News and Links

Hey everyone, been a while since we did a news column here. Lots of good stuff happening recently so I thought I would clue you in on some of it.

To start out with, two extremely interesting trailers have been released in the past couple of months, both of which I'm dying to see. Here, we have a Coen brothers remake of the John Wayne western, True Grit, which looks appropriately gritty, and as long time followers of this blog know, I'm a sucker for Jeff Bridges. This movie looks awesome and I can't wait. The other trailer I'd like to bring to your attention is The Tourist. This film appears to be your traditional action escape fare, but when a cast of Johnny Depp (yes), Angelina Jolie (YES) and Paul Bettany (umm, thats cool I guess) gets together, there is potential for a great action film there. If you can't tell I really like Angelina Jolie.

Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit

Next up we have some casting news. John C. Reilly has joined an already impressive cast for the new film God of Carnage. Contrary to what you might expect from that name, its actually based on a play about two sets of parents who face off after their kids have an altercation at school. This is already turning heads because its going to be directed by the talented Roman Polanski. I very nearly made a crack about Polanski and kids here, but I showed restraint. I'm proud of myself.

Kate Beckinsale

Also in the casting arena, Deadline.com is reporting that Kate Beckinsale is in talks to sign on for the new crime thriller Contraband. It is a remake of a 2008 scandinavian movie (we seem to be doing that a lot recently), and Mark Wahlberg is already attached. There is also some info about Wahlberg's upcoming boxing film, The Fighter, for those of you who are interested.


Finally we have a fun series at the British online paper, The Guardian. They have created a top 25 list of the greatest action and/or war movies of all time. That is here, plus a pretty funny article by Guardian reporter Joe Queenan on action movie cliches. Click around a bit as there is some other good stuff around their site.

That's all we have time for today readers. To quote Mr. Carrey, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

The Blind Side

Let me start out this post by saying, I have nothing against Sandra Bullock. Ok, well, maybe I do. She has constructed a successful movie career by repeatedly playing her patented character in movies that I have long since dismissed as fluff. To put it harshly, I do not take her seriously as an artist. When I first saw the trailers for the 2009 film The Blind Side I dismissed it as her regular fare and did not bother to see it until now. I simply thought the box office geniuses saw a movie that combined elements of your standard chick-flick tearjerker with a football story, immediately turning it into the perfect date movie. That is why I was so shocked when it not only was nominated for Best Picture, but actually won a Best Actress award for Bullock.

Now, I frequently disagree with many of the nominations and awards handed out by the Academy of Motion Pictures. But, since what constitutes a good movie is so subjective, I can usually stomach the decisions and move on. For some reason John Lee Hancock's The Blind Side gave me a little extra twist. Now having seen it, I think I can explain why.

The Blind Side tells the story of Michael Oher, a young and homeless black boy, who is befriended and eventually adopted by the Tuohy family. Thanks to their love, support, and financial resources, he is able to attend a quality school and blossom into a top collegiate athlete. Honestly, as a sports movie, it works fine. Many of my favorite sports movies are fairly simplistic. There is a good team and a bad team, there is a personal conflict for the main character that mirrors the movie's sporting conflict. Throw in some funny cameos by sports personalities and a hearty catharsis at the end. Check, check, check and check. Even as your standard tearjerker the film makes do with some heartwarming scenes between Mrs. Tuohy and Oher. My problems are of a different nature. Beyond the troubling narrative of rich, white family saves poor, black boy from his black peers (the story is true so it is hard to complain), beyond the thinly veiled conservative viewpoint that is passed off as progressive and even beyond some particularly cheesy Hollywood moments, for me, it is as a character-driven drama where the movie falls short.

Two of the most important features for any drama are the character development and arc. After having watched the film, I can truthfully say I know next to nothing about the supposedly altruistic Tuohys. The Blind Side completely turns a blind eye to any of the difficulties that would be inherent in this situation. Leigh Anne Tuohy, the mother and central character played by Bullock, is not humanized. She is idealized and glorified. We never see any internal struggle or self-doubt from her. Mrs. Tuohy spends very little time questioning whether or not to bring a hulking stranger into her house with her young daughter and son. She spends an equally small amount of time brushing off the racist-tinged clucking of high society, embodied here by a few, peacockish, local women.

Still, Sandra Bullock does have a certain charm. She drives the movie and it misses her when she is off-screen. The climactic scenes of the movie determine whether or not Oher will be accepted to college and they suffer for her absence. They also do not have much of a connection with any of the other themes of the story making them a fairly pointless (and predictable) exercise. Oher himself, played by Quinton Aaron, has little to do for most of the movie besides breath quietly. We are never given a real glimpse inside this young man's head besides a couple of throw away scenes with some of his teachers.

Quinton Aaron and Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side

Mr. Tuohy (Tim McGraw), and the Tuohy kids (Lily Collins and Jae Head) also don't have much to do. They never seem to mind that their already busy mother's time has been usurped by a total stranger and the adjustment period that would be both natural and interesting is glossed over. The only other major character in the film is Michael's explicitly liberal tutor (see, it's balanced!), Miss Sue, who is played by Kathy Bates and possesses a pretty creepy manipulative streak (see, liberals are creepy!). To phrase it bluntly, the film takes a very complex situation and boils it down to platitude level.

John Lee Hancock has some experience directing both sports movies (2002's The Rookie) and black and white/good vs evil films (2004's The Alamo). From a technical standpoint, the movie is decently put together. The direction, cinematography and score are all merely adequate. Bullock continues to play Bullock, so I guess her Oscar is more of a lifetime achievement award. In summary, The Blind Side is a perfectly capable sports movie and a watchable enough family drama. I just expect more from my Oscar nominees and winners.

18/30

La Haine (Hate)

Although the majority of Americans love to idealize Paris, France has unfortunately had a long history of intolerence toward outsiders, especially Black and Maghrebi immigrants. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has himself incited racial hatred. During the 2005 riots, Sarkozy, who was then Minister of the Interior, famously said he would wash the "scum" out of the slums with a street-cleaning hose. The questions of ethnic and religious discrimination as well as the role of immigrants in contemporary French society have become important themes in French cinema. The 1990s gave rise to the notion of banlieue cinema, which takes its name from the "banlieues" (suburbs), the socially disadvantaged urban areas with which minority ethnic groups are mostly identified. Perhaps the most successful banlieue film, La Haine, winner of the Cesar Award as France's best film in 1995, offers a raw and captivating look at urban class and racial struggles in the French capital. In this powerful drama, director Mathieu Kassovitz gives us a portrait of the marginal and excluded in France.

The story, loosely based on actual events, begins with a series of riots in the streets of Paris involving the burning of cars and public buildings. The unrest breaks out after an Arab student, named Abdel, is beaten into a coma by the police. Shot in black and white and told in a one-day period, the film follows a group of three friends: Hubert (Hubert Koundé), who is Black, Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui), who is Arab, and Vinz (Vincent Cassel), who is Jewish. They are from immigrant families living in a volatile housing project in an outer suburb of Paris. Deprived of a healthy community and alienated by a self-involved society, the young outcasts form a family among themselves. Their ethnic backgrounds is not important to them; they are united against "the system".

Vinz is a hot-tempered guy with a huge authority problem and a deep hatred of the police. He fantasizes about being a gangster, and does impressions of Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver in front of his bathroom mirror. During the riot, Vinz finds a policeman's gun, lost in the chaos. He vows to use the gun to kill a cop, should his friend Abdel die. Saïd, on the other hand, is good-natured, sensible and calm; he seems unwilling to acknowledge the problems of his surroundings. The most mature and most thoughtful of the three is Hubert, an aspiring boxer who wishes to leave this decadent world behind him.

The film uses a repeated metaphor comparing life in urban Paris to someone jumping off a building. With each passing floor, the jumper thinks that up until now, everything is okay. Then he hits bottom. This embodies the ultimate doom that the protagonists face, since there is very little hope of escaping life in the banlieue.

Vinz, Saïd and Hubert are not criminals but because of their appearance, they are treated that way by the police and they are discriminated against continuously by society. During the course of less than 24 hours, they wander the streets filled with rage and find themselves in one troublesome situation after another. In one scene, Hubert and Saïd are interrogated by policemen who intimidate and humiliate them by using choke holds and racial slurs. Later on, the trio gets into a scuffle with a group of racist anti-immigrant skinheads. Vinz shows the skinheads his gun, and all but one, played by the director Mathieu Kassovitz, escape. Vinz is ready to kill but he does not go through with his intention. The young men are able to keep their cool and to not act stupidly, but it is only a matter of time until heartbreak strikes.

Evidently, Kassovitz sees everything in black and white. On one side, there is the bigots and bullies, on the other, defenseless minorities. However, La Haine does not ask us to sympathize with the protagonists. It invites us instead to face up to the social challenges of our time in order to avoid violence and tragedy. It is interesting how this film reflects our own problems of race and class division here in America. Its setting would translate perfectly to any US inner-city.

26/30

The Town

Not every good movie has to be wildly original or terrifically written. Sometimes just a solidly acted, directed and authored formula movie comes along that can be a fun ride. I think this year's The Town falls under that heading. That I was able to write the preceding sentence comes as a bit of a surprise to me since it stars, was co-written, and is directed by the critically reviled Ben Affleck. From the boring Daredevil, to the cheese fest that is Pearl Harbor, to the comically bad Gigli, Affleck has spent much of his career starring in cheaply constructed box office bombs. His recent form has been so bad that people often forget he achieved stardom by co-writing and starring in Good Will Hunting. That is part of why his recent resurgence to artistic respectability is so surprising.

After his directorial debut with the outstanding, but depressing Gone Baby Gone, Affleck moved to far more traditional action fare with The Town. The film tells the story of a crew of bank robbers in a neighborhood of Boston and the FBI agent chasing them. The leader of the crew, played by Affleck, falls for a former hostage, and tries to get out of the game, but his fellow bank robber/best friend, and the local crime boss keep pulling him back in. Meanwhile the FBI agent pursues doggedly and comes ever closer.

The Town is very solidly acted with notable performances from Jeremy Renner and Jon Hamm. Career character actors Chris Cooper and Pete Postlethwaite turn in nice cameos. Affleck and the romantic lead, Rebecca Hall, are merely serviceable. What sets the movie apart from others of its ilk, is actually the direction. Affleck creates a believable atmosphere in Boston, keeps a steady and entertaining pace for the film, and spices it up with a few really terrific action sequences sprinkled in. It is in those sequences where he shines with some exciting bank heists and getaways.

Hamm and Affleck facing off as FBI Agent and thief

As Affleck's directing career progresses I find it fascinating to compare his first two movies. Gone Baby Gone is the superior film, but suffers from some inexperience on the part of its director. Affleck was clearly learning on the go as he overemphasizes certain moments and lets the film drag in other areas. The Town on the other hand, is nowhere near the intellectual equal of Gone Baby Gone, but benefits from far more professional direction.

In summary, The Town is an entertaining thriller that could end up being anything from the high point in an underachieving career, all the way to an important step for the next great American director. Either way its worth a watch.

22/30

In the Loop

Tired of poop jokes in comedies? Want to laugh at a film without having to see male genitalia on the screen? You’re not alone. Much as I love the outrageous antics of Ben Stiller in Zoolander and Will Ferrell in Anchorman, much as I laughed in shock at the daring of some choice shots in the break-up scene of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, these hilarious films have been succeeded by a wave of cheap imitations that dominated the 2000’s, achieving the same level of stupidity or shock value but lacking in genuine humor.

However, if you have been looking for that rare comedy that can make you laugh and still make you think, look no further: last year’s political farce In the Loop was just the sort of intellectually stimulating entertainment that every American should be watching but which few seem to be interested in. Unsurprisingly, this level of sharpness is found in a foreign movie, but for those of you with a phobia of subtitles, never fear, it’s a UK film by a Scottish director, and, barring certain actors’ thick accents, is in intelligible English.

Director Armando Iannucci brings his highly acclaimed BBC show “The Thick of It,” about underhanded maneuvering in British government, both to the Silver Screen and across the pond in this masterpiece of political satire. As the President of the US and the Prime Minister of the UK agree to a war in the Middle East, various officials in both governments scramble into action to either speed up or impede the march to war. Bull-headed but clever US Lieutenant General Miller (James Gandolfini) and gaffe-prone British Secretary of State for International Development Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) do their best, to varying levels of success, to block the movement; oily US Assistant Secretary for Policy Linton Barwick (David Rasche) and foul-mouthed and superbly vicious Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi), the Scottish political finagler, scheme to ensure the conflict’s approval. Said parties clash in DC to hilarious effect: we watch with equal parts glee and disgust as these “public servants” bolster their careers and interests by creating secret committees, bedding interns, leaking and altering documents, harassing subordinates, and attempting alternately to slow down and speed up a UN vote.

In the Loop is nothing short of brilliant. It displays tour de force performances by Capaldi and Gandolfini. The handheld, documentary-style cinematography aids in making the satirical world of vaguely familiar events feel uncomfortably realistic. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, the dialogue is quick and biting. And despite being so funny (and how I wish I didn’t have to use the word ‘despite’), it’s one of the most intelligent films of the past several years.

"In the land of truth, my friend, the man with one fact is the king."

— Linton Barwick

26/30