lizziebeth-1 Reviews

Despicable Me 2 (2013)

A hilarious and happy story of love in all its forms, simply the "Wrath of Khan" of its own franchise.(10/10) SPOILERS.

[10/10 · 15 January 2014]

Rarely can critics ever enjoy agreeing with every creative decision taken in a film. This is such a film, superior to its original in spirit and verve. A social phenomenon to uplift a depressed world, DM2 is a surefire babysitter/adult-sitter for years to come. My one quibble is its over-expressed toddler-friendliness, something the directors themselves found challenging to comply with.

DM2's music and visuals are particularly delightful. For instance, its "Gangham-Style" dancing (by lipstick-tasered victims) are just hilarious homages to Chuck Berry's guitar-playing and John Travolta's dancing, elevated to a perfect blend of homage, music, and joy, thanks to megastar franchise composer Pharrell Williams. One half of The Neptunes, Williams wrote charting hit "Happy" for Gru's DM2 montage; it's now available online as 24hoursofhappy-com.

The same creative team is back from DM1, ensuring a sensitive sequel tonal change. "It's pretty clear that by the end of DM1, Gru was no longer a villain", claims co-director Chris Renaud, so DM2 concerns itself with the sacrifices of matured fatherly love, beyond merely falling in love with one's children, as Gru had in DM1. In the process, Gru (Steve Carrell) undergoes emotional changes needed to complete his family.

Disappointingly, "fans" of the original charge that DM2 has "no plot" since it's missing "serious villains". In not getting this sequel, they disregard Gru's character arc (business losses, a mysterious villain, the Anti-Villain League, and the minion-nappings) as plot. The prologue comes out the gate like a serious James Bond film, although the film soon begins to wink; by the first act all pretense to real danger is dropped, and the tone refocuses on Gru's put-upon fatherhood. The Disappointed Brigade can therefore be referred to Megamind(2010) and The Incredibles(2004), both of which specifically explored villain battles. The DM franchise explores the reformation of a self-centered guy (villain) via 3 little girls once he began to love them as they needed. Steve Carrell himself is quoted about the future of Gru: "You want this character to soften up and that there would be just this sense of joy and love at the end.....As crazy as this character sounds, and diabolical and mean and awful, there's a humanity to him that comes out in little bits....that's what drew me to (this franchise)".

DM2 cheekily lays bare the challenges of mature dating, especially when pushed by daughters. Both Margo (Miranda Cosgrove) and little Agnes (voiced again by exuberant child actress Elsie Fisher) enjoy being daddy's girls, but Agnes in particular senses the costs of missing a mom. The minions are an insufficient substitute.

DM3 is rumored to be a minion origin feature, but DM2's minions are still a mysterious bunch of naughty little yellow goofballs serving as Gru's amoral army ("humans are just meat to them", explains chief animator/co-director Pierre Coffin). Not actually evil, just dopey, mischievous and always squabbling, they're meant to remind us of annoying but lovable little brothers. Once co-writers Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio hit upon DM2's plot to turn them truly evil via a secret formula, their Dr-Jekyll-and-Mr-Hyde scenario was gleefully animated with an insider's grin, adapted from old-school (Looney Tunes) short Hyde and Hare(1955)), mashed-up with Rocky and Bullwinkle's Metal Munching Mice(1960), Season2.

Since the main plot revolves around mysterious minion-nappings, the sequel's villainy pivots on what the yellow goofballs turn into: purple, hairy, knuckle-dragging, underbite-sporting, vacuous versions of themselves who cannot speak. Evil minions only do a hilariously dumb, sharp "Baaa!" screech, pointedly recalling the last scene from Invasion of the Body Snatchers(1978).

Pierre "say-'Casket'-instead" Coffin and Chris Renaud, the franchise's sweet co-directors so far, were understandably heavily influenced by cartoon classics: Dripalong Daffy(1957)'s Nasty Canasta is the unacknowledged inspiration for the "tough homber" villain El Macho (sizzling drink, gurgle-gurgle, "Bartender, bartender, WHERE's MINE?"), with added "lucha-libre"/Nacho Libre(2006) Mexican wrestling costuming. Renaud's minion-compressor idea for DM2's jar-headed minion was borrowed from Hillbilly Hare(1950); Coffin's fruit-basket minion is a spoof of 1940s popular South American songstress Carmen Miranda; the Afro-wearing beach bartender spoofs Isaac(Ted Lange) from The Love Boat(1977-1987), and the white-overalled, white-jacketed group of minions are spoofing marshmallow 1990s boy-band All For One, whose chart-topping "I Swear" lyric is cheekily minionised by Coffin as "underwear". Last, but not least, the film's wildly energizing closing track YMCA is a minion makeover of THE Village People perennial 1979 hit.

Much of the humour is realised with group scenes sporting "easter-eggs" in their backgrounds. They begin at Agnes' birthday party (a tormenting little boy is re-educated by a clever little girl, and a stumbling woman gets plus-conked with a game ball). Later there's an easily missed 22nd fart gun salute; sundry mock Minion-on-Minion-violence which once gets hilariously out of hand in a vat; and evil minions gnawing each other in cages. Even the climactic villain scene sports an "easter-egg" homage to director Chris Renaud's home town……all very funny.

But there are two fall-down-funny jokes I'll never forget: little Agnes' interpretations of Gru's wild pantomime for pushy neighbor Jillian(Nasim Pedrad), and the entry of two incognito minions to the evil lair using nothing but a raspberry-enhanced password. This latter one is funniest to me personally for a real-world analogue that works equally well! The parental dating subplot is also riotous, satisfyingly skewering society's shallow and obnoxious "bodyproud" women who are only successful in the confines of their own noggin'. DM2 gives its Shannon(Kristen Schaal) character the right-royal "Weekend at Bernie's(1989)" treatment: she's flopped upside down, legs splayed apart, her indignities fully deserved.

A final word about homage: DM2 draws from pop culture going back 60yrs, even referencing Toy Story(1995) itself in Act1, yet it's all done with love and understanding: its homages are "organic" (arising naturally). Unlike other functionally lesser Hollywood creatives, DM2's storytellers never rip off decades of work by others calculatingly. Instead, DM2 so bristles with finely observed behavior in this story of love in all its forms, that it might be termed the Wrath of Khan(1986) of its own franchise.(10/10)

Blue Jasmine (2013)

As a remake of A Streetcar Named Desire(1951), Blue Jasmine(2013) is risking nothing!. Spoilers.6/10

[6/10 · 24 October 2013]

As an unacknowledged remake of A Streetcar Named Desire(1951) "written by" Woody Allen, BJ(2013) risks nothing. Actually it's gob-smacking that Mr.Allen would choose such a cauterizing American classic to wantonly diminish. Streetcar was a multi-award-winning Tennessee Williams play long before it won 4 Academy Awards in 1951 for Elia Kazan. The powerhouse themes, carefully adapted from his play for the 1951 film by Tennessee Williams himself (to assuage The Hayes Code, the studio system's self-censorship authority), were all still there, including psychotic devolution, devastating carnal need, working-class brutality in and outside of marriage, and even (off-screen) rape.

Blue Jasmine(2013) omits almost all of that.

The classic film is set in a New Orleans tenement (blue-collar neighbors living cheek-to-jowl). That "rat-like" existence alone provided several psychological stressors for the 1951 characters and plot, as did the DuBois sisters' financial "comedown" from their Old South plantation, which Blanche (Vivien Leigh) had secretly lost control of. Blue-collar greed in sister Stella's husband Stanley (Marlon Brando) set up the original's intra-familial class antagonism over the lost money. This powerful real-world theme (the playwright wrote from the real life of his aunt) has been watered down by Allen into mere blue-collar mawkishness, delivered far less threateningly or convincingly by the fiancée character Chili (Bobby Cannavale).

Elia Kazan shot his film in B&W with studio stage production values. Moreover, his classic pivots on one horribly dated scene delivered by Kim Hunter as Stella, supposedly in a fugue state of carnality towards her husband(!). So you can understand why it might be remade, potentially better, by anyone 62yrs later.

(Streetcar(1951) was re-released in 1994 with 4mins of censored footage restored, but the "censoring" just happened to contain Ms Hunter's excruciating acting usefully EDITED OUT. More interestingly among the Special Features are some cherished interviews, chiefly Karl Malden's insights about Jessica Tandy of Cocoon(1985) and Driving Miss Daisy(1989) fame, and how the Blanche DuBois character on stage really made Ms.Tandy's career.)

Unfortunately Allen's remake similarly fails to open up the staginess. BJ(2013) is shot as a series of annoying "staccato" scenes: notsomuch disjointed vignettes as just his filmmaking exposed as "Scene.And Scene.And Scene.And……" One can barely recall the external plot ever driving the action: Allen actively rejects a wider social context (objective points of view), partly because he shot his film only with "required" Scenes. These are then further restricted by characters merely relating events to one another, such as (since film isn't radio) the ruthlessly "radio-ed in" revelation about Hal (Alec Baldwin) and his eventual fate. That little factoid has even confused several filmgoers, so all this sadly results in a film that doesn't "have legs" or "travel well".....Once upon a time the latter phrase meant "word-of-mouth spread", but ever since digital home viewing it has come to mean "still interesting after repeated viewings".

Even worse, all the remaining characters aside from the single lead are shockingly two-dimensional, their character arcs deeply truncated. The son in particular has the worst-explored, most throwaway character-arc of the film. BJ(2013)'s singular low-point occurs during Danny (Alden Ehrenreich)'s utterly unsubstantiated one-sentence accusation of his mother that is just left dangling! Now in this singularly jarring oversight lies the unraveling of Woody Allen's weak plot (deserted wife is foiled seeking succor at "less accomplished" sister's domicile due to self-sabotage). He needed to have the son feel that way so that "Jasmine" could be publicly discovered in her big lie (via Augie, read on), which needed to cause the ending.

Perhaps surprisingly, the only "breakout" acting here belongs to standup comic Andrew 'Dice' Clay, as Ginger's hefty ex-husband Augie. Dice's greying blue-collar Everyman is (somewhat) matured casting based on his braggartly immature persona from The Adventures of Ford Fairlane(1990). Augie's socially awkward soliloquy within that contrived street Scene ("bumping into" Jasmine with her new man) can once again be lain at Woody's feet: this is yet another plot device to both skewer Jasmine's big lie and reintroduce forgotten adult son Danny into the plot. Of course, the standoff with Danny(Ehrenreich) turns into that embarrassing, worst-developed aspect of the entire film, disappointing and irking audiences for being forced to see behind a writer's curtain; to witness the (un)raveling of the plot.

Female audiences also resent the ubiquitous two-dimensionality. Even the sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins from Made in Dagenham(2010)), is essentially just a simpleton caught several times in the act of speaking. Some viewers will point to Ginger's eventual spine in rejecting Jasmine's staunch yet deprecating advice. But Ginger's decisions then too are merely simple; that is, the characters are mere puppets for Woody's inorganic adaption. The film reveals nothing more on additional viewings.

Allen really means to mire us in the subjective psychology of his Jasmine character. Naturally, this simple-yet-proscriptive structure placed enormous pressure on the lead actress (Blanchette---even her name is intriguing casting) who coincidentally appears in almost every Scene, and who really had to chew scenery in the critical ones.

For instance, and given that our social lesson about the high personal costs of infidelity really had to be BJ(2013)'s main achievement, Blanchette is best during Jasmine's visceral, sweat-stained reaction to her husband's ridiculous, stereotypical claim that "This time it's different, we're in love". "-ARE YOU MAD?!?! She's a TEENAGER (.....you stupid, ridiculous twerp.....)!!!", she finally roars, the actress herself hyperventilating. This Scene is the film's raison d'etre with more than a tinge of self-referencing catharsis. Had Allen been brave enough for a more complex social context, his audiences might relate better to his puppets. Instead, distanced, we become aware of annoying repetitions like Jasmine's vodka bottle Scenes, always blocked in the same location.

Of course Cate Blanchette does the top-notch job here that has already made her this year's front-runner for Best Leading Actor/Actress. What is ultimately shocking, however, is that Woody Allen was willing to single out and sacrifice the 66-yr career of this earthshaking drama (Pulitzer, 1948), into a specious---if rather colorful---2013 caricature for no apparent reason.

Elysium (I) (2013)

A film desperately missing its female collaborator

[5/10 · 19 August 2013]

It's not even its thematic unoriginality regards Earth's slum-ridden overpopulation and the related notion of gated communities (cf Wall-E(2008), Back to the Future 2(1989)) that is such a disappointment: the biggest problem with Elysium is that it's soulless... Matt Damon and his love interest notwithstanding.

The South African slum redesign of LA is only a little irritating, but the film's ham-fisted and artificial plot device of a desperately sick child is so hackneyed that it doesn't muster any emotion in the audience at all.

Later, the scientific inaccuracies and the glossover depiction of the orbiting habitat will silently irk an informed audience. For instance, there seems no evident cause for, or mechanism by which an atmosphere is maintained on this "Stanford torus"-space station, which is itself apparently so small that you can see its curvature from a couple of feet off the ground - its scale when viewed from Earth would instead dictate that it be far larger, be visibly spinning, which it apparently isn't, and have a visible dark-to-light stratospheric barrier, which is nowhere in evidence. The people who live there can't just breathe direct space in the sunshine!

Stratospheres have consequences dictated by physics and engineering: they necessitate an- and aerobic engines, and impose different crash results for the "landing" shuttlecraft. And there is a second, equally preposterous "Biddleonian"-Firing-Squad-scene (shooting turrets arranged in a circle), in which the spacecraft's exploding shards neither burn up nor behave ballistically, because they're hitting the non-existent atmosphere.

So Blomkamp's space station fails to measure up to Stanley Kubrick's far more plausible 1968 effort in the classic 2001:A Space Odyssey. Never remind an audience of a classic and then suck by comparison. Elysium's irkingly ignorant "...Ehm... and then future science happens" attitude just can't draw audiences in anymore.

The other annoying plot device is the imposition of radiation poisoning on Matt Damon's Max. This choice is so badly jarring (too serious a sickness for so many physical challenges to overcome) that it's just impossible to accept the really dying character fighting baddies at all, let alone getting alternately better then worse, then better, better, better, then worse, and better again, whenever the plot required.

Clearly this wasn't just a problem of shooting scenes out of sequence. Max's implausible bouts of robust/ill-health and back again is just careening overcontrol by the plot, which needed him to frequently forget that he was mortally ill - all while undergoing the physical assault of that horrid, unhygienic, and implausible exoskeleton.

Worse, the two neglectful human perpetrators of Max's irradiation, the mercs-for-hire, as well as the pointlessly ruthless robotic "policemen", were all so poorly drawn (caricatured) that they degraded the film's tone during their scenes to that of a graphic novel . Yes, the very same graphic novel that Blomkamp used to pitch his story to the movie stars who signed on board. Unfortunately there is little human feeling in the story to uplift it all afterward.

Neill Blomkamp's first feature film, District 9(2009), had been full of organic and unforced pathos four years ago, emotionally recalling and paying silent homage to the far more earnest Enemy Mine(1986)). District eked out surprising amounts of empathy from its audience and totally captured our hearts. Blomkamp's second film simply does nothing of the sort.

So Elysium is commonly experienced as soulless.

Interestingly, perennial recent bad guy William Fichtner now seems to specialize in roles that are soon-to-be-"red- shirted" (Star Trek parlance), as he again undertakes here.

The third act's last-ditch effort to make Sharlto Copley's ruthless mercenary Kruger suddenly develop a psychic break (the plot just lost its mind here, too) just to turn him into a crazed Terminator type in fact totally loses the film any of its elevated themes. Themes such as its internalised debate about aggressive border protectionism. If anything, that should have been the thrust of this sci-fi plot, but it's lost in this morass of careening, hackneyed, and embarrassingly ignorant cartoonish set of action pieces.

There was utterly no reason or rhyme for Copley's Kruger to go "Terminator", so again, Elysium is reminding its audience of a classic, then sucking by comparison. If you introduce a sudden gross plot change without on screen explanation with character linkages, it will be necessarily perceived as careening. Rarely are a big budget feature's ostensibly shrouded graphic novel origins so embarrassingly on show.

In the end it's just glaringly obvious that Blomkamp's past collaborator, screenwriter Terri Tatchell, had too little input into his follow-up film (she only gets a Thank You credit), because this grinding screenplay eventually wears back down into a graphic novel without her: code for "boys only". Dear Terri, please come back....(5/10)

Barney's Version (2010)

Giamatti finally surmounts "Pig Vomit" as a Touchy Feely leading mensch.(9/10)

[9/10 · 3 May 2011]

Wonderful, although I want to leave ratings room for the superlative (Jacques Cluzaud/Jacques Perrin's docudrama Oceans(2009)).

Perfect "small" film mounted by Canadians that won Giamatti a Golden Globe for Best Actor, but only a Makeup Oscar nomination for the film itself.

Some critics (Eric Kohn) didn't like this film over some Canadian-American foreknowledge about Jewish men. Well, Australians (culturally never really impacted by Jewish enclaves) have no such reservations: the menschkeit stuff really appealed to me. I also wasn't comparing it to the source material, either. For me, Barney's Version(2010) was gloriously mounted in a bright-and-breezy colourful palette. Together with the soundtrack, this establishes audience goodwill for the many character foibles about to be litanied.

Barney and his flaws struck me as utterly authentic, as did those of his "1970s" dilettante friends, especially his undisciplined best friend/writer(Scott Speedman, TV's "Felicity"). Boogie's story arc is one of the most satisfying in the entire film, because he's eventually revealed as quite grubby and carelessly irresponsible towards everyone besides himself. He's worse than Barney---and Barney's bad enough.

The one exception was Minnie Driver's vivacious and fun-loving portrayal of the never-named(!) "second Mrs P". The actress was playing herself by design; this being the manner in which the actors workshopped their film. They mostly just got drunk during the Paris rehearsals.

Paul Giamatti well deserves his Best Actor Golden Globe as the permanently schlumpy semi-intellectual Barney Panofsky (who wouldn't have a writer for a lifelong best friend, nor end up a TV studio owner, if he was "average"), forever grizzling against the world through a fog of self-romanticized selfishness. The film's storytelling, however, remains deliciously warm about Barney's underbelly: the biggest laugh is his ironic naming of his "Completely Unnecessary Productions" TV studio, started as a tax-dodge.

That's the story's point. Even semi-intellectuals like Barney can so distance themselves from everyone they claim to care for---even vivacious wives--- just to continue grizzling in anger "at the world", yet end up blind to the hurts their own failures actually cause.

This is not what we usually term "average". This is the road less…..examined by the "mostly harmless".

Through the inexorable course of Barney's 2hr+ filmic life, we learn his derisiveness is just a misapplied defence mechanism. Its corrosive pallor sabotages the most sought-after things (people) in his life: even when he finally gets the love of his life, the inside-and-out stunningly beautiful Miriam(Rosamund Pike), he still behaves as badly as before, self-centeredly begrudging and resenting the world out of habituated self-indulgence.

Some audiences may be annoyed by the detail or the length this story takes; for the rest, such a cornucopia of personal moments serves to make Barney's case.

There is deep satisfaction in seeing Giamatti (real-life Executive Producer of Touchy Feely Films) finally fly as the leading man we always knew he was. I've adored his "wimpy" persona since Howard Stern's biopic Private Parts(1997), when Giamatti again portrayed a (radio) studio manager, famously referred to by the subject as "Pig Vomit"---a nickname which stuck in my memory banks.

The eagle-eyed among you will notice Giamatti breaking character in the wedding scene with Dustin Hoffman, smooching and patting "his father"(Hoffman) on the back while walking. Giamatti was privately enjoying his intimate screen-time with his idol---directors like to leave such serendipities in the final print.

But back to Barney. The film's character studies, including the warmly surprising Dustin Hoffman, are priceless. Aside from its lush look, the amazing cast was perhaps the film's chief standout. Screenriter Michael Konyves(Storm Cell(2008), Earthstorm(2006)) should be feted for so satisfyingly---length and all---adapting the complex Mordecai Richler source material.

This time, unlike my usual reaction to such things, I loved the lack of opening credits. I was PROPERLY pleasantly surprised at Driver and Hoffman's key casting, and privately chuffed at Saul Rubinek (Young Doctors in Love(1982)), Mark Addy (The Full Monty(1997), and at the poignant last performance of beloved Maury Chaykin(Dances With Wolves(1990), d.2010).

Addy's almost unrecognizable and quite prejudiced Irish, er, dick (detective) is the impetus for the story, so it was great seeing him twice. Both Giamatti's and Addy's ageing makeup work by Adrien Morot was stunningly seamless---Morot's nomination is amply deserved.

I loved the film's structure, palette, and its great soundtrack, which lovingly encourages enjoyment of its period music, even if some Baby-boomer hits (Donovan---Sunshine_Superman, John Lee Hooker---I'm_Wanderin') were before our time.

Not being over-familiar with Jewish men such as Barney, I waited for the other shoe to drop. I kept expecting some nasty comeuppance to spoil the film's mood, but this never came. The relief manifested in empathic tears, of course, as we anticipated Barney's degeneration to early Alzheimer's.

"YouSeeTimmy"(Speechless(1994)), correct character pacing is a wonderful thing. It's precisely at a film's message plea that filmmakers needs their audience to be right up there with them about plot, fully expecting the director's intentions, and delighted when they're delivered. It's this give-and-take between filmmaker and audience that gives films "relatability". Music- and Information Theory calls it "hi-fidelity transmission"(of ideas), but such pleas only remain effective when used sparingly, and at precisely observed junctures/scenes.

So Barney is very hi-fi, hence its high rating.

Director Richard.J Lewis (behind TV's "CSI") pulls all the right strings in his film--- his pacing of this 2hr+ film is exemplary. Some story elements (Boogie's unreliable nature and his consequent disappearance, Solange's secret admirer) are very drawn out, while others (both meaningless affairs) unfold quickly. Just like real life.

Above all, it was crucial that we understood how Barney himself sabotaged his life with his resentful/angry selfishness. Only once it was too late, when he was losing his mind, did Barney finally take stock---we think.

The film's pro-mensch elephant-in-the-room conclusion is that we all get frail (or die horribly much earlier), but The Ferryman will exact his price……usually before we're ready.

"Mensch": Ah, MelBrooks: It's good to know some Yiddish.(9/10)

Battle Los Angeles (2011)

BLA certainly is "blah", or maybe just "meh".(4/10)

[4/10 · 21 March 2011]

I did have great hopes for BLA(2011), just willing it to be better than Charlie Sheen's The Arrival(1996), and at the very least better than Skyline(2010). Well, for me it actually was a little better than last year's Hy'drau'l'x stinker, but not enough.

BlA suffers similarly from a lack of audience relatability within such a claustrophobic story. Where's that (international) focus group when you really needed one? If anything, this can be said to be a by-the-numbers marine Hoo-Ah film that tries waaaay-too-hard to capture the visceral feel of life as a Marine, but suffers by comparison with The Hurt Locker(2008).

Its most obvious major flaw was its approach to cinematography, ie the overused shaky-cam, constantly filming inches from chiselled jaws. The forced crying of men on camera I also found pointedly ham-fisted; but director Jonathan Liebesman seems to handle the role of Michelle Rodriguez, the female Technical Sergeant, with admirably low-key acceptance. Other casting choices showed a glimmer of movie-making ability: Liebesman seems to have cast extras for their authentic presence as nondescript marines, much as John McTiernan had cast actual submariners for his Hunt for Red October(1990).

Thanks to the smoke-filled closeups sticking far too close to the confused, and embarrassingly hysterical, marines (telegraphing the claustrophobia), the plot itself remains a dull and confusing rehash of Independence Day(1996) throughout, more so than of War of the Worlds(2005).

In Sydney on its opening day, my evening session was less than 1/2 full, which doesn't bode well for a new blockbuster! Where's the block, boys? Nobody's bustin'. In contrast, an immediately following session of Limitless(2011), also on its opening day, was extremely well-attended, especially by young men, who admittedly looked like drug dealers in training....

I'm now leery about all H'ydrau'lx's productions. Thankfully, The Brothers Strause didn't have as much to do with BLA as they had Skyline(2010), and I note with interest that Sony didn't appreciate their "similar look" CGI aliens and plot either. Natually I wondered why H'ydrau'l'x SUDDENLY went into full story development as well as their usual CGI sfx with their silly stinker last year. Well, Sony's (now-dropped) suit strongly implies scripting laziness by "The Brothers Strause". Since release, BLA has done better business - for reasons best understood only by American "patriots" - than either Skyline ever did, or than what critics (me, Todd McCarthy, Roger Ebert, AO Scott, Betsy Sharkey, Kirk Honeycutt, Joe Neumaier, and Australians David Stratton, Giles Hardie, Jim Schembri, and you know, just about any critic alive) ever expected BLA to do.

Due to a largely wasted budget on just CGI and "blowie-uppie stuff"(effects), BLA fails to be meaningful or rousing in any real way; it delivers nothing much on screen. The "intimate"(small) group of humans actually gave the film a "shoestring-budget"(cheap-ish) feel. Aspirations to a "blockbuster" therefore just go CLANG(???) in the minds of, er, non-"patriots".

BLA's screenplay certainly didn't know how to open up the story.

I became very irritated by all the unexplained strewn dead bodies everywhere - the plot's abandonment of them made them seem all too palpably like the dummies they were. Which takes us out of the film. Nothing was ever explained about the aliens either; we only got miserable conjecture from an uncredentialled "expert" "on TV" - a single throwaway guess by a single scientist does not a plot make, Mr Liebesman (we can't blame WGA writer Christopher Bertolini, who has crafted better plots than this 12yrs ago)!

Even at the end we still know nothing about the invasion apart from the aliens' supposed thirst for H2O, making the whole film pointless! Why would I want a sequel, Mr Exec Producer David Greenblatt (with virtually no other project under your belt, unlike the writer)? Forget this hankering for Gen-Y audiences. Pick another franchise.

Even the timescale of BLA's story (24hrs) was rushed, and carelessly edited, for example during the final act with the discovery of the alien C&C as the marines suddenly emerge from night into day after 3mins of trawling underground. Does light dawn completely in just 3minutes (does the Earth spin faster) in LA than anywhere else? Who paced this (who DIDN'T)?

Ultimately everything is told far too much from the point of view, ie ignorance, of this small band of people; while LA the city manages to be a rather pointless victim yet again. So BLA certainly is "blah", or maybe just "meh".(4/10)

The Town (2010)

Oscar contender is Ben Affleck's second bite at a hometown magnum opus. Exhilarating and honest film about how children inherit the sins of their fathers

[10/10 · 7 November 2010]

We all know Affleck the actor.

In his latest crowd-pleaser, and only the second feature he's directed, Affleck the actor limbers up like he's practicing Tai-Chi. He simply glides through his character Doug MacRay in The_Town(2010) like the hockey skater he is in real life, never breaking as his cameras shoot him unblinking through confession scenes.....daring himself repeatedly to spot past camera. Many good actors still can't do that (eg Javier Bardem, Eat_Pray_Love(2010)). According to IMDb, Affleck has "21 wins & 38 nominations" in addition to being an Oscar-winning co-writer of Good_Will_Hunting(1997), yet he's probably a much better director than that. It'd be critically blunt (and a little naive) to charge Affleck with lacking acting ability at this late stage.

The real surprise is that he has a VOICE. Audiences can appreciate Affleck's contemporary-yet-timeless directorial themes of children inheriting the sins of their....parents (mother and father respectively, so far).

For The_Town, he's attracted top-grade talent both in front and behind the camera---prime example being his Oscar-winning (There_Will_Be_Blood(2007)) cinematographer, now DoP Robert Elswit, whose fly-on-the-wall camera lingers in one scene on a fight, leaving the baby in the room to cry off-camera. Another throwaway beat was his filming the obstructed face of a coin-op laundry attendant, flagging that MacRay's inner focus is on something else. Audiences are charmed by the intimacies set up with such carefully casual imprecision amidst the bustle. Can anyone say "Oscar"?

MacRay/Affleck's divergent reactions to his two girlfriends in The_Town(2010)---his face captured by Elswit---reveal the wrung-out young lover struck by the wrong kind of sex---or life---he's having. Touches of Affleck's Holden McNeil from Chasing_Amy(1997) now show up in MacRay's confession to Claire (Rebecca Hall), as his romantic transition painfully crystallizes MacRay's inner shift from his "Townies".

The wonderful Second Unit (Directors Alexander Witt and Dylan Tichenor, uncredited) also threw in everything from 10" hand-helds to helicopter shots, and zippy car-chase masters to explicate all the skittering vehicles. This eye for editing is obviously thanks to the talented Tichenor doubling as both SUD and film editor....another Oscar right there.

The_Town's silence/feedback signals effectively squeal across the audience's distress over its violent robberies; Affleck and Aaron Glascock's sound design succeeds precisely because this technique is now so little-used.

But a film that adorns MacRay's jailhouse visit of his father with real orchestral violins deserves serious kudos (another Oscar nom).

Affleck's second bite at a hometown magnum opus boasts an amazing cast, a gift to fans of his universalist films. His leading ladies, especially the adaptable Ms.Hall, allow The_Town to sidestep the gender-challenged sins of most similar male-demog films.

Titus Welliver ("local crime-fighter" Dino Ciampa) is still the camera's darling even minus his mo' from GBG(2007), but I'm craving more scenes of Ciampa's career.

Pete Postlewaite looks haggard, which just hands Affleck a quip about 'Fergie''s features as an ex-boxer.

However, as action fans are bound to complain, this isn't wall-to-wall adrenalin; it's a drama-thriller only seemingly full of heists. There are only three, so it effortlessly avoids The_Hurt_Locker(2009)'s episodic traps. Affleck, Peter Craig & Aaron Stockard's authentic screenplay adaptation of Chuck Hogan's "Prince of Thieves"---about America's most bank-robbery-ridden square mile---brings Charlestown's "Irish omerta" underworld richly to life. The action and drama are exquisitely balanced, and the film, thankfully, takes its own observations about generational criminality seriously.

The narrative does editorialise towards the end, but with an exemplary pace and universal appeal, The_Town plays like a contemporary Shawshank.

The pacing is so good because the director keeps most of his mysteries only for so long; the storytelling isn't manipulative (overly reliant on revelations). Affleck gives us enough information so we're unworried by unanswered questions, and his hints advance the plot. For instance, we know MacRay left that note for the FBI, but FBI SA.Frawley (a too greasy Jon Hamm) then passes it off onto Claire's loser lawyer---producing the biggest laugh of the film.

In homage to Yves Simoneau's 44_Minutes(2003) (true story fictionalised as Heat(1995)), Affleck climaxes the film with a realistic/exhilarating street shootout, with innocent cars driving in the police's line-of-sight. I don't know HOW LONG I've craved such a realistic GSW, but Affleck delivers an amazing smashed jaw effect in the hail of bullets. His well-adjusted action even guarantees some ironic visual comedy, as first a little boy, then a lone cop in a black-and-white get alternatively mesmerised/gobsmacked by a carload of bank-robbers in creepy nun drag.

This type of organic (unforced) gentle humour turns out to be one of the best things about the film. Affleck's comedy is situational, logical and fresh, and always a surprise. It's wonderful to sit amongst an audience whose peals of well-tracking laughter release all their stress. Tongue-in-cheek, Affleck deftly has MacRay utter incognito concern for his robbery victim, then has Claire let him off the hook with "It wasn't your fault"---when it literally was.

The clever director has learned lessons from his prior success: this time Affleck's prologue contains minimal sombre narration. There are no opening credits, but Affleck's gravelly voice does its job admirably. His brogue is Bostonian; perhaps he plumbed actual memories for Jem Coughlin(Jeremy Renner)'s pistol-whipping his surrogate brother MacRay to stop him leaving his criminal niche. Astonishingly, AO.Scott (NY-Times) finds this "Townie" relationship not atavistic ENOUGH.

Affleck has even stronger observations about neighbourhoods. What MacRay does to the local crime boss still trying to rule him through his "lovely new girlfriend" and his father Stephen(Chris Cooper, looking in his single scene every bit the Walpole lifer he plays) is a lesson to all victims of pyramid schemes.

Naturally, critics are now comparing Affleck to Clint Eastwood, for Eastwood's somewhat similar directorial road, and Mystic_River(2003).

And yet I doubt audiences will buzz about Town(2010) as they had over Inception(2010). This is the more honest/satisfying film, but it's not terribly escapist, concluding that "No matter how much you've changed, you still have to pay the price for what you've done".(10/10)

The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009)

Bizarre, dull sequel in search of a fanbase. Only zealous fans of the books need apply.(5/10) Spoilers.

[5/10 · 10 October 2010]

Second in the Millennium newspaper trilogy, TGwPwF(2009) now follows Lisbeth Salander(Nooni Rapace) as she becomes the hunter of her own past, and of any men in her way to such.

The opening gambit of the young murdered journalist couple uncovering the Swedish sex-trafficking trade is really just a jumping-off point for this film. That McGuffin is more-or-less left behind for Salander's personal story told through frequent flashbacks here, since this is the installment that grapples with her backstory hinted at by the first film, a film which had been--surprise, surprise--far more satisfying.

Some are evidently too easily pleased with the second film's execution--the almost religiously avid fans of the books; but for the rest, the new film will feel unaccountably clumsy and dull.

Salander is far less human(ane) or likable this time, smacking of a tough little punk with too little to live for, and treating even her newly rekindled female lover as disposable. Soon she's on the lam again, tracking down any men who ever had anything to do with her past. Or it seems, all the sex-trafficking "johns" on the murdered couple's list, to terrorise and torment them for information.

None of this is particularly exciting. Her disinterested plodding delivers a bored Terminator-like character, and predictability. This time even her only living acquaintance, stuck in a nursing home, casually earmarks her as "invincible", devolving the film's tone to hero-worship, more befitting a graphic novel.

You also get the uncomfortable feeling that director Daniel Alfredson is now using the theme of men-who-rape-women as just a shtick, a gimmick. The second installment refers to the theme at every opportunity, but the filmmakers don't back it up with plot development, they're just resting on the laurels of the first film. No wonder the plot feels lazy; it is!

The three films have all been shot back-to-back as a TV-miniseries for Swedish television, and now that tells.

Salander's investigative reporter friend and male ex-lover from the first film (whose calls she no longer returns) Blomkvist (Nyqvist) seems an acceptably useful ally to us, but she keeps him at a distance for no reason. David Stratton--think of him as Australia's Roger Ebert--has said of Nyqvist that he thinks him "a boring actor; he has one expression, and drifts disinterestedly through the drama"; but the biggest shock of TGWPWF is that Nyqvist degenerates during his interviews of trafficking suspects into "investigative" questions like "BAH?".

Repeatedly.

Perhaps this is a Swedish word.

He is just as ridiculous as Rapace during the preposterous closing scene of Fire(2009), as he walks into a lethal situation following Salander, with no gun or backup--in fact nothing more than a vacuous look on his face.

Dull indeed.

The climactic end scene, as mentioned, had some people in the audience even laughing. Rapace is no Terminator, despite digging herself back out of a grave 6hrs after not suffocating, because she's still utterly unprepared and ill-equipped to deal with the serious threat that her life is supposed to be.

Unless you're already the almost religiously converted, you won't really care for Salander as she goes into "the lion's den" - which is why the entire last act seemed so ridiculous. (Of course she "tripped every last wire". Duh, he's GRU!....I was thinking during the film).

Fans will love it, but for others this installment is just a genre flick in search of a fanbase, currently suffering major sequelitis.(5/10)

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)

Only franchise fans will tolerate such anathema and pure throwback justifications for .war.2/10

[2/10 · 2 October 2010]

"I'll wager we'll discover the extent of their plans"??? "Yes, it has been prophesied"??? - who WROUGHT this?

LotG:The Owls of Ga'Hoole is an unexpectedly overwrought and embarrassingly neo-Nazi (and not all that neo) take on owldom.

Their "owl culture" artefacts, so full of human-built trappings (the metal raffiawork archways atop inaccessible precipices, let alone the handcrafted metal masks and battle-claws for the owls themselves), deny the "culture" much credibility, and instead push the film into uncomfortable anthropomorphisations.

Suffering horribly from strict adherence to the book franchise, as well as the overdone accents of its stars – accents which induce deep cultural cringe in Australians – the film adaptation might be breathtaking to look at, but falls clumsily over in the storytelling department.

The character names and plot details are difficult to just hear, let alone learn, unless you've already read the first 3 books; and the predetermined happy ending is SO CERTAIN that it's totally embarrassing to watch kids being underestimated like this.

Not a scratch on Pixar.

As I mentioned, Animal Logic did a fantastic job with the sfx, but because this too is a pre-existing franchise in search of a fanbase, the production house relied too heavily on previz to animate the story, with no room for its voice actors to add much, other than their names.

I had to give this film one star for the one idea worth salvaging from the premise - that brothers can turn into mortal enemies due to mere personal shortcomings in one of them, and another for its lovely beats on the joys of flying, feathers, and the physical expressions of love by animals without hands. But such things are too far in the minority.

As for the rest, you REALLY need to be a franchise fan just to tolerate such anathema and pure throwback justifications for….war.

Embarrassing.2/10.

The Party Revolution (2004 Video)

Charming doco restores video-assist's true inventor.(9/10)

[10/10 · 14 May 2010]

Few people know it took 36yrs for the correct person to be properly credited with the birth of modern "video-assist" on our movies. VA is the in-situ/ersatz video recording of a film; "video-reference" is the same feed, unrecorded. This primary film technology is second only to the invention of VCRs, co-engineered by the same inventor: Jim Songer.

Songer and his old Video WEST partners revolutionized their whole industry in 1967 for the sake of just one movie: The Party(1968). Their film industry "revolution" is even more significant than the arrival of Pixar, transforming John Cork's DVD supplement, The Party Revolution(2004), into THE insiders' story.

Despite its length(16m), the documentary is charmingly put together. Packed to seem much longer, it introduces video-assist's heretofore unknown heroes (Songer &Ken Wales), who found each other in 1967 via (Goldwyn Productions' Engineering Dept head) Gordon Sawyer and the innovative Blake Edwards.

By the mid-1960s Blake Edwards was collaborative enough to invite technical synergies too, posing wish-lists to his young,"incredibly bright" technical assistant. Ken Wales became Associate Producer on The Party(1968) after first being Walt Disney's then Glenn Ford's wunderkind protégé.....today he's the brilliant hand behind Amazing Grace(2006).

As an IMPROVISED silent-era homage, The Party(1968) quickly evolved into a huge challenge for pre-transistor technology. John Cork's sensitive-yet-educational documentary has Songer admitting how Edwards' "framework"(sparse) screenplay--relying so much on happy accidents--while ideal, became "extremely taxing" for his technology.

He's referring to the mainly horizontal parallax problem caused by piggybacking cameras.

"Video-assist" aka "instant replay"(Songer's term) aka "instant dailies"(Edwards'), began with the somewhat unsophisticated act of attaching a TV camera to the side of the larger film camera, and Cork's smart/crisp editing of interviewees plays well against his animated graphics explaining such positioning.

Naturally Songer's piggybacking irked the film cameramen, who knew the added weight/vibration/noise would ruin the film they shot. That all had to be eliminated one-by-one, and Songer almost giggles on Revolution(2004) about his experiences getting them to cooperate.

This already represents a VAST improvement on Jerry Lewis' supposedly pioneering setup of video-cameras upon their own tripods several feet away from his film camera (creating his own NEW problem). Bruce Denny(Paramount's Technical Dept) eventually developed Lewis' Jerry-rigged contraption into a 200lb monster on dolly; but even once Lewis piggybacked too, his approach never nailed the hard physics problems. It took Songer's long tinkering with Panavision's film cameras, and the many patents he holds as a result, to solve the parallax/lighting/convenience issues.

Parallax (image POV-shift) is a well-known problem to astronomers too, but for improvisational/comic acting&directing, the walk-ons and happy accidents at frame-edge required an isomorphic recording, not merely an approximation......(such visual precision was the only way to achieve continuity, crucial for unwritten improvised scenes). Beyond that, Edwards' comedic timing required precise capturing so improvisations might be tweaked to "thrust/cut into one scene or another"(Songer)......and that's exactly how Edwards, Sellers--and to some degree, Jerry Lewis--used "video tap"(yet another term) in production.

As they made continual improvements, Songer&Wales submitted one patent application after another, resulting in Songer's (shockingly belated) Technical Achievement Oscar®(2002).

Wales, the minister's son/romantic cupid who introduced Blake to Julie Andrews (then had his father marry them) also became the technological cupid between Edwards' "instant dailies" and their engineering genius. On Revolution(2004) Wales finally reveals his flummoxed initial response to Edwards:"Well….Blake, you know the difficult I can do right away…..(but) the impossible takes just a little-bit longer!" "Difficult" as it was, Edwards' "wish" had been the second-most interesting problem in 1960s film production. Impressively, Songer helped Ampex invent VCRs too, and through Edwards, eventually adapted Panavision's proprietary technology to grant the "impossible".

Unfortunately, without massive capital, any proliferation of their unique "tool"(Mirisch) onto other productions would prove to be "a tough duality"(Wales). The team even formed their own start-up company: Video WEST(Wales/Edwards/Songer Telesystems) Inc, to rent out their single non-dedicated VA/camera.

The whole 36yr-tale is painfully relived through Cork's cleverly structured interviews with little further narration.

Walter Mirisch (the gentlest and last remaining Mirisch brother) recalls on Revolution(2004) how Blake Edwards championed VA, while Edwards confirms his own inspiration as......Jerry Lewis' set. However, this group quickly recognized that Lewis' Bellboy(1960) contraption was conceptually wrong for what the industry NEEDED....just evidently didn't want yet.

"EVERYBODY said 'it's a nice idea but it'll never be used", confirms VA-specialist Clark Higgins in 2004.

The impassioned Video WEST team gradually retell their brave story despite their company's demise. As Pixar themselves found, 1970s-1980s Hollywood labored under an intense "Fear of Computers/Video" in general, and of VA in particular:"....It adds more time", agrees Walter Mirisch.

The infamous "VA=OT"(OverTime) formula is sometimes true; actors need great self-discipline to use video-assist efficiently on set. It certainly slowed the obsessive Peter Sellers right down. Edwards recalls how contemporary directors apparently "didn't wish to corrupt the actor"(with public/objective practice), and how filmmakers thought VA would "take away from (the actor/director separation)".

Another similarity to Pixar's genesis was the "tremendous.....expenditure" that inventing VA incurred. In Pixar's case it was George Lucas suffering the start-up company's losses, whereas Video West's research was personally funded by Blake Edwards.

Tragically, it wasn't enough. The Pink Panther impresario appears towards the end with a heartbroken revelation:"I just knew it was (financially) too much for me, (so) I said--'Give it back to Panavision'.....I still have to borrow for my rent, but what the Hell"! About the time he returned the VA-modified prototype-camera to Panavision AS A GIFT TO THE INDUSTRY, Edwards suffered the double insults of depression and Chronic-Fatigue-Syndrome(CFS).

Jim Songer is himself battling for recognition despite his many patents, due to the industry's early (and Peter Bogdanovich's recent) rallying behind Jerry Lewis.

".....Songer has the strongest claim on some of the biggest steps in (Video-assist's evolution), including the steps that first created a practical, complete system for motion-picture production, but.....others made substantial contributions.....notably.....Paul.A.Roos"(Glaskowsky).

What Songer and Lewis still share, however, is Hollywood's sidelining of video-assist, reportedly "embittering" Lewis(!).(9/10)

The Party (1968)

A fall-down-funny execution of 1960s Hollywood (stereo)types; proud custodian of the funniest cold-open prologue misdirects on film.(8/10)

[8/10 · 13 March 2010]

This cult favorite may be the peak of the Edwards-Sellers collaboration, and boasts the funniest cold-open prologue misdirects on film....(except perhaps Dick Lester's outrageous bathhouse farce, The Ritz(1976)).

The Party(1968) opens as British Imperial forces c.1878 march through an Indian ravine; a wounded native deserter, Hrundi V.Bakshi(Sellers) climbs atop a ridge to bugle a charge. However, this is a Hollywood set, so when the abrasive/clumsy actor stretches his on-screen role by not dying on cue, his compatriots....er....hurry him along.

For 2mins, the specially flown-in authentically "Sikh" actor (played to perfection by the British comic who'd road-tested the accent in India) whines and squeals his bugle as he's repeatedly shot (more and more enthusiastically) by the frustrated cast, some resorting to a gatling gun(!)....and what Bakshi does later to an unsuspecting fort almost defies description. This may be THE most dangerously side-splitting, tear-inducing and fall-down-funny film prologues....ever.

We then immediately segue through a single scene watching this destined-for-the-chopping-block actor mistakenly get invited to a snooty Hollywood party: the studio head/party host, "General Clutterbuck" (his name hints what he'll suffer), first rages on the phone hearing his set was destroyed by "an idiot", then distractedly hands his fortunes to his assistant.

Bakshi's changing fortunes unfold via Henry Mancini's brilliant juxtapositional scoring. It first presents Bakshi at home playing sitar (recalling Beatle George Harrison's contemporary taste), then launches into Mancini's main film theme as Bakshi receives his accidentally posted Party invitation.

This is an insider's spoof--a cinematic mugging of 1960s Hollywood--since Blake Edwards both improvises and lampoons so much of his own industry. With award-winning Mirisch scribes Frank & Tom Waldman, Edwards created (co-wrote) a knowing satire: some Hollywood (stereo)types have disappeared, but the crass sexual leeches are still here. The rest of the film is sustained by Steve Franken's rare "duck-walking" drunk waiter (a decent homage to Charlie Chaplin), and Peter Seller's great precedent for Borat & Mr.Bean.

Edwards originally planned a silent film with Sellers to honor silent-era slapstick, but the radio comic (Sellers made his career on British radio's The Goon Show) knew he couldn't carry the movie without words, nor would silent comedy play in a hip 1968 setting.

The eventual screenplay, although looking as effortless as it was short (63pp), is masterful: its 'incidental' early meeting between Bakshi and Janice Kane(Corinne Cole) establishes her as having the DTs/hallucinating objects in her glass (significant later), but it also hands Sellers a precisely observed joke as he backs away from her uncomfortably, realizing she's mental. Sellers' physical comedy, so precisely set up for him by Edwards, is predicated on Cole's verbal delivery as she insists in a raised voice, "But I can see it!".

This then is why a purely silent film would never have worked for Sellers.

Bakshi creates havoc through many clumsy encounters with inanimate objects: the house's bizarre electronic panel is a too-tempting toy; retrieving his soiled shoe from the pool proves increasingly ridiculous; and feeding the parrot with spilling seeds is best recalled with the catch-phrase "Birdie num-num"--now total lore for the film's actors and fans alike! My favourite is still the prologue, and Bakshi's battle with the (rigged) toilet roll/cistern....and the painting above. These scenes are screamingly funny, often going from bad to worse; with them Edwards & Sellers achieved a perfection of "coincidental" timing that is every bit as artful as Buster Keaton's.

Everyone present compounds the evening's disorder. The Party soon becomes a veritable maelstrom of career-hungry Tinseltowners preying on one another; but Bakshi's match-made-in-mayhem turns out to be Levinson the drinks waiter(Steve Franken). Their yin/yang relationship emerges from Bakshi's inability to drink. Now technically, as a Sikh Indian, he should've worn a turban at all times as well; but it's Bakshi's cultural aversion that convinces Levinson to make up for his "shortfalls". Our waiter gets so plastered that he waddles absent-mindedly (with precision timing) through doors and pools with all manner of trays, plates and chairs, driving his boss mad, but never worse for wear.

Much of this slapstick is drowned out by white noise, simulating silent films--so Edwards still got his wish.

His (actually) partying set used the same live band, which struck up (Ethel Merman's) "There's_No_Business_Like_Show_Business" every time their baby elephant (last 15mins only) needed the elderly janitor's shovel.

The film's only false note is struck by the hostess, who goes into hysterics when encountering sudsy people from the out-of-control elephant wash. Her over-the-top "nervous breakdown" beggars belief.

Conversely, the unheralded performance of the boozy blonde (Corinne Cole) hints a future with our waiter. Their "spontaneous"/scripted co-dependent sparks are courtesy of Levinson's "insulation" while gliding through neck-deep foam. He accidentally sabotages Janice's incumbent letch, transferring the man's bribe bottle to her, seeming like a sloshed "White Knight". When she fights her way back to pour his drink, Levinson's wobbly lips lock onto hers in stunned/"insulated" gratitude. This surprisingly sweet payoff had the (unmet) potential to elevate the ending. It also qualifies Franken/Edwards as Master(s) of the Long Joke.

Beyond Franken and Sellers, only Gavin MacLeod (Capt.Stubing of "The Love Boat"(1977-1987)) remains familiar. MacLeod plays The Party's funniest perfunctory (unsuccessful) sleaze--his name Divot(="pit") implying his personality. However it's the thwarted Divot who recognizes Bakshi and threatens to undo his good fortune, considering him "meshugga"(meshugganah, Yiddish for "insane")--handing Sellers the funny retort "...I am NOT your sugar"!

The Bakshi/Monet romance probably won't succeed. While men read their awkwardness outside her building as full of hope, women recognize their fencing over a painful lack of commonality underneath their pretend-fencing over etiquette. Any future as a couple is bleak: he's virtually unemployable as "the idiot"(....headed back to India), but while The Party's on, none of us have to face the music.

The ending could have reflected Franken's contribution better, but The Party is a superbly hilarious time in the "hip" 1960s.

For more production stories please consult John Cork's terrific DVD-supplements.(8/10)

District 9 (2009)

Mockumentary surprisingly results in legitimate "traditional SF first contact" tale.

[9/10 · 7 February 2010]

Mockumentaries are tricky. They dally with logic stretches beyond the "norm" in their given topic, so they must appeal to the partial ignorance and vanity about that ignorance in their audience. Our question is whether the whole of D9's output is worthier than its tricks. -Happily, YES; D9 extracts black humour from the racism/Apartheid being satirized, yet tries hard to stretch its "norms" only a little.

In fact D9's mock is a high-wire act, partly for having such a serious subject-matter co-written for laughs by an expatriate South African(Neill Blomkamp's accent is now Canadian), but also for using digital exobiologic realism that surpasses previous alien character-designs, last seen within such a banal human environment 20yrs ago in Alien Nation(1988).

Therefore D9's primary originality comes in intercutting its plotted action with mock "found footage". Blomkamp's storytelling, because it's well done, amounts to Oscar-worthy editing. Such proficient deployment, for example, of "tv vision" successfully embeds us in a sense of history passing, giving the film considerable (mock) gravitas.

Blomkamp's and producer Peter Jackson(Bad Taste(1988))'s tastes do run to "blokey" schlock--cf the grisly objects, characters and "exploding meat-bags" in D9--but this grisliness is integral to its far more sophisticated story punctuating the value of life in a caustic slum.

The authentic Chiawelo location was a coup, but my hackles were raised when I found D9 to be missing worldwide perspective. Despite repeatedly referencing "the whole world watching" Joburg's "first contact", there is nil political influence on the locals and no worldwide commentary or footage--a glaring plot-point to have overlooked for Blomkamp's budgetary concerns.

Although it suffers from plot-rushing and a pile-up of "Hail-Mary-passes" during the last act, D9 manages to organically combine several Hollywood blockbusters with its own rare originality to result in a (surprisingly) legitimate "traditional SF first-contact" tale.

The film's success rests on (male) audience sophistication.

Realising that racism has an economic purpose pivots us toward the aliens to begin "rooting for" the film's rousing ending. The audience also traverses a huge emotional arc in tandem with the story's lead. Wikus(Sharlto Copley) is our hapless bureaucrat toiling for a multinational, until he's accidentally contaminated by intelligent alien nanofluid, becoming MNU's "most hunted".

Unfortunately, Blomkamp--a feature-novice director--neglects to verify his "MNU" (Multi_National_United) as NOT the UN; confused readers should consult the DVD 2nd-disc short "Conception and Design"(at 8:53m).

Blomkamp/Tatchell's collaborated screenplay paints Wikus a lame, "not very smart"(his mother) "good son" who's opportunistically racist toward anyone over whom he can exert control; but he still doesn't deserve what happens to him. Because Wikus' character was seeded as wary of the downside of "cowboy"/mercenary ethics, we trust he'll rise above his pathetic cowardice. He even instructs his hand-picked field replacement--a black man smarter than himself, Fundiswa(Mandla Gaduka)--how to butt heads with the military subcontractors lead by Koobus Venter(David James). During this funny beat on military/civilian enmity, Koobus' team refer to Wikus as "the FNG"(F'cking New Guy), while Wikus quips about them with an inverted adage:"They shoot first, then they ANSWER questions"!

D9's black comedy is sustained by Wikus' racism ("No, don't shoot it NOW, it's illegal to do that"), and by the Mengele-like surgeon so interested in Wikus' "strong pain reaction" to being skewered with a "DBX7" during human/alien experiments! Observant viewers will note Blomkamp's unwillingness to "fix" this scene (for a conclusion that the patient's "nerves have fused", Wikus needed to skewer himself)--simply because then it wouldn't be funny.

Audience relatability to our hero "prawn" Christopher Johnson (rotomated replacement of actor Jason Cope)--note the moniker-similarity to Blackhawk Down(2001)'s "skinnies"--was contingent on our empathy for the facial/physical features of Christopher's design; we're left to gather that such human names were assigned to 1.8million aliens by overtired Alien Affairs officers, just as in Alien Nation(1988).

The bipedal insect concept allows these aliens to be human-like even in size, but their facial expressions needed to be hauntingly mammalian, not arachnoid. That was delivered by movable facial scaling and the obviously MAMMALIAN over-sized eyes of.....chimpanzees, apparently.

And indeed, the most audience-grabbing achievement of D9 for me was its inclusion of "photo-real" aliens, bettering Avatar(2009) in 2D. (Cameron's WetaDigital artists either didn't start with situated-lighting cinematography, or relied on automated (less-accurate)animation for Avatar(2009)...!)

Thanks to Canadian SFX outfit Image Engine("Stargate"(2005-2007)), D9's ~35m of alien visuals really outstrip audience expectations. Their CGI was perfected with 1) WetaWorkshop's clever alien-character design, 2) panoramic/multi-angle light-source cinematography, and 3) Image Engine's hand-rotomated animation based on 2).

The cat-food-as-catnip-to-aliens idea was "homaged" again from Alien Nation(1988), the main "elephant-in-the-room" inspiration for Alive(2005)/D9. The creators leave it unacknowledged so their originality isn't dismissed by careless comparisons to a beloved earlier franchise (the TV series ended with AN:Dark Horizon(1994)).

During the home stretch, the graphic war violence deliberately resembles Blackhawk Down(2001), adding similar "yayli tanbur"(Turkish bowed lute) wailing music; the exo-suit's awesome anti-gravity weapon successfully distracts viewers from counting the "Hail-Mary-passes"; and seeing the Nigerians get their comeuppance minus bullets was deliciously reminiscent of Rabbit Fire(1951):us.imdb.com/Find?select=Quotes&for=buwwets!

Sadly that entire section of the film feels truncated, due to plot-rushing. There's insufficient vision of the exo-suit, plus it's too easily--not to mention farcically--crippled by human bullets. It stumbles around wounded, anthropomorphically "bleeding" nanofluid and being altogether too derivative of Robocop(1987)'s Ed-209.

So D9 sometimes tries too hard to be "Hollywood popcorn SF", but it accommodates a rather surprising un-Hollywood ending. One last poignant "documentary" flourish of Wikus waxing lovingly about his wife proves painful when intercut with the last scene on the heels of the bookending interviews. Such a romantic close was a worthy end to this almost-plausible, rich, fast-paced story.

With its blatant pillorying of xenophobia coupled with Enemy Mine(1985)-type buddy action and even spousal romance, D9 is sure to prick naysayer consciences worldwide. It has entered the venerable SF pantheon of "Stargate", "Star Trek", "Alien Nation"...Welcome, D9.(9/10)

Che: Part Two (2008)

Not so much Lost in La Mancha as merely Dead in Bolivia.

[2/10 · 16 November 2009]

Now that Che(2008) has finished its relatively short Australian cinema run (extremely limited release:1 screen in Sydney, after 6wks), I can guiltlessly join both hosts of "At The Movies" in taking Steven Soderbergh to task.

It's usually satisfying to watch a film director change his style/subject, but Soderbergh's most recent stinker, The Girlfriend Experience(2009), was also missing a story, so narrative (and editing?) seem to suddenly be Soderbergh's main challenge. Strange, after 20-odd years in the business. He was probably never much good at narrative, just hid it well inside "edgy" projects.

None of this excuses him this present, almost diabolical failure. As David Stratton warns, "two parts of Che don't (even) make a whole".

Epic biopic in name only, Che(2008) barely qualifies as a feature film! It certainly has no legs, inasmuch as except for its uncharacteristic ultimate resolution forced upon it by history, Soderbergh's 4.5hrs-long dirge just goes nowhere.

Even Margaret Pomeranz, the more forgiving of Australia's At The Movies duo, noted about Soderbergh's repetitious waste of (HD digital storage): "you're in the woods...you're in the woods...you're in the woods...". I too am surprised Soderbergh didn't give us another 2.5hrs of THAT somewhere between his existing two Parts, because he still left out massive chunks of Che's "revolutionary" life!

For a biopic of an important but infamous historical figure, Soderbergh unaccountably alienates, if not deliberately insults, his audiences by

1. never providing most of Che's story;

2. imposing unreasonable film lengths with mere dullard repetition;

3. ignoring both true hindsight and a narrative of events;

4. barely developing an idea, or a character;

5. remaining claustrophobically episodic;

6. ignoring proper context for scenes---whatever we do get is mired in disruptive timeshifts;

7. linguistically dislocating all audiences (even Spanish-speakers will be confused by the incongruous expositions in English); and

8. pointlessly whitewashing his main subject into one dimension. Why, at THIS late stage? The T-shirt franchise has been a success!

Our sense of claustrophobia is surely due to Peter Buchman and Benjamin VanDer Veen basing their screenplay solely on Guevara's memoirs. So, like a poor student who has read only ONE of his allotted texts for his assignment, Soderbergh's product is exceedingly limited in perspective.

The audience is held captive within the same constrained knowledge, scenery and circumstances of the "revolutionaries", but that doesn't elicit our sympathy. Instead, it dawns on us that "Ah, Soderbergh's trying to hobble his audiences the same as the Latino peasants were at the time". But these are the SAME illiterate Latino peasants who sold out the good doctor to his enemies. Why does Soderbergh feel the need to equate us with them, and keep us equally mentally captive? Such audience straitjacketing must have a purpose.

Part2 is more chronological than Part1, but it's literally mind-numbing with its repetitive bush-bashing, misery of outlook, and lack of variety or character arcs. DelToro's Che has no opportunity to grow as a person while he struggles to educate his own ill-disciplined troops. The only letup is the humour as Che deals with his sometimes deeply ignorant "revolutionaries", some of whom violently lack self-control around local peasants or food. We certainly get no insight into what caused the conditions, nor any strategic analyses of their guerrilla insurgency, such as it was.

Part2's excruciating countdown remains fearfully episodic: again, nothing is telegraphed or contextualized. Thus even the scenes with Fidel Castro (Demián Bichir) are unexpected and disconcerting. Any selected events are portrayed minimally and Latino-centrically, with Part1's interviews replaced by time-shifting meetings between the corrupt Bolivian president (Joaquim de Almeida) and US Government officials promising CIA intervention(!).

The rest of Part2's "woods" and day-for-night blue filter just exasperate the audience until they're eyeing the exits.

Perhaps DelToro felt too keenly the frustration of many non-American Latinos about never getting a truthful, unspun history of Che's exploits within their own countries. When foreign governments still won't deliver a free press to their people--for whatever reason--then one can see how a popular American indie producer might set out to entice the not-so-well-read ("I may not be able to read or write, but I'm NOT illiterate!"--cf.The Inspector General(1949)) out to their own local cinemas. The film's obvious neglects and gross over-simplifications hint very strongly that it's aiming only at the comprehensions of the less-informed WHO STILL SPEAK LITTLE English. If they did, they'd have read tomes on the subject already, and critiqued the relevant social issues amongst themselves--learning the lessons of history as they should.

Such insights are precisely what societies still need--and not just the remaining illiterate Latinos of Central and South America--yet it's what Che(2008) gleefully fails to deliver. Soderbergh buries his lead because he's weak on narrative. I am gobsmacked why Benicio DelToro deliberately chose Soderbergh for this project if he knew this. It's been 44yrs, hindsight about Guevara was sorely wanted: it's what I went to see this film for, but the director diabolically robs us of that.

David Stratton, writing in The Australian (03-Oct-2009) observed that while Part1 was "uneven", Part2 actually "goes rapidly downhill" from there, "charting Che's final campaign in Bolivia in excruciating detail", which "...feels almost unbearably slow and turgid".

Che:The Guerilla aka Part2 is certainly no travelogue for Bolivia, painting it a picture of misery and atavism. The entire second half is only redeemed by the aforementioned humour, and the dramatic--yet tragic--capture and execution of the film's subject.

The rest of this interminable cinema verite is just confusing, irritating misery--shockingly, for a Soderbergh film, to be avoided at all costs. It is bound to break the hearts of all who know even just a smattering about the subject.(2/10)

Che: Part One (2008)

Hindsight is what I went to see Che: Parts 1+2 for, but Soderbergh diabolically robs us of that.

[4/10 · 7 November 2009]

Don't be surprised if you find Part1 confusing; I certainly did.

Obviously, a Spanish-only film will be unappealing to anyone uncomfortable with subtitles, while other-language speakers will rely too heavily on those subtitles and be forced to miss any continuity in Soderbergh's disruptive time-shifts.

Part1 is particularly offensive at this, because he leaves out far more story than he includes, and because he contextualizes events so poorly while intruding his "edgy" style of flashbacks and flash-forwards. Viewers are left like Eddie Murphy listening to James Brown records: "What the F did I just miss? -Sabbadie-dubba!"(said James Brown).

Prior to the final version's English voice-overs re-recorded by Benicio (helpfully less irritating than dubbing), Part1 presented unnecessary impediments, such as the fearfully episodic nature of Soderbergh's scenes, the lack of audience preparation (preamble) for things that are about to happen, while any chosen events are so minimally and Latino-centrically portrayed, that we really do feel like Eddie Murphy.

The real problem with the Latino-centrism is that once we get used to it, we really become distrustful of the veracity and future consequences that the English-spoken interviews and flash-forwards represent. That is, Soderbergh WASTES any possible context with his disruptive and alienated English-speakers, yet they are the only real help on offer.

The rest of Che hacking jungle and battling ill-discipline amongst his "troops" just makes for way too much cinema verite (no perspective) as it remains an insufficient exploration of Che's reasons, or of the political effect he was having wherever he went.

There is also--and this is the big giveaway about who this epic was made for--no hindsight critique of either Che himself, nor crucially of the manipulated peasants who eventually sell him out to their own government.

Soderbergh buries his lead because he's weak on narrative. I am gobsmacked why Benicio DelToro deliberately chose Soderbergh for this project if he knew this. It's been 44yrs, hindsight about Guevara was sorely wanted: it's what I went to see this film for, but the director diabolically robs us of that.

The Sydney Film Festival version sported even more irritants, since eradicated:

A) way too many blue filter shots (poor man's day-for-night, last used in C-grade Westerns);

B) illegible, jittery subtitles yanked off too quickly, supposedly "compensating" for his unremitting Spanish; and

C) no helpful Benicio voice-over at all.

Both early and final release versions still have no opening credits so the audience has no idea whom/what to expect--making it such a triumph when we recognize the never (EVER) credited Matt Damon as a young priest shot mid-distance; and Soderbergh's nom-de-plume photographer credit of "Peter Andrews".

So what's with all this HIDING, Mr Soderbergh? Could it be that he's abashed by his altering style, feeling a little clumsy, perhaps? Jeezus, he reminds me of Billy the talented-but-crazy indie director on "Entourage" who made his career-killing stinker biopic on the show about...wait for it...Pablo Escobar. Pretty close.

David Stratton, writing in The Australian (03-Oct-2009) correctly observed that Part1 is "uneven" (and HOW), while Part2 "goes rapidly downhill" from there, charting Che's final campaign in Bolivia "in excruciating detail".

For me, there's only 3 good things in Che Part1: i) Benicio DelToro's casting, and his marvelous PRIMARY makeup job--but not his bizarre, integrally terrible graying wriggler in Pt2--Benicio's leanness and beard are astonishingly close to some rather unflattering photos of Che; ii) Seeing Che soberly and meaningfully address the UN in 1964 as Cuba's post-revolutionary Minister of Economics; and iii) the scope of the battle of Santa Clara (near the end of Pt1).

That's it.

So I concur wholeheartedly with David Stratton that "(Soderbergh's) pace is deliberately slow, characterizations kept to a minimum" (as if the director hadn't known what these should be used for); "the action, such as it is, plods along withOUT a visible dramatic arc, and...feels almost unbearably slow and turgid".

Turgid, Mr Soderbergh, turgid.

The director's only defense can be that he didn't make this movie for us living in the non-Cuban/non-Bolivian sectors of the planet. No, he must think we don't/shouldn't need this. Instead, his awful "epic"-in-name-only had to just pretend to NOT be boring cinema verite so the remaining illiterate Latino peasants of the world would go see it. Soderbergh must be hoping they might finally feel vindicated/satisfied seeing the unadorned, unexpurgated truth about how/why Che was so expeditiously killed in Bolivia.

I just hope THEY liked it.(4/10)

Charlie Wilson's War (2007)

A little below par when compared to Aaron Sorkin's television work.(8/10)

[8/10 · 15 May 2009]

Philip Seymour-Hoffman has arrived. As CWW's wise but ill-fitting CIA analyst, he's a finally matured, sardonic powerhouse.

Certainly, CWW enjoys an impeccable cast and terrific performances, inspired by such a generous Aaron Sorkin script. John(Where's Marlowe(1998), "Mad Men"(TV)) Slattery's timing is pitch-perfect dancing with PSH, while Denis O'Hare is the perfect "massive tool" and Om Puri the most measured/culturally accurate "straight man" in the "Pakistani Vaudeville Team". Ken Stott("Rebus"(TV)) is seemingly cast for his deadpan reactions and the silly timbre of his voice; this plays against the fear the mere mention of Mossad typically invokes in their Western counterparts.

Sorkin's "crackerjack" screenplay successfully personalizes the spooks while quietly giving away little-known CIA history. Chief tidbit is how President Carter's DCI, Admiral Stansfield Turner, during his 1977-1981 tenure shockingly dismissed 3,000 career CIA officers alleging their "unpatriotism". This truly controversial decision left the remaining spooks mostly "old school" Princeton Ivy Leaguers--implied by Gust's line "...you poncy schoolboy"--but it also rendered toothless the CIA's "humint" apparatus. Coupled with subsequent politicization of the remaining "sigint" capability, this decision has since delivered America its embarrassing "intelligence failures".

Post-TV, Sorkin sought another outlet for his complex scripts. Based on Crile's 10-yr-long agonized-over novel, this relatively short screenplay even delivers some of the snappiest dialogue in the business, but ITS ENDING is let down in editing.

CWW's "dramedy" balancing-act hinges on successfully depicting a flippant and unethical playboy/Congressman from Texas as lovable as the real man was. Complicating this, the screenplay had to extend to the burden of hindsight, but it's UNreasonable for audiences to provide that for themselves.

Although in the last 2mins of the main narrative Tom Hanks tries in his close-ups to project Charlie's sense of failure about "the end game", the screenplay and editing needed to do more. This was, after all, the raison d'etre of the film! Instead, we're allowed to perceive the film's truncated nature when a PROPER explanation for Charlie's crucial hindsight quote turns out to be missing. The story just fades out, unfinished after only 90mins, while the book-ender clangs it shut with Charlie's receipt of his "Honoured Colleague" Clandestine Services(spook) award. Consequently, Sorkin's cinematic adaptation plays as watered-down, and the closing book-ender too pat.

George Crile's 416-page same-titled book first noted that Charlie"...had a genius for getting people to judge him not as a middle-aged scoundrel, but instead as if he were a good-hearted adolescent, guilty of little more than youthful excess. This survival skill routinely permitted him to do things that no-one else in Congress could have gotten away with". This of course was the key that unlocked Tom Hanks' characterization, but Charlie's misbehavior was grossly at odds with the actor's persona. The film therefore gently pillories Charlie's legal selectivity: when the strippers yell "We love you, Charlie!", Hanks mumbles "Oh, it helps not to know me". Charlie's warts-and-all portrayal is further peppered with his crass expressions--eg "I like drinking women and chasing whiskey"--which Hanks cleaned up for the final cut.

Largely due to Hanks' alchemy, the central conceit of Charlie's likability succeeds and completely sells the story to audiences who've never heard any of this before, but a few additional elements do fail: Hanks' "Were you listening at my door?!?" line, for instance, delivered 3x, totally disrupts the pace just to ramp-up Gust's "Don't be an idiot, I bugged the scotch bottle" payoff. (Perhaps they couldn't slow Seymour-Hoffman down with a preceding "Hell no"). Hanks also overindulges the "...shoot down the helicopters" line to prod the audience to that conclusion.

The early scene with "Larry"(Peter Gerety, in a hugely satisfying caricature of an overbearing, corrupt "contributor" who came to Washington to "influence" a Congressman WITH his daughter--that's her in the shirt and heels), is crucial for establishing the haughty Texas persona that even Charlie Wilson shared. His bedroom scene with the newly introduced Joanne Herring(Roberts, now an often over-familiar recourse) further reveals not only her deep relationship with Charlie (who owes her his seat in Congress), but that she isn't above manipulating his electorate as a "contributor" either. This then is the "Helen-of-Troy" face of corruption of the American legal system.("One voate? Vhee hav menyi voates"...)

This famously "easy man to like" proved to be a surprising White Knight while nobody was looking, but sadly, Charlie's $billion-funding bogged down with superpower loss-of-interest for nation-building. Unfortunately, just as Avrakotos' intel predicted, the surviving Afghani orphans of war, in the absence of society/hope, would become easy converts to fundamentalism and a fresh supply of dispossessed angry-young-men that the "unspooled" Islamists need(ed).

Since career intel officers have occasion to know the "bouncing ball" of consequences only too well--they call it "blowback"--Avrakotos realized that rebuilding Afghanistan was even more vital than kicking the Russians out was.

The best defence against terrorism seems to be disallowing its fertile ground (prevention), no matter what non-secular text the unspooled are thumping. Socio-economic investment--Charlie's concept of the "end game"/"exit strategy"--should never be left to one Congressman to convince a nation; hopefully this true story (Woodward, Bob(2005) Veil--The Secret Wars of the CIA 1981-1987) will finally impact America's "patriots". Being too-passionate haters of opposing political systems, amateur "patriots" forget that THERE ARE WORSE THINGS. Presidential catchphrases ("the Evil Soviet Empire", "Axis of Evil") too should carry "BUYER BEWARE" disclaimers.

Missing that, CWW shows Joanne Herring(Julia Roberts) being thoroughly cynical as she manipulates Doc Long(Ned Beatty) in Peshawar for money, but claims she only uses the religious talk because(...it works)/they "need God on their side". Charlie's cold-water comeback is a brilliant warning we must all heed: "What's got Gust worried is that pretty soon God will be on BOTH SIDES!"(...because everybody will be dead).

Ultimately, compared to Sorkin's TV work (West_Wing, Studio_60_on_the_Sunset_Strip), CWW is a little bellow par--for him. On the other hand, Charlie Wilson, the "immature" "Congressman from Kabul" actually deserves credit as a modern-day Scarlet Pimpernel. After 5 meaningless re-elections he finally found a sobering cause.(8/10)

Star Trek (2009)

Heartless and humorless, Abrams devolves his frenetic pap into a shinier ripoff of Star Wars.

[5/10 · 9 May 2009]

To paraphrase Janet Maslin, a 1982 NY Times critic--Well, that's a lot LESS like it!

At least JJ.Abrams hasn't killed, just insulted and brought low this great franchise, and outraged lifelong fans like me. His reboot is mere eye-bubblegum at best. Forgettable the minute it's over, nobody could discuss the plot at length just 1/2hr later.

At worst, it devolves Star Trek into a shinier ripoff of Star Wars, in a transparent attempt to appeal to the masses.

Once its predecessor ST-X:Nemesis(2002) broke the even-numbered-charm by losing money, Star Trek(2009)'s seven producers should've known better than to again invoke Romulan terrorism for a plot. Missing stronger plot ideas for Harve Bennett's prequel, they succumbed to repetition. Time-travel would conveniently acculturate the younger actors, so....we got what we got.

We quickly lose the plot because action dominates (the film is unbalanced); time-travel and "red matter" pragmatics are glossed-over for the novelty-seekers with no patience for science; the set-ups for location and discovery exposition are poor, eg when young Spock commandeers old Spock's ship or why old Spock unaccountably deals with "red matter" himself; we're unprepared for Spock's venal marooning of Kirk ACCIDENTALLY on the planet where old Spock is also marooned, or for old Spock's ridiculous sighting of Vulcan imploding; plus cadet Kirk gets promoted embarrassingly quickly to Captain.

Some discomforts are due to losses in editing, but not all. Beats like the marooning and the "Centaurian slugs"(Ceti-Alpha eels) are carelessly borrowed from ST-II:The_Wrath_of_Khan(1982); "shiny" elements are slathered on, as are all the imperceptibly-quick action scenes, matched by a deluge of unlikely success. Such pandering choices result in cinematic bubblegum, begun in the screenplay: according to ST-II:The_Wrath_of_Khan(1982) young Kirk wasn't a loser bad-boy, just a Lothario "crazy for space". In ST(2009) he's been rewritten as having abilities we don't see, and hunky enough to induce Capt.Pike (Greenwood) to become his overawed benefactor.

Even worse, the severe dress uniforms, combined with the Iowa cop's Judge Dredd(1995)-look and ST-inappropriate attitude give Starfleet the feel of a fascist Death Star assembly.

Did Star Trek deserve this claptrap?

Abrams appears out of faith for the franchise, surreptitiously remaking it into Star Wars; but we can be equally angry at professional critics, whose job it was to pick such things up, and to consider that when fans "smell horse-puckey, perhaps there's a pony in the barn".

This screenplay was of course written with George.W in office, when the revenge-seeking terrorist must've seemed irresistible for geeing-up audiences. Although that plot device can be--and in ST-II:The_Wrath_of_Khan(1982) ALREADY HAS BEEN--done well, its belaboring has also typically been at the root of several unpopular Star Trek movies. Abrams et al nevertheless felt the.....need to ramp-up audience dread with it, having the spouse-destructively stupid Nero (Bana, utterly wasted) riding a needle-fronted spaceship--a motif thoughtlessly stolen from "Babylon-5"(TV), where it made sense.

Thievery ISN'T homage.

The dull score is forgettable, but irritating when its misplaced Chinese violin is found to be stolen from "Firefly"(TV), to pull "Browncoats". Only the reworked ST:TOS end theme enhances/is enhanced by the nebulae and planetary visuals. The OPENING could've used that.

I've sat with 3 audiences seeing it for the first time now. Two failed to laugh at the paltry jokes; the only titter was raised by Uhura's ridiculous and unexpected smooching of the Vulcan. Clearly these were fans who didn't know what hit them. Uhura(Zoe Saldana)'s unexplained relationship with Spock--now rewritten as the sexier one--becomes unintentionally funny; had this been an organic wink at Nichelle Nichols' historic interracial kiss with Bill Shatner, we'd have been pleased.

Simon Pegg, too, creates a silly buffoon for Scotty that's nothing short of a "crack in the Star Trek canon"(Scott Weinberg). It undercuts the kindly engineering geek that Jimmy Doohan spent decades crafting, revealing an uncaring disrespect for Roddenberry's vision itself.

Pegg's unwelcome postmodernist characterization adds another unwelcome flourish with a JarJar Binks-ripoff sidekick, who has no lines, but annoys both "Scotty", and us. This must be the filmmakers' failed rework of Gerrold's tribbles.

Winona Ryder is missing gravitas--and screen time--as Spock's mother Amanda. Her death is unmissed, except by John Cho's Hikaru Sulu, whose powerful reaction shot isn't enough.

Only Zachary Quinto (Sylar from "Heroes"(TV)) has imbued his performance with many of Nimoy's reticent nuances. Not surprisingly, Nimoy actually worked with him for weeks to achieve this, but it was the first honest work I could see in the film.

At least the writers knew the lore. I enjoyed their incorporation of Kirk's middle-name into his birth and that it was originally his Starfleet biological father who didn't "believe in the no-win scenario"; as well as McCoy's acquisitions of his nickname and fear of transporters, etc. Lore maintenance is good, but its revamping goes wrong by imposing stolen elements purely for generic loser-appeal.

Scott Chambliss' wonderful production design for the Enterprise interiors deserves special mention. His plexiglass and flexible spot-lamps are brilliantly new while reminiscent of ST:TOS. However we could've lived without the heavy girders, plumbing, and the ridiculous smelt-works locations, which borrow too much from ST:Enterprise.

The third audience I sat with was the most animated, being an evening audience well-lubricated with champagne, but none of them had any exit opinions to offer either. Nobody clapped, like they had in 1982.

We have an obligation to compare ST(2009) with the Trek features high-water mark, especially because Nick Meyer's ST-II:The_Wrath_of_Khan(1982) was itself a (second filmic) reboot that snatched franchise victory from the jaws of defeat. Unfortunately Bad Robot's frenetic bad-faith pap serves up only a calculated and insulting, empty version of Star Trek to its hopeful/thoughtful fans. We wonder, will Abrams "learn by doing"?

If this reboot garners newer generations AND future directors restore things to a less Fascist, truer Star Trek feel, then fine; otherwise all this action-ridden pap and ill-advised "borrowing".....won't have been worth it.(5/10)

Ratatouille (2007)

Anton Ego voices the best critique of a critic on record in this most adult-friendly Pixar Trek.(10/10)

[10/10 · 17 April 2009]

Ratatouille was forced to give a "Quality Assurance guarantee" that this is "100% genuine animation-–No motion capture or any other performance shortcuts were used" when its rat-scurrying, soup-sloshing, and nose-twitching detail was found to be so terrific that some preview audiences thought it was done with motion capture.

2008 saw Ratatouille(2007) rightfully win the Best Animated Feature Oscar (with noms for another 4) not only for its realistic motion/cartoonish character 3D animation, but because its modern fairytale storytelling prowess is of the caliber of Hans Christian Andersen. It's an instant classic.

Unlike other Pixar instant classics, this one isn't really for littlies. Almost completely devoid of hyperbole or of overused conventions, Ratatouille's realism is a welcome gift for its patient adults. The double-hitter plot is about a talented rat discovering that his multiple roles make him robust, not a victim, and how mankind could accommodate other forms of life on a different scale/lifespan of existence--if we chose to.

Ratatouille(2007) betters its direct competition--DreamWorks' heavily marketed Bee Movie(2007)--by combining a straight story about the human/animal contract with deeper pathos and allegory for human relationships. In Ratatouille we find human analogues to our most vexing relationships with our egos and authority figures.

The "better father" theme was previously explored in Finding Nemo(2003) and the (storytelling-wise) slightly clumsier Happy Feet(2006)--sorry George Miller--but those were aimed mostly at children. Ratatouille(2007) is squarely aimed at their parents, who may have been guilty of voicing opinions like the father rat's: "We look after our own kind (because) the world belongs to our enemy", as they willingly created the insular communities that their unfortunate children would have to grow up in. This is the main reason for depicting the upward-looking, ready-to-move-out-of-home Remy as blue and cuter than his brutish, much uglier brown rat father. But let's not deconstruct too far.

The question at the core of their cross-generational argument(s) has now been answered. In countries where women and minorities got the vote and access to good jobs, it's getting very difficult to sound mentally competent insisting that "you can't change nature". When endemic political advantage is cemented as "nature" by both the culture and religion of the society in question, it is the job of the young to question that, because they have to inherit it. Ratatouille is brilliant at reminding such insular fathers that when they uphold this "nature", they do it against their own children, keeping the parents' failure to get a better deal unchallenged.

There is another powerful thread in Ratatouille, that of our social reconsideration for animal companions we'd normally revile for their surprising competitive success. In this, Ratatouille resembles Babe(1995), its most worthy filmic companion.

The story ennobles all those who join the level of debate (compete) in their chosen profession by signifying that even if our world isn't set up to treat the truths of the politically unequal as real, eventually they will be heard. Eventually everyone has to accept change, because, as Ratatouille's wisdom is voiced by little Remy, "change IS nature, dad, the part we can influence--and it starts as soon as we decide". Humanity went to the moon only because we set ourselves the goal; 3D features happened only because Pixar "reinvented the universe" (requisite technologies).

The delicately withheld character of Anton Ego is a welcome instant archetype, perfectly named for being the quintessential self-satisfied pompous loner who needs his ego pricked. And so, in the most balanced comeuppance that any film can/has shown, Peter O'Toole's perfectly inflected critic is eventually reformed: "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgement. We thrive on negative criticism which is fun...." (generally a male-specific cruelty Germans call schadenfreude; not all of us are like this) "....to both write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so." (The Brady Bunch wasn't TV's finest hour, yet millions grew up pining for their parents to be that cheesy.)

It cannot go unobserved that "Skinner" is a very UN-FRENCH name for Ratatouille's rampant but diminutive Frenchie. This is due to the film's dimorphous central caricature: while Ego is a goth-like emaciated tall guy more resembling the actual--very American--BF.Skinner (cf "operant conditioning chamber"--Wikipaedia), the caricature's other half is a sight-gag on the so-called Skinner Box itself.

Burrhus.F Skinner was probably behaviourism's most-reviled psychologist. His heyday accounts for the slightly 1950s look of Ratatouille's Paris. Prof Skinner's arguably overzealous positivism for empirical evidence was borne of his own "Skinner Box" RAT EXPERIMENTS which made for his purely robot-like explanations of people. The film therefore pokes subtle fun at the scientist by having an ultra-short namesake stand ON the proverbial Skinner Box--downgraded to a step-ladder--to see. Interestingly, Skinner is further caricatured as a sellout chef.

Ratatouille's cartoony humans are balanced out by their realistic motion, and by the breathtakingly detailed backdrops of Paris at its most beautiful.

However the true beauty of Ratatouille is its ability to weave together so many threads into ostensibly just one story. This is the meat of storytelling, and in this instance, the high art of original writing. Both Remy's prologue with the violent little-old-lady (establishing his rat respect as a poison-checker), and Anton Ego's comeuppance in the epilogue add to the overall message of due respect for little Remy as The Best Chef in France.

Ratatouille(2007) therefore deserves the highest popular and industry respect aside the original Babe(1995). The rug-puller truth for its critic was the same as for all of us: we're all human, even if some of us are less human than others.(10/10)

The Pixar Story (2007)

"Art challenges technology, (while) technology inspires the art", so Iwerks' end crawl itself elevates her fabulous doco to art. AVAILABLE ON DISC2 OF WALL-E (Sp.Edn).(10/10)

[10/10 · 17 April 2009]

Writer/producer/director/co-editor Leslie Iwerks, granddaughter of Ub Iwerks (SFX Oscar-winner, The Birds(1964)), submitted this doco of hers for Oscar consideration too, but The Pixar Story received only Emmy and American Cinema Editors award nominations.

Such oversights don't prevent this delicious voyage from Mickey to Ratatouille(2007) from also being an emotive, ennobling ride--much as Pixar Treks usually are. Along the way we discover that animation is a labour of love for keen students, the best of whom go to CalArts to be lectured by Disney's retired artists, who themselves retain a student's attitude despite being lifelong pros. And when the lecturers went home, we're told the animation students taught each other--just like computer scientists do. I know that excitement well.

It dawns on us that animation really is a me-generation- and recession-busting globaliser of minds.

Back in 2004-5, according to this "lucid" ('Bottom Line: the lucid and entertaining story behind Pixar's success', Kirk Honeycutt, THR, 9 Oct 2007) feature documentary, the traditional animation industry was being dismantled. Established and talented 2D animators were being laid off in an industry contraction blamed on 3D and Pixar specifically. Ed Catmull goes to great lengths on camera to emphasize how being scapegoated hurt them. After all, they were just animators trying to survive in a hostile business environment.

The trades kept declaring that 'Animators draw less as computers tooning up' (Greg Reifsteck), and '3D success is flattening traditionally animated pix' (THR's Carl Diorio). Of course by then Pixar had been in a production deal with Disney Studios, which distributed their product, for 14yrs. Perhaps to buy time for their own 2D animators, Disney is alleged to have decided to source Pixar's blockbusters to create direct-to-video 2D sequels without any Pixar input. The decision would prove contentious since Pixar creators would not abandon their "children" (to career-killing sequelitis). A mighty battle over creative control allegedly ensued within the Pixar/Mouse House.

Eventually, 6yrs after the alleged Toy Story2(1999) near-calamity, there was a massive Disney shake-up instead.

According to Iwerks' roadmap, the Mouse House had also been struggling with an industry-wide Fear of the Computer for some time, which first resulted in their early loss of John Lasseter in 1984. They had expected 3D to be cheaper than 2D! This industry war may have lasted 30+yrs, but venerable Disney artist Joe Grant, speaking just months prior to his death in 2005, makes the astonishing admission that in losing Lasseter, Disney was set to lose their heir to Walt.

Lasseter had been 3D-animating his 'Brave Little Toaster' at Disney during the early 1980s, while concurrently, Pixar co-founders Alvy Ray Smith and Ed Catmull were creating the famous high-quality early CGI "Genesis Project" clip for STII-The Wrath of Khan(1983) at ILM. Interestingly, Star Trek performed the same universal-appeal humanist function then that Pixar does today.

Iwerks' documentary reveals that during that momentous year at a computer graphics conference, Catmull, having heard SOME of Lasseter's tale of woe, instantly snapped him up post-Disney as the new animation hire for the fledgling CGI company that George Lucas had permitted them to start up. The Pixar Story also claims that for two decades afterwards, Disney kept trying to tempt Lasseter back, but he always remained more committed to Pixar.

In the late 1990s Disney finally over-invested in the lukewarm 2D/3D actioner Treasure Planet(2002), and LOST around $100M for their Feature Animation division. This was almost certainly the cause of the subsequent organisational shake-up in late 2005, when Michael Eisner was replaced by Bob Iger as head of Disney. And with that, The Pixar Story informs us, the entire mood, prospects, and history of Pixar changed.

3D's success is arguably just a natural evolution; if it wins the final look of cinema feature animation, so what? Conversely, many feel much more comfortable with 2D full-frame for TV weekly comedies, which according to Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy fame, is a much more intimate format for his type of entertainment.

As industry insiders know, 2D is still the staple of animation and the bulk of the business--it's just not sexy. 2D is also vital to 3D itself pre-rendering, so plenty of animation jobs remain at as many studios as are able to offer great UNIVERSAL STORYTELLING. Roy Disney (Walt's nephew) confirms this in the home stretch of Iwerks' triumph.

But more than that, enchanting storytelling perhaps needs to be rarer/harder to do than the annual supply of 3D multiplex features currently proposed. Even 3D's over-reliance on animal-allegories/fables can prove fatal. Audiences are already reaching saturation point from their inundation by the big three 3D studios. This could prove just as devastating as Disney's "perfectionist" movement-over-characterisation had become to 2D. Under no circumstances should anybody again attempt a Meet Dave(2007)-like stylistic debauchery of contemporary cultural cool.

Thankfully, Iwerks reveals Pixar artists as remaining "hungry" after a decade-and-a-half of financial success. Equally, they're well aware of their high regard not only by the public at large, but among 2D traditional animators, recently giving their "9 Old Men"/CalArts lecturers Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas animated cameos within The Incredibles(2005).

The Pixar Story also features welcome live-action cameos by the two saddest quick-succession losses to animation in 2005: Joe Grant (Fantasia(1940), Dumbo(1941)--heart attack); and Joe Ranft (our beloved Heimlich--car accident). Tragically neither saw Iwerks' doco, 7yrs in the making, completed.

This often gobsmacking, educational and deeply moving feature documentary finally concludes with a moving end credit sequence full of quiet dignity showcasing the enormous workloads underpinning wireframes. The end crawl is overlain by a powerfully Beatlesesque instrumental, "Modern Inventions", by The Submarines. It sells the whole message of 3D, willing us to fall in love with the entire precept of animation--and certainly with the Pixar folks at Emeryville, CA.

For everything else I had to say about The Pixar Story(2007), consult Honeycutt's review referenced earlier.(10/10)

Doubt (I) (2008)

Doesn't know how to end a talky yet bereft argument! Only 5/10 for this indie.

[5/10 · 20 January 2009]

This is just a quickie based on 1 viewing.

Clearly the filmmakers intended Doubt(208) to be at least self-referencing for the audience, that is, they never had any intention of settling the priest's guilt with the plot. I went in expecting that.

However it was a rude shock to see this ultimately nothing-but talky movie offer only homilies couched in a few sentences of priestly sermon about gossiping being a sin, and valuable truths being easily dissembled into flying feathers that you can never collect again.

There is no better case than this made or attempted by the movie for its subject.

Good one-note premise inadequately realised with a few measly conversations and one screaming match. Oh, and one honest mother.

That's it.

The movie doesn't go anywhere, and then it ends.

There is a little bit of throwaway hindsight in the shape of Meryl Streep's nun finally regretting (or being afraid of) her own unsupportable certainty; and the information that what happened in this case too was that the accused priest was just moved on but never dealt with. On the contrary he was promoted in another parish for having suffered her accusations.

But of course nothing was decided then, nor is it in this movie.

The cast is universally very good (Viola Davis as the Afr-Am actress mother is even better than Hoffman or Streep. She is just WONDERFUL as she cries about her tormented only son in a world that refused to understand).

The 1960s period recreation is great, too.

However the unexamined possibilities of the other schoolboys' stories is INFURIATING. I have no patience for movies which deliberately hide certain points of view in order to set up their meagre case.

If the interpretation is this poorly developed in order to make its case, then it simply hasn't made it.

I did not need or want this confusing, mired "vision" of such a confusing and brutal reality repeated on film for no good reason, and with nothing else to offer.

Waste of "vision" for an indie; Scott Rudin and John Patrick Shanley (Writer/Director) - are letting their fans down.

Other reviewers are upset at the critique of Catholic priests, which is just being defensive--the critiques need to happen and result in some wisdoms. But this isn't it, despite its Golden Globes and Oscar noms.

Deserves very little.(5/10)

Step Up (2006)

"It's just that y'all are talking' about dancing like it's rocket science!" WARNING: Spoilers and filmmakers' Notes.9/10

[9/10 · 20 January 2009]

Without TV's "So You Think You Can Dance", Eminem as a character model, and especially without writer Duane Adler's Baltimore past, this dance movie would never have become the minor classic alongside Adler's Save the Last Dance(2000) it's now seen as. A third movie is now in the works.

Many "fluffier" dance movies (Honey(2004), Stomp the Yard(2007), and the insufferable Centre Stage(2000)) have inadequate plots/resolutions. Socially relevant dance movies have tended to elude filmmakers--sadly because it often eludes the dance industry itself. Step Up(2006) actually refers to this with Tyler's line "I'm sorry, it's just that y'all're talking' 'bout dancing like it's rocket science"!

Screenwriters Melissa Rosenberg and Duane Adler, based on his original story, subsequently fought hard for a "great dance movie", flip-flopping with lead character back-stories for authenticity. They achieved it, only to have the rushed-to-cinemas 2008 sequel ruin it again: for some ungodly reason, the adorable and talented Ann Flether--choreographer/director of the original--was "not available" to direct the sequel, only Executive Producing the 2008 stinker which, shockingly, made more money.

Step Up(2006)'s opening credits immediately herald a movie which takes great care to "execute with precision", as credits are individually wiped by the digital recombination of dancers over text, challenging even 007 credit sequences for ingenuity.

Adler's timeless coming-of-age story concerns the clash of two dance worlds, which promises and delivers a Romeo-and-Juliet style romance. Setting the story in the writer's hometown of Baltimore gives the racial issues authenticity.

These are instantly turned on their head, reminding us of singer Eminem's bio, as a poor white "brutha" remains family to his black friends while the rich "white" girl is actually brown and from a broken home. Nora(Jenna Dewan) isn't "stuck up"--she's just every bit as neurotic and ambitious as most art school seniors who have all been abusively driven to self-obsession by an unforgiving performance industry. In other words, the leads are both well-drawn characters from real life who are only as flawed or complex as the story requires. Additionally, Tyler's foster mother Lena(Jane Beard) and his precocious foster sister Camille(Alyson Stoner) are at least honestly drawn characters with their own problems.

The film's most serious hiccup comes during the first act, with a terribly ham-fisted attempt to pull us into the art school world: the older of the three delinquents are both way too old to be throwing stones or trashing a school. This counterintuitive plot device is further stretched to incredulity by Tyler's martyrdom with the "rent-a-cop". What would've played instead is Tyler's self-sacrifice had it been Skinny(De'Shawn Washington) who was nabbed because he'd been the "recessive gene"-teen who did most of the trashing. That would've worked better--Skinny always was a crime scene waiting to happen.

The other supporting characters are, if anything, even better. Miles(Mario) and Lucy(Drew Sidora) have an even less stereotypical bickering secondary romance written for them than the leads got. For one thing, it's Miles who's kinder and smarter than the girl--how refreshing! In their role-reversing relationship, he finally tells Lucy off: "If you want to be with somebody who doesn't appreciate what a good thing he's (her cradle-snatching boyfriend, Colin) got, that's 100% your business; I just thought you'd be smart enough to know that you deserve better". Great words to say to the 17yr-old skanks in the audience too, but I'm wondering what will poor Miles do when he discovers that his skank really wasn't smart enough? Tyler is a surprisingly good fit into their group as he becomes Miles' "wingman", much as he (used to be) Mac(Damaine Radcliff)'s "wingman" at home; and he also gradually completes the first couple when Nora's boyfriend Brett(John Henderson) bails--on the school, his girlfriend, and his music partner Miles--to egotistically advance his solo singing career.(1)

Conversely, the movie also has a lot of social commentary about young people quitting everything they start. Obviously the propensity affects foster children more often, and Adler and Rosenberg must be commended for reaching out to such kids with their screenplay. Hope and self-worth is often what those kids need most if they are to end their days "being better" adults than the circumstances they were born into.(2)

Experienced choreographer/first-time director Ann Fletcher must be given enormous credit for pulling together a flawlessly edited "great dance" movie that tells its feelgood story with honesty and social relevance. Fletcher's staging and editing is almost impeccable for.....a choreographer (she did cut the key introduction scene between Miles and Tyler too short for accents to instantly matter). Her cast consisted mostly of dancers whom she coaxed into acting, yet they all have great timing. Even the likable hunky lead, Channing Tatum(She's the Man(2006)), exhibits some well-captured on screen reactions, and Fletcher wrote the funniest line in the movie as romantic vulnerability for him: "Is this where you, um (take me to) kill me?"

However, although the falling-in-love montage is natural and honest, Tyler and Nora's continued sexual abstinence is perhaps unrealistic for a couple of dancers. It is, however, great social modeling.

Thankfully the nightclub and finale scenes aren't disappointments, as is often the case in dance films. The first features a reworked Electric Slide that's surprisingly sold best by a vivacious (and not-so-well-hidden) blonde wearing a fuchsia tanktop and a baseball cap. Had she had more screen time, she'd have given Nora/Dewan a run for her money.

The second proves the director's good judgment in leaving the finale unseen till the very end. The Senior Showcase features Kwane Holland's incredible classical-and-hip-hop mix track 'Bout_It (soundtrack on Jive Records). Additionally, the track delivers the talents of Nuttin'_But_Strings, the director's own discoveries. They're a couple of brilliant young male hip-hop violinists whom Fletcher drizzled throughout the movie.

If Get Over It(2001) was Fame(1980) for junior high, Step Up(2006) acts as a Fame remake. It's so universally well-rounded and well-executed that it compares well to earlier minor dance classics Dirty Dancing(1986) and Footloose(1983).(9/10)

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Answer lies in what happened to the Australian (Aboriginal) "Stolen Generations". What is it that the road to hell is paved with, again? WARNING: SPOILERS.

[9/10 · 10 January 2009]

When you're a novice director, it helps to have an ex-studio honcho help you. Co-producer Alan Ladd.Jr had variously headed up Fox, MGM/UA, and his own The Ladd Company. However, a film still needs a strong screenplay......and the rest. GBG(2007) delivers all that at virtually stratospheric gravitas level.

Ben Affleck maintains a surprising pace in his directorial debut because he is both brave, and has a lot to tell. And maybe it's Ladd's influence, but GBG shows true "vision": the film's style of telling suits its subject-matter, and it poses its clever ideas audience-inclusively, without sugar-hit/adrenalin/overly-emotive score manipulations. Giving people exactly (and only) what they want is pandering; whereas offering them brands of antisocial insanity becomes unworthy of distribution.

Affleck certainly does not pander to anyone here. That was unlikely, since the Affleck brothers (as well as the original author) are all smart "Southies" from Boston's working-class Dorchester, where GBG is set. The director was certainly "writing what he knew" when he co-adapted the fourth of Dennis Lehane's pentology of private investigator novels with Aaron Stockard.

The opening documentary montage imperceptibly blends Affleck's fictional scenes on the street, thanks to his deft directorial hand. Patrick Kenzie's morose narration sets a sombre tone of survival in this harsh world of scarred people; the (real) montage had revealed a shocking number of wheelchair-bound, accident-prone gunshot victims.

The younger Affleck (Oceans' 11-13) is a revelation as the "31yr-old" PI, business-partnered with his live-in girlfriend Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan, Eagle Eye(2008)). Their relationship seems confusing until you realize that despite inexperience with serious missing persons cases, they're actually great at finding people desperate to disappear. So.....just like that, the writers turned their "liability" into advantage.

Kenzie's droning about the farcical police presence at the missing toddler's home cleverly draws us into his professional skepticism. Surprisingly, the police captain himself heads up the search. Capt.Doyle (the deeply trustworthy Morgan Freeman) promises dutiful police co-operation to these competing PIs by way of his detective Remy Bressant (Ed Harris).

The plot races ahead, in keeping with the speed of recovery being of essence in kidnapping cases. Layers of the shocking truth begin to peel away with the discovery that Amanda's mother Helene (Oscar-nominated Amy Ryan) is extremely "working-class", and is probably causally involved--as the intended target. Clever Kenzie misses nothing in his investigation of her, the local barflies, or Bressant.

Within 3days the case unfolds to a shocking apparent result, but no body is found, despite Angie flinging herself into a quarryful of water to save the little girl. Unfortunately we're never allowed to appreciate Angie's true desperation, because it implied the deeper story, so her/extra scenes were dropped--unbalancing the PI duo.

This reveals GBG's one flaw: Affleck's overeagerness to mire his audience.

The nighttime quarry scene wasn't staged well enough to properly hint the plot. Deliberately unlit and haphazard, it forced us to catch sight of Angie too late for our emotional involvement. As McTiernan admitted about HIS similar-case Russian cook in Hunt_for_Red_October(1990), the "seeding was frail". Audiences should have kept emotional pace with Angie our co-protagonist--or else why have her--but the need to confuse us overwhelmed the young director. (Taking your audience out of the movie is NOT THE SAME as having them give up hope for the kidnap victim!)

Nevertheless, Ben Affleck must be commended for his courageous choice of stalling the plot halfway. Of course, this occurs in Lehane's book, too, but Affleck is so confident that he has the film's second half return to the "same" insoluble Dorchester despondency with Kenzie's morose narration--lulling the audience into a false ignorance.

When the case re-ignites in a different direction, Kenzie can't resist walking alone into the home of a suspected paedophile. What happens next makes us question who, if anyone, should ever be allowed to carry a gun, yet some things still don't add up. Ever-vigilant, Kenzie drags his employer, little Amanda's uncle Lionel (Titus Welliver, he of the handlebar moustache), into the local pub for a confession.

Lionel's revelations constitute Lehane at his best, as the avuncular alcoholic finally falls off the wagon. His dialogue just gets more powerful the longer Lionel talks, since the plot now raises the dilemma of "mothercare" within harsh communities, when the mother is herself a product of generational poverty/neglect.

Rabbit-proof Fence(2002) punched out Australia's similar history in this regard; GBG(2007) now raises/augments the argument by reminding us of the consequences even WHEN we're "wise as serpents yet innocent as doves".

So it's breathtaking for a first-time director to tackle such a deep, structurally unusual film yet still get both story and execution close to perfect. GBG's vision and style, subcultural authenticity and devastating perspective make it far more deserving than the one Oscar nomination it failed to win. We are indebted to all three amazing writers; together they satisfyingly ask all the right questions, and galvanize the morose reality.

Their gutsy movie pulls no punches depicting this situation's moral inertia, either. A lesser film might not have known how to finish, but GBG's ending was always anchored by the reveal of underbelly subculture remaining more-or-less the same. Despite the family upheaval, little Amanda still loses. The film's deepest indictment of underbelly mothercare is represented by Helene's neglectful ignorance of her daughter's doll's name. Throughout the movie we know it as Mirabelle from news reports, until the toddler corrects her stunned babysitter in the very last scene. Such powerful writing is due no doubt to Lehane's previous years as a counsellor of abused children.

Everyone is superbly cast, but "Taggart"(John Ashton, Beverly Hills Cop(1984)) steals the show for simply not aging in 23yrs!.....The unexplained lack of Oscars still bothers me. Perhaps GBG's audiences (and critics) became uncomfortable stuck in their moral muddle, plus angry over being deliberately mired by the director, but other than its "obfuscation scene", GBG is pretty flawless. Thank you Afflecks, Lehane and Stockard, Alan Ladd.Jr, Jill Quigg, and Dorchester.(9/10).

Meet Dave (2008)

Should have stuck with its original title= Spaceship Dave

[3/10 · 4 January 2009]

Brian Robbins is a young director who has fallen into the directorial job by doing it. His attitude to film-making is very healthy and right, so why did "Meet Dave" fail so badly? Considering that it was a $60mill sfx extravaganza, why could it not even break even? It really is that bad; but diagnosing the problem will not be easy.

For one thing, my first reaction was that the writing was terrible; I thought that the screenplay and the plot itself "talks down" to even stupid children, let alone sci-fi buff adults.

It's also a wonder to me why no-one is comparing this to Galaxy Quest(1999), its obvious predecessor. Its other influences are, again obviously, Johnathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (for those who read), and, OK, Being There(1980) (the star's personal comparison). The story concerns a fish out of water who is an innocent, but also has to live for a time in a land of giants.

Eddie Murphy is by all accounts still a powerful and talented comedian, but to those of us who know his stand-up, this movie is only a showcase of shadows of his former self.

Right at the beginning as he walks so stiltedly along the promenade, I could see that his physical comedy was awkward and seemingly unpracticed. Part of the problem is that they had to use the temp music under this sequence because they couldn't get the music rights to the Bee Gees' Stayin'_Alive, as they planned. That was supposed to "make" the scene with the white suit he was wearing--this is even referenced with Josh's mother's lines once he's in her home.

The rap music, and almost all things African-American pop culture are what is wrong with this cheap attempt at cultural cues for--presumably--self-obsessed "average" 7yr-olds.

Since this was the desired directorial tone, even the child actors and definitely most adults (with the exception of the New York cops) in the picture were acting in a distanced manner, virtually smiling at their own performances. Few of them acted straight, robbing the wonderful premise (of Lilliputian allegory, for instance) of its social commentary power.

As mentioned, the last film that did this well was Galaxy Quest, where innocent impostors had to get involved in their hosts' real problems. They also took full advantage--and in fact banked on--the spoofing opportunity against self-important TV stars who might have been in their stead; specifically the stars of the original Star Trek franchise who have since achieved worshipped status for their fan base.

Starship Dave has much in common with either Star Trek itself or the Galaxy Quest helm controls. It's amazing that Eddie Murphy, a longtime Star Trek fan for real, kept losing opportunities to pay homage to his beloved show.

While the CG special effects are pretty great, new CG company hy'drau'lx may not have been ready in time for script changes with their effects, so versions of screenplay may have become mired close to deadline. This is my guess as to why everything in the writing seems so hackneyed and rushed when they had at least 3yrs to work it all out.

The main writing problem is that there is too much reliance of pop culture currency, esp African-American currency. This is at its most embarrassing in the character design of poor No17 (popular stand-up comedian Kevin Hart who is much better than this cheapened material), who constantly has stereotype lines like "Dang!" etc.

He even starts wearing ghetto calf-length jeans towards the end, when he is rescued from a "vendi latte", but we never see how he learned to speak Ebonics or where he got the clothes. They just suddenly became his style, after he'd been treated like dirt aboard the ship his whole career as a janitor, basically. What sort of a stereotype message is it that the movie was pitching for?

Another fabulous actor/comedian who is completely ignored and wasted is No12 aka "Burly Crew Member"(!), Miguel A. Núñez Jr, who not only headlined the very worthwhile Juwanna Mann(2002), but was a regular on Tour of Duty and much else besides. His calm face graces the screen only for a precious few lines, mostly as Gabrielle Union's easily-dispatched obstacle. He is obviously capable of so much more, and if the filmmakers needed Afr-Am cred, he would've been my choice for everything.

The movie is definitely not for adults: the crash-landing of Spaceship Dave is not only too un-impactful visually ("Ye kanna change the laws of physics"), but the foley mix contains falling bricks. Bricks?!? Who worked on this stinker?

The familiarity of speech mannerisms and KNOWING SLANG spoken by all the aliens quickly becomes annoying. Most of them never got the chance to hear the language being spoken (or written online), so how, or WHY, would they quickly adopt it as if Afr-Am style was the best thing since sliced, erm, cheese?

Why should they give a rat's? They're ALIENS. Obviously this movie will only appeal to non-sci/fi fans, and especially to "average" kids born after 9/11. But only THIS year.

This stinker was always going to only have a shelf-life of about a week; nil longevity on DVD, because even "average" children GROW UP. All the more embarrassing to discover that this claptrap was produced by Aarnon Milchan, and it employed a LOT of people over 3yrs, including other special effects companies, Second Unit and NY Unit staff, stunts-people, you name it.

Frustrating. 4/10.

The Dark Knight (2008)

Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin ran away........

[6/10 · 3 January 2009]

Sigh. Christopher Nolan almost got it right with the right franchise (Batman represents the hunted hero allegory for the male human condition well). Unfortunately, the franchise rebootism, the gross overuse of computer generated imagery (CGI), plus the film's graphic novel vs live action antagonism, for me, became highly problematic.

I asked myself just when did I drop out of the movie? -Well, 11 minutes in. By then there were already too many issues with Nolan's juggernaut. Here are some of them:

1) the many filmic reboots irritating our story concept,

2) the prologue brazenly ripping off Yves Simoneau's 2003 TV docudrama "44 Minutes:The_North_Hollywood_Shoot-Out" (without acknowledgement),

3) wasting William Fichtner in a nothing role,

4) too many red herrings of the ridiculous faux "Batdudes",

5) Batman's ridiculous audio-"soured" voice,

6) "Lieutenant" Gordon's similarly audio-"soured" voice in the vault (why?) on "we'd have to hit all the banks simultaneously..."

And all this in the first 11mins!!

Soon we're hit with the disingenuous tangent about Commissioner Gordon aimed at the ignorant in the audience. Everyone who knows this franchise expression will never accept "Lieutenant" Gordon's untimely death...but it's enough to turn us against the screenwriter! This is called "ratcheting the plot", aka "yanking the audience's chain".

There's a lot more where this came from.

TDK, as an early superhero film, suffers from graphic novel vs live action antagonism. It can be hard to show the impossible realistically, and when the allegory goes too far, we're back in disbelief.

During the transportation scene with Harvey Dent (Eckhart), both the suspicious cabin crew action and the over-the-top "SLAUGHTER" graffiti on the attacking rig just makes us lose patience with the film's dropped police procedural tone.

Christopher Nolan raised the bar for Batman, but just not far enough, so TDK seems to undermine its own new standard. Computer generated imagery (CGI) certainly can be a trap like catnip to many directors, but its use actually controls the tone of a film. So if you decided to make Two-Face's closeups show his skinless CG-musculature for shock value, then you deserve flak for making your film too "schlocky".

More examples of wrong tonal balance:

7) The dinner scene debating Batman's role in a democracy is admirable, but its execution is mired in table hubbub between two couples. The gravitas is lost in the shuffle.

8) Bruce Wayne's awful speech pillorying Harvey Dent undermines our faith in Bruce as well. His venom was so unnecessary that he actually tries to undo the effect for Rachel Dawes (doesn't Gyllenhaal's replacement of Katie Holmes again smack of rebootism?).

9) Harvey/Gordon's prisoners in the traffic snarl deserved more screen-time. The battle of wills with The Joker represents the film's "Prisoner's Dilemma" so the audience needed to emotionally be with the ferry scene already.

10) Two-Face was too cartoonish/rabid for live action, even in context. Harvey is depicted as having been so well-adjusted prior that the overwrought burning and accidental loss of his fiancée simply doesn't justify his later violence. His dementing rings utterly false. Without showing more of his back-story, it's irresponsible to either kill the character or turn him so deeply and irrevocably psychotic, all in one film.

11) Dent's hospital-room screaming is implausible: he shouldn't have enough strength to roar at Gordon, let alone been allowed by ER doctors to reject tissue grafts! Deeply, deeply ridiculous. Moreover, how can he talk properly with ONLY half of his mouth missing lips? His entire CGI facial concept just for the sake of CGI remains completely implausible. It's a fundamental break with the film's pretence at live action. How can we suspend our disbelief? Perhaps by all of us turning into 8yr old boys... and there now appear to be billions of 'em.

12A) Such deep burn victims never have clean muscle afterwards anyway, so why wasn't Dent's CGI face just mottled flesh? Well, to stick to the gross graphic novel design concept for all the 8yr old boys: schlock on steroids.

12B) Dent's skeletal musculature CGI is even wrong within the Batman mythos. There was no plotted reason for the deep burn at all, since Batman was rescuing Dent from the flames. Why is Two-Face so gross? Again, over-indulgence of CGI to "deliver the schlock", long computed by studios as mandated together with sci-fi.

13) The interrogation cell scene was annoying directorial self-indulgence. It was darkened outrageously during Gordon's interrogation just for the Batman reveal. Completely implausible, it relies on Nolan controlling "the fourth wall" (the audience's POV). Overripe, ridiculous, and insulting to the audience.

TDK(2008) does make several great points, but I'll let others expound on that. For me, it's sufficient to sing the 8yr old Bart Simpsons parody: "Jingle bells, Batman smells, Robin ran away"...

44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out (2003 TV Movie)

90% of cops go thru their entire career without ever firing their gun. That day willpower beat firepower.

[10/10 · 2 January 2009]

Fabulously edited together from dramatised story "highlights" and direct-to-camera "debfriefings" played by actors, 44Mins(2003) is a very effective retelling of this infamous robbery.

The chief protagonist is Frank McGregor(Michael Madsen), the filmic representation of the actual LAPD Robbery and Homicide Division(RHD) detective who led the real 1995 task force for the so-called High Incident Bandits. The real bandits first became known to police during their anomalous career of deadly high-powered bank-and-armored-car robberies during 1993; by 2nd May 1996 they netted $2mill in one bankjob alone, and disappeared to waste their fortune.

Michael Mann's Heat(1995) was based on this same crime gang, as is the opening prologue of the new Batman--Dark Knight(2008). At the time, the LAPD thought the gang had 6 members; by 1997 there were only 2 left. Obviously these two wound down to few friends or safe-houses, or goals other than fantasizing about Corvettes, Mustangs and "Mexican b!tches".

The other driver of this true story is a young SWAT Team leader, "Donnie" Anderson (Ron Livingston, "Sex and the City" favorite and older brother of actor John Livingston). Curiously, the characters are are only referred to by their first names in this docudrama, so the "Donnie" character is composited as one of the three SWAT officers who finally brought down the second gunman.

The beauty of 44Mins's storytelling is its emphasis on how people, even the LAPD, rise to the occasion during extraordinary events. It really is an ennobling tale.

This one day, the 28th February 1997, has gone down in the annals of Hollywood history for its real-life police heroism, in ways that no Batman movie can equal. Despite frequent high profile accusations of racism (eg the Rodney King bashing in part due to police overreactions to LA violence during the early 1990s), some actual LAPD bravery trumped the criminal assault on them that day.

Incredibly, the real HIB criminals were jailed years before over AK47 possession, but were (almost certainly corruptly) allowed to keep their rifles and sell them to pay for their legal costs! Another gun-related incident that outraged the real LAPD was the easy availability at the time of assault rifles through gun shops--let alone bullets at K-Mart.

There are NO DEER in Los Angeles. Even Al-Qaeda only use jet fuel and possibly dirty nukes; so if we can't trust the LAPD with 9mm Barettas, why should we have to "wrest" AK47s from Chuck Heston's "cold, dead hands"?

Indeed, watching the real events recreated, the scene of ignorant Laurel Canyon drivers actually driving up to and around the getaway car still looks heartstopping. "It was a SERIES of miracles that no civilians or police were actually killed", observed one of the policemen on the day.

Eagle-eyed viewers will catch in Donnie's on screen family photos the actual much older Don Anderson being awarded the Medal of Valour in 1997, who has since died at age 62 in his squad-car, still training young LAPD officers.

Much of the credit for 44Minutes' achievement has to go to the Casting Directors (Kim Williams of Reuben Cannon &Associates) and the Director/Co-Producer of this high quality made-for-TV docudrama, Canadian Yves Simoneau("The 4400" (pilot), Void Moon(2009)).

These people have put together not only an enormously credible team of actors who each have the requisite gravitas, but this police procedural's tone of cinema vérité is always sensitive, and frank. Simoneau pulls few punches with some minimal human gore: his caked-on blood realism, for instance, is incredibly effective, as the police finally peel off one gunman's blood-soaked mask sticking to his lips and eyes. The bloodied eye and mashed face look far more satisfying--and authentic--than Two-Face's CGI hatchet-job in the new Batman(2008).

Very subtly, Simoneau also reveals the shallowness of the LA civilians who quickly flooded the LAPD with gifts, cakes and "I (heart) LAPD" signs the day after the shootout, when just days before they'd been completely hostile. Granted, Simoneau might deny any intention to achieve this, but the juxtaposition is obvious to anyone who knows how fickle LA is.

Simoneau's cast is faultless; I can well accept Office Space(1999) "slacker" Ron Livingston as a SWAT team leader, Michael Madsen(Kill Bills 1&2, L.A.P.D.: To Protect and to Serve(2001)) as the seasoned lead detective, and even Col.Dale Dye(Ret.) as the SWAT Chief. But the film also boasts a most impressive Latino actor, Jullian Dulce Vida, as the Assistant Manager of the Bank of America branch.

Dulce Vida capably repeats the real man's personal heroism in the face of terrifying assault, as he saves the lives of all the civilians within the bank, including that of his somewhat haughty Anglo boss. The boss is forgettable; Dulce Vida is a standout. His pitch-perfect characterisation has him frequently looking askance at his largely useless boss, a sign of the actor's wonderful commitment. Just excellent casting by the director.

This un-hyped but shocking story plays like the 9/11 collapse footage shot in situ by the French Naudet brothers. Simoneau's dramatisation depicts similar professionals on the job so that there is only hindsight "distance" for the viewer between watching 44Minutes, and having survived it.

Brilliant.10/10.

Notes on a Scandal (2006)

Disappointed hedonists--beware the gap. Spoilers.10/10

[10/10 · 3 September 2008]

Well, that's more like it: a British movie captures the spirit of a decade--again.

As its poster implies, Notes(2007) is a rich, modern thriller hybrid. Although its lilting Hitchcockian homage score(Philip Glass) hints at the iceberg of devious fury to come, the film's inveigling narration positions it well as a comment on early 21stC Western mores.

It's also a logical moral reversal on Sidney Poitier's To Sir With Love(1967), coming 40yrs later to illustrate the perceived socio-political upsets since. Together with The History Boys(2007), Notes completes the picture of student dalliances with hapless teachers by depicting relationship inequality between adults, too. It dawns on us that morality should extend to a continuum of compassion for child-child, child-adult, and adult-adult dalliances.

Specifically, Notes is commenting on the easy sexual temptations of this reduced authority-gap when the "adult" is temperamentally not much more than "a big baby" herself. The Bathsheba character(Cate Blanchett), while a magnet for many as a delicate and beautiful blonde, is a disappointed hedonist. She's a spectacular departure from Poitier's "Sir"--the difference being Thackeray's admirable maturity and depth of character.

On the other hand, her "wiser" confidant Barbara Covett--(as in "to covet", Judy Dench)--is a tired but trusted "class warrior" of Western education who withers everyone around her. Robot-like, she long ago detached herself from the social concerns of her peers, and we're all in for a shock about what this costs.

Surprisingly lacking self-insight for a woman her advanced age, Barbara is now so hard up for company that she exalts in new friends (pre-vetted with ruthless prejudice). Scrapbooks which she calls "Notes" contain her social occasions, all rated for personal pleasure-value. Such childish characterizations as "Gold Star days" are a clue to Barbara's naïveté, jarring against her equally naive aristocratic aspirations.

It's only gradually that we recognize Bar's bizarre irony as her domineering style of "friendship" manifests a ferocious need for exclusivity. She is rattling as the older obsessor who's "not young", repeatedly losing friends to marriage and kids. Women like Barbara are sometimes driven to small-claims crime, or worse.

Of course, Notes opts for an additional gay interpretation of Barbara's "intensity". Its reason for Bar's repressed homosexuality is threefold:

1. Barbara's core underestimability (by Bathsheba and us) relies on her own denial of her orientation;

2. the film shows how blunt sexual repression skews other social equalizers, allowing it to indirectly critique pusillanimous panic about gays;

and finally

3. Bar's repressed homosexuality is the firmament enabling life's sardonic wriggle-room (whenever one person has a crush on somebody, their beloved will often have a crush on somebody ELSE).

The "wriggle-room" here involves full-blown "reverse paedophilia"--neither of these women are without issues.

Some will want to dismiss Barbara's problem by claiming that she's simply gay. She might be, but it's certainly not simple, and it's not at all what drives her dysfunction. Her denial is part of a deeper unexamined self. Sexual self-denial often results from society's need to extirpate homosexuality. Casting a "dowdied-down" Judy Dench was the key; no appeal to mere sexual orientation would ever do justice to the entire stern person that is Barbara. Nor does she fit any known mould of a lesbian.

More likely, her developing personality was severely limited by autism, psychosis or borderline-spectrum disorder. In her early search for identity Barbara became venally prejudiced. She never learned to love, only to need, and now serially preys upon singled-out "special friends". These younger females then become solely responsible for all of Barbara's hopes and dreams, tremendously pressurizing their relationship. Clearly Barbara's self-induced alienation should've been "medicalised" during childhood, because she still has a massive social disability. Colleagues merely loathe her, unhelpfully.

It's both shocking and tragic to see the venal spinster unable to learn from her mistakes: where are/were the disabusing social workers and mental health-care professionals? Why is standing up to her left to her victims?

Gay or straight, why does Barbara pass for "normal"?

Surely society needs to deal much better with personality-spectrum disorders. There are too many opportunities for "friends"/relatives to psychologically devastate each other in private.

Based on the Booker Prize-nominated novel by Zoe Heller (not Joseph's niece--Zoe's English), the film too is an instant classic. A rare example of a film adaptation improving the plot's expression, Notes(2007) makes tonal changes more explicit with active combat between its leads.

Consummate editing(John Bloom) and direction(Richard Eyre) ensured that the "pickup" scenes were all remarkable for their pitch--Notes will of course be remembered for its Pyrrhic confrontations. The talented casting(Shaheen Baig) allows everyone to utterly inhabit their characters, even the children; and Judy Dench's Barbara constitutes the most accurate casting of her career.

Bill Nighy(of Wycliffe fame) is no slouch either. His unflattering "crumbling patriarch" is even more honest and pitch-perfect than in his similar Love Actually(2005) role. Nighy's cuckolded pleading at the door is a study in the cost of betrayal.

Nevertheless, Sheba 's "Mind the gap" speech probably represents the film best. It's responsible for her waywardness to offset "the quotidian awfulness of things", while shedding light on our own similarly unmet expectations. Seeing Sheba 's humiliated recovery to the reality of things after primal-screaming at the aggressive journalists, we finally get her "entitled" hedonism as very much a"gap" from "life as it is". Being "a big baby" costs too much, even for Sheba.

Notes' closing bench scene is the "buttoning" that stamps the success of the film; it's better shock-value than the book's mere nasty confusion was. It's a thunderclap ending when NOTHING CHANGES. The AVO(Apprehended Violence Order) did nothing to dissuade Barbara from "Covetting" replacement relationships with which to re-offend.

Its frankness about such private/public issues of trust makes Notes(2007) a welcome if explosive reward. Not all green-lit pictures should obey Wasserman's "hopeful" formula; occasionally we still need art's accusing finger of the unexamined routine pointed at us.(10/10)

Apocalypto (2006)

A real education for everyone unaware of Mayan history, and a striking lesson in humility for everyone else. Spoilers.

[10/10 · 19 April 2008]

A brilliant semi-surprise: the trailers actually undersold it a little. Apocalypto(2007) is very ambitious, beginning with historian William Durant's quote about self-destructive civilisations. Richly informed by dead-on cross-cultural perspectives, it has a full story arc for its real subject: Mayan civilisation. Kevin Reynolds' Easter Island movie performed a similar function 13yrs before, but Rapa Nui(1994) was far less well resesarched, or realised.  

Writer/director Mel Gibson and co-writer/co-producer Farhad Savinia are so good together that they rival Ridley Scott, and easily surpass Roland Emmerich's ripoff 10,000BC(2008) with its "poorer-screenplay-beefed-up-by-mastodons". Actually, if Hollywood wanted to compare practical vs CG sets, here is the clear winner.  

It was the same with Peter Berg's hit The Kingdom(2008). CGI, even when cheap, should be used only as an adjunct to reality.....not its replacement. Gibson too has shot practical sets/effects, albeit from every angle, allowing him to cut them together in such kinetic fashion. He then honed them to perfection with hundreds of tiny--TINY--digital effects.

Additionally, Gibson proves powerfully adept at both scene construction and casting (his distinctive Maya are all memorable). He's like Clint Eastwood now, garnering industry respect as a director.  

Apocalypto has been dubbed a "make-up-and-hair movie" with its hundreds of extras all fully dressed. Dean Semler's cinematography has the film's intricate yet grimy Mayan fashions virtually roar off the screen with their vibrant colors and heretofore unseen detail. But Apocalypto is so much more than that. It's nothing short of a university education-cum white-knuckle thrill-ride, as the hero is forced to run for his life.  

The tapir hunt taught us (for later) that rainforests hold many man-made traps, and that the repugnant Mayan tradition of bloodletting and sacrificing human hearts stems from routine tribal traditions of doling-out the best carcass-portions to the "most deserving" from the hunt.  

Realistic indigenous Everyman Jaguar_Paw(Rudy Youngblood) gradually becomes remarkable through exceptional circumstances, as the massive individual differences between one Maya and another are revealed. Eventually Jaguar_Paw's fate reminds us of Dutch(Schwartzenegger) in the original Predator(1987)--except that his predating "aliens" are also Maya.  

This clash of cultures is the film's central theme; clearly blissful ignorance can turn to mortal peril on a dime. The hero's emergence into mature wisdom about his lack of preparedness for the big wide world feels like wisdom to us, too, since we identify with him.  

The not-well-explained fear-ridden tribal encounter was conveying that (contagious) fear is the enemy, because man's ill-treatment of their own is just cultural inadequacy towards biology. This gets tragically cemented by religions borne of additional political ignorance of a nation's role in the unexplored world. In a vacuum, the tendency is to self-aggrandise, so we often get the leaders--and religions--we deserve.

The film is by design often a silent, visual communicator; cinematography alone carries much of the meaning the audience needs to get the story. For such a film to work at a length of just over 2hrs is quite extraordinary.  

Events unfold at a clipping pace. Before we realise which way the story's headed, the sleeping village is razed and the wise chief wantonly assassinated/murdered. The method is chillingly authentic, hinting at the Maya's grizzly religious practices.

Gibson interweaves the prisoners' trek to the temple with National Geographic archaeologist Richard.D.Hansen's real explanation for the failed crops and famine, which the obsessed Maya were supposedly trying to reverse with sacrifices. We see the city surrounds deforested, causing some diseases directly, in addition to subsequent diseases of malnutrition, as the clay runoff killed the swamp soil they relied on in the cities. The crammed city's shanty-towns would further exacerbate sickness with lack of hygiene--routinely found in present-day tenements too.  

Hansen's conclusions revealed that lime-dust settled in the Mayan workers' lungs, making them cough up blood, just so the nobility could have their conspicuously consumptive plaster.

As the prisoners are herded through the fabulous temple markets, we witness the unconcern of Mayan nobility (the word "jaded" heralds from this very context). They trade in "slaves" and eagerly enjoy their ritualised murder for the sake of maintaining their own sense of superiority. Historians now point out that Mayan "warfare" actually consisted of such predation upon neighbouring cities/villages merely for deadly "sacrificial" domination and humiliation.  

Consequently I loved Gibson's treatment of the over-ambitious mother-in-law: once she and her village are enslaved, her mistreatment of her son-in-law Blunted(Jonathan Brewer, a Cree Indian cast as an odd-looking Mayan) finally stops, as the tables turn. She can only trail him to his ritualised sacrifice in the vain hope that either can save the other. She's finally ashamed of her past petty cruelties, her tribal ambitions nuked.  

Once we finally set eyes on him, Gibson allows the murderous High Priest(Fernando Hernandez) to visibly whip up the crowd, his demagoguery actively modelled on the pernicious co-architect of World War.II, Benito Mussolini--whom Hernandez personally resembles.  

The solar eclipse is a relief from the almost unbearable stress of witnessing the impending gutting of the mortally terrified prisoners. The High Priest intentionally misrepresents them as "Warriors, unafraid and willing"! Aside his even more psychotic-looking King(Rafael Velez), the High Priest assures the masses--suspiciously presagely--that the eclipse will pass, because the celestial light-show is reliably well-known. It's a giggle watching their astronomer act possessed; even the director refers to his actor's performance as "Papa Smurf", because it's all an act: the Mayan elite are disingenuous with their followers, but are lethally psychotic with BELIEF in their own pre-eminence.  

The similarities with today's sect-leaders and serial killers/Islamist Jihadis make the centuries between us just melt away. "Let us learn the lessons of history", Gibson seems to be saying with his latest film.

Apocalypto is an education for everyone unaware of Mayan history, and a striking lesson in humility for everyone else.(10/10)