction.

As discussed in numerous media outlets (including our own retrospective last week), actor Mickey Rourke is enjoying a career resurgence for his turn as the title character of director Darren Aronofsky’s latest film The Wrestler. Though Rourke probably gives the performance of his life, it’s still not enough to salvage the film from the sadistic, simplistic vision of director Darren Aronofsky and screenwriter Robert D. Siegel.

Rourke plays Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a one-time wrestling superstar fallen into obscurity twenty years after a history-making match. Reduced to performing in school gymnasiums, Randy nevertheless continues to be revered by small children, his fans from the old days, and especially his fellow athletes – until he suffers a steroid-induced heart attack.  No longer able to wrestle, he diverts his energies to strengthening his relationships with the women in his life: Pam (Marisa Tomei), a middle aged, single mom/stripper; and Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), the daughter he abandoned years earlier. Through a series of misfortunes – partly of his own making -  Randy finds himself alone again, compelled to reenter the ring for one more chance at glory.

Rourke’s performance is materful in its versatility, seamlessly changing back and forth between broken old man, lovable clown, veteran warrior and ticking time bomb. Two scenes in particular give Rourke the chance to shine in his vulnerability: as he pleads with his doctor to call him “Randy” even as he receives a potentially fatal diagnosis, and later when he tries to shower in an undersized bathroom stall without getting his bandages wet. That one shot, to the film and Rourke’s credit, is a truly heartbreaking depiction of a basically decent guy in desperate need of a little self-control.

But ironically the nuance of Rourke’s performance stands in stark contrast to the merciless heavy-handedness of Siegel and Aronofsky. Like the rabid fans roaring and chanting with Randy’s every move, the film’s creators seem to take perverse pleasure in watching the Randy endure pain – not from the barbed wire and staple guns strewn about the wrestling ring, but rather from a gauntlet of rejection and disappointment relentlessly pummeled upon him. This string of pathos-inducing defeats provides fertile ground for Rourke the actor to prove that he’s still got it, but for the audience such an exhibition of brutality isn’t revelatory so much as it becomes tedious and tiresome. 

To Siegel’s credit, the film couldn’t provoke such an intense reaction if the character of Randy the Ram weren’t so endearing and so sympathetic. Still, the disjointed progression of the film’s narrative makes the story’s weaknesses difficult to ignore. Randy’s centerpiece monologue to his daughter, a genuinely touching piece of screenwriting, ultimately suffers from a complete lack of escalating tension: Randy and Stephanie are casually walking the Jersey Boardwalk one moment, then he’s suddenly baring his soul to her the next with no set-up in between. Other such shortcuts undermine the integrity of the film as a whole, particularly in the third act when Pam has a change of heart that’s too easy and too neat to come across with any credibility. The end result feels rushed, as if Siegel is so anxious to hit the big showcase moments that he steamrolls over the details. He wants the payoff without putting in the necessary hard work.

It’s therefore no surprise that any attempts at symbolism or metaphor are patronizing and paper-thin, perhaps best evidenced by an early scene in which Pam compares Randy the Ram to Jesus Christ. Similarly, Randy can’t build relationships with the two women in his life, so he returns to the glory and camaraderie of the wrestling ring where he (presumably) dies of a heart attack. He dies of a broken heart, you see? Ugh. Making matters worse, Aronofsky’s choppy editing and awkward transitions only heighten the narrative disconnect.  Subtlety has never been his strong suit, and unfortunately here he returns to the tawdry heavy-handedness that permeated 2000′s epically overrated Requiem For A Dream. Aronofsky’s fixation with employing shock value for its own sake is most apparent in a graphic tryst between Randy and a fetishist barfly, a scene that’s so clumsily handled it plays as film school amateurish.

For that matter, the exceedingly violent wrestling sequences are a paradox: while considerable screen time is devoted to depicting the physical and psychological toll that the sport inflicts upon its participants, Aronofsky still can’t stop himself from staging the actual matches as an adrenaline-heavy joyride. Far from making some kind of an artistic statement, the director plays it as safe as he can – disingenuously deriding the savagery of the sport for the film’s art-house target audience but without alienating any potential cross-over appeal that might lure actual wrestling fans ( the parents who brought their ten year old to the screening I attended) to the ticket booth.

As for the supporting cast, Wood perhaps best exemplifies the inelegance of Aronofsky’s approach to his cast: her eyes, face and voice all convey the intensity of her character’s heartache even as her hands slash the air in a series of awkward gesticulations. The actress obviously possesses the talent and the chops for her difficult role, but she’s sorely in need of, well, direction. That makes Aronofsky’s obvious disinterest in developing her character all the more disappointing.

A sloppily staged production of a lazy script, it’s hard not to think of The Wrestler without reminding oneself of Monster or The Last King of Scotland­ -films that are all but forgotten after the Academy Awards save for the charisma and craftsmanship of their stars. With Rourke the current Hollywood darling du jour, let’s hope his future projects will utilize his resurrected talent with more grace and restraint.

- Stephen Kabel
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