'It’s like the good guy kicked you in the pants'
When I sat down to watch Todd Field’s Little Children (based on the popular novel by Tom Perrotta), I noticed a good deal of older couples and a spattering of enticed faces waiting to see their favorite book and the Golden Globe nominee unveiled. I, however, was there for one reason, the director’s use of a train whistle. The trailer keyed me onto Field’s ability to create amazing amounts of tension through the prolonged use of this sound effect and these unexpected crowds made me wonder if I was in the wrong theatre (even though only one theatre would dare show something this independent). Within the first ten minutes of the film I understood that this movie would please both crowds. Not only did the beautiful photography stick out but also there was a group of gossipy mothers being mocked by a wonderfully smarmy Kate Winslett. The couples in the audience seemed comfortable, intrigued and ready for an all out tragic satire on the nice suburban neighborhood.
Truth be told, the performances really brought all the hard work of the design crew into fruition. The acting was so fitting and believable from Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson and Jennifer Connelly that everything became that much more satirical and shocking. Wilson played the whipped, stay at home dad, Brad who is married to the protective career woman, Kathy Adamson (played by Connelly). Wilson’s natural good charm and good looks made his gradual fall into infidelity with Winslet’s Sarah Pierce seem like a frighteningly normal process. Each character goes through a phase of restlessness and desperation, curiosity and overwhelming passion that drives the movie from satire to poignant action. Jackie Earle Haley plays the released sex offender Ronnie J. McGorvey and offers a wonderful sense of ambiguity to his character’s rehabilitation. The only one who is left behind is Richard Pierce (played by Gregg Edelman) but the cut of his screen time was forgivable. Winslet takes hold of a very complicated and passionate character with awe-inspiring ease and beauty. I watched as her character gained ounce after ounce of maddening, conflicting emotions and then saw them drained from at a moments notice.
The society of a “perfect” middle class neighborhood is unraveled better through Little Children’s concepts in a way that touched me more than American Beauty. There are narrations and satire that start out as distracting but give the needed pacing and break from watching the intensity of the childlike adults. The cinematography and lighting ROCKED: enticing warm glows and intriguing angles were used in the pool scenes that were rife with impure thoughts. The close up of the porcelain children add a very eerie meaning to the story. Even the glory moment for Brad at a night football game is hilarious thanks to the lighting and inspirational background music. And towering over all the sound effects, the screams of the train envelope the movie in a sense of tension, passion and painful silence that said “here comes the train wreck” and when it came the crowd only sat, shocked and awed at what they were feeling.
Conclusion:
Todd Fields made an amazing blend of artistic imagery and juicy satire of the typical parents. In the end Little Children gives the audience a ride through middle class suburbia that has laughter, sexual tension and though provoking dialogue but ends in a crash of meaning. The young adults who create such gossip and remorse for their less than perfect life are acting worse than innocent children in their care. Grow up and live for the actual children. 4.75 out of 5
Castlemyking
Sunday, January 21, 2007
An Update
Hmm, I can't review everything and I am getting back into that nasty habit of writing fiction that I hope someday will either be published or that I can use to create my next directorial piece, for whatever good thats worth. Because of these problems, I have asked any and all friends to send me pieces or reviews that they like. I will edit them as I see fit, but for the most part, I'm interested in seeing other people's opinions. So don't be surprised to see more reviews, just check the signature for my name if you like my reviews. They will be labeled my friends and can be given a title if they like, but for the sake of protection and anonymity from the evil Hollywood system of knowing everyone, they will always have an alias, even if its just Wannabe's Friend.
Also, I recently discovered a fascinating site called fantasymoguls.com. It's a fantasy game akin to fantasy football except free, fun, and about movies. You are your own studio and must choose six movies for your studio that are being released in the next 4 months. The scoring is based on things like money brought in and such. It is a fun guessing game and I highly recommend it. As for everything else, well, my last update was a bit faulty. Too much time has passed for me to give a good review of the Painted Veil or The World is Not Enough. The recent essay on film criticism spun out of ideas for a Truman Show review, which I didn't do. However, I can say that the future looks bright since I am currently writing a review of two other films that should complete the Mexican Triumvirate as I call it. They should be up soon, but until then, here's something a friend has to say.
Also, I recently discovered a fascinating site called fantasymoguls.com. It's a fantasy game akin to fantasy football except free, fun, and about movies. You are your own studio and must choose six movies for your studio that are being released in the next 4 months. The scoring is based on things like money brought in and such. It is a fun guessing game and I highly recommend it. As for everything else, well, my last update was a bit faulty. Too much time has passed for me to give a good review of the Painted Veil or The World is Not Enough. The recent essay on film criticism spun out of ideas for a Truman Show review, which I didn't do. However, I can say that the future looks bright since I am currently writing a review of two other films that should complete the Mexican Triumvirate as I call it. They should be up soon, but until then, here's something a friend has to say.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Hyper-Realism vs. Cartoons
I would like to take a second to discuss artistic aesthetics. I realize that at the end it discusses "good film vs bad film" which is of course pointless since it is an endless debate. However, I am trying to make a point of the critic's tool of realism and its ramifications in a film. If you think this will be a discussion about animation versus live-action, I'm afraid you may want to come back later. Instead, think of this as reality television versus comic book movies. Still a bad analogy, but oh well.
In the world, each medium has its own distinctive artistic flavor. The flavor of each medium is usually a direct reflection of its capabilities. A cartoon tends to use a lot of schtick because it allows for very interesting physical movements and literally stretched characters. Whereas films tend to have rules based on logic and be expansive in sets and locations. Theater on the other hand should be more abstract and very surreal. Some of these tendencies are spurred by monetary considerations, others simply by the nature of the medium. In all cases though, the rules of that medium can be changed and made to imitate or mock other mediums. They can also be manipulated and misused to suit the purposes of the artist. With that being said, certain stories and ideas seem to fit better on certain mediums. Lord of the Rings the 9 hour long play might be cool, but it is also ridiculously expensive. a pain in the ass for the performers and audience members who might have places to be. In other words, a show that would never last long and would be produced rarely. The first and best piece of advice in writing I ever received was, when you write a screenplay, make sure that it is a screenplay and not a play, not a novel, and not a short-story dressed as a screenplay. Many people can't recognize the medium they write in which is why translators and adaptors have good creative jobs.
Film is traditionally known for being realistic. It is a medium in which a great amount of detail is captured and has potential for holding the perfect performance forever and can be distributed far and wide in a short amount of time. A opening performance of a play in 200 theaters in America simultaneously is next to impossible and making sure that all of those productions are of high quality is impossible. Since film was developed as a medium long after theater, there was a natural competition between the mediums for storytelling in which the performance capturing effect of the film was pitted against the live performance with the audiences to decide. History shows that the rise of film and decline of theater audiences over time would show that film won in that regard. While plays tried to recreate Haiti, Cuba, Yonkers, and other locations, film took audiences there. You want to see a real drug deal? Watch some documentaries about drug dealing. Critics have, in the past, lauded the "realistic" assets of a production. Only recently has that concept been critically challenged.
I believe each film can be categorized somewhere along the spectrum between hyper-realism and cartoon. In the past, a "serious" film that might be categorized as a "masterpiece" was always more "realistic" than other films of that year. Whereas comic-booky and cartoonish films were either for children and therefore below the notice of adults or just bad films. While Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was a great movie according to most critics and involved a message of tolerance and cooperation over hatred and bigotry, it was a film categorized as being meant mostly for children. Thankfully, a new generation of critics and filmmakers have entered the arena. A generation that understands the implications and importance of film that is not constantly and boringly realistic. Now, many comic books are getting well-made films, several of which are critically acclaimed. Whereas there are also films that are too "realistic" for the common palate such as Jackass or the movie based on the partyers in Cancun. While many old-fashioned critics may decry these recent changes, here's the truth that they don't want to realize and the secret behind brilliant film work. NO FILM IS TRULY REALISTIC.
What I mean by that is a film is usually based on a story with dramatic elements, or its edited to emphasize pacing, tempo, a certain movement, etc. Perhaps the only realistic film I can think of is the one by Andy Warhol about a man sleeping for six hours. Even films that are accredited with tons of historical accuracy such as Pearl Harbor and Gone With the Wind tend to manipulate dramatic devices and cinematography to their own advantage. How many people can say they have seen a man who was playing with a snow globe right before he passed away during the middle of a rainstorm? Exactly. Film is not about realism, it's about capturing the essence of realism and manipulating that essence to reveal a story that is above the norm. It is meant to delight in the realistic absurd. If I rambled to you for an hour and lied every 3 seconds, you would probably ignore me after 30 seconds. However, a film could take that story and make it seem plausible to a massive audience. Every film creates its own laws which will then govern the movie. If the film is set in space, then no one has gravity and they can float. Ahh, but wait! Maybe they land on a planet that naturally has gravity and aliens that can pick up languages at light speed! Well, that last bit might be a bit harder to swallow, it can still be logically explained away in some other scene or flashback. The recent film Babel is a good example of the absurd of the everyday. The film gives the feeling that everyone is connected and it holds messages that can relate to our reality and political situations. Babel is a great film because it really is a film showing the connections and links of humanity and mankind to others. How those connections are established, damaged, destroyed, and fixed. The story and the "reality", which is supposed to be the world of the audience, are merely vehicles for the director and writer to explore this complex issue of humanity. Children of Men, however, is set in the future and creates its own rules about that future which will let the director and writer explore the meaning of life and the wonder of birth. Now the film feels logical, because the laws on which the film works stem from and are built upon the current reality of the audience of today, making it "our world" in the future. M. Night Shyamalan has a made a living off of creating these absurd ideas into logical ones. The ending of Signs and the reason why the aliens were killed made complete sense, but only in the context of the movie. In reality there are no aliens (yet!) and I highly doubt that preacher's wives often have premonitions of the future of their families right before they die. It is all "willing suspension of disbelief" as they say.
So what makes a good film? A good film is made when not only are the rules and laws of a film understood and made clear to an audience and followed throughout a movie, but when through these laws and world, the film is able to explore something outside of itself, something that might be more immediate or of more importance to the general public than tying your shoes. When a film fails to follow its own rules, then it is called "unrealistic" because it is. It is unable to follow the reality it has given itself. Also, when films are considered bizarre it is usually because those films do not do a good enough job of explaining their reality and the rules in it, so the audience tends to substitute their own rules for the film's laws of reality. Good films walk the line between cartoon and hyper-realism so that they can create their own insulated and perfect world or vision. I give this example because I feel that Alfonso Cuaron is especially good at this type of dramatic device. Cuaron in his new movie has a scene where the only pregnant girl in the world reveals herself to a man in the back of a barn while standing amidst a bunch of cows. This is an inevitable and requisite part of the plot, but the positioning and framing of this shot is perfect. The barn atmosphere with animals brings out the symbol of the coming of Jesus in the child while the use of that particular animal, the cow is brilliant since throughout the movie there have been several shots already of fields of burnt and dead cows, maimed and mutilated. It creates a striking image of hope that without help could be killed like cattle. A hope in danger. All of that, from a pregnant woman showing a man her pregnant belly. It is from visionaries that understand the significance of story and vision that great movies are made. Not whether the film is "realistic" or not and I look forward to the first fully animated adult film that is critically praised as I know it one day will be. Cheers to those who can find the correct placement of realism or cartoon to accurately emphasize and create films worth watching.
(Oh, and one more thing, please don't confuse realism with gritty violence. It hurts me inside)
Wannabe
In the world, each medium has its own distinctive artistic flavor. The flavor of each medium is usually a direct reflection of its capabilities. A cartoon tends to use a lot of schtick because it allows for very interesting physical movements and literally stretched characters. Whereas films tend to have rules based on logic and be expansive in sets and locations. Theater on the other hand should be more abstract and very surreal. Some of these tendencies are spurred by monetary considerations, others simply by the nature of the medium. In all cases though, the rules of that medium can be changed and made to imitate or mock other mediums. They can also be manipulated and misused to suit the purposes of the artist. With that being said, certain stories and ideas seem to fit better on certain mediums. Lord of the Rings the 9 hour long play might be cool, but it is also ridiculously expensive. a pain in the ass for the performers and audience members who might have places to be. In other words, a show that would never last long and would be produced rarely. The first and best piece of advice in writing I ever received was, when you write a screenplay, make sure that it is a screenplay and not a play, not a novel, and not a short-story dressed as a screenplay. Many people can't recognize the medium they write in which is why translators and adaptors have good creative jobs.
Film is traditionally known for being realistic. It is a medium in which a great amount of detail is captured and has potential for holding the perfect performance forever and can be distributed far and wide in a short amount of time. A opening performance of a play in 200 theaters in America simultaneously is next to impossible and making sure that all of those productions are of high quality is impossible. Since film was developed as a medium long after theater, there was a natural competition between the mediums for storytelling in which the performance capturing effect of the film was pitted against the live performance with the audiences to decide. History shows that the rise of film and decline of theater audiences over time would show that film won in that regard. While plays tried to recreate Haiti, Cuba, Yonkers, and other locations, film took audiences there. You want to see a real drug deal? Watch some documentaries about drug dealing. Critics have, in the past, lauded the "realistic" assets of a production. Only recently has that concept been critically challenged.
I believe each film can be categorized somewhere along the spectrum between hyper-realism and cartoon. In the past, a "serious" film that might be categorized as a "masterpiece" was always more "realistic" than other films of that year. Whereas comic-booky and cartoonish films were either for children and therefore below the notice of adults or just bad films. While Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was a great movie according to most critics and involved a message of tolerance and cooperation over hatred and bigotry, it was a film categorized as being meant mostly for children. Thankfully, a new generation of critics and filmmakers have entered the arena. A generation that understands the implications and importance of film that is not constantly and boringly realistic. Now, many comic books are getting well-made films, several of which are critically acclaimed. Whereas there are also films that are too "realistic" for the common palate such as Jackass or the movie based on the partyers in Cancun. While many old-fashioned critics may decry these recent changes, here's the truth that they don't want to realize and the secret behind brilliant film work. NO FILM IS TRULY REALISTIC.
What I mean by that is a film is usually based on a story with dramatic elements, or its edited to emphasize pacing, tempo, a certain movement, etc. Perhaps the only realistic film I can think of is the one by Andy Warhol about a man sleeping for six hours. Even films that are accredited with tons of historical accuracy such as Pearl Harbor and Gone With the Wind tend to manipulate dramatic devices and cinematography to their own advantage. How many people can say they have seen a man who was playing with a snow globe right before he passed away during the middle of a rainstorm? Exactly. Film is not about realism, it's about capturing the essence of realism and manipulating that essence to reveal a story that is above the norm. It is meant to delight in the realistic absurd. If I rambled to you for an hour and lied every 3 seconds, you would probably ignore me after 30 seconds. However, a film could take that story and make it seem plausible to a massive audience. Every film creates its own laws which will then govern the movie. If the film is set in space, then no one has gravity and they can float. Ahh, but wait! Maybe they land on a planet that naturally has gravity and aliens that can pick up languages at light speed! Well, that last bit might be a bit harder to swallow, it can still be logically explained away in some other scene or flashback. The recent film Babel is a good example of the absurd of the everyday. The film gives the feeling that everyone is connected and it holds messages that can relate to our reality and political situations. Babel is a great film because it really is a film showing the connections and links of humanity and mankind to others. How those connections are established, damaged, destroyed, and fixed. The story and the "reality", which is supposed to be the world of the audience, are merely vehicles for the director and writer to explore this complex issue of humanity. Children of Men, however, is set in the future and creates its own rules about that future which will let the director and writer explore the meaning of life and the wonder of birth. Now the film feels logical, because the laws on which the film works stem from and are built upon the current reality of the audience of today, making it "our world" in the future. M. Night Shyamalan has a made a living off of creating these absurd ideas into logical ones. The ending of Signs and the reason why the aliens were killed made complete sense, but only in the context of the movie. In reality there are no aliens (yet!) and I highly doubt that preacher's wives often have premonitions of the future of their families right before they die. It is all "willing suspension of disbelief" as they say.
So what makes a good film? A good film is made when not only are the rules and laws of a film understood and made clear to an audience and followed throughout a movie, but when through these laws and world, the film is able to explore something outside of itself, something that might be more immediate or of more importance to the general public than tying your shoes. When a film fails to follow its own rules, then it is called "unrealistic" because it is. It is unable to follow the reality it has given itself. Also, when films are considered bizarre it is usually because those films do not do a good enough job of explaining their reality and the rules in it, so the audience tends to substitute their own rules for the film's laws of reality. Good films walk the line between cartoon and hyper-realism so that they can create their own insulated and perfect world or vision. I give this example because I feel that Alfonso Cuaron is especially good at this type of dramatic device. Cuaron in his new movie has a scene where the only pregnant girl in the world reveals herself to a man in the back of a barn while standing amidst a bunch of cows. This is an inevitable and requisite part of the plot, but the positioning and framing of this shot is perfect. The barn atmosphere with animals brings out the symbol of the coming of Jesus in the child while the use of that particular animal, the cow is brilliant since throughout the movie there have been several shots already of fields of burnt and dead cows, maimed and mutilated. It creates a striking image of hope that without help could be killed like cattle. A hope in danger. All of that, from a pregnant woman showing a man her pregnant belly. It is from visionaries that understand the significance of story and vision that great movies are made. Not whether the film is "realistic" or not and I look forward to the first fully animated adult film that is critically praised as I know it one day will be. Cheers to those who can find the correct placement of realism or cartoon to accurately emphasize and create films worth watching.
(Oh, and one more thing, please don't confuse realism with gritty violence. It hurts me inside)
Wannabe
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Quick comment on Golden Globes
I'm at work, so here's a quick rundown of how it all played out.
Dreamgirls(haven't seen it yet) and Babel(have) run away with the prizes.
Painted Veil won best Original Score which is slightly amusing. Helen Mirren gets way too much loving for The Queen and her made for TV movie. Martin Scorcese wins a Golden Globe for best director and is now assured a kiss of death come Oscar time. Sacha Cohen won best comedic actor for Borat, thus confirming the belief among thousands of conservative Republicans that Hollywood is too liberal and that censor chips should be planted in everyone's brains to ascertain good taste. Heroes is overshadowed and wins nothing, but it gets a better showing than Lost. Hugh Laurie proves himself to be a genius at being a jerk doctor. Jennifer Hudson lets the world know that thye can soon be expecting her to show up and possibly win the Oscars and a real career in Hollywood. Eddie Murphy wins a Globe and finds out how easy it is to be overshadowed. Also, apparently Hollywood can now create and make Foreign Films(From America people!!!) like Letter From Iwo Jima and Apocalypto and win in that category. And a bunch of other people and shows win awards, but no one really remembers or cares. My predictions, we will see more of Babel and Dreamgirls and The Queen come Oscar time.
Dreamgirls(haven't seen it yet) and Babel(have) run away with the prizes.
Painted Veil won best Original Score which is slightly amusing. Helen Mirren gets way too much loving for The Queen and her made for TV movie. Martin Scorcese wins a Golden Globe for best director and is now assured a kiss of death come Oscar time. Sacha Cohen won best comedic actor for Borat, thus confirming the belief among thousands of conservative Republicans that Hollywood is too liberal and that censor chips should be planted in everyone's brains to ascertain good taste. Heroes is overshadowed and wins nothing, but it gets a better showing than Lost. Hugh Laurie proves himself to be a genius at being a jerk doctor. Jennifer Hudson lets the world know that thye can soon be expecting her to show up and possibly win the Oscars and a real career in Hollywood. Eddie Murphy wins a Globe and finds out how easy it is to be overshadowed. Also, apparently Hollywood can now create and make Foreign Films(From America people!!!) like Letter From Iwo Jima and Apocalypto and win in that category. And a bunch of other people and shows win awards, but no one really remembers or cares. My predictions, we will see more of Babel and Dreamgirls and The Queen come Oscar time.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Munich
'Munich is something to munch on'
Munich is one of those movies that was widely acknowledged last year as being nominated for best picture as a honor to its director Steven Spielberg without any real expectation of winning. It was lauded before it came out as being a great work since it was the melding of Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner, the mastermind behind the play Angels in America. The movie was released, considered okay, but not amazing as everyone had hoped for it to be. What happened? The cast included several well known actors including Geoffrey Rush and Eric Bana plays the main character. In fact, the current Bond, Daniel Craig, had a big part in the film. Many articles and critics focused on the historical accuracy of the story itself as being flawed and therefore producing a flawed movie. Some decided to focus more on the fact that the movie feels too heavily prejudiced in favor of Israel. Since I have little knowledge of the actual events upon which the film is based, hopefully my review will be different in explaining the reasons for its failure to capture audiences and critics, although I am of the belief that America supports Israel a little too often in the Middle East.
Most of the history upon which the film is based comes from the events surrounding the hijacking and execution of the Israeli Olympics sports team by an Islamic group of radicals in the film known as Black September. After the deaths of the athletes, the Israeli government gathers several groups of Israeli nationalist Jews together to form their own terrorist cells and to supposedly attack back and kill the terrorists responsible for the deaths of the Israeli athletes. The film follows one of these cells lead by Eric Bana’s character. Speaking of poor Eric Bana, the man shows such promise in films and then his films get panned. His character in Troy was great, but the rest of the movie was badly handled. Hulk failed as a consequence of the struggle between the director Ang Lee and the studio execs creating an opaque and cloudy vision of mish-mashed ideas. So what was wrong with the film this time for Eric Bana? Well…he is. Yes, he finally doesn’t seem to live up to the part he was chosen for. He shows a lot of range but why can he not pan out? This could be because of the way in which the film was created. Tony Kushner is primarily a playwright and this was his first screenplay. He treated the screenplay as he would treat a play by being there for the creation and editing his script as he came up with new ideas and tried to sculpt the vision to how things were going. Tried to make the characters belong more to the actors and help them. However, with the constant editing and rewriting on the set, this causes possible confusion for the director Spielberg who has never directed a play, and for the actors in terms of not knowing the arc of the overall story or characters necessarily. However, a leading man should be used to this and it doesn’t seem to affect most of the other actors. In fact Daniel Craig comes off better than Eric Bana. Geoffrey Rush does an excellent job as well. In the end, I guess Eric Bana simply wasn’t ready for this role. Most of the movie he comes across as too silent and moody and he doesn’t let the audience in far enough to see his personal conflict as much as he ought.
Other problems...well, Spielberg? If you want to see the growth of a director, just look at Spielberg’s career and be awed. He went from doing light entertainment and kids films to adult war films such as Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List. The problem is that he has never really tried to make a message film. Well, that is arguable, but for the most part he claims to only want to tell great stories, which may or may not have a message. In this case he has said that he wanted to make a comment about a very real and debilitating conflict which is causing so much pain. Where he succeeds is he doesn’t focus explicitly on the Israel versus Islam hatred. He makes it a story about a man and his group of revenge killers for the national tragedy. He also doesn’t let Israel get off the hook. It would be easy to claim that Spielberg is pro-Israel however, the Israeli government comes off looking bad as do most of the radicals. By the end, the conflict appears to be useless and all for the sake of revenge on both sides. The real problem is that the film spreads itself too thin and the pacing needs work. The film tries to cover too much from recreating the assassination of the Israeli sports team, to portraying and building the struggle and empathy for the main character, to the building of the friendship between Eric Bana and his friends. The pacing goes too slowly in some spots where I think Spielberg is trying to develop the silent conflict of Bana’s character and it feels forced and slow. It is easy to be distracted while watching the film and find yourself doing something else when you shouldn’t be. Another interesting thing is that Spielberg noted that this movie is as close to directing a play as he will ever get. Well, for a first attempt its not bad, but he needed to devote more time to developing the relationships through dialogue.
Conclusion:
Munich is a good film but it suffers from being too spread out. The relationships between characters and their motivations are murky at best. Also, Eric Bana does not seem to put in too much of a performance. However, Spielberg puts in a good first attempt with good cinematography, great action scenes, and the re-enactment of the kidnapping of the Israeli sports team is exquisite. Spielberg has shown that he is more interested these days in making adult entertainment masterpieces and I feel that this film is an excellent attempt at this ideal. Hopefully this won’t be the last time Kushner and Spielberg collaborate because I feel that next time a lot of the problems that plagued this movie will not exist and they will learn to emphasize each other’s assets better to create a true great masterpiece that will rival the likes of Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and even Schindler’s List.
3.75 out 5
Wannabe
Munich is one of those movies that was widely acknowledged last year as being nominated for best picture as a honor to its director Steven Spielberg without any real expectation of winning. It was lauded before it came out as being a great work since it was the melding of Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner, the mastermind behind the play Angels in America. The movie was released, considered okay, but not amazing as everyone had hoped for it to be. What happened? The cast included several well known actors including Geoffrey Rush and Eric Bana plays the main character. In fact, the current Bond, Daniel Craig, had a big part in the film. Many articles and critics focused on the historical accuracy of the story itself as being flawed and therefore producing a flawed movie. Some decided to focus more on the fact that the movie feels too heavily prejudiced in favor of Israel. Since I have little knowledge of the actual events upon which the film is based, hopefully my review will be different in explaining the reasons for its failure to capture audiences and critics, although I am of the belief that America supports Israel a little too often in the Middle East.
Most of the history upon which the film is based comes from the events surrounding the hijacking and execution of the Israeli Olympics sports team by an Islamic group of radicals in the film known as Black September. After the deaths of the athletes, the Israeli government gathers several groups of Israeli nationalist Jews together to form their own terrorist cells and to supposedly attack back and kill the terrorists responsible for the deaths of the Israeli athletes. The film follows one of these cells lead by Eric Bana’s character. Speaking of poor Eric Bana, the man shows such promise in films and then his films get panned. His character in Troy was great, but the rest of the movie was badly handled. Hulk failed as a consequence of the struggle between the director Ang Lee and the studio execs creating an opaque and cloudy vision of mish-mashed ideas. So what was wrong with the film this time for Eric Bana? Well…he is. Yes, he finally doesn’t seem to live up to the part he was chosen for. He shows a lot of range but why can he not pan out? This could be because of the way in which the film was created. Tony Kushner is primarily a playwright and this was his first screenplay. He treated the screenplay as he would treat a play by being there for the creation and editing his script as he came up with new ideas and tried to sculpt the vision to how things were going. Tried to make the characters belong more to the actors and help them. However, with the constant editing and rewriting on the set, this causes possible confusion for the director Spielberg who has never directed a play, and for the actors in terms of not knowing the arc of the overall story or characters necessarily. However, a leading man should be used to this and it doesn’t seem to affect most of the other actors. In fact Daniel Craig comes off better than Eric Bana. Geoffrey Rush does an excellent job as well. In the end, I guess Eric Bana simply wasn’t ready for this role. Most of the movie he comes across as too silent and moody and he doesn’t let the audience in far enough to see his personal conflict as much as he ought.
Other problems...well, Spielberg? If you want to see the growth of a director, just look at Spielberg’s career and be awed. He went from doing light entertainment and kids films to adult war films such as Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List. The problem is that he has never really tried to make a message film. Well, that is arguable, but for the most part he claims to only want to tell great stories, which may or may not have a message. In this case he has said that he wanted to make a comment about a very real and debilitating conflict which is causing so much pain. Where he succeeds is he doesn’t focus explicitly on the Israel versus Islam hatred. He makes it a story about a man and his group of revenge killers for the national tragedy. He also doesn’t let Israel get off the hook. It would be easy to claim that Spielberg is pro-Israel however, the Israeli government comes off looking bad as do most of the radicals. By the end, the conflict appears to be useless and all for the sake of revenge on both sides. The real problem is that the film spreads itself too thin and the pacing needs work. The film tries to cover too much from recreating the assassination of the Israeli sports team, to portraying and building the struggle and empathy for the main character, to the building of the friendship between Eric Bana and his friends. The pacing goes too slowly in some spots where I think Spielberg is trying to develop the silent conflict of Bana’s character and it feels forced and slow. It is easy to be distracted while watching the film and find yourself doing something else when you shouldn’t be. Another interesting thing is that Spielberg noted that this movie is as close to directing a play as he will ever get. Well, for a first attempt its not bad, but he needed to devote more time to developing the relationships through dialogue.
Conclusion:
Munich is a good film but it suffers from being too spread out. The relationships between characters and their motivations are murky at best. Also, Eric Bana does not seem to put in too much of a performance. However, Spielberg puts in a good first attempt with good cinematography, great action scenes, and the re-enactment of the kidnapping of the Israeli sports team is exquisite. Spielberg has shown that he is more interested these days in making adult entertainment masterpieces and I feel that this film is an excellent attempt at this ideal. Hopefully this won’t be the last time Kushner and Spielberg collaborate because I feel that next time a lot of the problems that plagued this movie will not exist and they will learn to emphasize each other’s assets better to create a true great masterpiece that will rival the likes of Citizen Kane, Casablanca, and even Schindler’s List.
3.75 out 5
Wannabe
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Déjà vu
'Deja Vu has been seen before'
Well, Tony Scott’s time traveling drama has come and gone from theaters. To claim mixed feelings seems a fair judgement. The film succeeded on several levels. The actors were pretty good, after all it is hard to ever argue with Denzel Washington in the role of a police investigator. I seem to have a hard time pointing out where the film fails and why I left wholely unsatisfied whereas several middle schoolers out on a date in front of me left raving about how the film blew their minds. Yes, I’m older which plays a small part. Really where the film fails I think is in its mediocrity. My expectations were a bit high for this film considering the hype and the fact that the director is Ridley Scott’s brother. I guess I expected an eye-opening fresh experience when instead I had a decent one. First, the actors.
In this film Denzel Washington plays a police investigator who is brought on board after a huge explosion killing many navy men on temporary leave in
Well, now to the problems. The plot does a good job of creating an invisible co-star out of the element of time itself as Denzel works against it and time travels. It even does a decent job of keeping a continuity where weird little things in the beginning of the movie make sense after Denzel travels in time and tries to change things. The problem comes in how the time changes. The movie briefly explains a couple of simple theories as to how time works. The one it sticks to is the branch theory, which I personally do not ascribe to, in which when something is changed in the past the possibility of changing the future forever occurs. Now, my biggest complaint is that when Denzel does change the future to get the desired outcome, it is only a small thing that has changed. There were plenty of bigger events earlier that should have changed everything but didn’t. Also, why did Caviezel’s character come back to the boat? The end is way too tidy and everything feels like it was explained away in bad scientific theories. Denzel dies in the new time line by drowning (I think) so that the director doesn’t have to mess with the crazy idea of having Denzel meet himself. The villain comes back on board for a final confrontation and dies.
The last problem I have is with Tony Scott in the film. The cinematography is great and I feel like the continuity editor was amazing. However, the film is simply ok. It is not great unless you are being exposed to these ideas for the first time. I feel that Time Cop did a better job in this genre than this film and that I’ve seen a lot of these same gimmicks better realized in other films. They aren’t done badly, I’ve just seen them done better. I’m glad to see Tony Scott branching slightly into sci-fi, but he is primarily an action director as can be seen from his list of past films and it shows in this film. He has directed Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Man on Fire, Domino, and is working on a modernized version of The Warriors. Looking at this past work, I feel he was trying to copy the success he had with Man on Fire by having Denzel and setting in
2.75 out of 5
Wannabe
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
More Coming
Whew,
Okay look. I realize you might not care considering there seems to be only two people signed onto the email feed, but here's the deal. I will have at least three more movie reviews shortly. Sorry for the delay but I had things like Christmas, a wedding, honeymoon, and it can be hard to remember to write or see movies through all of that. Since that is all over now, I should have a review of The World Is Not Enough, Deja Vu, and The Painted Veil shortly. More will follow probably including some self-critical essays on where I stand in the whole review-criticism spectrum. Anyhow, just letting you know that the site isn't dead. Also, I hear good things about Children of Men...see if I can get that critiqued as well. Peace!
Wannabe
Okay look. I realize you might not care considering there seems to be only two people signed onto the email feed, but here's the deal. I will have at least three more movie reviews shortly. Sorry for the delay but I had things like Christmas, a wedding, honeymoon, and it can be hard to remember to write or see movies through all of that. Since that is all over now, I should have a review of The World Is Not Enough, Deja Vu, and The Painted Veil shortly. More will follow probably including some self-critical essays on where I stand in the whole review-criticism spectrum. Anyhow, just letting you know that the site isn't dead. Also, I hear good things about Children of Men...see if I can get that critiqued as well. Peace!
Wannabe
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