Sex or violence?
Movies from seen in early 2005.
Originally written: February 2005
The Incredibles
Ray
Finding Neverland
Ocean's Twelve
I Heart Huckabees
Alexander
Elektra
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (extended DVD)
The Day After Tomorrow
I am constantly amazed by censorship and the reasons people find to be censorious. Janet Jackson's boob exposure at the Hyper Bowl last year caused more furore and complaint to the FCC than could possibly be imagined. Had a fiction author used the scenario as the basis for a plot, she'd have been laughed out of town. On the other hand, Mel Gibson put together a violent and confronting depiction of the torture, scourging and assassination of a Renaissance version of the Christ figure and attracted as audience, by the millions, the very people who'd been outraged by the Jackson nipple. The discontinuity between the reaction to sex and the reaction to violence is something that never fails to amaze me. I recall that the Rev Fred Nile, a local champion of the evangelical right, was constantly calling for the banning of any film that depicted nudity or the sexual act, yet was able to assert that First Blood (the original Rambo movie - and an incredibly violent exercise in revenge drama) was among his favorite films. Equally confusing is that a fantasy show like Charmed is preceded by a warning about 'supernatural themes' (apparently because it involves a fictional account of non-existent Wiccan powers) while stories arising from Biblical tales involving divine intervention or miracles are not required to have the same warning. So 'witchcraft' is supernatural but miracles are not? Nowadays censors are less likely to ban films or television shows outright but require greater and more explicit warnings about content. A show which features the death of a major character is likely to have a warning about 'adult themes' but where are the warnings about soapies (something along the lines of "there is no hope that anything vaguely adult will hove into view") or meta-reality shows ("no possibility of mature behavior here") or the latest hidden camera special ("exploitation of innocence")? This month I will note the manifold reasons why the films reviewed were subject to censorship classification in the US.
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It does not surprise that the first great movie of 2004 is an animation, nor that the folks at Pixar are responsible for it. Like most of Pixar's earlier offerings, including the Toy Story movies, Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life, The Incredibles manages to combine a cartoonish base for the kids and a more sophisticated overlay that will entertain adults. In this case, Brad Bird, responsible previously for The Iron Giant, is the writer-director. The weird thought from which the story takes off is that 1950s superheroes are forced underground by the threat of legal action arising from alleged negligence ancillary to their derring-do. The protagonists are Mr Incredible (the usual over-developed hunk) and Elastigirl (whose super power is obvious from her name). They are now Bob and Helen Parr, living in the 'burbs and raising their kids (who have to cope with keeping their own powers under wraps). Bob Parr also has to cope with soul-destroying work as an insurance assessor, answerable to a loud-mouthed boss voiced by Wallace Shawn (Vizzini in The Princess Bride). But Bob is moonlighting, with his mate, Frozone, doing super business on the side and is recruited by Mirage, the usual sultry mystery woman, to fight a super-robot, which he defeats. The prospect that Mirage might have further jobs for him inspires Bob to make a comeback, get back into shape and have a new uniform designed by Edna Mode, a brilliant take-off of movie costumer Edith Head, voiced by Brad Bird himself. Mirage is in fact the minion of Syndrome, the evil scientist mastermind, planning world domination, and a measure of revenge on Mr Incredible. The majority of the action takes place in Syndrome's island lair as Mr Incredible's family finally realise his danger and come to his rescue. All this is told with style and flair, using Pixar's sophisticated computer animation techniques which are wedded to a brilliant and very funny script. As usual the voice characterisations are excellent, with Holly Hunter (Elastigirl) and Samuel L Jackson (Frozone) outstanding. There's little room for criticism of this film. It does what it sets out to do with more than a dash of elan. It amuses throughout and combines a good superhero tale with a strong satirical swipe at elements of the superhero canon, never taking itself seriously. Additionally, much of the action in Syndrome's lair, and the super-villain himself, satirise the post-Bondian world of espionage thrillers. Edna Mode is a particular highlight, with her analysis of the place of capes in heroes' costuming hilarious. I even enjoyed the identity and motivation of the super-villain largely because [possible spoiler warning] the portrayal of the fan boy gone bad is precious and his comeuppance so well done. My one reservation is that the script takes an easy way out through the use of product liability litigation as the cause of the superheroes' problems: it's easy to take a swipe at trial lawyers as the essence of evil but most of the time they are fighting even greater evil - the sociopathic corporation - on behalf of those who are unable to do so on their own behalf. The Incredibles is rated PG - with no warnings - after all it only featured violence.
Hit the Road, Ray
Even if it weren't for the great performance in the title part, Ray would be worth the price of admission. But it is Jamie Foxx's portrayal of Ray Charles which will stay with you after you see this movie. And see it you must, particularly if you have any interest in modern American music - or the evolution of modern American society. This film rates as just about the best ever biopic of a musician and among the most honest. I cannot attest fully to the accuracy, and have to assume that some liberties were taken with Charles' life (like the elision of his first wife), but the story rings true. Largely told chronologically from the time he goes on the road as a musician in the late 1940s until he kicks his drug habit in the mid 1960s, the film occasionally flashes back to the traumatic events of his childhood, in depressed poverty in a segregated black community in America's south in the 1930s. The accidental drowning of his brother in his mother's wash-tub - in front of Charles' eyes - and his subsequent loss of sight due to glaucoma are the two principal events, together with his mother's insistence that he go away to a state school for the blind to receive at least some education. The story concentrates on his development as a musician, his relationships with women and his growing addiction to heroin. These elements are interwoven in a narrative which uses his music to illustrate, and comment on, some of these developments. Director Taylor Hackford uses the elements well and keeps the story moving along, for the two and half hours that the film goes - quite long by modern standards. I rather like some of the subtleties of direction, writing or acting with which the narrative is progressed. The way in which the rise of the womaniser emerges, from Charles' initial exploitation by a knowing nightclub owner/manager to his own manipulation of the plethora of women attracted to him, is particularly good. His marriage and the maintenance of a home-base are contrasted with manifold affairs, exemplified particularly by two women, a back-up singer and then one of the original Raelettes. ("If you want to be a Raelette, you have to let Ray.") The film also chronicles Charles' life against the background of segregated audiences, and his growing consciousness of racism, brought to his attention especially through his fiend Quincy Jones and then manifested in his refusal to play 'Jim Crow houses' in the south - leading to his being banned from performing in his home state of Georgia for two decades. Charles' addiction and his eventual cold turkey cure are also shown in some harrowing details, as are his relations with various recording executives, including those responsible to a large extent for his success. But I have to keep coming back to Jamie Foxx's performance as the highlight of the film. This is a performance that will win - and deserve to win - awards. His make-up to simulate Charles' blindness is good but essentially he inhabits the body of the musician, capturing the rhythms of his walk and of his persona, both on-stage and off. There is a charisma here and it is captured and projected by the actor. Impressed as I was by Depp's Barrie, Foxx's Ray Charles is a superior performance and it will take a special actor to beat him for the Oscar. It is reason enough to see the movie, even if it weren't for the music. It was rated PG-13 for depiction of drug addiction, sexuality and some thematic elements - whatever that might mean.
Barrie's life pans out
There are frequently movies in which the standard of performance rises well above the material offered. Finding Neverland is such a film. While it tells an interesting enough story about the events surrounding the writing, and first staging, of the stage-play Peter Pan by J M Barrie, the film succeeds by its portrayal of the author and the family that inspired aspects of the invention. The facts as explicated in the movie are straight-forward enough: Barrie is a successful author and playwright whose latest play is a flop. Then he meets widowed Sylvia Llewellyn Davies and her four boys, a ready-made family that provides him with an outlet for his own childish impulses and an escape from his loveless, childless marriage. During his games with the boys, he develops the fantasy of Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, and the other characters that inhabit Neverland; the Davies also providing the models for the Darling family. While Sylvia suffers from a bad dose of Ali McGraw's disease (fatal but not disfiguring), and her strong-willed mother seeks to keep Barrie away from her family, the author continues to be the boys' playmate and win them over, except for the third child in the family, Peter, who refuses to succumb to what he sees as Barrie's attempts to become a substitute father. There are three remarkable performances in this piece. Johnny Depp adds another startlingly good portrait to his growing list of excellent characters. His Barrie maintains the strict formality of a Victorian/Edwardian gentleman, but one who has never surrendered his own childhood. He doesn't for a moment lapse into a cliched dirty old man or philanderer and you can see the slightly mad creativity that was his genius. That the part is so different from Captain Jack Sparrow and his other recent roles adds weight to the belief that Depp is among the greats of his generation. He is ably supported by Kate Winslet who makes the dying Sylvia an absolutely believable character, despite the incredibility of aspects of her, as written. But the great performance in the piece is by a young actor named Freddie Highmore, a twelve-year-old, who makes Peter Llewellyn Davies into the most interesting character in the film. If Barrie has never really grown up, then Peter has never really had a childhood, and, if Peter Pan is an expression of Barrie's own desire to return to, or remain in, his childhood, it is equally Barrie's plea to Peter to experience his own a little more. The kid conveys this alarmingly well and his omission from the Oscars' Best Supporting Actor nominees is a travesty. The film takes liberties with history - as most biopics do. It kills off Sylvia's husband when, in reality, he was still alive. It compresses time, including the timing of Sylvia's illness. It suggests an invention of Pan at a time well after Barrie had first thought of the character and used him in an earlier novel. But these inventions are picayune within the context of the film: it rings true dramatically. The confrontations between Barrie and his wife and between Barrie and Sylvia's mother, whether historic or not, play well. What more could we ask in a story about the development of a boy who never grows up and fights the good fight against the most evil of pirates. Finding Neverland had a PG rating with warnings for mild thematic elements [still not sure what that means] and brief language.
Getting away with it
Ernie Kovacs said that television was a 'medium' because it was neither rare nor usually well done. The same is true of most movies. There are remakes; there are re-imaginings; there are sequels; and there are prequels. Hollywood has a plethora of ways of cashing in on established products. Ocean's Twelve is a sequel to a successful re-imagining of a heist movie that was itself the pale imitation of a French original; and it appears miraculously to be a not unreasonable picture. Not as good as the most recent Ocean's Eleven for a couple of reasons but a fair to middling caper movie. Director Stephen Soderbergh and the original cast of the remade Ocean's Eleven are back, yet this is no reprise: in fact it violates Joe Bob's law of sequels comprehensively. (Joe Bob Briggs, you'll recall, argues that if a movie worked the first time, there is no reason to change it. Just make it again, he says. And that's exactly what most sequels do.) Having successfully heisted the Vegas casinos, Danny Ocean and his merry men find themselves a few years later exposed to Terry Benedict who demands his money back. They decide to collect enough coin by performing a number of heists in Europe and this brings them in contact with the Night Fox, a master thief who challenges their abilities. Unlike the original remake, the sequel lacks a dramatic unity: it deals with a number of capers; the gang is split; the film tries too hard to follow the adventures of all of the gang; and thefts are not related in the same detail as in the first movie. Nonetheless there are some enjoyable parts to the movie, largely arising from the characters and the actors who play them. The scenario has great fun with Matt Damon's Linus, the naif of the crew. I particularly liked the scene in which George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Robbie Coltrane are speaking in meaningless paradoxes and Linus just doesn't get it. Catherine Zeta-Jones adds some sparkle as Pitt's former girlfriend and nemesis but Vincent Cassel's Night Fox is never menacing enough. Nonetheless the film moves along at a rattling pace and there is hardly time for you to notice the holes in the plot, of which there are too many to detail. But this is not a movie where such caveats are important. It's a film which spotlights the charm of a number of actors having a great deal of fun making a movie about nothing and inviting the audience in on the joke. The resolution is clever, even if the heist is largely revealed in flashback, rather than sequentially, and anti-climax is far too obvious. Despite that, I enjoyed the ride while it was on. (Ocean's Twelve was rated PG-13 [for language]).
In search of meaning
David O Russell was responsible for one of the more remarkable films of recent times, The Three Kings. For that I can forgive a lot. But I am not sure that I can forgive I Heart Huckabees. Not that it's a bad film; it's not. But it is a very silly film. It concerns the interaction of a series of characters connected to Albert, an overly serious environmentalist whose group is being taken over by Brad, a PR person working for Huckabees, a department store that is exploiting the environmental group for publicity as it intends to use the very piece of nature Albert is trying to save for its new store. Into this melange are inserted a brace of existential detectives (and their French nemesis). Albert is bothered by the constant appearance of a tall African doorman in his life and wants the detectives to find out if these apparent coincidences are 'significant'. The main cast is completed by Dawn, Brad's girlfriend and Huckabees' chief spokesmodel, and Tommy, an eco-freak fireman and client of the detectives. If all that sounds like the recipe for eight-characters-in-search-for-a-plot, then you've got the picture. What is supposed to be weird and outre becomes fairly dull and predictable. Lily Tomlin and Dustin Hoffman have some fun as the detectives and Isabelle Huppert, as their rival, is also quite good. While Naomi Watts (Dawn) and Mark Wahlberg (Tommy) play its fairly straight, Jason Schwartzman and Jude Law (Albert and Brad, respectively) are out of their depth. But the real problem is that the film really doesn't have enough oomph in the comedy or plotting to compensate for its strangeness. There are one or two good scenes but it doesn't hold together in the long run. Perhaps Charlie Kaufmann could have found a way to make it work, but Russell cannot in this instance. While it is a fair attempt, it misses the mark. It was rated R (for language and a sex scene).
Greek boys make good
Oliver Stone makes big movies and, when they go wrong, they go wrong in a big way. Alexander goes so completely wrong that it's almost like watching a train wreck. In a season where Troy and King Arthur were vying for the Please-Don't-Put-Us-Through-DeMille-Again Award for bugfuck epics, they have been surpassed with almost no effort. Where the two earlier movies stuffed up British history or Homeric epic, Stone tries very hard to stick close to the known facts. And still he makes a mess. The structural reasons are manifold. First there is the question of Alex's sexuality. Stone implies a lusty bisexuality but cannot bring himself to show any byplay between Alexander and Hephaistion (his life-long 'best friend'). Stone shows no such qualms in his depiction of Alex's wedding night with Roxane. The result of this is a curious imbalance with Alex looking like he lusts for Hephaistion, and for his Persian manservant (although he at least gets to pash the latter once), but only gets active with the girl. Then there's the continual references to various mythological tales, represented by cave drawings to which Stone frequently returns: the Oedipus legend; Achilles at Troy after the death of Patroclus; Heracles' madness; and Medea's murder of Jason's children. Stone really rubs in the references without really linking them to the narrative. Third, he wimps out on the implications of the assassination of Philip of Macedon, implying the guilt of Alexander's mother, Olympias, but exonerating Alex. Even more confusingly he throws the assassination in, not in its chronological position, but as a flashback later in the film. (I suppose we should at least be grateful that there was no second assassin on a grassy knoll.) Fourth, Stone's narrative device never really works: the McGuffin is that Ptolemy, Alexander's general who became Pharaoh of Egypt, is retelling the tale for scribes forty years after Alex's death. This is fine, giving us a good and biased narrator, but, for a general, Ptolemy is not particularly good on battles. Stone shows two, one in the Persian desert, t'other in India. Neither clearly demonstrates Alexander's genius nor gives any strong rationale for his continued success. And as cinema, they are confused, rather than clarifying. Finally there is the messy politics of the piece: Stone has Alexander justify his conquests on the grounds that he is bringing Hellenistic values of freedom and equality to the territories he conquered, rather linking Alex to Dubya. This link is emphasised by having his Persian King Darius made up to look not unlike Osama bin Laden. But his followers don't seem to share the same values as Alex and I remain unsure of what exactly Stone might be trying to say. So Alexander is a bit of a mess structurally, but it gets worse when you consider the acting (for want of a better term). Colin Farrell is plain wrong in the eponymous part. It's not the blond wig; it's the whole performance: he comes across and weak and shrill, rather than the conqueror of the known world. But at least he's somewhat controlled when compared to Val Kilmer who eats scenery as Philip. Jared Leto wears more kohl around his eyes than Liz Taylor did in Cleopatra but otherwise adds little as Hephaistion; he gets to pout a lot. The only two actors who emerge with any merit are Angelina Jolie and Rosario Dawson. While Jolie's accent is strange and out of place in a Macedon where everyone else sounds like they just returned from Derry or Dublin, her Olympias gives us some reason for the adult Alexander being a man of will. She also provides a good reason for him to continue trying to conquer the world and not return home. Dawson gives Roxane a spirit that might attract an Alexander but she is not given enough time fully to develop the character. Alexander, through over-reaching, has failed gloriously. It demonstrates that accuracy in the facts is not the be all and end all of historical epics. Rated R (for violence and some sexuality/nudity), Alexander has more than its share of hacked limbs and blood, but wimps out on the portrayal of any male/male sexuality, or male nudity.
The Woman in Red
The comic book heroes (and heroines) keep coming off the production line, particularly those from the Marvel universe. Following her appearance (and death) in Daredevil, Elektra is resurrected for her own outing. Here she has become an assassin who's caught between the forces of good, led by her former sensei Terence Stamp, and evil, the Order of the Hand, under the control of Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. The latter's son, Roshi (Will Yun Lee) leads a crack team of super-villains who are after "the Treasure". Stuck in the middle, with Elektra, are a cute father and his teenage daughter whom Elektra must defend. The main problem with the film is not the unbelievable powers given the characters; nor the largely unsatisfactory way in which the fights are staged, particularly the climactic fight between Elektra and Roshi; nor even the plot holes and inconsistencies - especially that leading to the gratuitous death of Elektra's agent. (The other 'goof' that bothered me was the invulnerable super-villain whose skin repelled shot-gun pellets and broke Elektra's knives but who was killed by a tree falling on him. Perhaps Bishop Berkeley talked him into it.) The main problem is the superfluity of plot. These comic book films work best with a simple story arc that leads the characters to the major confrontation and resolves the drama. But this one spends far too much time delving into the main character's past and the reasons why she might be sympathetic to the youngster she has to protect. And it clothes it all in the most pointless metaphysical claptrap. Jennifer Garner is good enough as the eponymous heroine; and Terence Stamp lends the film his usual gravitas. But the writing and directing are not up to snuff. Given that Rob Bowman, the director, has come to the project from The X Files and Reign of Fire, this should not surprise. It was rated PG-13 (for action violence).
DVD
The four-disc extended version of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King adds to the reputation of the series of films which exhibit Peter Jackson's re-imaging of Tolkien's epic. As with the earlier extended versions, the film-makers have added to the cinematic version by editing in a number of scenes deleted for the theatrical release and by extending many other scenes. Of particular interest are the scenes at Isengard, which [spoiler warning] change the narrative more than somewhat: in the adaptation Saruman dies by Grima's hand (as in the book) but at Isengard, not in the Shire. That means that there is no 'Scourging of the Shire'. In fact the scenes after the hobbits leave Gondor remain as they were in the theatrical version. Other new or changed scenes extend the roles of Faramir and Eowyn (with scenes in the Houses of Healing) and re-introduce the Mouth of Sauron outside the Black Gates. As in the first two extended versions, it is my view that the editorial additions improve the flow of the story and strengthen an already brilliant narrative. The third and fourth disks are further appendices, detailing the writing and production choices made by the film-makers and looking closely at the use of animation and CGI in the third film. In addition to all the material noted on the contents list, there are a couple of 'Easter Eggs', hidden extras, including the Andy Serkis/Gollum acceptance speech at the MTV awards after the first film - a speech which was honoured at the most recent Hugos as the best Dramatic Performance (short form) of 2003. In my view, the extended editions of the LotR are absolute musts for any DVD collection - both as the definitive versions of the films, and for the appendices which are as good a set of documentaries on film-making as exist.
The Day After Tomorrow is silly. It has a self-contradictory plot; supposedly intelligent characters who act in very stupid ways; illogical survivals against the inherent logic of the plot; and even problems with the scale of buildings, ships and water flows. But, worse, it harnesses as the basis of its plot a completely ridiculous take on the possible cataclysmic impact human-impacted global warming will have on the planet and thereby creates yet another opportunity for the global warming sceptics to assert their dangerous viewpoint. In this movie, rapid climate change becomes so rapid that it's all but instantaneous: geological time becomes local time. This allows for some great special effects - tornados, hail-stones, tsunamis, frozen street scenes - and also for the deus ex machina resolution: after all if change is very rapid then readjustment must be equally quick. Against this background, Roland Emmerich tells his story of a paleoclimatologist and his son. Dad warns of the possible catastrophic effects of polar icecap melts but the nasty politicians won't listen until it is too late. Sonny and his mates, including the woman he lusts after, become stuck in the post-apocalypse New York and have to survive until the cavalry (well, Dad) can arrive. Some good actors are wasted including Dennis Quaid as the father, Jake Gyllenhaal as junior and Emmy Rossum as the latter's love interest. The best part is the portrayal of the dumb President and his older, but smarmy, Vice President (using actors that make us think immediately of Dubya and Cheney). But that's small compensation for a movie that takes all the disaster cliches and plays them by numbers.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]