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(08/30/07 4:00am)
The lame duck era of the Bush administration was officially ushered in last year when the FBI deemed British rapper and Brooklyn resident Maya Arulpragasam a threat to national security. With sharp-tongued lyrics about Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers and the Palestinian Liberation Organization emanating from such an imposing frame as the wee Maya's, clearly she had to be kept off American soil. Luckily, it didn't stop her from stitching together Kala, a brave, exciting follow-up to the brilliant Arular. \nRushing out of the gate with "power power" on "Bamboo Banga," the first three tracks of Kala are a succession of nearly structureless speaker-shakers with insistent production by M.I.A. and her co-producer Switch. This material has no shot at corporate radio airplay, but it's painfully better than most anything on said stations right now. Kala also refuses to let up in its second half. "XR2" is a terribly busy dance track that will stay stuck in your head for days, and the dreamy "20 Dollar" borrows ever-so-slightly from New Order and the Pixies and ends up 100 percent M.I.A.\nUnlike Arular, Kala gets bogged down by a couple of weak moments, namely the Nelly Furtado-ish throwaway pop of "Jimmy" and the head-nodding filler of "The Turn." For the remaining 40 minutes of its running time, though, Kala is always engaging and never unoriginal. Case and point is the curious "Mango Pickle Down River," with a fuzzy didgeridoo for a bass track and a band of feisty Australian kids freestyle rapping along with Maya. It shouldn't work at all. In fact, it should be horrible. But it's surprisingly addictive, which is a credit to M.I.A.'s instincts as a self-producer.\nM.I.A., despite what the FBI might think, is no threat to America. She is, however, a creative threat to the rest of the rap and world beat community with a pair of albums like Arular and Kala. On "Paper Planes," she gives her political critics more fodder than they can handle with lyrics about fake visas, indiscriminate murder and her own brand of Third World democracy over a sarcastic gunshot beat. It's a knowing middle finger and a calculated move from a woman who could've chosen to go pop, but instead chose to favor worldly experimental music over commercial sales.
(08/30/07 4:00am)
nland Empire" is David Lynch's first feature-length film in five years, and it's also his longest and most inscrutable. The latter half of that sentence will undoubtedly spell doom for some and ring joy to the rest.\nThis is a film born purely out of the mind of Lynch himself, and shot entirely on consumer-grade digital-film stock. Casual fans of "Wild at Heart" and "Blue Velvet" or those unfamiliar with Lynch might be wise to avoid it. For those of us who feel that certain cinematic thrill of getting "Lynched" now and again, it's an invaluable experience not to be missed. \nTo boil down such a labyrinthine film to its essence is to say that Laura Dern, in a career-best performance, plays an actress taking on a sort of cursed role in a Hollywood production. The first hour focuses on this film and the myths surrounding it, but once Dern and her co-star (a wry, wiry Justin Theroux) consummate their off-screen relationship, things fall well off the rails for all involved. \nExcept in Lynch-land, staying on the rails is for wimps. The final two hours of "Inland Empire" are some of the most hallucinatory and abstract cinema ever released wide in American theaters. Throw logic out the door and forget trying to piece the puzzle together after the credits roll. This is the kind of high-art stuff that works in emotional tones and striking visuals rather than in any realm of coherence. If you're frightened by that prospect, leave "Inland Empire" on the shelf. If not, carve out three hours of your night and let Lynch be your guide. \nAbsurda's two-disc special edition of the film is a treasure trove of extra material for die-hard Lynch fans. There are 90 minutes of deleted scenes (in case a 4 1/2-hour movie is what you're after), and telling interviews with Lynch and Dern on everything from production to shooting digitally to how little any of the actors knew going in. Lynch even acts as a tour guide to the three-year production and filming process, taking a little time out to cook some quinoa for us. The short film "Ballerina" is included for good measure. There's no commentary track here, which is unfortunate in some ways, but acceptable in others as Lynch is someone who prefers to let his surreal work speak, as best it can, for itself. \nThematically, "Inland Empire" echoes Lynch's excellent "Mulholland Drive" in more ways than one. Shattered Hollywood dreams, mysterious mythical goings-on and an in-depth exploration into the female psyche are all explored with an old-master-painter's touch. One could assume that Lynch has been building up to this film his entire career, and the ease of digital film has finally let him unleash his dreams on an unsuspecting public. Bravo, sir.
(08/30/07 4:00am)
Ahh, Flixster. Facebook's answer to populist movie criticism has grown exponentially in popularity over the past several months, with everyone from your wacky stepfather to your 13-year-old cousin opining about the artistic and aesthetic merits of David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick films. As someone so famously once said, "the inmates are running the asylum." \nWhen discussing Flixster and its varied users, there is a great risk in sounding like an elitist who thinks only those with the proper background in film knowledge and criticism should be allowed to throw their hats in the critic ring. After all, the world of film criticism is essentially a collection of individual persons' opinions, and, like assholes, we've all got 'em. \nBeing a strong proponent of free speech, no matter how offensive, I'm still so often aghast at so many of the reviews I see on Flixster by those I've affectionately dubbed "Flixstiots." There is a measure of irresponsibility involved when Owen McCarthy from London, Ontario boils down Milos Forman's 1975 classic "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" to "this was an odd movie but it wasn't that bad I've heard that the book was better.....but meh I dont read often." \nMy central issue with Flixster, and amateur film criticism in general, is this: Why discuss film, or any art for that matter, in a public forum unless you have something even remotely significant, or even mildly enlightening, to say about it? Ian Haberman of Wisconsin-Parkside, violates this principle in his review of Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line: "7 dudes in a bush talking about how bad war is, but they don't really do anything but sit in a bush until the end. So, I guess they assumed war was bad, and then got sick of sitting in a bush... I think. Dumb movie."\nWould he so flippantly dismiss the smile of "Mona Lisa" as a "shit-eating grin" or Picasso's "Guernica" as "black and white chicken scratches"? Maybe so, and that's the fundamental dilemma. When discussing art in a public forum, exactly how much power and influence do we afford the peanut gallery? Don't misunderstand my argument as a call to ban anyone who regards films as entertainment rather than art (a notable divide that seems to grow wider year to year) from discussing a film's merit. It's simply a plea for those who feel the need to discuss a work of art to have something -- anything -- of value to say about it. \nPenn State's Zach Sheakoski, in discussing "The Godfather," one of the greatest American films ever made, clearly doesn't: "I am giving it 2 stars because for how it is, the killing scenes were OK, other than that, I have never hated a movie more than this one ... from beginning to end i was bored, this movie was awful." Sheakoski's opinion, I realize, is no more or less valid than mine. But in the end, doesn't one at least owe a recognized work of important filmmaking more than just a tossed-off hate rant? \nAdmittedly, in the cinematic arts, some films aim lower than others. A few petty asides hurled the way of "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" aren't gonna rile me up, but when Andrew Montano of Nassau County, NY says of "Punch-Drunk Love," Adam Sandler's only attempt to break his own sophomoric comedy mold, "didn't see what all the fuss was about with this movie. saw it expecting another 'Click' or '40 first dates' masterpiece and instead i sat there watching a way too sub par movie with a weird story line and a corny ending," I hang my head in shame. Maybe, after a million or two more reviews of this caliber, the Web masters at Flixster and Facebook will start filtering out such comments, and letting those who love film discuss it meaningfully. \nUntil then, I'll slide the soapbox over to Sian Jones, of no network, for her thoughts on Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of "King Kong": "i know King Kong is all aboug gorillas and stuff like that i just hope it does'nt invole animal crelty." Me too, Sian. Me too.
(08/23/07 4:00am)
Having achieved a modicum of mainstream fame and a little less indie cred with the release of their last record, So Jealous, Canadian twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin are back with The Con, an assured follow-up that, with the help of producer and Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Chris Walla, focuses more on the pair's talents as songwriters and hook-makers than on their hazy, lovelorn lyricism. \nTegan's Ric Ocasek-esque method of pop songcraft shines on tracks like "Hop a Plane" and the title cut, and reaches a rarely-achieved pop heaven on "Dark Come Soon," possibly the best track the duo has ever laid down. A few clunkers are scattered throughout these 14 tracks, all of them written by Sara. "Floorplan," "Back in Your Head" and the flat, tiresome "Relief Next to Me" are all compulsively skippable and showcase Sara's ability to coast on her own talents too breezily. \nIf Tegan is the more pop-sensible of the two, with most every note of her songs inching toward or sustaining some sort of hook or another, Sara is the tortured soul of the pair, always striving for a higher level of meaning in her songs and too often failing to find it. She redeems herself, though, with "Burn Your Life Down," a proper mini-soundtrack for anyone turning over a new leaf. \nWhile, with the notable exception of "Dark Come Soon," The Con never quite matches the highest highs of So Jealous, it's still a more than competent exercise in power pop that's no mere guilty pleasure. The only truly damning criticism I can bring myself to hurl at the Quin twins is that they might consider penning something other than a yearning love song for their next LP.
(08/23/07 4:00am)
Underneath the mountains of unfiltered testosterone and beyond the furiously barking machismo of Zack Snyder's cinematic retelling of Frank Miller's graphic novel "300," there lies a message about corrupt politicians and evil empires and what it meant to be a man in an ancient civilization and how to remain a man in a modern one. This is not where the strengths in "300" reside. This is not a thinking man's epic a la "Gladiator" and "Spartacus." In fact, I'm not even sure it is an epic, but when the blood spurts and limbs fly, everything falls into place.\nThe plot can be summed up in one brief sentence: 300 Spartan warriors take on thousands of Persians, who are trying to acquire their lands, in wave after wave of battle. In most cases, threads this thin are better left to the detailed pages of comic books and graphic novels, where the visual artistry often makes up for a lack of cohesive or engaging plotting. What Snyder and his team have managed to do so well with "300," much as Robert Rodriguez and company did with "Sin City," is to fine-tune the visuals to match Miller's illustrations. As for the much-touted violence, it comes in spades and is mostly concentrated to the middle third of the film. The occasional MPAA-pandering, black-colored CG blood spurt aside, Snyder knows how to take advantage of an R rating. \nMost of the extras on the two-disc edition of "300" are, for better or worse, more expressive and articulate than the film itself. Snyder shows of his directorial acumen (at least in speaking) on a feature-length commentary track, with cinematographer Larry Fong alongside to discuss and dissect the film's impressive visuals. Several deleted scenes come and go with no impact, but it's the featurettes on everything from the Spartan way of life to the historical accuracies and inaccuracies of Snyder's telling of Miller's story that will pique the interests of most viewers. As with the "Sin City" DVD extras, it's always Miller that has the most relevant stuff to say, and he's even more visible and free with information here.\nFrom a purely aesthetic standpoint, "300" works beautifully. When pesky things like expository dialogue, political intrigue and spurned hunchbacks get in the way, you may find yourself begging for the Persians to unleash a whole new level of hell on our heroes.
(08/04/07 4:00am)
David Fincher is, first and foremost, a director who specializes in manufacturing moods and emotions through visual details. "Zodiac," his best film aside from 1999's "Fight Club," is a crime procedural concerning a true story whose telling has been attempted on film several times before but never so masterfully.\nIt's brave for any filmmaker to take on a true-crime film that audiences know will have no neat and tidy conclusion. The San Francisco-area Zodiac murders of 1968 and 1969 were never solved, and they're presented in harrowing fashion by Fincher, an aesthetic stylist unafraid of employing lingering violence and dread around every metropolitan street corner and in every dank basement. The first hour of "Zodiac" condenses the killer's brief reign over the fears of the Bay area population into some of the year's most vital filmmaking, leading to the final 100 minutes, during which the case tightens, unravels and tightens again, never once becoming tedious or exploitative like so many television and film crime procedurals. \nFincher's cast is almost uniformly superb, headed by Jake Gyllenhaal as Robert Graysmith, an unassuming political cartoonist who becomes so obsessed with solving the Zodiac killings that he loses his wife and writes a best-selling book on the subject (on which this film is based). Robert Downey Jr., excellent as always, embodies the hard-drinking, quick-witted crime beat writer Paul Avery, and Mark Ruffalo offers up a career-best performance as David Toschi, the San Francisco Police Department detective who comes closer than anyone except Graysmith to solving the Zodiac murders. \nThere are no special features on this single-disc edition of "Zodiac" other than a teaser ad for the upcoming expanded edition due out this winter.\nAs a serial detractor of formulaic crime shows such as "C.S.I." and "Law & Order," I was pleasantly surprised by Fincher's adeptness at presenting the minutiae of the Zodiac case in fresh, exciting, terrifying ways. He never allows this particular search for the truth to sag under its own weight, or, by contrast, because of its own effortlessness. "Zodiac" is ominous, elusive and uniquely mysterious, like the killer himself.
(07/19/07 4:00am)
Andy Millman is back, and he's successful. Not so much according to critics, of course, but loved by the common man. Season two of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's "Extras" centers itself on Millman and his critically reviled, ratings-winning sitcom "When the Whistle Blows." It's both more madcap and more grounded than season one. \nSeason two's success has a lot to do with letting the characters, rather than the situations, run the show. During the first season it was easy to dislike Millman, his friend Maggie and his agent Darren (much as it was to hate David Brent in "The Office"). The second season, on the other hand, humanizes the characters while still managing to be mostly hilarious.\nThe producers upped the ante on guest stars this season, with every episode featuring a showbiz heavy-hitter or two willing to lampoon themselves on camera. Daniel Radcliffe, David Bowie and Ian McKellen are side-splitting highlights; and Chris Martin, Orlando Bloom and a brief appearance by Robert DeNiro don't disappoint. A host of British celebs also make appearances, but most of them will be lost on the U.S. audience, aside from the members fortunate enough to have the BBC America channel.\nThere are a few amusing bonus features on this set, most of which involve the cast and crew cracking up on set. Gervais' natural outbursts of mad laughter are hilarious, but the majority of the supplemental material here is just wicked self-indulgence. A few deleted scenes and outtakes are also included, but there's nothing terribly illuminating. Don't miss "Taping Nigel: The Gimpening," a bizarre look at the interplay between Gervais and his editor. \nThe arc of the season finds Millman trying to reconcile his dreams of creating a meaningful comedy series and earning the respect of his peers versus pandering for ratings and the cash that comes with them. It's a dilemma all successful artists have to deal with at some point, and it's tackled here with grace, wit and hilarity.
(07/12/07 4:00am)
Because three hours of Woodstock 1969 just wasn't enough (seriously), Warner Brothers released director Michael Wadleigh's original cut of the three-day concert, which was edited to just more than four hours from 120 miles of film in 1997. \nEverything from the initial organization of the festival to the cleanup afterwards is documented by Wadleigh's crew. It's all edited together seamlessly by Thelma Schoonmaker, who received Oscar recognition for her work. The frequent use of Cinemascope-style wide-screen to present dual images at once was, at the time, groundbreaking. \nMore than any other concert film, with the possible exception of D.A. Pennebaker's "Monterey Pop," "Woodstock" is fascinating more because of the importance and scope of the event than for the impact of the music, but the music here is worth seeing. \nRichie Havens kicks off the show with a performance of "Handsome Johnny" that's scorching in more ways than one, and The Who tear the stage apart with a medley from "Tommy." Joe Cocker's acid-and-beer-fueled take on "With a Little Help from My Friends" is still as galvanizing as ever, and Jimi Hendrix's iconic rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner," which closed the weekend, is enough to make rock 'n' roll fans from any generation shed a tear. \nThe supporting cast of "Woodstock," a.k.a., the nearly half-a-million attendees, nearly steal the show on many occasions. A couple of kids in a car on their way to the show almost crystallize the entire hippie ethos, and let's not forget the valiant Port-O-San man, whose sanitary efforts throughout the festival were invaluable. \nThree days is a short enough time to present the spirit of the late 1960s and the pervasive sense of wanting to change the world through music, let alone four hours, but Wadleigh manages to do justice to that spirit. A 4-disc CD box set from Atlantic Records is also available, boasting tons of performances not seen in Wadleigh's film.
(07/12/07 4:00am)
Meredith Hunter, an 18-year-old fan who made the mistake of bringing a concealed weapon to the free concert at Altamont Raceway on December 6, 1969, ended up dead at the hands of the Hell's Angels in a clash of mind-sets that has haunted the rock world ever since. Captured in a film initially filmed to showcase the Rolling Stones' 1969 American tour, the Altamont show was in direct contrast to Woodstock. This was not how the year was supposed to end. \nAltamont's music has since been overshadowed by the tragedy that ensued, as well it should be. What began as a celebration became an undulating human mass of anger and violence. Jefferson Airplane tried to riff on "The Other Side of This Life" until Marty Balin got in a scuffle with a Hell's Angels member, and The Grateful Dead, who showed up, refused to play once they felt the negative mood. \nThe 2000 Criterion Collection release of "Gimme Shelter" is crammed with special features, the best of which are a series of essays written by Amy Taubin, Stanley Booth, Michael Lydon, Sonny Barger and Godfrey Cheshire, as well as a somber radio wrap-up of the Altamont concert from a San Francisco radio station.\nDecember 6, 1969, might well have been the death of the 1960s ethos. The Maysles' and Zwerin's film plays like a memorial, not just to the deceased but to the decade.
(07/05/07 4:00am)
Moore's health care doc cuts to the bone. \nWalking out of a movie theater enraged with a high-blood-pressure buzz on a Saturday afternoon is not exactly my idea of a good time, but I'd do it again in two heartbeats to see Michael Moore's fifth -- and arguably best and most effective -- big-screen documentary again. An outright assault on America's debacle of a health care system and those who would suggest the status quo is acceptable, "SiCKO" pushes all the right buttons in exposing the health insurance industry as an icy, profit-driven business whose executives could care less about anyone's health. \nUnlike "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11," "SiCKO" is not an overtly political work. Moore does, however, get in a few overdue digs at the expense of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and, of course, George W. Bush. A secretly recorded 1971 audio tape exposing Nixon's bemusement that American health care would soon become fully profit-driven is numbing in the worst way.\nAs always, Moore's personal brand of humor spikes the film, but I found myself on the verge of tears far more than laughter. Before filming began, Moore posted a message on his Web site asking for Americans' health care horror stories, and he received over 30,000 responses. Each of the ones he chose to highlight on "SiCKO" are devastating in their own way, from an aging couple forced to move into their 20-something daughter's basement due to bankruptcy from medical costs to a wife and mother who lost their husband and child respectively because of an insurance company's hesitance to provide care for fear of taking a loss. As the film so devastatingly asserts, for health insurance companies, providing full care to a patient is known in the business as a "medical loss." \nI've never given Moore a free pass when it comes to his clearly biased brand of documentary technique. As he spirits throughout Canada, Britain, France and later, Cuba, Moore is obviously focusing only on the positive aspects of those nations' health care services while at the same time exposing only the most horrifyingly negative aspects of America's. \nI've always been cognizant of how Moore's brand of exposition doesn't tell 100% of the story, and in leaving out a few small details, his own personal agenda could be confused with the absolute truth. But see if you give a damn about that when, late in the film, you see an elderly woman caught on security camera who is virtually forced out of a taxi sent from a prominent California hospital, disoriented, alone, confused and essentially left for dead by the American health care system. If we're to be judged by how we treat the least among us, consider us irrevocably guilty. \nThe two things "SiCKO" illustrates most convincingly are that socialized medicine seems to work a whole lot better than what we're dealing with in America today and that every American leader since Kennedy has led us down a path of fear of socialization for their own political gain and the interest of holding onto power. Maybe in that sense, "SiCKO" is a political film, and more power to it for that reason. Moore's detractors will surely accuse him of rampant anti-Americanism, but that's off the mark. What I saw was certainly not pro-American, but pro-human. Perhaps former member of British Parliament Tony Benn deserves the last word here: "If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people"
(06/28/07 4:00am)
TOP 5:
(06/21/07 4:00am)
For a guy who proclaimed ad nauseam on his last album that "you people are gonna respect me if it kills you," London rapper Dizzee Rascal's decision to withhold his third album, Maths + English, from North American music retailers' shelves is a surprisingly weak move. If you want a copy of the record, Amazon UK is your best option, but that shipping cost stings. Which is a shame because it's a hell of a record, nearly equaling the aesthetic mastery of Dizzee's 2003 debut. \nThere's really only one weak cut here. The infantile schoolyard taunt of the unfortunately titled "Suk My Dick" belongs somewhere on a Ja Rule record, not a Dizzee one. That aside, Dizzee reinvigorates rap/rock with "Sirens" and crafts a superbly listenable club banger on "Flex." Dizzee's thick, often impenetrable accent is still a deal breaker for some, but the man commands one of the densest flows in the rap industry today. \nAnd he doesn't enlist much help, either, which is always a plus in the age of endless "featuring" tracks. Rascal self-produces, and there are only four guest artists on "Maths," two of whom aren't even rappers. Texan rhymers Bun B and Pimp C from UGK guest on "Where's da G's," an engaging but slightly formulaic back and forth. Later, songstress Lily Allen shows up on the effectively lighthearted "Wanna Be," and the Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner provides a chorus on the all-too-brief album highlight "Temptation." \nDizzee is at his best on tracks like "Pussyole (Oldskool)" and "Bubbles," both relentless and both high atop the list of 2007's best rap tracks. On the instructional track "Hardback (Industry)" (think the UK equivalent of Biggie's "Ten Crack Commandments"), Dizzee outlines how to achieve success in the rap world. I just hope Dizzee's questionable marketing move with Maths + English isn't a part of that plan.
(06/14/07 4:00am)
If you had told me in 1996 that I'd still be listening to Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson 11 years later, I probably would have thought you'd had one too many swigs out of the Absinthe bottle. Yet former collaborators Trent Reznor and Brian Warner, both with new albums currently on shelves, are still managing to cling to the last vestiges of MTV-generation relevance. Reznor's Year Zero earns points for being both the most ambitious and compulsively listenable of the two records, but Manson's Eat Me, Drink Me is worth more than a couple of spins in its own right. \nEat Me, Drink Me has the dubious distinction of being the only Marilyn Manson album that you could conceivably listen to with your parents, but that's not to say Manson has gone a big rubbery one. Whereas his career so far has been based on shock and awe, Eat Me, Drink Me is an album born of obvious emotional pain, suffering and newfound love. Manson's divorce from burlesque doll Dita Von Teese and subsequent stroke of luck in shacking up with 19-year-old actress Evan Rachel Wood are lyrical fodder for most of the tracks, and Sweden's own Tim Sköld provides some well-produced sonic backdrops -- and even a few effectively cornball guitar solos. \nManson doesn't possess Reznor's mastery for hooks, but he patches together some memorable riffs on "Putting Holes in Happiness" and "Heart-Shaped Glasses." The slow burners work better here than on any previous Manson record, with "Just a Car Crash Away" and "Evidence" coming off more sincere than hokey. \nEven with Manson in full confessional mode here, we still get a few cringe-inducing lines, yet the general feel is that while Reznor is infinitely busy exorcizing his own demons, Manson is more concerned with pleasing the fans that have stuck with him since the days of "Cake and Sodomy." Both intentions are honorable, so I suppose it just depends on your mood.
(06/14/07 4:00am)
Season 1:
(05/31/07 4:00am)
Clint Eastwood outdid himself in 2006, directing two ambitious World War II films that explore a wide range of the aspects of the war, such as the influence of the American media on public support of the fight and the honor and loyalty of Japanese soldiers in hopeless combat. Unfortunately, the films themselves, "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima," don't nearly reach the heights of the greatest of World War II cinema for various reasons. Still, more so than "Flags," though, "Letters" is sprinkled with clearly visible flashes of brilliance. \nAdmittedly, the film has a few low points. The screenplay, credited to Iris Yamashita, is chock-a-block with emotional and combat cliches. It's hard to translate Japanese into subtitles that render the subtext of a complex story coherently to American audiences, and it doesn't help that Paul Haggis' and Yamashita's story contains more shameless expository dialogue than most installments of "As the World Turns." As with "Flags," the computer graphics work is blatantly obvious and oftentimes borders on distracting. \nStill, there's a reason "Letters" was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, and also a reason most every critic from New York to Tokyo praised it as the second coming of "Saving Private Ryan." General Kuribayashi is a study in understated ferocity, and several other actors turn in brave performances, including Kazunari Ninomiya as infantryman Saigo, and Tsuyoshi Ihara as celebrity-turned-commander Baron Nishi. \nThis two-disc edition is far from overflowing with features, but what's there is nothing to balk at. "Red Sun, Black Sand" is a slightly above-average "making of" exercise that finds Eastwood waxing sentimental about his cast and crew's efforts, and "The Faces of War" is a curious introduction to some of the real historical figures portrayed in the film. Features including media press conferences are accompanied by "Images from the Frontlines," a piece that deals with the film's sun-bleached cinematography. \nNo Clint Eastwood film except "Unforgiven" has ever floored me, and "Letters from Iwo Jima" isn't an exception. It's no easy task threading together a memorable war film, and you can't fault Clint Eastwood for trying -- twice.
(05/10/07 4:00am)
Even the most well-traveled people will see less than 1 percent of our planet before they die. This is made abundantly clear in the BBC's 550-minute compendium of the most amazing sights and rare creatures on this rock known simply as "Planet Earth." Segments are divided into geographical regions (Mountains, Fresh Water, Caves, Deserts, Ice Worlds, Great Plains, Jungles, Shallow Seas, Seasonal Forests, and Ocean Deep), and each one feels more revelatory than the last. What's on display here cannot be done justice in print, suffice it to say that if the thought of seeing a Great White shark attacking a Cape Fur seal in ultra-slow motion or a rare Asian Snow Leopard hunt Ibex on a near-vertical cliff doesn't excite you, you might as well avoid this series. \nIf you've only witnessed "Planet Earth" during its recent airings on The Discovery Channel, you've been denied the full experience. Not only is there 90 minutes of footage re-inserted into this release that was excised in the series' move from the BBC to American television, but the original David Attenborough narration remains intact. The Discovery Channel, in all its wisdom, saw fit to replace the graceful, engaging narration of the legendary Attenborough with a less effective track recorded by Sigourney Weaver for the benefit of Americans who they must've felt couldn't understand a British man saying words like "glacier" and "algae." \nIn the extras department, this set is loaded to the gills. Each of the 11 individual chapters has its own "Planet Earth Diaries" behind-the-scenes segment, each 10 minutes in length, chronicling the toughest tests the series' camera crew and location scouters had to face to get the shots they needed. Being hunted by a hungry polar bear, scaling a mountain of bat feces, swimming with piranhas and spending nearly a month in a camouflaged, claustrophobic box to film the vibrant courtship rituals of New Guinea's Birds of Paradise only scratches the surface of what these men went through to bring the rarely seen to viewers. The fifth and final disc of this set, titled "Planet Earth: The Future," is a 150-minute forum on how we humans can best interact with our planet in the future to ensure we don't lose it. It's never preachy, and certainly never political, in making an excellent case for consideration, conservation and preservation. \nI would recommend the HD and Blu-Ray versions if only they didn't omit all of the extras found on the standard DVD version due to disc space constraints. Aside from showing us hours of spectacular sights most of us will never see first hand, all filmed and narrated with the utmost respect and reverence, "Planet Earth"'s ultimate triumph is reminding us that protecting our planet is not a partisan political issue but a deeply moral one.
(04/26/07 4:00am)
Giles Foden's novel, "The Last King of Scotland," chronicles the brutal eight-year reign of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada from 1971 to 1979. Kevin MacDonald's film adaptation uses the novel as a template, and features Forest Whitaker in a brave, warts-and-all performance as General Amin. The term "loosely based" might be more appropriate in this case, seeing as how many major differences there are between the novel and the film, and MacDonald makes the seemingly wise decision to let Whitaker run the show. \nAs outstanding as Whitaker's performance is, it comes at a price. The narrative, same as that of the novel, requires the film to hinge on the actions and experiences of Scotsman Dr. Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), Amin's personal physician. Instead, it's Amin's every word that we hang on, and even Garrigan's affair and subsequent impregnation of Amin's wife Kay (Kerry Washington) is less dramatic than the beads of sweat on Whitaker's angry brow. Some might call it showboating, but it feels like passion to me. \nRepresenting the rest of the cast and crew are screenwriters Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock, cinematographer Anthony Mantle, and Gillian Anderson and Simon McBurney, all of whom clamor for attention over the bluster of Whitaker's tirades. Brock and Morgan bring the goods for Whitaker to work with, and Mantle does a competent job behind the camera. Anderson, playing an amalgam of three characters from Foden's book, as McBurney as a British diplomat do their worst to no avail. \nDirector Kevin MacDonald provides a decent feature commentary track on this disc, as well as providing commentary on a batch of deleted scenes that were wisely excised from the film. There is also a brief feature on Whitaker's transformation into Amin and a boring bit on casting. The most worthwhile supplement here is an original documentary titled "Capturing Idi Amin," which blueprints the dictator's rise, reign and fall. For my money, though, Barbet Schroeder's 1974 doc "General Idi Amin Dada" is a vastly superior portrait. \nFilm history will remember "The Last King of Scotland" for one thing only -- Forest Whitaker's seething, paranoid take on Idi Amin. Along with the likes of "Ray," "Capote" and Oliver Stone's "Nixon," the actor overshadows the film at an almost detrimental level. Regardless, "Last King" is engaging enough whenever Whitaker is on screen to warrant a viewing from anyone half-interested in the tale being told. Few actors in recent memory have captured madness to the degree Whitaker does here. It's just unfortunate that the rest of the film can't match the pace.
(04/19/07 4:00am)
The late 1960s rank among the most tumultuous periods in American history, right up there beside the Revolutionary period, the Civil War era, WWII and our current state. It's in these times that people look for a leader, and Robert Kennedy seemed, to many, like the man for the job in the summer of 1968. It wasn't to be, however, as he was gunned down in an L.A. hotel before he could receive the Democratic presidential nomination. Thirty-eight years later, director Emilio Estevez and a monster cast bring us "Bobby," a peek into the lives of a group of guests and employees at the Ambassador Hotel on the night of Kennedy's assassination. \nFor a movie that seems to pride itself on the sense of renewed hope and spiritual reinvigoration it can offer its time, "Bobby" feels awfully ham-handed. The interlocking stories of everyone from the owner/operator of the Ambassador to the cooks in the kitchen don't speak to much other than the fact that they were there when Kennedy was shot. When the assassination finally comes, the panic feels forced, as if the actors were content to stick with their characters' own stories and were unprepared to face the reality of re-creating history. \nEstevez makes an attempt to corral his cast and their individual stories, but the end result is more muddied than the political landscape of the time. The talents of Anthony Hopkins, William H. Macy, Martin Sheen and Laurence Fishburne are on full display, but Estevez's decision to toss actors like Demi Moore, Nick Cannon, Shia LeBeouf and Ashton Kutcher into the mix only works to confuse things. Christian Slater plays a manager who tosses around "Crash"-style heavy-handed racial commentary, and Elijah Wood and Lindsay Lohan are a pseudo-couple engaged in a poorly written draft-dodging scheme. "Bobby" hedges all its bets on its cast, and while most of the more seasoned actors shine, even they tend to get lost in the shuffle. \nMinimal supplements on this single-disc edition are limited to two mini-docs, one being an overview of the making of the film and one being a series of first-hand accounts from people who witnessed Robert Kennedy's assassination in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel. The eyewitness accounts are mostly interesting, but the making-of featurette, presumptuously titled "Bobby: The Making of an American Epic," is only a cursory overview of production in which most of the cast and crew grossly overestimate the impact and importance of the film itself. \nUnder the direction of, say, the late Robert Altman, "Bobby" might've amounted to something. As it stands, it doesn't amount to much. While "Bobby" barely succeeds at shuffling all these actors into a coherent ensemble drama, it fails miserably at doing what Estevez claims it was meant to do, which is honor the spirit and courage of a man whose life was cut short as he tried to right the course of our nation.
(04/12/07 4:00am)
There's a single scene in Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof" that's worth the entire price of admission to the 200-minute experience that is "Grindhouse." Hanging out on the back porch of Guero's, an Austin, Texas, dive where Joe Tex and Pacific Gas & Electric are jukebox regulars, Kurt Russell's Stuntman Mike sizes up his nubile, young female victims by sweet-talking one of them into a lap dance. The dialogue is pure Tarantino, and the mood is so tense that you could hear a car start in the theater parking lot. Later, when Mike dismembers and shaves the faces off the ladies with his death-proof stunt car, it's shocking not because of the gore but because the first half-hour of "Death Proof" actually made us care about Mike's doomed victims. \nHerein lies the success of "Death Proof." Tarantino's homage to car chase and slasher films is not populated with cardboard cutouts of women but women so real you can almost smell their perfume after an extended diner scene reminiscent of the opening shot in "Reservoir Dogs." You might be hearing stories of people walking out of "Death Proof's" early scenes after 100 minutes of Rodriguez's zombies, tits, testicles and explosions, and all I can say is that those folks clearly missed both the point and the boat. "Death Proof" hits the brakes after the explodo-fest that is "Planet Terror," only to punch the gas time and time again as its heroines are stalked by and eventually stalk Stuntman Mike. Consider Kurt Russell made relevant again, as were John Travolta in "Pulp Fiction" and Pam Grier in "Jackie Brown," with a performance that starts off coyly demonic and devolves into one of the most alarming breakdowns I've ever seen on-screen. The ladies turn in fine efforts, too. Sydney Tamiia Poitier is compulsively watchable as Jungle Julia, and Vanessa Ferlito is tortured eye candy as Arlene, a.k.a. Butterfly. Tracie Thoms and Zoe Bell, as a couple of stuntwomen on break from their film set, are the picture of female empowerment as they turn the tables on Mike after an un-CGI'ed, how-the-hell-did-they-do-that car chase sequence. \nThe two fake trailers immediately preceding "Death Proof" are Edgar Wright's hilarious "Don't" and Eli Roth's gloriously gory "Thanksgiving." Wright, the director of "Shaun of the Dead" and the upcoming "Hot Fuzz," imagines an even campier "House on Haunted Hill" where the constant repetition of the title admonition is useless in stopping the doomed characters from meeting their fate. Roth, hot off "Hostel," packs "Thanksgiving" with so much blood, nudity, fellatio and rape that one can't help but wish he'd make it into an actual "Grindhouse" feature. \n"Death Proof" might be minor Tarantino, but it's certainly better than anything else clogging the multiplex during this year's stagnant post-awards season period. As opposed to Rodriguez's "Planet Terror," which is content to simply honor grindhouse cinema by being another superbly entertaining addition to the canon, Tarantino aims a few feet higher, adding his own brand of snappy dialogue and ability to coax memorable performances out of has-beens and relative unknowns. The result is the best car chase movie since the '70s and another gold star on Quentin's career report card.
(04/05/07 4:00am)
It's 20 years from today in Alfonso Cuarón's "Children of Men," based on P.D. James' '90s sci-fi novel, and no woman has been able to get pregnant since 2009 nor do they know why. Upon the breaking news that the last baby born has died, the world goes to shit faster than you can say "pigs on the wing." Soon after, we meet Theo, played with a poignant hopelessness by Clive Owen. The scenario requires some disbelief suspension, but doesn't all science-fiction? \nTheo, after some terrific exposition of the world's current condition, is recruited from his melancholy London existence to escort a very special girl named Kee to the coast. She's the first woman to get pregnant in 18 years, and we'd better hope the government doesn't find out. The film pits the British government, which rounds up and cages refugees trying to flee to the island nation, against a "terrorist" organization called the Fishes, which fights for refugee rights. Theo is our anti-hero, trying to avoid both the government and the Fishes just to get Kee to the Human Project off the coast, a sort of Dharma Initiative of fertility testing. All the performances, including the reliable Michael Caine and a brief stint by Julianne Moore, carry crosses of hopelessness and quiet rage, yet the actors are overshadowed by the backdrop of something much bigger than themselves, which is the bleak future in which they're grounded. \nSeveral scenes and set-pieces in the film are literally jaw-dropping, including an extended action take inside a vehicle and an even longer uncut shot depicting the beginning of the Uprising, in which the British government march in to sweep and clear a refugee camp, calling to mind the ghetto liquidation sequence in "Schindler's List." The most impressive work on display here, aside from that of the production designers, is of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who was robbed of an Oscar in February. His efforts, combined with the grimy, leftover futurism of Cuarón's imagined UK, are a thrilling example of visceral visual cinema. \nThis one-disc edition may not be loaded with supplements, but what's there has some weight. A few inconsequential deleted scenes breeze by, followed by a cursory look at one of the film's only CGI'ed sequences, but a peek into how the astonishing in-car sequence was pulled off as well as an overview of the film's futuristic production design are worth more than a look. It's the disc's two documentary-style featurettes, however, that work to elevate the art of DVD special features. Comments on the film by postmodern philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek ring as true as a lecture by your favorite sociology professor on his best day, and "The Possibility of Hope" collects the musings of several notable modern thinkers on the various aspects of our possible global existence and works to understand how we can avoid a dire future of our own making. \n"Children of Men," harrowing chase movie though it may be, is, at its core, a political work. One of its most redeeming aspects, though, is that it doesn't take sides. Contrarily, and even though we follow the journey of Theo and Kee from its inception to its presumed conclusion, it represents a frightening vision of the future from a voyeuristic perspective. More so than in any film I can call to memory, Cuarón's imagined future feels more real than imaginary. Steeped in death, despair and chaos, "Children of Men" still champions the difference one human being can make in the midst of it all.