Eros Warner Independent Pictures
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Alan Arkin, etc, etc, etc.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Wong Kar-Wai, and Michelangelo Antonioni
Reviewed by Nathan Williams
Steven Soderbergh is one of the best directors currently working in the United States, Wong Kar-Wai is one of the best anywhere, and Michelangelo Antonioni is one of the best who ever lived. Like The Traveling Wilburys, if you put them together, you should get something amazing, right? Uh...
The film was made in three distinct parts, none of the directors having any influence on each other and no film relating to another, besides the vague theme of "Eros." This sort of all-star film was popular in the '60s, and occasionally led to some very compelling filmmaking (Fellini's Toby Damnit). These days the concept is occasionally revived when two hot directors pity a third (Coppola receiving the pity on New York Stories and Antonioni clearly getting scrubbed with the pity sponge on this one), a generally very poor reason to make anything, much less something as expensive and time consuming as a motion picture.
The opening segment is Wong Kar-Wai's "The Hand," which is about, basically, a handjob. A tailor received a handjob from a beautiful client and loves her forever, despite her treating him (and herself) like garbage for the rest of the film. It's gorgeous to look at (Chris Doyle behind the lens, as usual) and occasionally achieves the aching pathos that is Kar Wai's stock in trade, but it's nothing that isn't done much better in his feature films. Very little traditional drama is present in Kar Wai's work; the meat of his films is not dramatic structure but rhythm, as in a piece of music. He seems uncomfortable with this time restriction and the rhythm seems awkward and compressed, like Chopin being played too fast.
Steven Soderbergh (the Jeff Lynne of the bunch) obviously realized he was way out of his depth and decided to play to his strength, which these days seems to be inconsequential humor. He completely shirks the assignment and delivers a segment (the first original work he's scripted since Schizopolis) that has effectively nothing to do with the theme. In "Equilibrium," Robert Downey Jr. is a '50s advertising agent on the couch with shrink, Alan Arkin. Somewhere along the way Downey dreams up the idea for the snooze button on an alarm clock but the whole thing turns out to be a (very boring) dream anyway. Arkin and Downey are colossal talents and keep your attention merely on the strength of their screen presence, but they really have nothing to do and the segment achieves the dubious distinction of being even emptier than Ocean's 11. Soderbergh also continues his foolhardy trend of acting as his own cinematographer and puts some altogether amateur-looking black-and-white on the screen.
Batting clean-up is cinema giant Michelangelo Antonioni, with his Emersonian title, "The Dangerous Thread of Things." This segment has been generally savaged by the critical press, but, while not especially good, it's continually interesting and less cringe-inducing than Soderbergh's. A bickering couple of vapid, one-dimensional, rich Italians go on holiday and contemplate something or another. Then the man beds a local rich woman with a taste for horses and nudity. Soon after, the two women inexplicably meet and run around naked on the beach and the film startlingly ends. It makes no sense, carries no emotional weight, and has little aesthetic power to speak of. Still, it has one or two moments of distinctive Antonioni mystical alienation and, well, some Italian women with no clothes. Not offensive, but still disappointing, even for a 90-year-old.
The feature as a whole, of course, adds up to nothing. The title is a bad joke played on a miniscule audience. The cinema is in great shape. Congratulations, fellas.
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Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
Starring Martin Freeman, Mos Def, Sam Rockwell, Zooey Deschanel, and Alan Rickman
Directed by Garth Jennings
Reviewed by Malcolm Maclaclan
There have been a whole rash of movies in recent years based on older franchises whose raison d'etre seems to be that special effects technology has improved to the point where directors could do them justice.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy turns this concept on its head. Director Garth Jennings seems to have gone out of his way to make his film look like it was made in the 1980s. The slick visual effects are here, but they have a self-conscious falseness to them, a "backlot-at-the-BBC" kind of feel that works brilliantly. The whole thing kind of looks like a Dr. Who remake with a multimillion dollar budget.
The technology Hitchhiker's Guide really needs, however, is of a far different kind: a way to fit in more words. What made it so brilliant in its original format as radio play was the wordplay. Author Douglas Adams exemplified everything that was good about British comedy. His narrative voice is simultaneously smug but playful, erudite and ridiculous, irreverent without being mean.
Within the cavalcades of non-sequitors, nonsensical plot twists and run-on digressions, what the Hitchhiker's books were really about was a gentle yet unflinching look at the human condition. In Adam's eyes, human experience is filled with sound and fury and amusing anecdotes, but good luck figuring what it all means.
Making this kind of humor work requires the space you have in a book or a radio play but not in a film, where scripts run barely over 100 pages and you're expected to say a great deal with pictures. It's an incredible task, and it is through no lack of trying that this film largely fails. Which is not to say it's bad, it just helps illustrate why it took so long for these mega-popular books to make the jump to the screen.
On the plus side, Martin Freeman is nearly perfect as the long-suffering Arthur Dent. No surprise there; he's most famous for playing a character who might have been inspired by Dent, the much-dumped upon Tim from the British sitcom The Office.
Part of what makes Dent work is that you get the idea that he would be suffering indignities no matter where he was. He just happens to be suffering them at the hands of Vogons after the destruction of Earth. In fact, all the major actors hit the right notes. They just don't have enough notes to play.
I really wanted to like this film, and for the most part I did. It tries hard to be faithful to the spirit of the books, to the point where you can almost see Jennings sitting in a room agonizing over what the faithful fans will say about each scene. I found myself wishing they had cut out some of the plot mainly there as a vehicle for various gags and philosophical conundrums a bit.
Adams didn't live to see this film. His life was over suddenly at the age of 49 in 2001. If he had seen it, he might have said it was a bit like his gag about "42" being the meaning of life: it got the answer right, but did it ever really figure out the question?
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The Interpreter Universal Pictures
Starring Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman
Directed by Sydney Pollack
Reviewed by Violet Howard
The Interpreter, Sydney Pollack's (Three Days of the Condor) latest film, is a well constructed, somewhat depressing tale of a week or so in the life of a UN interpreter, Silvia Broome, played by Nicole Kidman, who overhears a snippet of conversation that sounds like the workings of an assassination attempt. What makes this event even more potent is that the threat surrounds President Zuwanie of Matobo, the embattled African nation which is Broome's homeland. Zuwanie is headed to the United Nations to defend his presidency against allegations of corruption and human rights abuses from the French and the United States.
We are confronted with Zuwanie's style of leadership in the opening scene of the film. Two activists and a photographer head off in search of a mass grave inside a soccer stadium, and they pass a man wandering down the road with his eyes cut out, being led by a child. The activists have entered a trap and find their end at the hands of child soldiers with automatic weapons. A photographer who has remained in the car survives, and escapes, but not before photographing the men behind the atrocity.
Back at the United Nations, Broome is questioned by secret service agent Tobin Keller, played by Sean Penn. Keller clearly disbelieves this convenient story of an interpreter, in the building after hours and overhearing a conversation in Ku, the language of Matobo. Broome eventually passes a lie detector test, and Keller methodically unravels the links between Broome, Zuwanie, and the various personnel that glide through the United Nations. There are wisps of sexual smoke between the two characters, but director Pollack allows these to dissipate, and the profound loss and sadness of the characters unites the two instead. Broome is in emotional exile from a relationship and her family; she sends her estranged brother notebooks to keep lists of things likes funny words. Keller recently lost his less than faithful wife in a car accident several weeks earlier. The characters build trust with one another by sharing their personal experiences.
Sean Penn gives a remarkable performance as this laconic secret service agent. Grief simmers behind every expression he makes in the film, and when he breaks from time to time it is a relief. Keller is one of the most complex characters to hit the screen in a while. He sits, thinks, stares for several beats at a time. Silvia describes their uncomfortable rapport through a Ku phrase which means "on opposite sides of the river".
Much of the press around this film has focused on its location; it's the first film to be shot on location at the UN, and we see the placid, sophisticated architecture in bits and pieces. These scenes pale in comparison to the boisterous streets of New York and Brooklyn. Zuwanie's Motobo is visible everywhere here, to the stealthful assassins, opposition leaders, and protestors that line 1st Avenue. A vicious terrorist act occurs in this film, and it is most frightening because it is completely unrelated to anything American.
There are numerous, welcome performances throughout this film. Catherine Keener is excellent as the snappy Dot Woods, partner to Keller. Earl Cameron plays President Zuwanie with a touch of senility and pathos. He cannot believe raging protestors have shown up to greet him, when on his last trip he was greeted with flowers. Once Zuwanie arrives at the UN, the logistics of this assassination attempt are revealed, and the film succeeds in creating an unpredictable outcome.
On an interesting note: Zuwanie is brought down, not by guns, but by the meticulous documentation of his abuses by activists. I applaud this film for encouraging dialog about the effectiveness and importance of nonviolent resistance.
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Kung Fu Hustle Sony Pictures Classics
Starring Stephen Chow, Qiu Yuen, Chiu Chung Lam, Siu Lung Leung, etc.
Directed by Stephen Chow
Reviewed by Malcolm Maclaclan
Someone told me once that Shaolin Soccer, Stephen Chow's 2001 hit, had been seen by more people than any movie in history. This is hardly an impossibility, given that it was perhaps the most popular film the world's most-populous country had ever seen.
Unfortunately, it was hardly seen by anyone in this country. That might change, if the audience I saw Kung Fu Hustle with is any indication. Halfway through, it occurred to me that it had been ages since I've been in a theater where everyone was laughing out loud. And I think this is the first time I have ever seen an audience clap at the end of a comedy.
Like Shaolin Soccer, Hustle starts kind of slowly. The plot, such as it is, skips around in a way that Soccer never did, probably because it had the actual soccer games to help maintain focus and pacing. It's often unclear when a new character appears whether they're going to be a major presence in the film or limited to just one scene. The film's ostensible star, Chow, is missing for long periods. As for character development, all you need to know is that some of the film's major characters have names like Landlady, the Tailor and the Beast. Hardly any work is put into developing the love interest; she's beautiful, but conveniently and annoyingly mute.
Furthermore, while mostly quite good, the special effects occasionally look fake.
None of this matters, because Chow brings the funny. If some aspects of Chow's work are quite foreign, the deft visual references to films such as Reservoir Dogs, A Clockwork Orange, Looney Tunes, even Forrest Gump, are not. The climactic battle sequence is a cross between Gangs of New York ad the Burly Brawl in The Matrix Reloaded, in which Neo fights legions of Agent Smiths. Along the way, Chow brilliantly spoofs the Matrix's theft of Asian aesthetics and philosophy.
But Chow makes this work with a visual style that is all his own. While audiences might leave some recent big budget films thinking "That was a good cartoon," Chow goes all the way and makes a cartoon. People fly through the air and run so fast their legs turn into circular blurs, musical instruments and voices become weapons, heads spin around and feet get squashed literally flat. Best of all, Kung Fu styles like Toad and Buddha Fist are taken quite literally.
Audiences should be warned that this film is more violent than Shaolin Soccer, with a few actual deaths to go with all the mayhem. The bad guys are called The Axe Gang, and they're not afraid to use them, though they do so mostly with predictable incompetence. One of the funniest bits ends up with Chow in a foot race with knives sticking out of his shoulders and snakes attached to his lips. There are a few gay jokes that may put off some audiences. At least the prancing queen, who fights using supernatural jewellery, is a good
guy and a kung fu master.
Overall, Kung Fu Hustle is everything the title implies; visually dazzling, endlessly clever if slightly incoherent, and filled with hilarious non-sequitors. In other words, a rare action comedy that offers both action and comedy.
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Look At Me Sony Pictures Classics
Starring Marilou Berry, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Agnes Jaoui, Laurent Grevill, Virginie Desarnauts, and Keine Bouhiza
Directed by Agnes Jaoui
Reviewed by Reagan Nail
Director Agnes Jaoui makes her second directorial debut with Look At Me, a French film which won the Best Screenplay Award at last year's Cannes Film Festival. Both the title and the characters beg us to take a good look at the poisonous impact of fame and power on two families involved in the literary world.
Etienne Gassard, famous for being both a successful writer and publisher, leads his makeshift family down a road of disappointment, as both his young wife and overweight daughter strive to please him. The film centers on Gassard's relationship with his oldest daughter, Lolita, and her failure to make daddy proud at every turn. Despite this, a cruel Gassard (played by Jaoui's former husband, Jean-Pierre Bacri) remains shamefully apathetic, calling Lolita his "big girl" and leaving during her big choir solo, which she prepared months in advance. Even Lolita's vocal teacher, Sylvia, won't pay any attention to her until Lolita pulls her father's strings and turns Sylvia's husband into a suddenly successful writer.
All at once, we see the negative effect of fame on these poor people. Everyone uses Lolita for her father's connections, but as much as she hates it, she also uses her father's power as a crutch to meet people and feel good about herself.
The plot of this film feels pretty stagnant and not too much happens, other than the characters slowly making discoveries the audience reached long before. Classical vocal music plays a big part in the soundtrack and overwhelms the audience after a while, but the vocal performances are sound for the most part. Keine Bouhiza, who plays Lolita's love interest and ally, gives a stellar performance and is a nice contrast to the rest of these affected characters. Also, for a smaller role, Virginie Desarnauts makes a big impact as Gassard's wife, adding a soft touch to a primarily caustic cast.
The most shocking thing about this film is the pretentious, arrogant nature of Etienne Gassard, and how his terrible personality traits spread like wildfire to all who clamor around him. No one is left unscathed by his disregard, not even the audience, who feels slighted at the end because the jerk doesn't change a bit. Etienne puts down everyone in his life on a regular basis, yet no one ever puts him in his place. This reveals a sad, universal truth about how people will endure anything to be near the famous and the powerful.
I disagree with the marketing crew who dubbed this film a comedy, as it plays out very dramatically with a few biting retorts thrown in for humor. There is nothing funny about Lolita's ripped up self-esteem, or Sylvia's journey to the dark side of success. "Look at me! Look at me!" begs Lolita throughout this film. Unfortunately, we're too busy looking at her father to notice.
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Melinda and Melinda Fox Searchlight Pictures
Starring Will Ferrell, Radha Mitchell, Chloe Sevigny, Jonny Lee Miller, Amanda Peet, etc.
Directed by Woody Allen
Reviewed by Mark Pittman
Probably the most interesting film Woody Allen has made since Sweet and Lowdown (1999), Melinda and Melinda tells the story of an emotionally disturbed woman (Melinda) and the effect she has on her former high-school friends when she returns unexpectedly to New York City. Woody Allen's latest film also addresses Melinda's story itself and how it should be told. Is her story really a tragedy or comedy? Are the elements of her story better for one form of storytelling than the other? Allen ends up relating her story to us in both ways-as a tragedy and as a comedy-and our opportunity to compare the two approaches is where lies the film's real entertainment value.
If Woody Allen had decided to tell just one version of Melinda's story for 90 minutes he would probably have had no movie. Neither version of her story addresses any important issues that Allen hasn't already addressed many times before: infidelity, romance, self-destructive behavior, professional failure. Perhaps because of this, I found myself thinking after leaving the theatre, "I liked it, it definitely wasn't a waste of time, but there's no reason to ever see that movie again."
In a way Melinda and Melinda reminds me of Adaptation. Both films concentrate on the way a particular story should be told instead of concentrating on telling the story itself. Where Adaptation portrays a writer struggling to write a screenplay for a novel that doesn't lend itself well to the screen, Melinda seems to tackle the same problem of a boring story by having two writers discuss how Melinda's story is so good that it would make either a great tragedy or a great comedy. As with Adaptation the joke may be on the viewer. In both cases the boring story does ends up getting told and somehow is entertaining.
Still, despite its plot and subject matter, the movie does provide some genuine entertainment. Radha Mitchell, who plays Melinda, does a fine job portraying the emotionally disturbed young woman who shows up unexpectedly at her friend's doorstep. Her character is required to deliver many lengthy and dramatic monologues and Mitchell delivers them all convincingly. It's also interesting to see objects and story elements from the tragic version of Melinda's story make appearances in slightly altered ways in the comedic version of her story-and vice versa.
The other actors, including Will Ferrell, also do a good job portraying typical Woody Allen characters (though Ferrell's talents are somewhat wasted playing the "Woody Allen" role in the movie). The one actor who is disappointing, however, is Chiwetel Ejiofor who portrays the romantic pianist "Ellis Moonglow." His performance is so unconvincing-there's nothing romantic or magical about him-that he seems to ruins every scene he's in.
So, even though it's familiar ground to Woody Allen fans, Melinda and Melinda is original in that it provides us with a behind-the-scenes look at Allen's techniques of telling a story. It either does that or shows us how Woody Allen can pass off his average ideas as something special. Either way, Melinda and Melinda is worth seeing.
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Millions Fox Searchlight Pictures
Starring Alexander Nathan Etel and Lewis Owen McGibbon
Directed by Danny Boyle
Reviewed by Gary Goldstein
Danny Boyle, who directed such adult, punch-to-the-gut movies as Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, is hardly the guy you'd expect to get behind a wacky little kids' fantasy like Millions. However, inspired by an imaginative screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Hilary and Jackie, 24 Hour Party People), Boyle has crafted a gleeful, kaleidoscopic entertainment and proves himself a filmmaker of surprising versatility.
Millions is a fractured fairy tale about the complications of money, as seen through the eyes of two motherless brothers--an ethereal seven-year-old named Damian (Alexander Nathan Etel) and the older, savvier Anthony (Lewis Owen McGibbon). They've just moved into a new, pre-fab housing development along with their sympathetic father Ronnie (James Nesbitt). Though the family left the gloomy city for the bright, painfully organized suburbs--presumably to escape the lingering memory of the boys' late mother--they're all still making the rough transition between past and present.
One day, while playing out by the railroad tracks in a house he's built from packing cartons, a Nike sports bag full of money literally falls out of the sky and lands square on little Damian's cardboard palace. Damian, who, it should be noted, lives in a dreamy, slightly parallel universe--one in which visits from chatty, pot smoking saints are not uncommon--thinks the money is a gift from God. His more realistic brother Anthony, though, is afraid they'll have to pay taxes on the dough and encourages Damian to keep their stash a secret. But what can two kids do with 229,320 (around $411,000), especially when Britain's adopting the Euro (for the purposes of this movie, that is) and, in short order, the sterling will be worthless? The answer: use it or lose it.
Of course, that's all easier said than done, as Damian's charitable instincts--and Anthony's more mercenary ones--soon threaten to blow their cover. Meanwhile, a creepy stranger starts lurking about, a bank robbery is reported, the cops are on alert, and things get generally nutty. Plus, Damian keeps seeing those pesky saints, not to mention his dead mum (Jane Hogarth), with whom he has a lovely conversation later on in the film.
The movie turns a bit too loopy by the end, and it's not always easy to distinguish real from surreal. But thanks to the wonderful performances of the two freckle-faced young boys, a raft of cool CGI effects, and some infectious energy, Millions is mostly good, new-fangled fun.
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Phil The Alien Lions Gate Films
Starring Rob Stefaniuk, Nicole de Boer, Graham Greene, Bruce Hunter, and John Kapelos
Directed by Rob Stefaniuk
Reviewed by Lisa Hood-Anklewicz
Rob Stefaniuk has floated around Canadian television for quite a number of years. As of late, he has taken on the role of writing and directing in films. Stefaniuk's most recent project puts him in the role of writer, director and lead actor. Phil the Alien is a rollercoaster ride of Canadian comedy, applied in an ever twisting plot story, presented with a stellar cast, which amounts to a level of brilliancy that discounts the low budget aspects of the film.
The story of Phil the Alien begins with an alien craft crash landing in the forests of Northern Ontario, leaving "Phil" stranded and alone, with only the desire to get home again. The location of the film leaves wide opportunity for many stereotypical Canadian jokes, and Stefaniuk doesn't miss that opportunity, given that the local town has a population where everyone has a gun and drinks a lot of hard liquor, children included. His writing talents clearly give him the ability to balance his comedic timing in his plots and characters, and Stefaniuk manages to not overdo the Canadian angle.
On the other hand, it very quickly becomes obvious that Phil the Alien crosses the border of the surreal, but it works in the context of this film. Super-intelligent, talking beavers, evil genius spies with pet whales under Niagara Falls (shot courtesy of Marineland), not to mention a main character who goes from a complete innocence to alcoholism to a Christian Rock "God", only to discover that there is a very dark hidden side to him.
Stefaniuk's performance as Phil in the film is fabulous, playing off a number of well known Canadian acting veterans, such as Graham Greene, Joe Flaherty, and Nicole de Boer, who turns in a hilarious, multi-accented performance as Phil's adversary.
Phil the Alien was made on a relatively low budget and that is evident in the film, mostly in the quality of the picture. As a money saving factor, the film was shot on 16mm stock and then blown up to 35mm prints for the theatrical release. The handful of special effects in the film are done with great skill, but the odd one causes a bit of a laugh factor in its execution, which in the end, isn't so out of place in the overall scope of the film.
There is a vast level of oddity mixed into the film, however, Phil the Alien is an alien invasion as only Canadians could do it and has all the makings for a cult following.
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Sahara Paramount Pictures/Bristol Bay Productions
Starring Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Penelope Cruz
Directed by Breck Eisner
Reviewed by Casey Moore
Sahara, based on the bestselling and long running Dirk Pitt book series by Clive Cussler, is the film Matthew McConaughey has been waiting for. Or maybe it is just the Matthew McConaughey film I have been waiting for him to make. I have always liked McConaughey as an actor, but I have been bored or disappointed by some of his recent roles such as How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
McConaughey plays Dirk Pitt, an adventurer and diver working for the National Underwater Marine Agency. Pitt is in the African nation of Lagos finding lost relics of the country's past. Also in Lagos is Dr. Eva Rojas (Penelope Cruz) who works for the World Health Organization. Rojas is tracking the victims of a plague with unknown origins. Rojas and Pitt cross paths when he saves her from thugs who attack her as she goes to check on a victim of the mysterious plague.
Pitt is also trying to track down a Confederate iron clad which disappeared at the end of the Civil War and legend has it the ship reached Africa. Pitt finds evidence the ship may have made it to Mali which is where Rojas thinks the plague is coming from. Rojas and her colleague join Pitt and his colleagues as they enter Mali, which in the film is controlled by a ruthless dictator doing business with a European businessman, who may or may not be up to no good and the source of the plague.
Pitt is assisted by his sidekick and fellow adventurer Al Giordino, played surprisingly well by Steve Zahn. I was worried about Zahn since he is physically very different from the character in the books. However, Zahn and McConaughey have great chemistry together, and Zahn easily makes the role his own.
Cruz does good work as Dr. Eva Rojas. She is mainly in the film to serve as exposition and as a love interest for McConaughey. She does get to get in on some the action, but don't be expecting a Lara Croft or anything nearly as bad as Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist in The World is Not Enough.
Also in the film are William H. Macy and Delroy Lindo, both of whom elevate any film they are in. Macy plays Admiral Sandecker, the head of NUMA, and captures the character from the book quite well. Lindo is a CIA agent and gets one of the best last shots in the film.
Sahara is a pure pulp film which should entertain fans of National Treasure. One of the main plot twists from the book, a visitor on the iron clad is not in the movie, which was disappointing. Sharp eyed fans should notice a little wink to the only other Clive Cussler book ever adapted during the opening montage and credits sequence, which is one of the more unique and revealing of such sequences I have seen in a long time.
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Starring Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Clive Owen, etc.
Directed by Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez
Reviewed by D. R. Scott
Sin City, the comic book written and illustrated by Frank Miller, didn't screw around.
Miller grabbed our throats and dragged us down the mean streets of a big, dark, ugly and violent metropolis found not on a map but inside the novels of tough, brass-knuckled urban poets like Mickey Spillaine, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, Jim Thompson and Raymond Chandler.
Using elegant, no-nonsense prose that felt like a well-aimed kick to the balls, they wrote brutal stories about bad cops, crooked politicians, hookers, junkies, ex-cons and dreams gone rotten. Seeing the gritty realism Miller brought to his earlier work on Daredevil and The Dark Knight Returns, it was obvious he admired these writers very much. Sin City was a worthy addition to the genre.
Sin City was a damned good comic book. Now, it's a bad movie and Miller can't blame anybody else but himself this time.
So what the hell happened? For years, Miller wisely resisted the seductive bribes from Hollywood producers wanting to do a movie adaptation of Sin City. No, sorry, not interested. "A screenwriter is like a fire hydrant," he cynically explained, "and the dogs are lined up down the street." (Hmmm, still haven't forgiven those bastards for Robocop 2, Frank?)
But it was Robert Rodr&iacut;guez (the Spy Kids trilogy, Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn) who changed Miller's mind. Unfortunately, despite the heartfelt admiration the two men have for each other's work, Sin City is a failure because Rodr&iacut;guez's interpretation betrays the comic book.
Orson Welles observed, "making movies is the biggest train set a kid's ever had," and Rodr&iacut;guez is emblematic of that famous quote. Throughout his career, he's happily been one of the Lost Boys of Neverland who doesn't want to grow up and is proud of it. Sometimes, Rodr&iacut;guez's talent allows him to get away with his joyous immaturity. Not Sin City.
No matter how many car chases, explosions or gun battles there are in his movies, the violence always feels fake because Rodr&iacut;guez is just too nice a guy to really want to hurt anybody. For a shoot-'em-up, vigilante fantasy like Desperado, this isn't a problem. In Sin City, this is a mistake that turns these nasty-tempered psychopaths into buffoons you can't take seriously. Unlike Miller, there's no darkness in his soul. Another mistake is the cinematography. Yes, it's technically brilliant. It's also too "pretty."
In the comic book, Sin City was colored in a grim, monochromatic rainbow of black, white and gray. The panels on his pages reminded me of the photographs of a gruesome murder catalogued by a hard-boiled newspaper reporter. But Rodr&iacut;guez shellacs his movie so heavily; whatever horror there is suffocates underneath the clear, shiny plastic surface. It looks like an MTV video on steroids that's over two hours long.
However, my deepest disappointment with Sin City is the traitorous disservice it does both to "Marv" and to Mickey Rourke.
Interviewed in Premiere magazine recently, Rourke talked about Marv, his character in Sin City: "There's a scene where Marv goes back to his [childhood] home, and he's looking through his trunk from when he was a kid. You've seen the way he looks, the way he behaves with the cops and girls and everything, but suddenly he's going through these personal items, and it's 'Wow, there was a life before he changed into the thing he is now.' Which is something I can relate to, something that crept up on me there. The characters are so visual in the comic, but there were [also] internal goings-on with a heartbeat and a soul."
But that "heartbeat and soul" Rourke spoke about isn't in the movie. It's gone.
Why that is, I think, was the curious decision to turn Sin City into an anthology by incorporating three stories from the comic book: "The Hard Goodbye", "The Big Fat Kill" and "That Yellow Bastard." Of course, trying to squeeze three storylines into one movie meant ruthlessly amputating characters, plot and narrative coherence with an ax. At the end of this butchery, in spite of having exceptional actors like Bruce Willis, Michael Madsen, Carla Gugino, Elijah Wood, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rosario Dawson and Clive Owen, there wasn't much they could do with the bloody scraps that were left.
And, to put it simply, not enough Marv.
Hidden by his bad makeup and handicapped by the off-key dialogue, Rourke succeeds in illuminating this violent, beer-drinking, pill-popping monster with a heartbeat and a soul. Driven to avenge a beautiful prostitute named Goldie murdered in his bed while he slept in a drunken stupor, Marv is a man who, even as we're horrified by his brutality, we admire because we can see his pride, courage and loyalty.
Whenever Mickey Rourke isn't in Sin City, the movie ceases to exist. Why Rodr&iacut;guez just didn't send everybody else home and keep his cameras on Marv, I don't know. But because he didn't, Sin City becomes another lousy movie adaptation of a great comic book and a waste of Rourke's hard work.
So Miller finally got the movie he wanted. However, instead of a dark, perilous journey into the belly of the Beast, where we arrived was a safe, let's-take-the-kids theme park in Disneyland that takes your money, makes fraudulent promises it can't keep, and goes nowhere.
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Winter Solstice Paramount Classics
Starring Anthony LaPaglia, Aaron Stanford, Michelle Monaghan and Mark Webber
Directed by Josh Sternfeld
Reviewed by Wolfgang Dios
It's all about male bonding. Women, in Winter Solstice, are definitely on the periphery, yet their presence (or absence) informs pretty much everything that happens in the story.
As a widower, whose wife died five years ago in a car accident, New Jersey landscape gardener Jim Winter (LaPaglia) is trying to raise his two adolescent sons, Gabe (Aaron Stanford) and Pete (Mark Webber). Both are beginning to rebel against parental constraints and what they perceive as a dead-end life; Pete as a bright but distracted and under-achieving student, and his elder brother Gabe, who works a menial job at a food warehouse. Gabe has decided to leave home and move to Tampa, Florida, where a friend has offered him work on a boat, This, of course, entails his leaving home and his long-time girlfriend, Stacey (Michelle Monaghan). The father perceives this as a kind of betrayal, and desperately tries to cope as the family threatens to disintegrate. The problem is that a stubborn silence persists in the household, words are few and even the mother's death is never openly acknowledged.
It isn't until the middle-aged and equally adrift Molly (Allison Janney) moves in down the street to housesit a neighbour's house that familial feelings break out into the open. It's in her that widower Jim confides his deep sense of loss in one of the film's most harrowing and heart-breaking moments: "Everything I've lived for, or everything you think you are...is just gone." And that is intensified by the imminent loss of his sons as they reach maturity. Yet he cannot bring himself to confront either them, or himself.
Winter Solstice is a truly remarkable, emotionally powerful film, all the more so for its minimalist approach, thanks to first-time feature director/writer Sternfeld, who wisely has adopted a muted, restrained approach to what becomes a deeply moving tale. Even the music consists of little more than the beautifully melodic strains of a lone folk guitar.
Sternberg is helped in this by LaPaglia's determined, quiet and dignified portryal of a man who finds himself on the verge of losing what remains of his family, and unable to find his way forward, alone. A sentiment echoed by his eldest son, who comments to girlfriend Stacey: "I can't get anything started here" and with that statement, rather brutally excludes her from his life, as he prepares to leave without her. It's a heartbreaking moment, and the graceful solemnity of the interplay between Gabe and Stacey is unforgettably poignant. There are innumerable domestic moments that have the absolute ring of truth, such as Jim waking Pete from slumber by waving a dirty sock under his nose. It's the immense vulnerability of all the characters behind the veil of silence that is truly striking, and a film for everyone who has ever undergone the pain and tribulations of having to start over, no matter what the cost.
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