This is a very funny parody of the unraveling of Richard Nixon, by this story, at the hands of two high school girls, one of whom lives at the Watergate and happens upon G. Gordon Liddy and the gang during the break-in. To shut them up, the girls are given jobs as dog-walkers at the White House and become seminal in our nation’s history.
Dave Foley (from “Kids in the Hall”) is hilarious as H.R. Haldeman, Dan Hedaya is a workable Nixon – not quite as sweaty as Anthony Hopkins and nowhere near the master of all Nixons, Frank Langella, but still, he’s appropriately shifty and skulking. Priceless is one girl’s fantasy about Nixon – she has fallen in love with “Dick”, who supplants Bobby Sherman in her world – and in one fantasy, Hedaya rides up on horseback on the beach to tell the girl “Pat understands”.
Bruce McCullouch (also from “Kids”) and Will Ferrell are laugh-out-loud as a fey and bickering Bernstein and Woodward.
Lasse Hallstrom’s film about a Maine orphanage and the maturation of one of its residents (Tobey Maguire) is a beautiful and sentimental picture notable for strong performances by Michael Caine and a score of child actors, and exceptional performances by Maguire and Delroy Lindo. Filmed in Maine and Massachusetts, the film’s score is as heart-tugging as its locale (in orphanages, children leave, die and undergo numerous ordeals, so be prepared). Nonetheless, with the exception of one or two scenes, Hallstrom is restrained in his depiction of the life of a Maine obstetrician and orphanage director who also performs illegal abortions (the film is circa 1940s).
Maguire, an orphan twice-returned, becomes Caine’s protege, but as with all young men, Maguire leaves the orphanage to see the world (or more of Maine) himself. Caine wants him back to carry on his work. Maguire wants to find out about life, and does.
Nothing happens here that you don’t expect to happen, but everything is so well-paced and finely acted, the film works even in the face of your foreknowledge. Maguire, whose unrelenting wistfulness and glistening eyes can seem manipulative, is an apt choice to play a young man who has always done rather than felt – he has not yet formed his own identity through experience. Such a role can be easily butchered. Think a young Robin Williams, the naif who stares at wonderment at all he sees. This is Maguire’s sweet spot and he nails it.
Delroy Lindo, as the crew boss of a group of migrant apple pickers, is commanding. Lindo has an ability to convey so much in one chosen look – violence, confusion, pride – that you find yourself studying rather than watching him. Caine won best supporting actor, and he is, as usual, very good. But Lindo was overlooked.
The film is unabashedly pro-choice in outlook. I did not find it at all preachy, but a significant thematic rift between Caine and Maguire centers on the issue, and there is no question as to where the filmmakers come down. This may not be the kind of thing you want in a film, but the forthrightness is not offputting.
Finally, while I was uplifted by the film, I was also completely undone and what I perceived as a beautiful but painful story, others may find schmaltzy and overt. Rachel Portman’s original score is almost unfairly touching.
Proof of Life is a competent but dull thriller/romance. Russell Crowe is the hot shot “negotiator” assigned to extricate Meg Ryan’s husband, David Morse, from the clutches of South American kidnappers.
Director Taylor Hackford tries to reprise the simmering steaminess he got from Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward in Against All Odds and Richard Gere and Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman. He has a harder road to hoe here. Crowe and Ryan rub against each other, as they apparently did in real life doing shooting, but sparks do not emit. Crowe is only offering a sly “mate” every now and again, and no matter how strong the effort, Ryan can never get too far from perky popsicle.
There are a few good things: David Caruso was actually built to be a supporting actor (his run as a post “NYPB Blue” movie lead – Jade and Kiss of Death – sent him quickly back to television for “CSI”) and he is sly and funny as Crowe’s number 2, an integral part of his professional extrication team (though he’s always been a strange choice for gritty physicality; he seems more ballet than brute).
This is also one of the last films before Meg Ryan finally succumbed to the excesses of plastic surgery and became
My boy Will got back from camp yesterday and while he was away, I DVRed Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005). I’d forgotten how scary the first half of this movie is. I’d also forgotten how effective Tom Cruise is as the “in over his head” father of two who must escape the aliens while protecting his children (Dakota Fanning and Justin Chatwin). Cruise has always infused a little of Risky Business in all his roles, hindering his ability to play period or even mature. That bright smile is too youthful and winning, and Cruise as a weathered or dispirited character seems both a stretch and a waste. Even his Ethan Hunt in the Mission Impossible movies is always kept running at full clip lest we realize he’s having too much fun to be such a serious international spy.
Here, however, Cruise plays weary, completely out of depth and even selfishly beleaguered in being stuck with his two children at a moment when the world is being ravaged and dominated by aliens. His performance is riveting and is enough to overcome some clunky father-son, “why weren’t you there for me?” dialogue with Chatwin.
As the family wends its way from New Jersey to Boston, where Cruise hopes to reunite the children with their mother, massive Imperial Walker-like monsters emitting ominous foghorn sounds vaporize some people, and collect others for extraction of their blood, for fertilization. I think. This is where the movie gets weaker. Since the alien invasion is so unexpected, we have no clue, no Jeff Goldblum scientist, to explain what is happening. Like Cruise, we can only guess. I respect the bravery of the decision with regard to the narrative, but after all of Spielberg’s set pieces are finished (the initial appearance of the aliens, the aftermath of the crash of a jumbo jet, the alien attack on a ferry crossing the Hudson), one starts to wonder why the aliens are so meticulous about finding Cruise and Fanning, who, after surviving the ferry attack, are hiding out in the root cellar of an unstable Tim Robbins. Thus far in the picture, the m.o. of the aliens had been indiscriminate and brutal, yet near the end, they send a snake-like probe into the basement, followed by an investigatory party of 4 aliens, followed by yet another probe. The only reason for this deviation in behavior is to create a very tense scene that seems out of place when, flushed out, Cruise and Fanning are merely scooped up. The extended sequence also allows for some tiresome back and forth between Robbins (let’s fight) and Cruise (let’s not).
The ending is also a let-down. The aliens get sick and die. Movie aliens have many of the same problems we do as an occupying force, but we look much better in comparison. If you thought it took us some time to get our footing in Iraq or Afghanistan, at least we figured out we could breathe the air in those places before undertaking the endeavors. The ultimate fault of the aliens in War of the Worlds seems a little rudimentary, though not so stupid as the aliens in Signs, for whom water was acid, making Earth a strange choice for colonization.
One other complaint. For all of Spielberg’s gifts and power, he can be gutless in his presentation of popcorn fare (see another Cruise vehicle, Minority Report, a film noir spoiled by Spielberg’s constitutional inability to have the audience walk away sad). There is no way Chatwin survives this picture. But not only does he survive, he beats Cruise and Fanning to Boston for a family homecoming and a stirring end.
Zach Braff’s gruesome, false dramedy about a guy in his twenties who “has everything” but gets the jitters when his long time girlfriend (Jacinda Barrett) becomes pregnant. He then recklessly beds a college hottie (Rachel Bilson), and the audience is treated to the extended punishment of his shrieking girlfriend, his unctuous attempts to elicit forgiveness, and side-stories of friends and family similarly bollixed by love, which, as I understand it, reduces everyone to shrieking hysterics.
This indeed may be the way of love for many people, but I sure don’t want to watch it, even with an implausible, redemptive, happy ending. Braff’s responsibility is minimized. He only starred in and co-wrote this disaster, with, shockingly, Oscar-winning screenwriter and Scientology attacker Paul Haggis (perhaps this is an excess of Scientology?)
But a curse is a curse, and his post-TheLast Kiss, non “Scrubs” work is a cautionary tale — one Canadian movie (The High Cost of Living) and a cameo on a 2012 episode of “Cougar Town.” He played the pizza delivery guy.
David Mamet-speak is one thing. There is nothing quite like the staccato of the pitiable salesman in Glengarry Glen Ross, and Alec Baldwin’s thunderous sermon to those below him has become so ubiquitous that a generation of frat boys can now recite it – or parts (“coffee is for closers!”) – verbatim.
But Mamet-speak has it limits and when coupled with Mamet’s macho honor philosophy, the results can be toxic. And thus, we have Redbelt, a bizarre modern moral tale about a martial arts enthusiast (Chiwetal Ejiofor) who spouts a lot of Kung Fu b.s. while negotiating through a plot so byzantine and ridiculous that were I to attempt to encapsulate it, I’d have a stroke.
So, I’ll let Wikipedia do it for me:
While closing his Jiu-jitsu studio one evening, Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is approached by attorney Laura Black (Emily Mortimer), who is seeking the owner of the vehicle she accidentally sideswiped. Off-duty police officer Joe Collins (Max Martini), who was receiving a private lesson from Mike, sees that Laura is distressed and tries to take her coat. Startled, Laura grabs Joe’s gun and fires it; shattering the studio’s front window. To avoid having Laura charged with attempted murder, Mike and Joe agree to conceal the event.
Mike’s insurance, however, will not cover his act of God claim that the window was broken by a strong wind. Mike’s wife Sondra (Alice Braga), whose fashion business profits are the only thing keeping the struggling studio afloat, requests that Mike ask for a loan from her brother Ricardo (John Machado), a mixed martial arts champion. At Ricardo’s nightclub, Mike meets with Sondra’s other brother, Bruno (Rodrigo Santoro), and learns that Joe quit as the club’s bouncer because Bruno never paid him. Mike confronts Bruno about the situation but is rebuffed. Mike then declines Bruno’s offer to fight on the undercard of an upcoming match between Ricardo and Japanese legend, Morisaki (Enson Inoue), which could potentially pay out $50,000. Mike believes competitions with money as the incentive are not honorable and weaken the fighter.
Meanwhile, aging Hollywood action star Chet Frank (Tim Allen) enters the nightclub without security and is accosted by a man with a broken bottle. Mike intervenes and subdues three men in the process. The following day, Mike receives an expensive watch and an invitation to dinner from Chet. Mike gives the watch to Joe to pawn in lieu of his unpaid salary at the nightclub. At the dinner party, Chet’s wife Zena (Rebecca Pidgeon) arranges an informal business deal to buy a large amount of dresses from Sondra’s company. Chet, impressed by Mike, invites him to the set of his current film. As Mike and Sondra leave the dinner, Mike explains his unique training method to Chet’s business associate Jerry Weiss (Joe Mantegna). Before a sparring match, each fighter must draw one of three marbles, two white and one black; whoever draws a black marble has to fight with a handicap.
Mike uses his military experience to answer a few technical questions for Chet on the film set and is offered the role of co-producer. That evening, Mike faxes the details of his training methods to Jerry so they can be used in the film. Joe arrives at the studio and informs Mike that he was suspended from duty for pawning the watch, which turned out to be stolen. During their dinner that evening, Mike relays the information to Jerry who excuses himself to handle the matter, but never returns. At home, Mike learns that the phone numbers that Zena gave Sondra have been disconnected. Sondra is panicky, having borrowed $30,000 from a loan shark to order the fabric for the dresses. As he meets with the loan shark to discuss an extension, Mike notices Bruno and Marty Brown (Ricky Jay) on television using Mike’s marble-drawing method as a promotional gimmick for the undercard fights of Ricardo’s match.
Mike hires Laura to sue, but Marty’s lawyer threatens that if they do not drop the lawsuit, he will give the police an empty shell casing with Laura’s fingerprints, as proof that she attempted to kill an off-duty cop. He also threatens Mike as a witness who covered up the crime by bribing the cop with a stolen watch. When told of the situation, Joe feels responsible and kills himself. Mike feels obligated to help Joe’s financially struggling wife and, in desperate need of money himself, decides to compete as an undercard fighter in the upcoming competition.
At the arena, Mike discovers the fights are being fixed via a magician (Cyril Takayama) using sleight of hand to surreptitiously switch the white and black marbles. Disgusted by this revelation, Mike confronts the conspirators: Marty, Jerry and Bruno who confirm that unknown to the competitors, the fights are handicapped by the fight promoters so as to ensure winning bets. They also reveal that Ricardo is intentionally losing the fight to Morisaki so they can make money on the rematch. Jerry tells Mike that Sondra is the one who told them about Laura shooting the window and Bruno justifies her betrayal by explaining that his sister is too smart to stay with someone who cannot provide for her.
As Mike is exiting the arena, he meets Laura. Their conversation is not audible, but it ends with Laura slapping Mike. Mike then re-enters the arena. He incapacitates several security guards trying to stop him and is ultimately engaged by Ricardo. The audience and camera crews take notice as Mike and Ricardo face off in the arena’s corridors. Inspired by the Professor, an elderly martial arts master attending the match, Mike manages to slip a difficult choke hold and defeats Ricardo. He is approached by Morisaki, who awards Mike with his ivory-studded belt, previously referred to as a Japanese national treasure. Mike is then approached by the Professor himself, who awards Mike the coveted Redbelt.
As my Mom might say, “Jeez-o-flip!”
I am not a Mamet hater. Oleanna, Glengarry, Homicide, State and Main, House of Games, The Spanish Prisoner, these are all very good films, and Mamet displays an authentic American voice in their telling. His work on films he did not direct, or which did not come from one of his stage plays, such as The Verdict, The Untouchables, The Edge, Hoffa and Ronin, is vivid and accomplished.
Redbelt, however, came out in 2008, about the time someone needed to tell Mamet that his mystical machismo and rat-a-tat dialogue had not only reached their expiration date, but had become as embarrassing as a driver’s hat and leather gloves on a newly divorced man.
Since Redbelt’s release, and critical failure, Mamet has written a few shorts, and episodes for his TV show “The Unit.” He also wrote a very interesting book explaining his “conversion” from Hollywood liberal to a member of the right, “The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture,” as fine a read as you’ll get if you want to understand the nuts-and-bolts philosophy and precepts of a modern conservative (beyond the human sacrifices of panhandlers and the ritual rape of the land). Perhaps he’s done with film writing, but if so, Redbelt is both Mamet’s pathetic coda and a testament to his loss of the gift.
Eddie Murphy kinetically debuts as hustler Reggie Hammond, released from prison for 48 hours under the brutal watch of Detective Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) to hunt for Hammond’s ex-partners, who have gone on a cop-killing spree in San Francisco. The film catapulted Murphy to stardom. It was also the first picture to feature a Saturday Night Live comedian in a raw, crime story and stands as one of the better “buddy cop” pictures ever, though Murphy is really only deputized.
Yes, Murphy is very funny, sometimes side-splittingly so, but he does not treat every scene as an opportunity to do a bit or schtick. He picks and chooses his moments, trusting in the story directed and mostly written by Walter Hill (The Long Riders). Murphy has one virtuoso scene, when he poses as a cop to roust a redneck bar, but even there, where he puts a knife to a man’s face and tells him, “I’m your worst fu***** nightmare, I’m a ni**** with a badge”, he’s in keeping with the picture’s tough tenor. Nolte’s Cates is brutal, unpleasant and an unrelenting racist, almost shockingly so, given our current advanced ethos, yet, they bond in a manner that feels authentic. Given we’re dealing with tough cops and criminals, the racial dynamic is not off-putting. It just adds to the tension.
I was also surprised by the gritty brutality of the movie. The body count is high, but rather than explosions and elegant slo-motion, Hill takes more of a Sam Peckinpah approach. The shootings are bloody and awkward, not stylized. And the bad guys – Albert Ganz (James Remar) and Billy Bear (Sonny Landham) – are scary bad.
James Horner’s original music (he’s been nominated 5 times and won for his scoring of Titanic) is apt, a moody mix of jazz and Asian chimes. Hill also uses San Francisco to his full advantage, mixing the grimy feel of Bullitt and Dirty Harry with a little early 80s glitz.
It has a few weaknesses. Annette O’Toole, for whom I have had my own weakness since Robby Benson’s One on One, is wasted as Nolte’s long-sufferring gal.
And the finale, where Cates and Hammond just “play a hunch.” is a bit lazy.
Still, an uproarious, and assured flick, much more than it seems.
First things first. I took my son to see The Shining at the American Film Institute Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland (they are running a Jack Nicholson retrospective). The theater is ornate and massive and brings back the feel and style of the old movie house.
But not even the hallowed ground of a theater honoring film can persuade people to behave in a respectful fashion during a movie. We had two fools in the front who found particular dramatic scenes funny and laughed and laughed and laughed . . . and laughed some more. We also had two couples to our right who presumed if a character wasn’t talking, that was their cue to talk. Stanley Kubrick films have long stretches of no dialogue.
Going to films is more and more difficult given the crude behavior of movie patrons, who cannot shut th f*** up, are now eating full meals during the show, and are otherwise oblivious to anyone around them. Worse, those who are quiet, including myself, are often forced to simply accept the noise. I have interceded a few times. It has worked less often than not, because if you correct a young person in public, apparently, that is a humiliation too great to endure, and what follows is aggression and louder “I paid my ticket” talking. Now, I’ve made the film less enjoyable for additional rows.
Okay. To the movie. Kubrick’s picture is methodical and creepy, It opens abruptly with an aerial shot of Jack Torrance (Nicholson) driving for his interview at the Overlook Hotel to an ominous electronic score (think John Carpenter). Torrance gets the job as the hotel’s winter caretaker, where he esconces his timid wife (Shelly Duvall) and his son (Danny Lloyd), who has the ability to see visions and occasionally communicate with like-talented people (i.e., he “shines”) such as the hotel’s head chef, Scatman Crothers. Danny’s ability is also telling him that the Overlook Hotel is dangerous, a fact Crothers confirms. Soon, the hotel insinuates itself into Torrance’s mind, turns him against his family, and he goes berserk.
The film is very scary, often terrifying. Kubrick gives us the time to get to know the family, and all is not well: Torrance has had recent problems with drink, injuring Danny in the process. He is also a condescending prick, which in turn makes his wife more jittery, which in turns makes Torrance angrier and more removed. With this fodder, the spirits of the hotel work themselves on Nicholson.
The imagery is unforgettable, be it Danny riding his big wheel (tracked by stedicam) through the halls of the Overlook, only to bump into gruesome visions, or the forbidding snow-covered hedge maze, the locale for the final scene. Lloyd is very good: he is withdrawn but sweet, trying to deal with a wretched home life and an amazing but confusing gift. Duvall, whose performance has been criticized as annoying (she was nominated for a Razzie), is, in fact, very annoying, but it is a great performance nonetheless. She is trying to hold the family together, as Nicholson is trying to destroy it, and her worry feeds his suspicion. The hotel has to work on something; it has to find an “in” to get to Nicholson, which it does through Duvall, who is nervous and peppy and cloying. Obviously, she doesn’t deserve to be murdered. But the spirits of the hotel don’t need to much to convince Nicholson.
The only partial negative is Nicholson. He’s very good as a man driven to insanity, but the performance has two faults. First, Nicholson does not show much to recommend him when he has full sanity. He’s superior and sarcastic and he doesn’t connect with his family. As such, when he is enticed by the hotel, there’s not much of struggle there. He’s ready to fix them up right and there really was no question. Second, there are too many “Heeeeeeere’s Johnnies” in his performance. Nicholson goes so over-the-top that he becomes cartoonish. Still, it’s a minor criticism and presumes the necessity of a struggle for Nicholson’s soul.
Roberto Begnini’s Academy Ward-winning fable is in two parts. First, the love-at-first-sight courtship of a sweet and funny man and a beautiful schoolteacher, followed by a tale of a father’s love for his wife and son and the lengths to which he will go to spare them the cruelty of a Nazi concentration camp. Both halves of the film seamlessly meld, and the picture travels a road from sunny to tense to dire, with Begnini at the heart, lending dignity as he dances faster and faster.
Begnini’s film is neither historically accurate or particularly reality-based. Indeed, the half of the film occurring in the concentration camp could have taken place over a period of months, weeks or days, and Begnini’s character essentially creates a daily circus to shield his boy from the horrors that surround them, behavior not even Colonel Kilnk would have allowed. For this reason, Life is Beautiful came in for criticism from some quarters who believe that a Holocaust movie should not necessarily be the backdrop for a comedy, however bittersweet, and/or that Begnini trivializes and historically mutated the reality of Italian Jews during World War II.
Nuts. The overarching theme of the film is a father’s attempt to protect his son from death, both physical and spiritual, effectively conveyed in a respectful manner. Complaints of inaccuracy or improper tone are misplaced and rigid, as if there is some politically correct blueprint for a Holocaust film. Conservative film reviewer John Podhoretz recently followed this line, attacking the latest X-Men movie – which traces Magneto’s powers and philosophy to his treatment at the hands of the Nazis – thusly: “Genocide and supernatural powers don’t mix”.
Nuts to him too.
Shoah has been made. So too Schindler’s List and The Wansee Conference. Go see them, I implore you, and make your own judgments (and while you are at it, check out Enemies, A Love Story, which actually mines a Holocaust survivor’s post-trauma love triangle for a couple of chuckles). But don’t stilt artistic vision in the name of grim devotion to past horror.
These criticisms smack of paternalistic preaching that might make The Catholic Standard proud. Tarantino and Stone “glorify” and thus perpetuate violence. Lolita makes child molestation all the more probable. And Begnini’s work, according to Slate‘s David Edelstein, similarly offends: “Imagine Harpo Marx giving the hot foot to a pompous official, who takes out a machine gun and blows him away: That’s how cheap Benigni’s hash of farce and tragedy is. It’s a gas, all right.”
Edelstein earned his “I’m A Sensitive Keeper of the Grim Tenor of Concentration Camp Flicks” ribbon. And with that award goes a free ticket to Showtime’s offering, The Devil’s Arithmetic – Kirsten Dunst is transported from modern day history class, where she passes notes and ignores the teacher’s recitation of the the extermination, to a WWII-era Poland. Or The Twilight Zone, where Vic Morrow’s modern day bigot was carted off in a train headed, presumably, to Treblinka.
Controversy aside, the film begins in brilliant color but mutes to near-black and white as the story continues its necessarily sorrowful pace. I can say little about the direction as my eye was trained on Begnini. His performance as an unserious man at the most serious of times mirrors Chaplin (another person we could criticize – how dare he benefit from physical comedy while aping the creator of the concentration camp, Adolf Hitler). His carefree and whimsy is tested as he becomes separated from a rich life, his wife is torn from him, and every day becomes a struggle to personally survive and protect his son. Everyone else is quite good and the son is particularly affecting (the Italians get me every time – seeCinema Paradiso).
Former police officer Jack Nicholson is haunted by the murder of a little girl, so much so it tests his sanity. He finds the love of a good woman (Robin Wright Penn), who has a little girl as well, but he remains haunted and, as near as I can tell from this complete mess of a movie, goes insane.
Sean Penn directed this picture, which was released in 2001 (he directed another similarly dark mess of a movie released that same year, The Crossing Guard, so perhaps this was a phase). The film is clumsy, uninvolving and disconcertingly showy. Penn can’t just have a cop walk into a room without cross-cuts to the ticking clock and the face of a fat, stupid common clerk telling us something (but what?). Nicholson can’t drink at a Nevada airport bar without pointless flash cuts to whirring slot machines. Not only does all this jazz lead to continuity problems (Nicholson’s scotch miraculously becomes a beer), it is annoying.
The Pledge also demonstrates Hollywood’s disdain for the working class. Set in the flatland of Nevada, Robin Wright Penn, Sean’s then-wife, is a vessel of all Hollywood presumptions about regular folk. She plays a barmaid. She has a gnarled front tooth. She is a little dim. She wears a lot of flannel. And when her savior Nicholson comes to love both her and her daughter, we know that they will commune because . . . Nicholson fixes her tooth! I mean, let’s not take this working class thing too far. We can’t expect Jack Nicholson to have sex with woman with a gnarled tooth.
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Another problem? Penn uses top actors for single scenes, so each feels compelled to ACCCCCCCCCCCTTTTTTTTTTT! like there’s no tomorrow. Benicio Del Toro, Vanessa Redgrave, Mickey Rourke, Helen Mirren, they all emote for a brief, generally unnecessary scene, and boy do they make the most of it. Also, the little girl is killed on the day of Nicholson’s retirement party. If Penn directs a war picture, God help the character who shows his platoon mates a picture of the gal he has at home waiting for him.
That said, I was a big fan of Penn’s more restrained and mature Into the Wild, directed 6 years later, so I chalk The Pledge up to practice.
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