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RevSykes
Reviews
Se7en (1995)
Iconic
You have to start with the key thing. This movie has one of the most stupendous endings you're ever going to see. Thrilling, revolting, excruciating. You can put yourself in the place of any of Pitt, Freeman or Spacey and it just has to play out this way. The unbelievable tension is created in a seemingly static situation. Spacey and Freeman watch Pitt. Pitt knows he's being gamed, knows what he must not do, for everyone's sake, and yet, the provocation! Who could not respond to that provocation? When I feel myself doing the stupid, irrational thing, I often think of this movie. Maybe this is the layman's example of temporary insanity, when a totally understandable emotional force overwhelms one's intellect.
Wonderfully acted of course by Freeman and Spacey and Pitt. In my opinion, pretty much the only Brad Pitt movie I would say that about, maybe save Thelma and Louise. Spacey's psychotic intellect suggests the more famous Dr. Lecter, though Spacey doesn't have as much time or cards to play in his end-of-movie role.
Charlie Wilson's War (2007)
Very , very intelligent quasi-black comedy
When I saw this film in the theater, I was disappointed. From Mike Nichols, Tom Hanks and Aaron Sorkin, my expectations were sky-high. I thought the film kind of petered out toward the end and underplayed the disaster to come in Afghanistan.
I've now seen it a bunch more times on HBO and I like it a lot more. Tom Hanks did a great job, but the movie stealer is Philp Seymour Hoffman as Gust. He's sly and vulgar and frank and those playing off him have great comic opportunities. Hanks and Hoffman almost get a Kirk-Spock thing going as they travel around the world making deals. They win over their Israeli contact who complains about Hoffman, "I don't like this guy!". Hanks shakes his head and in a soft Texas drawl says slowly, "I know exactly what you mean!". Also, now having noted that Hoffman starts the Zen master story when they first meet (who in the world is supposed to notice that the first time?) and the whole story at the end, I no longer worry that it takes the Afghanistan story out of context.
The film will never be a hit for the obvious reason -- it has no emotional core. Sorkin doesn't need screen writing 101 of course, but he chose not to highlight an evolution of character for any of the three lead roles. Hanks goes from a party boy lush to a freedom fighter? Well, somewhat, but, as in reality, the story kind of passes him by and leaves him behind. Hoffman is great, we might not want him to change but moving him to the inside so he can wreak havoc on the CIA from higher up might have worked. Julia Roberts' character isn't much. A bit of fun, but nothing to remember about it.
Perhaps this film has the bug of "true story" to it, limiting how far the writers were willing to go to add drama. They didn't achieve a whole lot of drama, but they added a lot of intelligence, topicality and black humor. A fun movie. Compares favorably with Syriana, a topical thriller where the intelligence is muddled.
Defiance (2008)
Unfair comparison to Schindler's LIst
Edward Zwick is an idealistic filmmaker. My favorites of his are Glory and Blood Diamond. Last Samurai not so much. He wrote an article in the New York Times Magazine last week stating that he was attracted to the book Defiance because it portrayed Jews of WWII not as victims, as is so common. Like many Jews (see "Tough Jews" by Rich Cohen) he romanticizes the Jewish gangster connections of earlier generations of Jewish immigrants, and sees in them the protagonists that the victims of the Holocaust weren't.
Fair enough, or, should I say, not fair at all, since I do not share the view that the civilian Jews of Europe were passive because they could not defeat or evade the German military and local death squads. Why is this relevant to "Defiance?" Because Zwick let his bias affect what he chose to portray in the historical drama of "Defiance." There is a brief shot of the bodies left behind of the mass killings of Jews in what was then Russia in 1941 (long forgotten in the East until Yevvtushenko's "Babi Yar" of 1961). I think that one of the reasons (more below) that "Defiance" is not nearly as powerful as "Schindler's List" is that Zwick was unwilling to portray the grotesque drama of the massacres that happened in Byelorussia in 1941 because, to him, it made Jews look like victims. It's all referred to off-screen. "Schindler's List" punches you in the stomach with the vivid depiction of the concentration camps and crematoria -- historical truths -- and it makes Schindler's story of saving his workers into an epic. So could "Defiance" have been. Maybe the Bielieskis' story is not as heroic as Schindler's, but I don't think so. Theirs is probably more so (though different of course -- Schindler wasn't facing a direct murderous threat). If Zwick had put his movie in the proper historical framework (I'm not talking about gratuitous violence, which would, anyway, be hard to achieve given the reality of what the Germans did to civilians) the story of the Bieleskis saving 1200 Jews would have had some of the impact of Schindler's story of saving the Jewish workers on his list.
My second critique is poor character development of the Daniel Craig character. Yes, he's aggrieved over what degree of vengeful violence against the Germans is necessary or appropriate. He starts off an aggressive killer and then pulls back, becoming (aided by the prolonged bout of typhus) quite passive. We can call the Craig character "complex" or "conflicted," but there is very little context to explain him. Schreiber's character is perhaps more "on the nose," but it is understandable, both to us and to Schreiber, who does a good job with it. Craig's character, to me, is a series of events, not a character.
The joining theme of these ideas is the problem of historical cinema when you want to get the benefit of "based on a true story," at the front of your film. We know this is a very, very broad term. Clint Eastwood left out the killer's mother, who was totally involved in the action in reality, when he dramatized, "The Changeling." Did Schreiber and his colleagues show up at the very last second and disarm a German tank when Craig was the only one left standing to defend the Jews? Unlikely. So Zwick messed with the military history, as is necessary in a Hollywood movie. But did he feel constrained by the true characters of the brothers? Or, worse, did he feel constrained as to what he could make of those characters because of the need to portray them as heroic? I would argue the opposite. Zwick described the brothers as "sexually predacious" in his NYT article. But, in the movie, they appear to be pretty much gentlemen (Schreiber leaving his "forest wife" to join with the Red Army isn't much of a mark against him). If the characters had been more vivid, including more negative, I think their "heroism" would have been more dramatic.
So, I've seen A Christmas Tale (overrated), Benajmin Button (awful) and Slumdog Millionaire (overrated) and am still waiting for holiday magic. From Milk? Gran Torino? Here's to hope! (a good thing, maybe the best of things).
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Why would anyone make this movie?
Maybe I'm admitting to old fogey-hood, but, to me, this movie is bad for society, though it's effective, disturbing cinema. I can see two powerful fallouts from it: 1) people with a violence problem have found a new hero. The movie makes it seem realistic that this Terminator-like avenger could actually be that continually successfully lethal and impregnable. Someone will channel that guy. 2) Is anyone going to stop to help a stranger after seeing this? Is anyone actually going to want to interact in any way with a stranger??? These points, though heartfelt, are somewhat ironic. The movie could also be looked at as a statement ABOUT our society which glamorizes violence. Yes, it was effective, but I worry about its impact
The Brave One (2007)
Another Jodie Foster clunker?
After Panic Room and Flight Plan, Ms. Foster may have established a subterranean standard that she can surpass. This film looks good, has professional scoring and good acting from Terrence Howard. But it has punted on a key challenge: how do you plot a revenge flick without using the unbelievable conincidences of the protagonist repeatedly stumbling across crimes in progress? We still don't know, because this ridiculously plotted film fails the simple test: if the story is unbelievable, it will lack power.
It has been a long time since Jodie Foster was an actress (say, Contact) before she became an avenger looking for something, somewhere, to avenge. Key evolution here: For the first time in a while, it's not about saving the kid.
The dog may be a child stand-in but the crushing obviousness of the dog's symbolism (he doesn't return to her while she's the vigilante, but does after that's over) reduces that warm feeling.
Strafsache 4 Ks 2/63 - Auschwitz vor dem Frankfurter Schwurgericht (1993)
Verdict
This is a story of 4 times. First, the 1940s, when the crimes at Auschwtitz occurred; second the early 1960s, when the German authorities achieved enough distance to try some of the officials who perpetrated the crimes; third 1993, when several German documentary filmmakers got access to the video and audio of the trials, and made a 3-hour TV documentary; and fourth 2006, when the documentary was given a wide release in the U.S., courtesy of First Run Features.
The documentary addresses on the banality of the evil at Auschwitz (the trials in Germany occurred just a few years after the Germans tipped off the Israelis on where to get Eichmann; the film states that the German authorities did not believe that Germany had yet separated itself enough from the Nazi era to try Eichmann in 1961). But also there is great footage of the lawyers and investigators who tried to put together the first German case against a few of the perpetrators of genocide, living openly in their midst in the Germany of the 1960s. The great interest is seeing how a new Germany emerged enough to publicly turn against its Nazi heritage, at least enough to try some of the functionaries of its industrial mass murder during WWII.
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Don't Believe the Reviews
Much later than most, I read the book. When I heard that Tom Hanks was starring, I was surprised because there's really not much of a character for him to play in Prof. Langdon. After reading the reviews (did you see the crying Anthony Lane did in the New Yorker?) I figured the movie was wooden and too-close-to-the-book. I was especially deflated by the several reviews that said this was a terrible performance by Tom Hanks. The audience doesn't seem to agree and neither do I. I was at a 12:45pm show in New York today and the theater was 2/3 full. For a weekday, that's how we say "hit."
This movie is a fine thriller. Not the greatest movie, but a fine thriller Tom Hanks does very well with a role that doesn't have much in it. He doesn't overplay a thing and plays it real. I wish they hadn't had him say, "this can't be so" twice within the first ten minutes, but that's a nit. The movie follows Hollywood thriller conventions and does so well. The added wrinkle of the religious mystery they're unveiling is handled well enough, making for a successful "family" themed resolution. A little more development of Sophie and her issues would have made that resolution even better.
So why all the savaging reviews? I can think of a reason . . . or maybe 40 million of them. People who make their living in the arts (like many reviewers, particularly the effete ones)have trouble with Dan Brown's book selling 40 million copies. God knows why such things take off (pun acknowledged)but people who struggle to get published are kept up at night by what they see as the unmerited success of a hack writer. It happens. The movie is fine. Tamp down your expectations and it'll be fun.
The Great Gatsby (1974)
Doesn't Deserve its Bad Rap
Wonderful. Wonderfully acted and filmed. A role Redford was born to play -- cool, debonair, with a character not to be explored too deeply. Who can personify Daisy, a Fitzgerald heroine created by a man who wildly romanticized women? Why not Mia Farrow -- lovely, shallow, not worthy? And Sam Waterston, playing one of the great first-person narrators in American literature. So earnest and perfect. Ditto Jordan, the lovely flapper with the deep voice that entrances. Don't miss Edward Herrmann as the party-going piano player that moves in.
What a story! Too much to write about here, what Nick sees in Gatsby, how a great love transcends both parties, and how the tough Bruce Dern prevails against his besotted foe. And, of course, how glorifying the past is more satisfying than living in the present, and what a sad road that is.
The movie has a bad reputation. I've never understood why. Maybe Redford was too big at the time, and people wanted to mock him. And, of course, no one thinks this novel could be made into a great film.
A film doesn't compete with the book it's based on, but if it evokes the wonder that the book did (or its own separate wonder) it still works.
Flightplan (2005)
Excruciatingly bad
One can look back on the beginning of Flightplan, before the watcher has lost all hope and try to explain the lifelessness of this film. Yes, they're trying to remind you of the Sixth Sense and plant the seed of doubt that Ms. Foster's character is a bit dotty. It doesn't work; there's just a long uninteresting intro sequence in Berlin (Why Berlin?).
On the plane, the two of them arriving before anyone else stands out like the proverbial sore thumb. I've never seen two people arrive before everyone else, without others similarly situated (frequent fliers, extra care, etc.) It's easy to take shots at plot problems in thrillers; I find one usually does it only when a film is failing in character and momentum, as here. The plot depends on Jodie Foster falling asleep? On the two of them moving to seats where the daughter wouldn't have to be carried over her from the window seat? And poor Peter Saarsagrd! He was wonderful - the movie still resonates in my mind -- in Shattered Glass. I don't know whether to say he's miscast or just did a poor job. He may be a candidate as successor to Bill Murray for the lowest energy leading man, but he's no action hero or villain. His character has no character, which is really bad when he's supposed to be the villain.
Lastly, about Jodie Foster. It's about the film, right? But, first Little Man Tate and then Panic Room and now Flightplan? Well, she's not the first star to emote in her film choices and to have the clout to make the films happen. Seven Seagal comes to mind. Do you really have to get rid of the husband to have an action hero mom? And these settings are so far-fetched. But then, thinking of Sigourney Weaver in Alien, maybe you do have to be far-fetched to come up with a setting where audiences will accept a female action hero.
Her face looked so drawn and unattractive; the long thin mouth of a Halloween mask. Oh well, I liked her in Contact and she did a good job as Agent Starling. She should keep the tiger-mom thing for her personal life and play other types of roles. O&O